Table-topping Sky Blues set more records

The Sky Blues extended their lead at the top of the Championship to five points with an excellent win at Stoke last Saturday. In a game of few chances it took a sublime goal from Ephron Mason-Clarke to separate the teams first and second in the table at the start of play. The victory made it a remarkable eight wins out of nine since mid September.

The team have now topped the Championship table since the 4^th October and, whatever the results in the next two games, they will still be top until at least 25^th November. That's 53 consecutive days in first place and the best achievement by a Coventry City side since the 1966-67 Division Two promotion season. Then, Jimmy Hill's team went top of the table on 7^th January following a 1-1 draw at Birmingham's St Andrews and stayed top until Easter Monday, the 27^th March, when, with City not playing, Wolves slipped ahead of the Sky Blues on goal average (before goal difference came into being) with a win at Huddersfield. That was a total of 81 days in first place. The club record for days at the top was set in the 1963-64 Division Three promotion season when the team were top for 157 days. A 2-1 home win over Bristol City on 8^th October 1963 sent the Sky Blues top and they remained there until 14^th March 1964 when after a shocking 5-2 home defeat to Southend on the previous night, City were overtaken by Crystal Palace. The Sky Blues had held a nine point lead (14 points under the three points for a win) at the top on 3^rd January but an eleven-game run without a win saw the chasing pack catch them. In a fraught end to the season City managed to put together a run of eight games with only one defeat to snatch the title on the final day of the season.

Rich Overson posed an interesting question after the Stoke victory: When were City last in the top six and defeated another top six side away from home (excluding play-off wins). After quite a bit of research I discovered it was back in January 1993 in the Premiership. City, under Bobby Gould and with Micky Quinn scoring for fun, were flying high and travelled to Blackburn for a midweek game in sixth place. Rovers were in fourth position and a 3-0 win or better would see them overtake Manchester United at the top. The Sky Blues upset the form book as well as BBC Radio 5 whose reporters had come to celebrate Blackburn going top, by inflicting a 5-2 defeat on Kenny Dalglish's Rovers. Mike Newell gave Rovers an early lead which was cancelled out by a David May own goal. Lee Hurst gave City a lead just before half-time and John Williams made it 3-1 soon after the break. Colin Hendry pulled one back on 71 minutes and for a while City were hanging on for dear life before Quinn scored twice in the final five minutes to seal the points.

Prior to that win in 1993 there had been away wins at Nottingham Forest in 1990 (4-2) and Norwich City in 1989 (2-1) when both City and their opponents were top six teams. The latter being the week after City's ignominious FA Cup defeat to Sutton United.

Fortress CBS

The Sky Blues bounced back from the defeat at Wrexham last weekend to record another home victory, 3-1 over Sheffield United on Tuesday night. The CBS Arena has certainly become a fortress for the team, especially since Frank Lampard took charge last November. Only two regular season league games have been lost in the last 23 and those were to last season's promoted clubs, Leeds United and Burnley. History tells us that strong home form is the key to successful promotion campaigns:

1935-36 Division 3S champions Played 21. 19 wins, 1 draw, 1 defeat.

1958-59 Division 4 runners up Played 23. 18 wins, 4 draws, 1 defeat.

1963-64 Division 3 champions Played 23. 14 wins, 7 draws, 2 defeats.

1966-67 Division 2 champions Played 21. 17 wins, 3 draws, 1 defeat.

2019-20 League 1 champions Played 17. 11 wins, 5 draws, 1 defeat.

With 16 home games remaining this season a continuation of the home form would probably guarantee a play-off position even if the team lost all its away games. The outstanding start to the season puts the Sky Blues in a very strong position for an automatic promotion spot. However there is a long way to go and I remind readers that despite a 15-game unbeaten start in 1937-38 the team failed to get promotion after a mediocre second half of the season. Similarly, in 1950-51, City were top of Division Two on New Year's Day but faded and finished seventh.

The goals continue to flow for the team and after 14 games they have scored 39 – the highest in all four English leagues. Readers are asking 'what is the club record for goals scored?' 

The answer is 108 in 1931-32 – the season that the legendary Clarrie Bourton rose to prominence and netted 49 league goals as City finished 12^th in Division Three South. They scored 106 the following season (finishing sixth), 100 in 1933-34 (runners up). In 1934-35 they finished third but only scored 86 goals. Promotion finally arrived in 1935-36 as the Bantams scored 102 goals. Since then the best season has been in the 1963-64 Division Three championship season when 98 goals went into the opposition's net. 

It is interesting to note that in the record breaking 1931-32 season City had scored 32 goals after 14 games whilst the current team has 39 to its credit.

Last week's trip to Wrexham was City's first league visit to the Racecourse Ground since 1963-64 when Jimmy Hill's side drew 1-1 on the way to winning promotion from Division Three. It was only the fifth league visit in 100 seasons of league football. City had the rare occurrence of conceding a hat-trick with Wrexham's expensive striker Kieffer Moore becoming only the third player to score three or more against City in a league game in the last eight seasons (Portsmouth's Callum Lang and Hull's Oscar Estupinan are the others). A lot of fans thought Moore had an excellent scoring record against the Sky Blues but in fact he had only managed three in seven games before last week, two for Cardiff in 2020-21 and one for Ipswich in 2023-24.