After three weeks of speculation Frank Lampard has been named as the new Coventry City head coach and takes charge of his first game today at home to Cardiff City. Frank, of course has had an illustrious playing career playing almost 900 games and scoring over 200 goals as well as winning 106 full caps for England. His appointment is probably the highest profile one since Ron Atkinson arrived in 1995, and for a time helped the club hold their head above water in the Premier League. Time will tell whether it is a good decision as Frank has the ghost of Mark Robins and his seven years of success looking over his shoulder.
He is the 42nd City manager/head coach (excluding caretaker or interim managers) since the club joined the Football League in 1919. He is also the 17th former international to sit in the boss' chair and the eighth former England international. Of the 17 only one, Roland Nilsson, can top Frank's number of caps. Roland won 116 caps for Sweden in a dazzling playing career.
The seventeen former internationals are as follows:
Roland Nilsson (Sweden) 116 caps
Frank Lampard (England) 106
Terry Butcher (England) 77
Iain Dowie (Northern Ireland) 59
Gary McAllister (Scotland) 57
Phil Neal (England) 50
Gordon Strachan (Scotland) 50
Noel Cantwell (Republic of Ireland) 36
Chris Coleman (Wales) 32
Steven Pressley (Scotland) 32
Don Howe (England) 23
Gordon Milne (England) 14
Peter Reid (England) 13
Joe Mercer (England) 5
Harry Buckle (Northern Ireland) 3
Harry Storer (England) 2
Eric Black (Scotland) 2
Ed Blackaby is regularly in touch with tit-bits about Coventry City's history and recently came up with a fact that was new to me. It concerns Johnny Stevenson, a young Scottish player who was on City's books in the late 60s/early 70s. He was the nephew, through marriage, of City forward at the time, Gerry Baker. Johnny, a midfielder, was part of probably City's greatest ever youth team which included Dennis Mortimer, Alan Green, Bobby Parker and Jimmy Holmes. The team reached the FA Youth Cup final in 1970 only to lose to Tottenham after a two legged final and two replays. Johnny was one of only three members of that team who didn't progress to the first team (David Icke and Ivan Crossley were the others) In those days I used to attend youth games when they were held at Highfield Road and remember the memorable performances by that team. They beat Brentford 13-0 and Shrewsbury 6-0 with Johnny scoring a stunning donkey kick goal a few weeks after Ernie Hunt did it in 1970, before it was outlawed.
Ed reminded me that Johnny moved back to Scotland after being released in 1972 and played for Hearts for three seasons and briefly for St Johnstone before emigrating to Australia. The surprising information is that he played two games for the Australian national team in 1978 whilst appearing for Sydney City. In 1978 he was selected to play against Greece and the following year against Yugoslav club side Partizan Belgrade. The latter game probably doesn't count as a full international as it was against a club side. We can however say that Johnny was an Australian international.
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The 1970 youth squad
It reminded me of another former Coventry City player, full-back Terry Springthorpe, who emigrated to the US in 1951 (months after a big money move from Wolves) and in 1953 was capped by the USA against England!
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