Jim's column 9.12.23

What a strange game at Ipswich last Saturday! At half-time we were admiring an excellent first half from the Tractor Boys in which they had dominated the Sky Blues and topped it off with a fantastic world-class goal from Wes Burns. At full-time, after a much improved second half display from Coventry, we were left with the feeling that the team could have got a result, a draw at least, and that Ipswich were not as invincible as we had thought 45 minutes earlier. The key moment of that second half was the penalty miss by Matty Godden when City were in the ascendancy.

Godden's failure from the spot at Portman Road was his second successive penalty miss – his other was in the home game with Watford in September – after 11 successful spot kicks since he joined the club in 2019. His last successful penalty was in the League Cup game at AFC Wimbledon in August. He's not alone in consecutive penalty misses Micky Quinn and Paul Cook both missed two in a row back in the 1990s. In a home game in January 1989 Brian Kilcline had his penalty saved by Wimbledon's Hans Segers but followed up to score then, a month later, he missed a penalty against Arsenal at Highfield Road but later in the game scored the winner past David Seaman from the spot! Gary McSheffrey is another who missed two in a row and retained the penalty taking duties. We'll have to wait and see if Matty keeps the duties following his misses.

I thought I would compare Godden's penalty record with City's penalty kings of the past. Matty's eleven successful penalties leaves him well short of the club's all-time record penalty scorer Ronnie Farmer who managed 23 penalties with only one miss between 1962-67. Brian Kilcline scored 19 penalties but managed to miss five. Gary McAllister is third in the list with 18 successful penalties and just one miss. Gary McSheffrey and Mick Coop are also ahead of Godden with 16 successful spot kicks.

                                                   Ronnie Farmer

		Penalties	Misses
1. Ronnie Farmer	1962-67	23	1
2. Brian Kilcline	1985-91	19	5
3. Gary McAllister	1996-2003	18	1
4= Gary McSheffrey	2003-12	16	6
4= Mick Coop	1973-80	16	3
6. Matt Godden	2019-23	11	2