Coventry City have had many fine youth teams over the years and have a great reputation for developing young players. The club's under 18 team has a great record in the FA Youth Cup (the under 18s equivalent of the FA Cup) with five appearances in the final and lifting the trophy in 1987.
John Sillett with the 1986 youth team between Hathaway (left) and Sedgley (right)
The 1986 team was pretty good too and reached the semi finals before losing to Manchester United. That team included the nucleus of the side that would win the competition twelve months later including Tony Dobson, Steve Livingstone and Howard Clark as well as the older David Smith and the prodigious Steve Sedgley, who although eligible in 1987 was part of the first team squad and spared youth games in 1987. All five went on to play for the first team and three of them won caps for England at under 21 level.
In 1986, under the coaching and motivational skills of John Sillett, the team beat Wolves, Newcastle, Watford and Tottenham to reach the last four before losing the two legged semi final to the Reds.
One member of the Sky Blues babes who didn't make it to the first team was striker John Hathaway despite scoring five goals in the run to the final. I had a sad email recently from John's daughter in law Rebecca Hathaway in which she told me that John died after a cardiac arrest in 2009 at the age of 40. His eight-year-old grandson, Freddie John, is loving football and wanted to know more about his grandad.
Swindon-born John was on a Youth Training Scheme (YTS) with Wolves in 1985 when their new manager, the legendary Tommy Docherty, decided to 'clear the decks' and released numerous young players. Also released by Wolves was coach Frank Upton who joined City as assistant manager to Don Mackay. Upton raided Wolves to sign centre-half Graham Rodger and youth players Martyn Bayley and John Hathaway, the latter on YTS terms. Rodger went on to make 43 appearances for the Sky Blues including being a substitute at Wembley in 1987 and England under 21 caps before enjoying a good career at Luton and Grimsby Town.
There's a lovely photo of Graham and John arriving at Highfield Road pictured alongside first team players Terry Gibson and Brian Kilcline. John, who has a physical similarity to Gibson, is described as being 5 foot 1 inch tall. His size didn't stop his goalscoring exploits and in the team's first tie in the Youth Cup he netted twice in a 7-1 victory over his former club Wolves, the other goals coming from Livingstone (3), Sedgley (a penalty) and Paul Dandridge. The next round saw an impressive 4-1 win at Newcastle (the holders of the trophy) with Livingstone (2), Sedgley and Mike Cook on target before a Hathaway goal put Watford to the sword.
In the quarter finals City and Tottenham fought out a 0-0 draw at Highfield Road and in the replay at White Hart Lane John equalised a Paul Moran goal to take the game to extra-time before Sedgley netted the winner in the 93rd minute. Manchester United proved too strong for Sillett's babes in the semi final, winning the first leg 2-0 at Highfield Road before a drawn second leg. United lost the final to their noisy neighbours who had a star-studded team including David White, Paul Lake and Andy Hinchcliffe.
Hathaway and Sillett's careers went in opposite directions that summer. Sillett was promoted to first team coach and led the Sky Blues to their first Wembley final nine months later whilst John Hathaway was released. He went to play for Fairford Town in Gloucestershire and owned his own roofing business in the town before his sad, premature death in 2009.
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