Wednesday night's 1-0 victory over Cardiff City made it four home league wins in a row – the first time City have started a season in that form in Coventry since 1973. I say 'in Coventry' because two seasons ago at St Andrews the team won its first five home league games.
Back in 1973 Gordon Milne's team started with a similar bang to this campaign. An opening day 1-0 home victory was followed by a similar victory over Liverpool at Highfield Road. Then came two away games, a 2-2 draw at Burnley and a single goal defeat at Manchester City by a controversial penalty. Two more home wins followed, over Southampton (2-0) and Manchester City (2-1), to make it four out of four at home. A 1-0 loss at Chelsea preceded a fifth home win over Derby (1-0) thanks to a Colin Stein goal. The winning sequence came to an end with a 2-2 home draw with Newcastle but the team's excellent run continued with a win at Leicester (2-0) that lifted them to second place in Division One behind the unbeaten Leeds United. A week later the first home defeat was suffered at the hands of Everton when two goals in the last 10 minutes saw the Toffees grab a 2-1 victory. Unfortunately it was downhill from there and the team failed to win any of its next seven league games and slipped into the bottom half of the table.
Coventry City fans are flocking back to the CBS Arena this season following the return from St Andrews and the attendances this season have been excellent with the aggregate gates of the first four games the best since 2008-09. Wednesday night's gate for the Cardiff game was 16,372, with 1,440 away fans. Midweek night games traditionally attract lower gates and I had to check when there last was such a high attendance. Excluding the Gillingham (return from Northampton) crowd of 27,306 and Bank holiday games the last time there was a higher midweek league crowd at the Arena was for the visit of Newcastle in December 2009. That night a crowd of 21,688 was present but that included 4,000 Geordies. Before that it was 18,566 for the visit of West Brom in 2007. To give some perspective on the progress of the club – the first evening game of 2017-18 attracted 6,151 for the visit of Carlisle. The combination of the return to Coventry and the highly attractive winning football is bringing the fans back and let's hope this continues. The visit of Peterborough on Friday night is the opportunity for more of those missing fans to turn up.
It was sad to hear of the death of Manchester-based Sky Blues fan Tommy Kehoe last month. When I lived in the North West in the late 70s and early 80s Tommy and I used to travel regularly together to Highfield Road and to watch City play in the North. He was great company and had a season ticket in front of the opposing manager's dugout at Highfield Road. Always one for a bit of banter, one day he gave Brian Clough a verbal roasting that didn't go down well with the Forest supremo.
Tommy Kehoe with son TJ
His son TJ has picked up the Sky Blue mantel and get to games as often as he can and together with Tommy's widow, Margaret and his sister Donna, will be at the CBS Arena next Friday when the club will honour Tommy with a message on the scoreboard and a short tribute in the programme.
If you have a question about Coventry City's history please drop me an email at clarriebourton@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter @clarriebourton
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