Jim's column 24.2.24

On Monday evening Coventry City will attempt to reach the FA Cup Sixth round for only the third time since the club won the famous trophy under John Sillett and George Curtis in 1987. 37 years have passed since that memorable day and the club's record in the world's most famous club competition has been pretty woeful. This is only the eighth time in those years that the Sky Blues have reached the last sixteen and four of those occasions came in successive seasons in the late 1990s when Gordon Strachan was in charge. The results of the previous seven appearances in the last sixteen since 1987 are:

26 February 1997 Derby County away Lost 2-3

14 February 1998 Aston Villa away Won 1-0

13 February 1999 Everton away Lost 1-2

29 January 2000 Charlton Athletic home Lost 2-3

16 February 2008 West Brom home Lost 0-5

24 February 2009 Blackburn Rovers home Won 1-0 (after 2-2 draw)

17 February 2018 Brighton away Lost 1-3

On the two occasions that they have reached the last eight they have failed against Sheffield United (in 1998) and to Chelsea (in 2008).

Monday's game is City's 17^th FA Cup game against non-league opposition since the war and in the previous sixteen the Sky Blues have progressed on 12 occasions. However the ghosts of Kings Lynn, Sutton United, Worcester City and Wrexham linger over the club's FA Cup history almost as much as the triumphant 1987 story. Let's pray that Mark Robins' side can ignore those ghosts and take the club to the last eight for only the eighth time in their 140-year history.

The hard fought 1-0 victory at Stoke last week made it 20 successive league and cup games that the team have scored. You have to go back 11^th November to find the last time the team failed to find the net – a 0-0 home draw with Stoke, coincidentally the game that the manager switched to a back four after several years playing a back three. In 20 games the team have scored a staggering 43 goals, albeit 11 in the FA Cup. Several readers have asked if this run is a club record but there is some way to go to match Jimmy Hill's team from the 1966-67 Second Division promotion season. In that momentous campaign, after a 1-0 defeat at Millwall in September 1966 the team went 29 scoring games before a 0-0 draw at Northampton in March 1967. After that scoreless draw the team scored in a further 16 scoring games including the first six games in Division One. In more recent times Mark Robins' 2012-13 team had 24 successive scoring games as he rejuvenated the club following relegation to League One.

Ed Blackaby has recently acquired a programme from a friendly game played at Highfield Road in 1962. On 11 December 1962 City played a friendly game with an England Youth XI and put out a full first team for a midweek game in the middle of a 46-game season (and the club was still in the FA Cup). A measly crowd of 3,448 watched the Sky Blues beat the England team 2-1 with goals from Hugh Barr and Ronnie Rees. The England team went on to win the European Youth Championships the following May and included many young players who went on to have successful top flight careers including Chelsea's Ron Harris, Tottenham's Phil Beal and Sheffield United full-backs Len Badger and Bernard Shaw. The outside right is David Pleat who had already made a scoring debut for Nottingham Forest in Division One but would be released two years later having made only six appearances. He went on to play 170 odd games with various lower division sides before making his name as a very successful manager with numerous clubs. Strangely, none of the England youth team won full England caps. 

Jim's column 10.2.24

Coventry City progressed to the FA Cup Fifth Round on Tuesday evening with a comprehensive 4-1 victory over Sheffield Wednesday. It is only the second time in 15 seasons that the club have reached the last 16 of the competition, the other being 2017-18 when the club were in League Two. Whilst it was a great team effort I have to single out Casey Palmer and Callum O'Hare who gave us a master class in creative football. We've come to expect quality performances from O'Hare and one wonders what would have happened last season if the Solihull Messi had not been injured and missed the second half of the season. Since his injury he has added goalscoring to his armoury and turned himself into a player surely heading to the Premiership.

Before his injury on Boxing Day 2022 Callum had scored 12 goals in 117 starts and 29 substitute appearances. Since recovering from his ACL injury and returning to the side at the end of October he has netted nine goals in 12 starts and seven from the bench. Since his first start after injury, at Ipswich in December, City have lost only twice in 14 games. The statistics tell the story.

Kasey Palmer has never played a better game for City. He looks fully fit, enormously confident and is fulfilling the potential he showed as a Chelsea youngster. I can rarely remember a better performance from a Coventry midfield player in my 60 years of watching the team. It reminded me of a virtuoso performance from the legendary Ian Gibson against West Brom in an early season game at Highfield Road in 1968. The supremely talented 'Gibbo' had fallen out with manager Noel Cantwell and there were strong rumours that he was on his way out of the club. Cantwell recalled him to face the Baggies and he gave a dazzling display of dribbling and passing, creating a hat-trick for Ernie Hunt in a 4-2 victory. Afterwards Cantwell sheepishly admitted that there was no chance of Gibbo leaving the club after that performance.

                                       Ian Gibson

City's unbeaten run came to an end at Carrow Road last week after 12 league and cup games without defeat since City's previous trip to East Anglia in early December when they lost at Ipswich. The run was the club's best since 2019-20 when Mark Robins' team were unbeaten in 18 league and cup games when football was suspended for Covid (the Birmingham penalty shoot-out defeat counted as a draw). That team were also unbeaten in 14 league games from mid-December until 7^th March. East Anglia is not a happy hunting ground for the Sky Blues – they have won only two of their last 15 league trips to Portman Road and only one of the last 17 at Carrow Road.

Another run came to an end at Norwich – City had scored two or more goals in seven successive league games with 19 goals in all but only managed one goal at Carrow Road. The run was only one short of the club's all-time record, set in 1959-60. Newly promoted to the old Division Three, City were beaten 5-1 at Southampton on the 24^th October (the Dell was a bogey ground in those days) but in every one of the next eight games scored two or more goals. Unlike this season's team they lost two of those games but the run, with 25 goals, lifted them into the top three. 11 of the 25 goals came from the boots of young striker Ken Satchwell. Sadly the club's promotion push faltered and they finished in fifth place and it would take another four years to get promotion to Division Two.

This was the run in 1959-60:

Oct 31 Southend (h) won 2-0

Nov 7 Shrewsbury (a) lost 2-3

Nov 21 Norwich (a) won 4-1

Nov 28 Brentford (h) won 2-0

Dec 12 Reading (a) lost 2-4

Dec 25 Wrexham (h) won 5-3

Dec 26 Wrexham (a) won 3-1

Jan 12 York (h) won 5-2

Jim's column 3.2.24

The games are coming thick and fast for Coventry City right now and a draw in the FA Cup fourth round tie at Hillsborough means potentially seven games for the team during February. Hopefully the seventh and last game of February will be a fifth round tie with Maidstone United who await the winners of next Tuesday's replay with the Owls.

Arguably the Sky Blues shouldn't have needed a replay to beat Wednesday but failed to press home their domination at Hillsborough. The fans got their first glimpse of new Danish signing Victor Torp who scored a memorable goal on his Coventry debut. His goal is the first by a City debutant since Tyler Walker scored the winning goal after coming off the bench in a League Cup tie at MK Dons in August 2020. The last debutant to score in an FA Cup tie was Josh Pask in a 3-0 replay win over Bristol Rovers at St Andrew's in early 2020 and you have to go back to September 2018 for the last league scoring debutant – Conor Chaplin with a penalty in a 2-1 victory at Oxford. Here's hoping that Victor has a more successful career at Coventry than those three scoring debutants. 

Kyle McFadzean left the club this week with many eulogies for his part in the club's rise in recent years. He joined Coventry from Burton Albion in the summer of 2019 and helped the club to win promotion to the Championship in his first season. He had previously won promotions with Crawley Town and MK Dons. He made 171 appearances for the Sky Blues and scored eight goals including the winner on his CBS Arena debut against Nottingham Forest in 2021. Prior to his arrival I always felt City's defence had a soft heart and were often bullied by the more physical teams. Kyle solved that problem at a stroke, commanding his penalty area and probably the most dominating centre-back the club has had since Mo Konjic twenty years previously. Of course he had his moments – the disaster at Rotherham when he was red carded as City slumped to a 4-0 defeat comes to mind but he bounced back from that and was only on the losing side once more that season. Last season his presence was dreadfully missed when he was injured in December and January when City won only two games out of 11 and suffered embarrassing home defeats to Wrexham and Norwich. He returned in February helping steer the team to the play-offs and was only on the losing side once in 20 games. This season he had continued his good form and it was still hard to imagine a Coventry side without their captain and defensive rock but Mark Robins decided to change the defensive formation to four at the back and Kyle, who is 37 this month, was relegated to the bench. With the re-formed back four producing good results and Kyle's presence not missed he had become surplus to requirements. Kyle is a true legend of the club, a winner and a major force in the Coventry City's resurgence.