Jim's column 12.8.23

The new season started with a cracking game at the King Power Stadium. The Sky Blues took the lead and missed good chances to put the game to bed before the home side grabbed two late goals to send City home pointless. Yet again the Sky Blues travelled back from the King Power having failed to win – the ninth occasion since the stadium opened in 2002. City's goal came from captain and centre-half Kyle McFadzean who became the seventh oldest Coventry player to score a competitive goal. Kyle is 36 years and 167 days and his latest goal (his first since March) takes him above 1940s captain George Mason and Steve Staunton in the all-time table.

	Player	Last goal		Age
1	Dennis Wise	30/4/2006		39 years 135 days
2	Gary McAllister	8/12/2003		38 years 348 days
3	Michael Doyle	3/11/2018		37 years 119 days
4	Danny Shea	15/11/1924		37 years 9 days
5	Dick Lindley	24/9/1921		36 years 285 days
6	Danny Shone	5/1/1929		36 years 253 days
7	Kyle McFadzean	6/8/2023		36 years 167 days
8	George Mason	27/12/1949		36 years 113 days
9	Steve Staunton	2/4/2005		36 years 73 days
10	Joey Jones	25/12/1922		35 years 359 days
11	Alex McClure	10/12/1927		35 years 250 days
12	Richard Shaw	1/5/2004		35 years 231 days

Sunday's defeat was the first away loss since 3^rd February when West Brom defeated the Sky Blues 1-0, a run of nine away league games without defeat, just three short of the club record of 12 set in 1967 by Jimmy Hill's promotion team. McFadzean's record in away games is even more impressive. If you remember he was out injured for ten games in the middle of the season and so it was his first away defeat in 16 games since September last year. 

Fellow historian Lionel Bird has asked me to point out that this weekend Coventry City celebrate two anniversaries. Its 140 years since the formation of Singers FC by a group of factory workers in the Singers cycle factory in the city. On 13 August 1883 Willie Stanley and a group of friends met at the Lord Aylesford Inn in Hillfields and set up the football club. Singers FC were essentially a junior team with no regular fixtures and their matches would be the equivalent of friendly games in the modern era. Lionel's research indicates that the very first match played could have been against Coventry Association, who won 9-0. 

The other date to celebrate is the 125^th anniversary of the change of name from Singers FC to Coventry City FC in 1898. In June 1898 the club, then playing in the Birmingham and District League applied to the Birmingham League for permission to take the city's title. There had been some resistance from Coventry Rugby Club who believed the two club's names would be too similar and relations between the two clubs were strained for some years. On the 12^th August a letter arrived from the Frederick Wall, secretary of the Football Association giving consent to the name change. The first game as Coventry City took place away to Wellington Town on Saturday 3^rd September and ended in a 5-0 defeat. Results were poor in the early days under the new name with the first home game ending in a 3-0 loss to Berwick Rangers (a Worcester team not the Northumberland club) but things improved in the second half of the season and the team finished in seventh place. The following season the club moved to Highfield Road. The picture is the first team shot of Coventry City and the players are in their new kit, believed to be black (or dark blue) and light blue halves. The team's nickname, previously the Vocalists, became the Citizens. It would be another 20 years before Coventry City joined the Football League.