Jim's column 2.2.2013

On Tuesday evening Coventry City will run out to a crowd approaching 30,000 for their JPT Northern Area final first leg tie with Crewe Alexandra. Although the match is already a sell-out for Coventry fans, the final attendance is difficult to predict because of Crewe’s unsold allocation of tickets and how many seats will be unavailable because of segregation. We do know that City have sold ‘over 28,000’ tickets and that means that a new record will be almost certainly be set for the competition for a non-final match. The record, 29,901, was set two years ago at Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium for their area final with MK Dons. 

The ground record at the Ricoh is 31,407 for the Chelsea FA Cup fifth round tie in 2009 and largest crowds since the stadium was opened in 2005 are:-

31,407 v Chelsea (FA Cup) 2008-09

28,184 v Leeds United  2010-11

28,163 v West Brom (FA Cup) 2007-08

28,120 v Middlesbrough (FA Cup) 2005-06

27,992 v Wolves 2007-08

27,212 v Birmingham 2006-07

26,856 v Wolves 2005-06

26,723 v Leicester 2005-06

That record is highly unlikely to beat topped but it will be the second highest Ricoh crowd in the eight years that the stadium has been open. It will also be City’s biggest home crowd for a night game for 32 years – in 1981 35,411 watched the League Cup semi final first leg against West Ham.

The Coventry element of the crowd is going to be close to 29,000 and one of the biggest ‘home’ contingents for a long, long time. Bearing in mind that for the Chelsea game there were around 5,500 away fans, the home element was in the region of 26,000. That attendance was the largest for a Coventry home game since before Highfield Road was made all-seater in 1981 – the aforementioned West Ham League Cup game. I seem to remember that there were around 5-6,000 Hammers’ fans that night, making the ‘home’ following 29-30,000. So I think you have to go back to 1977 when Liverpool came to Highfield Road for a League Cup replay (they won 2-0) when the attendance was 36,105 and I ‘m pretty certain that there weren’t too many Liverpool fans for an evening match five days before Christmas.

Keith Ballantyne was in touch after the recent Tranmere home game and said he remember City playing Tranmere at Highfield Road in the FA Cup in early 1968. It was the first time he went into the, then new, West End terraces. The teams drew 1-1 but Tranmere pulled off a Cup shock by beating the Sky Blues 2-0 in the replay at Prenton Park. Keith thought that Tranmere’s former City centre-forward George Hudson did not play in that match at Coventry, but took part in the replay and scored.

He asked me to clarify that point and also asked if any other ex-City players had featured in any of our other Cup disasters, including the infamous Kings Lynn game in 1961.

‘The Hud’ played in both the cup-ties in 1968 and missed a good chance in the first game. In the replay he scored the second goal (George Yardley scored the first) in the Cup upset in front of an excited Prenton Park crowd of 20,996. Hudson, who had controversially been sold to Northampton by Jimmy Hill in 1966, had joined Tranmere from the Cobblers in January 1967 but his goalscoring form was on the wane and just over a year later he was released by Tranmere and his professional career was over.

As for other ex-Sky Blues to appear in FA cup shocks against their former club I can think of Gary Bannister (for Sheffield Wednesday) in 1984 and Louis Carey (for Bristol City) in 2007. The Owls, then a Second Division side, knocked out the Sky Blues, a First Division outfit at the time, in a 3-2 win at Hillsborough. Bristol, a league below City in 2007, beat City 2-0 in the Ricoh Arena replay after a 3-3 draw at Ashton gate. I am sure there are more.

JIM'S COLUMN 13.11.10

Coventry City teams seem to have an aversion to large crowds at the Ricoh Arena. Last Saturday in front of the biggest league crowd since the move from Highfield Road in 2005, 28,184, admittedly boosted by over 6,000 Leeds fans, the Sky Blues came a cropper. It was the tenth occasion that over 25,000 have been at the stadium in its five-year life and the ninth time that the team have failed to win. The solitary victory came in January 2006 when high-flying Wolves were defeated 2-0.

The 25,000-plus crowds at the ground are as follows:-

31,407 Chelsea (FA Cup) 2009 lost 0-2
28,184 Leeds 2010 lost 2-3
28,163 West Brom (FA Cup) 2008 lost 0-5
28,120 Middlesbrough (FA Cup) 2006 drew 1-1
27,997 Wolves 2008 drew 1-1
27,212 Birmingham 2006 lost 0-1
26,856 Wolves 2006 won 2-0
26,723 Leicester 2006 drew 1-1
26,643 Leeds 2006 drew 1-1
26,343 West Brom 2007 lost 0-1

Even accounting for the large contingent of Leeds fans last week, I was staggered by the size of the crowd. I believed that it would take a lot more consistency from the team to bring the missing fans back to the Ricoh and that it would be a gradual thing. One parallel was in 1986-87 season when, after three years of surviving relegation on the last day of the season, John Sillett and George Curtis got the team playing attractive, winning football. The crowds that season, apart from a juicy League Cup tie with Liverpool and that epic Christmas game with Tottenham, only slowly increased from the 11,000 that watched the first game of the season against Arsenal to around the 13-14,000 level. The week before the quarter-final tie at Hillsborough under 13,000 were at Highfield Road to watch City play Wednesday in a league game. Two weeks later, admittedly with vouchers for semi-final tickets available almost 24,000 turned up for a league game with Oxford United.

Last week the crowd was 93% higher than the Barnsley crowd two weeks earlier and prompted Rod Dean to pose the question: when was the last time the City attendance doubled from one game to another?

I think the answer is 1993 when a home game with Southampton (2-0, Quinn and John Williams) was watched by 10,455. Nine days later 24,410 watched City lose 0-1 to championship chasing Manchester United, an increase of 133%. The post war record leap in gates was in 1962-63 season. On the first Saturday of December 1962 a crowd of 8,876 watched City beat Carlisle 3-2, at City’s next home game on 29 December there were 25,399 to see a 3-3 draw with Third Division leaders Peterborough. Christmas games back then traditionally attracted higher than normal crowds and three days earlier Jimmy Hill’s team had won 3-0 at Posh plus the fact that on the day of the Carlisle game heavy rain fell in the city, affecting the gate.

The record leap in home crowds however occurred in 1925 when on a wet Thursday afternoon in February an estimated 3,000 watched City beat Portsmouth 2-1 in a Second Division match. Nine days later for the visit of Sheffield Wednesday there was a crowd of 14,242, an increase of 350% on the previous game. Before the introduction of floodlights in the 1950s rearranged games were often played on midweek afternoons and drew low crowds.

City are at Crystal Palace today and should beware Spaniard Pablo Counago. Currently on loan at Selhurst Park from Ipswich, Pablo has an amazing record against the Sky Blues with seven goals in eight appearances for Ipswich. Last season he came off the bench to score the winning goal at Portman Road – lets hope Messrs Wood and McPake have learned their lesson.

Aidy Boothroyd was forced to change his starting line-up on Tuesday night after playing the same starting eleven for five games running. This is an extremely rare occurrence and last happened in December 1996 when Gordon Strachan was able to select this line up for five games in a row:

Ogrizovic: Telfer, Shaw, Paul Williams, Daish, Dublin, Richardson, McAllister, Huckerby, Whelan, Salako.

In those five games City won four and drew one game. The wins were at home to Newcastle (2-1), Leicester (a) (2-0), Leeds (a) (3-1), Middlesbrough (h) (3-0) and Sunderland (h) (2-2). The club record for number of games unchanged to my knowledge is seven. This occurred at the start of the 1954-55 (six wins and one draw), 1964-65 season (five straight wins and two defeats) and at the start of the 1973-74 season (four wins out of seven). It is not a coincidence that an unchanged side usually means good results.