Coventry City pulled off another home win two weeks ago against Sunderland with Haji Wright scoring all three goals in the 3-0 victory. That makes it six home league wins out of seven and eleven league victories in total at the CBS Arena. There are positive factors to glean from this improved home form. Firstly home wins are vital if a team are going to reach the play-offs; last season none of the top six teams in the Championship won less than 15 home games with Leicester winning 17. City won nine and drew eight and if five of those draws had been wins they would have finished sixth and been in the play-offs. The importance of turning draws into wins cannot be understated. This can be seen with Burnley this season; they have only lost two games all season but their 15 draws could be crucially fatal in the final promotion reckoning. If only a few of those draws were turned into wins the extra two points would have virtually assured them of an automatic promotion place already.
Haji Wright scored his first hat-trick for the club against Sunderland and Coventry City’s 128th league hat-trick since they entered the Football League in 1919. It is only the sixth home league hat-trick for the club since the move from Highfield Road twenty years ago. The other five are:
2009-10 Freddy Eastwood v Peterborough
2015-16 Jacob Murphy v Gillingham
2017-18 Jodi Jones v Notts County
2017-18 Marc McNulty v Grimsby
2023-24 Ellis Simms v Rotherham
The attendance was 30,219, the biggest crowd at the stadium this season and just 14 short of a new league record. It was also the second successive 30,000 plus crowd - the first time this has been achieved by the club since 1970. During the 1969-70 season City averaged 32,043 for home games and last had consecutive 30,000 gates for the visits of two London clubs. On 31st January 1970 there were 31,661 for the 2-0 win over Arsenal and four weeks later the 0-3 defeat to Chelsea was watched by 37,454.
Paul Brucculeri posed an interesting question recently. His brother had been down to Devon and went to see a Torquay United home game. He wondered when City last played Torquay in a competitive game. The Gulls, as Torquay are known, were relegated from the Football league in 2007 and though they bounced back two years later were relegated again in 2014. They are currently playing in the National League South. They did however spend 78 seasons in the Football League without ever going higher than the third tier. City and Torquay met regularly in Division Three South during the 1930s and 1950s and the Gulls were City’s opponents on the final day of the 1935-36 season when City clinched the title. Their last meeting with the Sky Blues was in the FA Cup in 2009 (when Torquay were in the National league) when a late Elliott Ward goal gave City a 1-0 win at Plainmoor. The clubs also met in the FA Cup in 1988 when a Brian Kilcline penalty and a Cyrille Regis goal gave City a 2-0 victory at Highfield Road. There was a also a 4-1 home League Cup win in 2004 (goals from Stephen Hughes, Patrick Suffo (2) and Andy Morrell.
The last league game with the Gulls was in February 1962 just after Jimmy Hill arrived as manager. City lost 0-1 at Plainmoor with Ernie Pym scored in front of 3,458.