Jim's column 25.11.23

The recent Stoke home game witnessed the third 25,000 plus crowd of the season (25,003) and lifted the average home attendance to 24,310, up 19% from last season's average of 20,369. Obviously there are more season tickets but it's still a remarkable increase especially as the average following from visiting fans is currently down by 8% at 1,864. With home games against local rivals Birmingham City and Leicester City coming up I expect the overall average to further increase.

If the average remains above 24,000 then it will be the club's highest average attendance for over 50 years - since 1972-73 when the average was 24,623. What a roller coaster ride the club's attendances have taken over the years as the chart shows. Before Jimmy Hill arrived in 1961 the average had been under 11,000 but in his first full season in charge, with the Sky Blue Revolution under way, the crowds increased to 17,908 with another massive jump to over 26,000 in 1963-64 as City won promotion to the Second Division. The gates plateaued in Division Two but leapt again in 1967-68 as City reached the First Division for the first time in their history. That debut season in the top flight saw an average of 34,705, the highest in the club's history, with even the smallest home crowds being 28,000! There were three 40,000 crowds with over 47,000 for the visit of Manchester United. 

The novelty of Division 1 quickly wore off however and by 1970-71 gates were back to the Division 2 levels of 26,000 and although there was a slight renaissance in the late 1970s when Gordon Milne's team were playing very attractive, attacking football, there was a slow, steady decline of attendances. By 1980-81 the average had dropped to under 17,000, prompting Jimmy Hill to controversially make the stadium all-seater with a capacity of 20,000. Within two years gates were back to the levels last seen before Jimmy's arrival – an average of 10,552 in 1982-83.

The re-opening of the Spion Kop, the FA Cup success in 1987 and the Sillett years saw crowds back up to the 16-17,000 level but as the 1990s arrived we were back to 13-14,000. Big Ron's arrival, the new East Stand and the spending spree of the late 1990s boosted attendances and the stadium was pretty much full for most home games with the average reaching almost 21,000 in the final three years in the Premiership.

Relegation in 2001 dealt a blow to attendances and the final seasons at Highfield Road saw gates down to below 15,000. The move to the Ricoh in 2005 saw an initial boost to over 21,000 (the best average since the late 1970s) but the initial gloss of the new ground slowly wore off, not helped by lack lustre seasons on the pitch. Between 2005 and the club's relegation to the third tier in 2012 crowds fell every season and by 2012 the average was only 15,000. 

Another 5,000 fans deserted the club in the first season in League One but that was nothing compared to what happened with the move to Northampton when the average was under 2,500. Despite 27,000 turning up for the return to the Ricoh in September 2014 the average for the season was under 10,000 and although it crept up to 12,000 the following season as City's attractive football under Tony Mowbray brought the fans back. It was a short-lived increase and in the miserable League One relegation season they were back to under 10,000.

Since Mark Robins' arrival gates have soared again – 12,000 in 2018-19 and 19,000 back at the Ricoh in 2021-22 with a blip in the St Andrews League One championship season (6,653) and a fan-less season due to Covid in 2020-21. Last season saw another rise to 20,369, the highest for 16 years and this season, with 19,000 season ticket holders, a 50-year record will be broken.

In 1972-73 the Highfield Road capacity was around 45,000 and the biggest crowd of the season was 42,911 for the visit of Manchester United in late January. The lowest crowd was 16,391 for the Stoke game with a further four attendances under 20,000, three of them in the period before Joe Mercer and Gordon Milne transformed the team with the purchases of Colin Stein and Tommy Hutchison in the October. The local derbies with Birmingham (35,304) and West Brom (31,541) also attracted over 30,000 and there were over 38,000 for the FA Cup tie with Grimsby albeit with 8,000 away fans. The wide variation between the largest and smallest gates demonstrates how, back then, there were far fewer seats and season tickets, and how the team's performances, the quality of the opposition and the importance of the games had a much greater effect on gates than the modern day. 

Ronnie Rees tribute

Ronnie Rees (4 April 1944 – 29 October 2023)

Coventry City fans who were around in the 1960s will be saddened to hear of the death of the former winger Ronnie Rees. Thrown into the first team at the tender age of 18 by Jimmy Hill, Ronnie was an immediate success and was a key member of the Third Division and Second Division championship sides in 1964 and 1967 respectively. Growing up in an era when wingers were fashionable Ronnie had all the attributes of a top performing wingman. He was incredibly quick, had a mazy dribble, a great cross and a vicious shot. One of the fans' most popular players of the JH era, the Welsh wing wizard played 262 games for the Sky Blues, putting him 25^th in the all-time most appearance table. He also had an eye for goal and netted 52 in his 5 ½ seasons at Highfield Road, 16^th in the club's all-time scorers and the highest scoring winger in the club history.

Ronnie was born and grew up in Ystradgynlais, a small Welsh town 15 miles north of Swansea. Spotted playing for Merthyr Boys, he joined Coventry City straight from school as an apprentice, sweeping the terraces, cleaning the first team's boots and playing for the 'A' or 'B' team on a Saturday. He played in the same youth team as Bobby Gould and Dietmar Bruck but despite the future stars in the team their Youth Cup campaign in 1961-62 came to a juddering halt with a 9-1 defeat to Aston Villa's under 18s with a certain Ralph Brown netting seven goals. By the end of the 1961-62 season he had played 26 reserve games, scoring 3 goals, mainly on the right wing but was not considered to be close to the first team. The close season of 1962 saw recently appointed manager Jimmy Hill sign a completely new forward line: Willie Humphries, Hubert Barr, Terry Bly, Jimmy Whitehouse and Bobby Laverick. Despite being awarded a professional contract, Ronnie's first team chances looked slim at that stage.

Of the five new forwards all except former Everton and Brighton man Laverick started well. After only four games JH dropped Laverick in favour of Roy Dwight but was still unhappy with the left wing slot. On 15 September 1962 Ronnie was called up for first team duty in a home Division Three game with Shrewsbury. In front of 14,000 Ronnie didn't disappoint as Nemo in the Coventry Telegraph reported: 'Rees revealed a refreshing directness that should have acted as a stimulant to his colleagues'. The game ended 0-0.

He kept his place three days later as the Sky Blues beat Bradford Park Avenue 3-1 and his performance impressed Nemo: 'He beats his man often like a veteran, has poise on the ball, and it is a rare occurrence for a pass to go astray. From the start he shows a propensity to shoot on sight'. Rees was here to stay and in his fifth game he scored his first goal, against Second Division Swansea, the club whose net he had slipped through, in a 3-2 League Cup win. Maybe he was out to prove Swansea wrong but he was City's star man and hit a 25-yard 'dipping' shot that crept inside an upright. Nemo described him as 'irrepressible and unlucky not to score a second goal near the end'.

A bout of gastric flu kept him out of the side for a few games but he returned to action on 10 November in a 3-0 victory over Wrexham and was an ever present for the rest of the season. In fact he was not on the losing side until the end of March when City's remarkable FA Cup run came to an end at the hands of Manchester United. Within three months of his City debut he won the fist of seven Wales under 23 caps and in February 1963 he scored twice as the under 23s beat Northern Ireland 5-1.

The fixture backlog due to the Cup exploits and the harsh winter meant City missed out of promotion but twelve months later the team won the division. Ronnie and captain George Curtis were the only ever presents and his 15 goals was only bettered by George Hudson and Ken Hale. The highlight for Ronnie was a hat-trick in the 8-1 hammering of Shrewsbury Town at Highfield Road.

Ronnie took to Second Division football with ease and missed only one game in 1964-65, scoring nine goals and winning his first full cap for his country, a 3-2 victory over Scotland in Cardiff. Rubbing shoulders with Welsh legends such as John Charles, Ivor Allchurch and Cliff Jones, Ronnie was impressive, setting up two goals for Ken Leek and kept his place for seven further internationals that season including a trip to Wembley to face England and World Cup qualifiers in Florence and Moscow. City's season was one of consolidation and the team finished 10^th but 1965-66 saw a serious promotion challenge and Ronnie was at the heart of it. Willie Humphries had left and versatile Ronnie was switched to the right wing to accommodate Dave Clements in the number 11 shirt. Once again Ronnie missed only one game and scored nine goals as well as winning a further eight caps for Wales including two games against Brazil in an end of season tour of South America. Brazil were warming up for the 1966 World Cup and Ronnie faced stars such as Garrincha, Gerson and Tostao.

                            The 1967 Promotion team with Ronnie far right on middle row

The Sky Blues missed out on promotion by one point in 1965-66 but strengthened by the signing of Ian Gibson they were one of the favourites for promotion the following season. Ronnie was back on the left wing and although the team stuttered in the autumn by December things were buzzing again in the city and Rees and Gibson were building a great partnership. Arch rivals Wolves were beaten at Molineux 3-1 with Ronnie scoring one of his five goals that season and by March promotion was looking increasingly possible. BBC Match of the Day cameras came to Highfield Road for the first time that month and Ronnie wowed the armchair fans by making City's goal in a 1-1 draw. The goal can be watched on YouTube and shows Ronnie picking the ball up in his own half before starting a mazy run that takes him past several Bolton defenders to the left edge of the penalty area. His pinpoint cross finds Bobby Gould unmarked eight yards out and the centre-forward finsihes with aplomb. Just over a month later the Sky Blues had the rematch with Wolves in what JH dubbed The Midlands Match of the Century. In front of 51,452 fans City came from behind to win 3-1 and Ronnie scored the third goal – a typical Rees goal, a low ground shot with pace that left the Wolves 'keeper clutching at air. Possibly Ronnie's best goal in a Coventry shirt came in a testimonial game against Liverpool at the end of the season when his twenty five yard thunderbolt brought the house down. 

Once again promotion to a higher division posed no problem for the Welsh winger and Ronnie netted seven goals in his first twelve top flight games including braces against West Brom and Tottenham. He terrorised full-backs as he had done for the previous five years and Derek Henderson commented after a 2-2 with Sunderland in October that: 'the elegantly-moving Ron Rees – playing better now than at any time in his career – looked capable of making Sunderland bite the dust'. As City struggled in their debut season in the First Division like many of the team, Ronnie's form began to suffer and in January 1968 new manager Noel Cantwell dropped him for the first time in his career. He was recalled and scored his final City goal in a 1-1 home FA Cup draw with Tranmere. Three weeks later, on transfer deadline day, he was on his way to West Brom in a deal worth £70,000 with the proceeds of his sale funding the purchase of Chris Cattlin and Ernie Hunt. He admitted that he had been unsettled for some time but his comment 'I suppose a change could do me good' suggests that he may not have wanted to leave. Two days later City pulled off a shock 2-0 win over Manchester United and Ronnie was, to many, quickly forgotten as City edged towards safety.

It was in unauspicious debut for Ronnie at the Hawthorns as Everton won 6-2 but the Baggies got their revenge six weeks later by winning the FA Cup final at Wembley. A Cup-tied Rees could only watch as his team-mates celebrated. Ronnie was at the Hawthorns less than a year but managed 12 goals in a free-scoring side, including one in Albion's 4-2 defeat at Highfield Road. The City Ground, Nottingham was next on the list and he appeared 101 times for First Division Forest before dropping down to Division Three with Swansea in 1972 at the age of 27. His 39^th and final Welsh cap came in 1971 (21 came as a Coventry player) but his form sadly tailed off and he was released in 1975 and played non-league football with Merthyr Tydfill, Haverfordwest and Bishopton. After leaving Swansea he continued to live in the area and worked at Ford's Swansea factory and later at Cardiff City as an administrator until he suffered a severe stroke at the age of 51. Although he was a member of the Former Players Association he was never well enough to attend a Legends Day and spent the last few years in a care home. My condolences to his widow, Coventry-born June, and his family.

His funeral will take place on Friday 17^th November at the Morriston Crematorium, Swansea at 2.30pm.