Last Saturday Coventry City celebrated the wonderful news that the club had purchased the CBS Arena with a stunning performance against Queens Park Rangers recording their biggest league win for 62 years. It was an emotional day that will remembered for a very long time and the announcement of the deal to buy the stadium from Frasers Group perfectly coincided with the 20th anniversary of its opening. Hopefully it brings to an end of 20 or more years of uncertainty for the fans and finally enables the club to have total control of their destiny.
You have to go back to October 1963 to find a bigger scoreline than Saturday, when Shrewsbury Town were put to the sword 8-1 at Highfield Road. The victory is the biggest since the club moved from Highfield Road in 2005 and also equalled the club's best ever for a Championship/Division 2 game. 7-1 was the score on Christmas Day 1922 when the Bantams beat Wolves 7-1 with goals from Bill Toms (3), Hugh Richmond (2), Joey Jones and Alan Wood.
Since 1963 there have been two Cup games at Highfield Road that have bettered Saturday's scoreline, an 8-0 League Cup win over Rushden & Diamonds in 2002 and a 7-0 FA Cup victory over Macclesfield Town in 1999.
It was the first time that City have scored five in the first half of a league game. They did manage five in the first half of an FA Cup tie against non-league Bath City in 1929. In 1933 however they did manage seven goals in the second half in a 7-0 home win against QPR.
There are only ten Coventry City victories since 1919 with a higher score:
9-0 v Bristol City 1933-34
8-0 v Crystal Palace 1931-32
8-0 v Rushden & Diamonds (League Cup) 2002-03
8-1 v Crystal Palace 1935-36
8-1 v Shrewsbury 1963-64
7-0 v Rotherham 1925-26
7-0 v Aberdare Athletic 1926-27
7-0 v QPR 1932-33
7-0 v Scunthorpe United (FA Cup) 1934-35
7-0 v Macclesfield (FA Cup) 1998-99
(all at home except Aberdare)
The game also saw three players score a brace. Messrs Wright, Rudoni and Torp all bagged two goals – the first time this has happened since that Rushden game in 2002 when Gary McSheffrey (3), Lee Mills (2) and Jay Bothroyd (2) were on target. The last time in a league match was the Shrewsbury game in 1963 when Ronnie Rees (3) George Hudson (2) and Hugh Barr (2) netted. Before that there were five occasions in the golden period of the 1930s all involving Clarrie Bourton.
Saturday's famous victory came just seven days after the amazing 5-3 win at Derby's Pride Park. That was only the seventh time in 100 seasons of league football that that result has been recorded and only the second time achieved in an away game. In 1946-47 City won 5-3 at Millwall in a Second Division game with City coming from 3-1 down to take the points with goals from George Ashall (3), Harry Barratt and Ted Roberts. Other 5-3 wins include a Christmas Day 1959 thriller at Highfield Road with Ken Satchwell grabbing four goals and, the last time, a thumping of newly relegated Ipswich Town in 1964 watched by almost 38,000 with goals from George Kirby (2), Ken Hale (2) and George Hudson.
Five different players scored City's goals at Pride Park: Thomas, Wright, Thomas-Asante, Mason-Clark and Torp. That's quite a rare occurrence over the years but has now happened four times in the last ten years: Bury (2017) 6-0, Sunderland (2019) 5-4, Oxford (2024) 6-2 and Derby (2025) 5-3.
The Sky Blues have now scored twelve goals in successive games and that hasn't happened since September 1935, at the start of the Division Three promotion campaign. A 7-1 home win over Newport County (Bourton 3, Jones 2, Lauderdale 2) was followed two days later with a 5-0 home victory over Millwall (Jones 2, Bourton, Fitton and Turnbull (og)).
Lets hope the team can continue their scoring form at Oxford today.
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