Jim's column 20.1.24

What a game at the CBS Arena last Saturday! The Sky Blues demolished the league leaders Leicester City 3-1 in a thrilling final twelve minutes or so to inflict only the fourth league defeat of the Foxes' season. The defeat ended Leicester's 11-match unbeaten run in the Championship in which they had won nine and meant City became the first team to score more than two goals against them. You have to go back to February 2008 for the Sky Blues' last win over their M69 rivals since which the clubs have drawn four and Leicester have won three.

Watched by the biggest crowd of the season, 29,914, which is also the second biggest league crowd ever at the CBS Arena, the Sky Blues showed all of their renowned 'never say die' attitude to overcome a team packed with players with Premiership experience and pedigree. Trailing from a controversial penalty, the team never panicked and showed great patience until eleven minutes from time when Callum O'Hare scored the equaliser. A second goal from Milan Van Ewijk and another O'Hare special sealed a famous comeback victory. 

It was the second successive league comeback following the 3-1 win at Middlesbrough something no Coventry City side has done since December 2012 during Mark Robins' first spell as manager. Then there were two away wins in four days over Christmas. At Stevenage on Boxing Day City trailed 1-0 until the 78^th minute before Richard Wood, Carl Baker and David McGoldrick ensured a vital win. Three days later at MK Dons Daniel Powell gave the home side an early lead, Franck Moussa equalised, Ryan Lowe restored the Dons lead before Stephen Elliott nabbed two goals to give the Sky Blues a 3-2 win and extend their unbeaten run to 12 games.

The victory was also City's first comeback win at the CBS Arena since March 2022 when Sheffield United were defeated 4-1 after taking an early lead. City's scorers on what was Legends Day 2022 were Gyokeres, O'Hare 2 and Godden. The Leicester win was the 23^rd home league comeback win since the move to the new stadium in 2005 including one at Sixfields (2013-14) and five at St Andrews (2019-21) and in my opinion was the most exciting, bearing in mind the quality of the opposition and the atmosphere in the stadium. The Fulham win in 2021 was good as was the last minute 3-2 win over Peterborough at Sixfields at Christmas 2013. In fact poor Peterborough have been the losers in three of those 23 comebacks and the 2015 3-2 win with two late Adam Armstrong goals was a classic.

Saturday's excellent crowd took the average for the season to 24,742 and if maintained will be the club's highest average since 1970-71 – the season that City played in Europe, averaged 26,039 and finished 10^th in the old Division One. This season's average has only been bettered in 10 out of the 97 seasons the club has been members of the Football League – the best being in City's first season in the top flight, 1967-68, when crowds averaged a staggering 34,705. Whilst the CBS Arena has an official capacity of 32,609 there are a number of unusable areas between home and away fans meaning that record average will not be bettered.

Jim's Column 13.1.24

Coventry City continued their good form with a comfortable 6-2 home victory over Oxford United in the FA Cup Third round. Big cup victories are a rare thing for the Sky Blues and it was the club's biggest victory in the competition since 1999 when Macclesfield Town were put to the sword 7-0 at Highfield Road. Since City joined the Football League in 1919 there have only been five instances of them scoring six or more goals in the FA Cup:

1929-30 Coventry City 7 Bath City 1

1934-35 Coventry City 7 Scunthorpe & Lindsey United 0

1963-64 Trowbridge Town 1 Coventry City 6

1998-99 Coventry City 7 Macclesfield 0

2023-24 Coventry City 6 Oxford United 2

In the first three instances the opponents were non-league clubs whilst Macclesfield were in the third tier of the league as are Oxford.

Matty Godden came off the bench to score two goals – the first City player to achieve that feat since Amadou Bakayoko did it at Charlton Athletic in a League One game in 2018-19. He is only the eighth Coventry sub to score two goals in a game and the first in an FA Cup game. After substitutes were introduced to the domestic game in 1965 Bobby Gould was the first sub to score two (at Nottingham Forest in 1967) and since then has been followed by Jay Bothroyd, Patrick Suffo, Chris Maguire, Ryan Haynes, Max Biamou, Bakayoko and now Godden.

Godden has now scored 50 goals for the club and is the first player to reach that level since Gary McSheffrey. The two Cup goals take him to 21^st in the all-time table which is headed by Clarrie Bourton with 189, followed by Billy Lake with 129. He is now within striking distance of Ernie Hunt (51) Ronnie Rees (52) and Terry Gibson (52). 

The draw for the fourth round gave City a trip to their favourite Cup ground, Hillsborough, the scene of their sixth round and semi final victories in 1987. It also means trips to Sheffield Wednesday in successive weekends with a league game next Saturday followed by the Cup trip the following weekend. I'm not a great one for omens but several readers have reminded me that in City's memorable 1986-87 season City played Wednesday on successive Saturdays. The teams fought out a tough league game at Highfield Road with City prevailing 1-0 in a snow-affected game. Lloyd McGrath scored the winning goal and Dean Emerson, then in the form of his life and being tipped for an England call-up, suffered a bad knee injury following a challenge by Gary Megson. Seven days later the Sky Blues pulled off one of their greatest Cup results, winning 3-1 at Hillsborough where the Owls were unbeaten in 23 FA Cup ties. 

Another footballing legend died this week. Following hard on the heels of Bobby Charlton, Franz Beckenbauer, the man who marked Charlton in the 1966 World Cup final and the 1970 quarter final, passed away aged 78. 'Der Kaiser', the Emperor, started his career as a midfield player but later became an outstanding central defender winning the European Championships with West Germany in 1972, the World Cup in 1974 and the European Cup three times with Bayern Munich (1974-76). I particularly remember his imperious performance in the 1976 European Cup final against St Etienne at Hampden Park when he didn't misplace a pass all game. He also managed Germany to victory in the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

                       Franz Beckenbauer can't stop Neil Martin scoring at Highfield Road in 1970

Franz captained Bayern against Coventry City in the UEFA Fairs Cup in 1970. Bayern destroyed the Sky Blues 6-1 in the first leg in Munich but City won the second leg 2-1 at Highfield Road and Beckenbauer was given a tough time by City's centre-forward Neil Martin but still managed to show the Coventyry crowd his outstanding ability.

Jim's column 6.1.24

An impressive Christmas and New Year programme saw the Sky Blues rise seven places up the league table to eighth place with 10 points out of a possible 12. The unbeaten run was extended to seven games and there has only been one defeat in 11 - away at high-flying Ipswich at the start of December.

The latest victory came at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium - their first win there in a regular season fixture. Despite winning the play-off semi final second leg there last season City had played 11 league games since the stadium replaced Ayresome Park in 1995 and never won.

Three days earlier Swansea City had grabbed a fortuitous point at the CBS Arena with a late goal from a free-kick just as the fans were about to celebrate a comeback from behind victory for the first time since Good Friday 2022. Goals from Haji Wright and Ellis Simms had cancelled out Liam Walsh’s early goal and a victory had looked certain until Liam Cullen’s clever free-kick. On New Year’s Day however the long wait for a win from behind ended with an impressive second half display from the Sky Blues to seal a 3-1 victory. Between April 2022 and Monday City had fallen behind in 29 league games and failed to win. They had managed 11 draws but 18 times had ended up losing the game. The run stretched back to the 4-2 win at St Andrew’s when City came from 2-0 to take the points.

I have mentioned City's remarkable attendances this season before but have to point out that the Christmas games pushed this season's average to 24,807 and with likely sell-outs at the Leicester and Leeds home games to come the 25,000 barrier may be broken by the end of the season. If the average remains at this level then it will be the club's highest average since 1970-71 when it was 26,039. The Boxing Day crowd of 29,208 for the Sheffield Wednesday game was the second highest for a league game at the CBS Arena bettered only by the 30,175 for the Birmingham game last season. It was also the largest Boxing Day home crowd since 1969 when 32,649 watched the Sky Blues beat Ipswich Town 3-1.

On Thursday I was at the CBS Arena for the launch of the appeal for donations to the statue of George Curtis and John Sillett. Joe Elliott’s committee have done a fantastic job in raising over £130,000 towards the cost of the new statue but £87,000 is still required to make the monument a reality. Joe introduced several of the 1987 FA Cup squad including Trevor Peake, Lloyd McGrath, Steve Ogrizovic, Dave Bennett and Dean Emerson as well as Mick Kearns, former teammate of George and John and a member of the 1987 coaching staff. The legends’ families were represented by Jean and Neil Sillett and Inga and Julie Curtis and the sculptor Douglas Jennings was introduced. Douglas has previously produced a number of football-related statues including George Cohen (Fulham), Graham Taylor (Watford) and Jimmy Dickinson (Portsmouth).

If you would like to make a donation to the fund go to www.CCFC.Co.uk/statue-appeal