Ed Blackaby recently reminded me of an interesting game that took place at Highfield Road in 1956 – a Division Three South v Division Three North match. This was an annual representative match in the 1950s and Coventry City were chosen to host the occasion that season. Ed also sent me an excellent magazine cutting with photos of the two teams.
Club managers were appointed to select a team from the 24 teams in each section of Division Three and in 1956 Coventry's new boss Harry Warren was managing the South side whilst former Coventry manager Harry Storer, then the Derby County boss, took charge of the North team.
A crowd of 14,156, only 2,000 less than the previous City home game, watched under the Highfield Road floodlights on Monday 8th October 1956. The crowd saw an entertaining game won 2-1 by the South with goals from Stan Newsham (Bournemouth) and Roy Hollis (Southend). The North's consolation came from Ken Johnson (Hartlepools United). Nemo in the Coventry Telegraph was impressed with the standard of play: 'Highfield Road supporters will not see much better football than that provided by the Third Division South... and North in last night's game which deservedly gave the South a 2-1 win'.
Manager Warren selected Coventry's golden boy Reg Matthews who two days earlier had won his fifth and final England cap in a 1-1 draw in Belfast against Northern Ireland. A month later Reg would be on his way to Chelsea with a world record fee for a goalkeeper of £22,000 hanging around his neck.
For the game Coventry produced a special souvenir programme, priced 6 pence (equivalent of 2.5p). The referee was the famous international official Arthur Ellis whose precious appearance at the ground had been in the friendly with San Lorenzo of Argentina which had ended with Ellis abandoning the game after Sanfilippo of the visitors refused to leave the field after being given his marching orders by Ellis.
The full sides were:
The South: Matthews (Coventry): Jardine (Millwall), Langley (Brighton): Belcher (Crystal Palace), Parker (Southampton), Elsworthy (Ipswich): Gavin (Norwich) Newsham (Bournemouth), Hollis (Southend), Mills (Torquay) Flint (Aldershot). Cook (Watford) replaced Newsham after 82 minutes.
The North: Newlands (Workington): Currie (Bradford City), Brownsword (Scunthorpe): Mays (Derby), Moore (Hartlepools), Sneddon (Accrington): Burrell (Chesterfield), Hewitt (Wrexham), Johnson (Hartlepools) Smith (Chesterfield) Simm (Bradford City).
In addition to Matthews, Brighton's Jim Langley went on to play for England following a move to Fulham, and Wrexham's Ron Hewitt joined Coventry in 1960 after representing Wales at the 1958 World Cup.
Other Coventry players who appeared for the Division Three South side in this fixture were Martin McDonnell who was right back in the game at Reading in March 1955, and Reg Matthews, forward Peter Hill and right half Noel Simpson, all of whom appeared in the match at Accrington in October 1955.
Coventry's last home game against Watford saw the Sky Blues come from behind three times to win a point. I've been scouring the records and can only find three previous instances since World War Two involving City. The last was a 4-4 draw with Preston at Sixfields in that crazy season at Northampton. Preston led 1-0 and 2-1 before Callum Wilson scored two goals to put City in front. In the last five minutes Preston scored twice to go 4-3 ahead before Matthieu Manset levelled the scores in the fifth minute of added time. Leon Clarke scored City's first equaliser
Prior to that there was a Division 1 game with Birmingham City in 1986 which also ended 4-4. Birmingham led 2-0 at the break before Dave Bennett and Brian Kilcline (penalty) levelled the scores. Martin Kuhl put Blues 3-2 ahead, Bennett equalised again before Andy Kennedy, with his second of the game made it 4-3. With two minutes remaining Killer scored his second penalty to square things up.
The third instance was a Texaco Cup game at home to Motherwell in 1972. After a goal-less first half the visitors took the lead three times through Lawson (2) and Martin but each time the Sky Blues responded through Billy Rafferty (2) and Denis Mortimer to tie the game at 3-3. Sadly Motherwell won the second leg in Scotland 1-0 to win the tie on aggregate
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