Ben & Oggy - Kings of the Clean Sheets

Coventry City's deserved 3-0 victory over Blackburn Rovers on Tuesday night ended a poor run of five league games without a win and appears to have quietened the vocal minority urging for the sacking of manager Mark Robins. Bearing in mind the status of previously unbeaten Blackburn, few fans would have predicted a 3-0 home win. The result confirms my theory that bad runs often end with a surprise win and good runs often end with an unexpected defeat. In 2022-23 City were in a brilliant run of nine games without defeat but were brought down to earth with a 4-0 home loss to Stoke City. The previous season City had only one win in eight before going to Craven Cottage and beating the league leaders 3-1. One should never take results for granted in this crazy Championship!

All City fans know of our bogey teams (Preston and Swansea being the main ones) but the Sky Blues are becoming Blackburn's bogey team. Since Rovers won 4-0 at St Andrews in 2020 they have failed to win any of the eight games between the clubs. They have also failed to win a league game at the CBS Arena in five visits.

The Blackburn victory delivered City's first league clean sheet of the season and a personal triumph for Ben Wilson (although he had little to do on the night). Ben has now kept 45 clean sheets in 115 games since arriving at the club in 2019 and has the best clean sheet record of any Coventry City goalkeeper.

Ben is up to sixth place in the club's all-time list of clean sheets and has now remained goalless in 39% of his competitive games for the club. His closest rivals in the percentage table in 1930s 'keeper Bill Morgan with 34% achieved in the Harry Storer era when the team had defensively minded approach. The majority of City 'keepers in the list had a clean sheet percentage in the range of 21-26% with even Sky Blue legend Steve Ogrizovic only reaching 29% (albeit in the top flight).

Most clean sheets (all games)

	Games	Clean sheets	% clean sheets
1. Steve Ogrizovic	601	175	29%
2. Bill Glazier	402	95	24%
3. Alf Wood	246	64	26%
4. Bill Morgan	160	54	34%
5. Jerry Best	236	52	22%
6. Ben Wilson	115	45	39%
7. Les Sealey	180	43	24%
8. Horace Pearson	124	40	32%
9. Arthur Lightening	165	39	24%
10. Lee Burge	160	34	21%
11. Magnus Hedman	151	33	22%
11. Keiren Westwood	138	33	24%

If you enjoy this column and would like to hear more about Coventry City's history you can listen to the Sky Blue History Podcast which is available on Spotify and YouTube. Claudio Cardellino and I talk about all things Sky Blue. Just search for 'Sky Blue History Podcast'