Jim's column 26.11.22

The World Cup is well underway in Qatar now and although Coventry City have no current players at the tournament I’m sure City fans will be following the progress of Sky Blue Academy graduates Callum Wilson and James Maddison in the England shirt.

Trying to be topical I thought I would answer some World Cup themed questions.

Paul Brucculeri from Alderman’s Green asked me to remind him of the name of the long- bearded American World Cup defender who nearly signed for the Sky Blues many years ago. It was in 1994 after the World Cup in the USA when City attempted to sign US central defender Alexi Lalas. I’m sure he was close to joining the Sky Blues and did travel to Coventry but eventually signed for Italian club Padova. He played there for two seasons before returning to play for New England in the newly formed MLS. Lalas went on to win 96 caps for his country as well as appearing in the 1996 Olympic Games.

Paul also asked if City had had any US born players other than Cobi Jones (another star of the US 1994 World Cup team). There have been two others, Gerry Baker and Jack McBean. Baker, the son of Scottish parents, was born in New York State but his parents moved back to Scotland when Gerry was quite young. Gerry had a successful career north of the border and with Ipswich before signing for City in the twilight of his career in 1967. He played 34 games for the Sky Blues and won several caps for the USA.

                              Gerry Baker

Californian McBean came to the club on loan from LA Galaxy in that horrendous autumn of 2016 when Mark Venus had taken over as manager following Tony Mowbray’s departure. A striker, Jack made six appearances, three from the bench, failed to find the net and made very little impression on Sky Blue fans.

Wales are appearing in their first World Cup finals since 1958 when they massively over-achieved before narrowly losing to Brazil in the quarter finals. As with Gareth Bale today, Wales had a talismanic figure in John Charles, who had moved to Juventus a year earlier for a British record fee of £65,000. John Sills remembers City signing one of the Welsh heroes, Ron Hewitt a couple of years later.

John writes: ‘Ron arrived at City just in time for the semi-final and Final of the Southern Professional Floodlit Cup, scoring both goals in City's 2-1 win over West Ham in the final. If I remember correctly, his second goal came at the Spion Kop end as he cut inside the penalty area from his inside-left position, side-stepping a defender, and hitting a powerful low shot into the far side of the goal - or was it the near side? I used to commentate myself to sleep with that goal for many weeks afterwards - that victory being the high spot of my first year of following 'The Bantams'. I was 10 years old.’

The veteran Hewitt played 65 first team games for City and scored 26 goals but after Jimmy Hill arrived in late 1961 he was out of favour and in March 1962 joined Chester. He had won five full caps for Wales but never played for his country after the 1958 World Cup. In the team photo from 1960 with the Southern Professional Floodlit trophy he is far left in the back row.

Jim's column 12.11.22

The Sky Blues' 2-0 home win over Wigan Athletic on Wednesday evening made it three wins in a row with no goals conceded following the earlier victories over Blackburn and Watford. That's the second time this season that the team have achieved that feat and the six wins in eight have lifted the Sky Blues from the foot of the table to 12th position in the Championship, and they still have games in hand. It's been an incredible turnround after the negativity back in the first few weeks of the season. The Blackpool home defeat sticks out like a sore thumb in the astonishing run although there were strong mitigating circumstances with a good number of the squad struck down with a virus but it did mean the Sky Blues lost after leading at home for the first time since March 2021. That was when Middlesbrough won 2-1 at St Andrews after City led through an early own goal. It last happened at the CBS Arena against Scunthorpe United on the opening day of the 2018-19 season. Tony Andreu put City ahead just after half-time but goals from Stephen Humphrys and Andy Dales (on his debut) gave the Irons the points. How Coventry and Scunthorpe's fortunes have diverged in the intervening four years. Before today's games the Sky Blues were 32nd in the football pyramid whilst the Irons were 113th (21st in the National League).

City's defence has tightened boundlessly with nine clean sheets in 12 games (including a new club record of five consecutive shut-outs away from home). The only goals conceded have been to Burnley, Rotherham (2) and Blackpool (2) and only Preston (16) have conceded less than City's 18 in the Championship this season.

The recent away form has been impressive with three wins preceded by three draws in an unbeaten run of six – the best run since the League One title season when they were unbeaten for the final eight away games (that run including seven wins). The last time City won three consecutive away games without conceding was in early 2004 under Eric Black when Nottingham Forest (1-0), Wimbledon (3-0) and Cardiff (1-0) were defeated. The only other occasion was in the old Second Division in 1938-39.

Few City fans recognised a former Sky Blue loanee, Jamie Jones, playing in goal for Wigan on Tuesday night. Jamie, now 33 years old, played four games for City on loan from Preston in 2014 under Steven Pressley. Jamie, a scouser who hailed from Kirkby (the same part of Liverpool as Dennis Mortimer), started his career at Everton before joining Leyton Orient. Orient just missed out on promotion to the Championship in 2013-14 and he earned a move to Preston where he stayed just one season. After two seasons at Stevenage he joined Wigan in 2017 and has played over 100 games for them and is current understudy to Ben Amos. In 2015 he made his Sky Blues debut in a 0-0 draw at Yeovil, replacing Ryan Allsop, and appeared in goal in the final four league games of the Pressley regime. After Pressley was sacked following a 2-2 draw at Bramall Lane Jamie left the club and moved to Rochdale on loan.

                  Jamie Jones (left) with Jim O'Brien in 2015

Keith Reay asked an interesting question regarding a television programme from the early 1990s. He remembers the fictional programme about a female football manager which featured a City away game at QPR in one episode. He remembers City playing in a yellow away kit sponsored by Peugeot, but couldn't remember the name of the television programme.

It was called The Manageress and starred Cherie Lunghi as the manageress and the late Warren Clarke as the chairman. I suspect the game that was featured was the Boxing Day game at Loftus Road in 1989 (picture shown featuring Brian Borrows and QPR's Andy Sinton) which ended in a 1-0 defeat for the Sky Blues.