The good news this week is that the CBS Arena pitch is to be substantially repaired following the damage left by the Commonwealth Games rugby sevens tournament. The bad news is that the time needed to make the pitch safe means that another home league game (the third of the season), against Huddersfield, is postponed and City fans won't see their team at home until 31st August when Preston North End are the visitors. The three postponed games will have to be slotted into an already crowded schedule and it seems likely that the team will probably be playing every midweek between now and the beginning of the World Cup in early November. City fans are praying that there will not be a points deduction or other punishment for the failure to play the matches.
Last Saturday the Sky Blues travelled to South London to play Millwall and were very unlucky not to come away with a result, especially as they had led 2-0 after 35 minutes. It's very rare for City to lose after leading by two goals and this was the first occasion since 2011 when in an FA Cup fourth round tie at St Andrews City led 2-0 only for Blues to come back to win 3-2. Marlon King and Richard Wood put the Sky Blues ahead and David Bentley pulled one back before half-time. In the second half Blues, then a Premiership side, scored further goals through Stuart Parnaby and Kevin Phillips. The last occurrence in a league game was in April 2009 against Watford when City looked home and dry after Robbie Simpson had put them 2-0 up early in the second half following Freddy Eastwood's early strike. The Hornets had different ideas however and goals from Tommy Smith, Grzegorz Rasiak and Tamas Priskin secured a 3-2 away win. The result was probably the final nail in Chris Coleman's coffin; with only one win in 12 games and another defeat at Ipswich a week later the manager was relieved of duties soon afterwards.
The only other occurrence since City left the Premiership was in 2003 when a young City side were demolished 4-2 at home by Ipswich after leading 2-0 at half-time. The Tractor boys blitzed the Sky Blues with four goals in 17 minutes. Villa Park was the scene of a famous capitulation on the day that relegation from the Premiership in 2001. Mustapha Hadji scored two first half goals and City held out until 61 minutes when Darius Vassell pulled one back. Nervous City fans could barely watch as Villa turned the screws and Juan Pablo Angel (81 minutes) and Paul Merson (85 minutes) sealed City's fate.
There was only one occurrence in the 1990s – a 3-2 FA Cup defeat at Derby – but the 1980s was a bad decade with seven losses from a 2-0 lead. Bobby Gould's eighteen months in charge witnessed four – West Ham (2-5), Sheffield Wednesday (FA Cup) (2-3), Stoke (2-3) and Chelsea (2-6). There were two at Forest's City ground (1982 & 1986) and a home loss to Southampton just months after City's Wembley triumph.
On the other hand the Sky Blues have come from two behind to win six times in the last nine years with the most recent last season at St Andrews (4-2) and in home games with Peterborough three seasons running between 2013-15. Prior to 2013 it had been 18 years since an occurrence – a 3-2 League Cup victory over Tottenham.
There have been several new books from former Coventry City players in the last year and there are biographies from Dennis Mortimer and Tommy Hutchison slated for publication in the autumn. Mark Hateley's biography 'Hitting the Mark' came out some months ago and I can recommend it to Coventry City fans and football fans in general. The son of Tony Hateley, a legend at Aston Villa who also played one season at Coventry, Mark was a prodigious youngster who broke into the City first team as a 17-year-old in 1979. The book is a reminder of the quality of talent being produced by the club in that period and Mark had some outstanding team-mates such as Danny Thomas, Steve Whitton, Garry Thompson and Paul Dyson. Financial difficulties and poor management saw the best of the talent leave the club in the busy summer of 1983 and Mark dropped a division to join Portsmouth. Within a year he was an England international and scored a memorable goal against Brazil which earned him a lucrative move to AC Milan. Mark's glittering career at Milan, Monaco and Glasgow Rangers is laid out in a very readable style. 'Hitting The Mark' was co-written by Alistair Aird and is published by Reach Sport.
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