Blackburn hate playing Sky Blues

Two wins in four days have cheered the Sky Blue fanbase and even got some talking about the play-offs, a fanciful idea if I ever heard one! Having said that the team are only three points worse off than they were at this stage in 2022-23 when they reached the play-offs under Mark Robins. They needed 70 points to get into the the top six then and got 32 points from the 18 games – an average of 1.77 points a game, losing only two of the final 18 matches. To reach 70 points this campaign would require 1.94 points per game, a tall order and there’s every chance that to get into the play-offs will require closer to 75 points.

Tuesday night’s win at Blackburn ensured a first double of the season and the first over Rovers since the 1967 Division Two title side. That season Blackburn had just been relegated from Division One and were one of the strongest challengers to the Sky Blues and fellow promoted team, Wolves. In fact when City travelled to Ewood Park on Easter Saturday were in third place behind the Midland pair and four points behind City who led the division. A Blackburn win that day would have narrowed the gap to two points but a less than thrilling 1-0 victory courtesy of a Bobby Gould goal went a long way towards promotion. City had won the home game in October 2-0 with John Tudor and Gould on target.

City’s recent record against Rovers is impressive. Although it was the first league win at Ewood since 1998 City have now not lost in their last 10 visits with Tuesday’s win ending a sequence of five draws. There was a time in the 1990s when City fans dreaded a trip to Blackburn at a time when Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton were in their pomp. Between 1993 and 1997 Rovers won five successive meetings with a goal tally of 17 to 2. That run ended with a famous FA Cup win in February 1997 when, despite Tim Sherwood giving Blackburn a first minute lead, City won 2-1 with goals from Eoin Jess and Darren Huckerby with Steve Ogrizovic saving a Sutton penalty.

This week’s victory ended a poor record in midweek away games. It was the first such success in a league game since February 2022 when the Sky Blues won 2-1 at Ashton Gate. That night goals from Ian Maatsen and Viktor Gyokeres (with an 89th minute winner) gave City the points. Since then City have failed to win in 13 attempts excluding Bank holiday and play-off games.

I’m proud to announce the launch this week of a new website skybluearchive.co.uk

A group of us have got together to build a website to bring Coventry City’s glorious history alive. It gives unprecedented access to in-depth details of every match in the club’s history - not only results and match stats but complete line-ups, highlights, programmes, photographs and reports. There’s also players, managers and staff profiles with their records in a Sky Blue shirt. The aim is to provide a complete historical information resource, offering ongoing updates ensuring every chapter of the club’s history is captured for all time. 

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 Apple, Spotify and YouTube. Claudio Cardellino and I talk about all things Sky Blue. Just search for 'Sky Blue History Podcast'

If you have a question about the history or statistics of Coventry City or have a suggested topic for the podcast please drop me an email at clarriebourton@gmail.com and follow me on X/Twitter @clarriebourton

Penalty shoot-out hoodoo ended

Coventry City progressed to the fourth round of the FA Cup with a penalty shoot-out victory over Sheffield Wednesday at the CBS Arena last Saturday evening. The victory ended a dreadful run of shoot-out defeats stretching back to 2019. Since then the Sky Blues had lost five in a row including the last two infamous ones at Wembley Stadium.

It was the 18^th penalty shoot-out that the club have been involved in since the first in a Simod/Full Members Cup at Reading in 1988 although the vast majority have taken place in the last 12 years. Before last Saturday City had lost five shoot-outs in a row, two in the FA Cup, one in the League Cup, one in the playoff final and one in the EFL Trophy. The last victory had been in an EFL Trophy game at Walsall in 2019. It was the first FA Cup tie that City have won in this manner following defeats to Sheffield United (1998), Birmingham (2020) and Man United (2024).

Once again Josh Eccles was on target and he has now scored his last five penalties in shoot-outs – more than any other City player.

The full list of penalty shoot-outs that the Sky Blues have been involved in are:

1987-88 Reading (a) (Simod/FM Cup) Lost 3-4

1997-98 Sheffield U (a) (FA Cup) Lost 1-3

2001-02 Peterborough (a) (League Cup) Won 4-2

2012-13 Burton Albion (h) (EFL trophy) Won 10-9

2012-13 Sheffield U (h) (EFL trophy) Won 4-1

2013-14 Leyton O (a) (EFL trophy) Lost 2-4

2015-16 Rochdale (a) (League Cup) Lost 3-5

2015-16 Yeovil (a) (EFL trophy) Lost 3-4

2016-17 Swansea U21 (a) (EFL trophy) Won 4-2

2017-18 Walsall (a) (EFL trophy) Won 4-3

2018-19 Forest Green (h) (EFL trophy) Won 4-2

2019-20 Walsall (h) (EFL trophy) Won 5-4

2019-20 Forest Green (EFL trophy) Lost 7-8

2019-20 Birmingham (a) (FA Cup) Lost 1-4

2020-21 Gillingham (a) (League Cup) Lost 4-5

2022-23 Luton (Play-off final) Lost 5-6

2023-24 Manchester U (FA Cup) Lost 2-4

2024-25 Sheffield W (h) (FA Cup) Won 4-3

There was an excellent attendance of 20,906 at the CBS Arena, albeit boosted by almost 5,000 Wednesday fans, and was the largest the club have had for a home Third Round tie since 1981when over 22,000 watched a Third round replay with Leeds United at Highfield Road.

Now the Sky Blues move on to the fourth round and face Premiership club Ipswich Town who defeated Bristol Rovers last weekend. City have only been drawn against the Suffolk side once in their FA Cup history, in the second round in 2019-20. The teams met at St Andrews and Will Keane gave the Tractor Boys the lead before substitute Callum O'Hare scored an equaliser in added time. In the replay the Sky Blues ran out 2-1 winners with first half goals from Jordan Shipley and Max Biamou sealed a third round tie with Bristol Rovers.

4-0 half time leads and sky high attendances

Last Saturday's defeat at Norwich's Carrow Road was a disappointing and frustrating end to a mixed festive campaign for the Sky Blues, especially the nature of the loss with two goals conceded in added time. The final summary of the Christmas/New Year period was one win, two draws and two defeats but the margins in several games were so thin that with just a little luck it could have been four wins and one defeat. The horror show at Fratton Park on the Saturday before Christmas was the only game in which City weren't in with a good chance of taking three points. However the history books will show an overall mediocre record.

The outstanding performance and result was the 4-0 Boxing Day victory over Plymouth Argyle which helped precipitate Wayne Rooney's departure as the Devon club's manager. All four goals came in a stunning first half - the second time City have achieved this feat in 2025, the other being the 5-0 victory over Rotherham in March.

Coventry scoring four in a first half is not as rare as one might think and the Plymouth occurrence was the sixth in the last ten years, three of them coming in that exciting Tony Mowbray season of 2015-16. That was when his team looked certainties for promotion from League One at Christmas but collapsed in the New Year and finished eighth. There were three other instances at Highfield Road in the early 2000s, including the final game at the old stadium, but it never happened in the top flight years (1967-2001). Before 2001 you have to go back to a League Cup tie in 1964 when City led First Division Sunderland 4-0 at half-time but conceded two in the second half. Possibly the most interesting happening was in April 1963 when City led Halifax Town 4-0 at the break with debutant George Hudson having scored three of the four. The Yorkshiremen staged a brave fightback and Jimmy Hill's team were clinging on to a 5-4 lead by the final whistle.

                                                                     George Hudson

The biggest ever half-time lead occurred in 1933 when City lead QPR 7-0 but that was also the final score.

The last ten 4-0 half-time leads before Plymouth were:

Rotherham 2023-24 (final score 5-0)

Cheltenham 2017-18 (6-1)

Bury 2015-16 (6-0)

Crewe 2015-16 (5-0)

Gillingham 2015-16 (4-1)

Derby 2004-05 (6-2) 

Preston 2003-04 (4-1)

Rushden 2002-03 (8-0) League Cup

Sunderland 1964-65 (4-2) League Cup

Halifax 1962-63 (5-4) 

All except Cheltenham were at home.

On the other side of the coin the Sky Blues have only been on the losing side to a 4-0 lead in the last 50 years, the last time was at Luton in 2021-22 when the final score was 5-0.

Finally a mention of the CBS attendances. The gate at the Boxing Day game was 29,420 which is the biggest Boxing Day gate since 1972 when West Brom provided the opposition at Highfield Road and 31,545 watched a 0-0 draw. It was also the sixth largest crowd at the CBS and the second largest number of home fans (28,237) only bettered by the Johnstone's Paint (EFL trophy) game with Crewe in 2013.