Jim's column 20.10.2018

After successive wins over Charlton Athletic and Wycombe Wanderers the Sky Blues now face two tough away games in four days. They have poor records against Southend, today's opponents, and Bradford City, who they visit on Tuesday evening. The Shrimpers have been a bogey club for City going back to the 1960s when they were unbeaten in three consecutive games at Highfield Road and put 11 goals in City's net – a 3-3 draw in 1961-62 followed by 4-3 and 5-2 victories in the next two seasons (they were the first post-war opposition to score five at Highfield Road).

City have no victories in the last five meetings with the Essex club and only four wins in 24 league visits to the seaside resort. Their last victory at Roots Hall was a Friday night game in 2006. Freddy Eastwood scored twice to cancel out goals by Stephen Hughes and Colin Cameron (a penalty) and looked to have earned a point for the home side until Dele Adebola popped up with the winning goal. City's last two visits there have ended in 3-0 and 3-1 defeats.

Valley Parade is another unhappy hunting ground for the Sky Blues. They have failed to win in their last 10 trips stretching back to the last win there in 1959-60 when George Stewart (2) and Ron Farmer gave City a 3-1 win. It's not just Valley Parade that City have a problem with the Bantams – they have recorded only one win in the last 12 meetings, a 1-0 home win in April 2016 when Andy Rose netted the solitary goal. Jordy Hiwula will remember the 2017 game at the Ricoh – he scored the second goal in Bradford's 2-0 victory, a result that left the Sky Blues 14 points from safety and virtually relegated.

Keith Ballantyne regularly corresponds with me on City's history and in the summer following Ernie Hunt's death he posed a couple of interesting questions. He wanted to know if Ernie had ever appeared at Highfield Road before joining City in March 1968.

He played at Highfield Road for Swindon in:

1960-61: a 1-1 draw and scored.

1961-62: City won 2-1

1962-63: City won 2-0

1964-65: City won 3-2 (he scored a pen)

And for Wolves in:

1966-67: City won 3-1

The other question concerned the 'Three Ernies' – Hunt, Machin and Hannigan. Keith wondered how many times all three played in the same City team. Ernie Machin joined City from Nelson in 1962, Hannigan joined from Preston in November 1967 and Hunty came from Everton in March 1968.

                                                                Ernie Hannigan

                                                                 Ernie Hunt

                                                             Ernie Machin

In 1967-68 all three appeared together in four games. All three started seven games in 1968-9 (Hannigan appeared in three more as substitute). In 1969-70 Hannigan only started seven games in total and Hunt started in six of them but Machin was absent in all of them. So in total there were only eleven games when all three started.

Keith also wanted to know if George Hudson played for Tranmere in the FA Cup games in 1967-68, after leaving City for Northampton in 1966. The Hud played for Tranmere in both FA Cup games v City in 1968. He scored one of the goals in Tranmere's 2-0 replay win, George Yardley scored the other.

Jim's column 19.9.2015

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about City's inability to beat Southend United at home. You have to go back to the early 1960s to find the last time City beat the Shrimpers in a league game, although the teams have only met on a few occasions in the intervening years. Arthur Warner of Binley wrote to me with his memories of an earlier game against the Essex club:

Your article took me back to when I was about 9 or 10 in the mid 1950s a Third Division South game against Southend. It had been raining heavily all that Saturday morning, so dad said we'll go into the covered end (West End), behind the goal. He always went   on the Kop so it was a bit of a treat for me to go in the covered end. I seem to remember that the game was played in heavy rain and the pitch was a mud bath. I remember City had former England cap Jack Lee at centre-forward. He could have had a hat trick but the ball kept sticking in the mud in the goalmouth. I remember little Peter Hill playing and two of my favourites, Alan Moore and Reg Matthews. The game was abandoned I think half way through the second half with the City winning 3 or 4-1. What brings me to remember this game was that the City lost the rearranged fixture 3 or 4-1 later in the season. Hopefully you can put the record straight for me. Another game I remember against Southend when they upset the apple cart, was played on a Friday night - can't remember the reason why -in our 1964 promotion year and they beat City 5-2 . Can't remember whether it  rained or not that Friday night though.

The abandoned game Arthur remembers so well is not part of City's official records but I do have the details. It was played on Saturday 26^th March 1955 and City led 3-1 when the referee abandoned the game because of heavy rain in the 68^th minute. Barry Hawkings, Colin Collindridge & Jack Lee netted the goals in front of a tiny crowd of 4,100. City's line up was as follows:

 Reg Matthews: Ken Jones, Roy Kirk: Iain Jamieson, Martin McDonnell, Frank Austin: Alan Moore, Barry Hawkings, Jack Lee, Peter Hill, Colin Collindridge. At the time the attendance would have been the smallest crowd to watch a City home game since the 1920s but it didn't enter the record books. Ten days later the gate dropped to 3,936 for the visit of Newport County.

                                                  Coventry City 1954-55

The Southend game was re-arranged for a midweek game in early May & Arthur's memory is good, City lost 1-4 with Jock Lockhart netting a hat-trick for the Shrimpers in front of a crowd of 7,303.

Arthur also remembers the game in 1967 when Bobby Gould became the first Coventry-born player to score a top-flight hat-trick.

I was at the Burnley game when Bobby got his hat trick and gave us a 5-1 win, and l can remember the story on the back page of the Telegraph on the Monday was that manager Noel Cantwell said that he would not sell Bobby for £100,000 on that performance. Big money back then, but as usual we could not keep him, and a couple of months later he was sold to Arsenal for £90,000. As you know the £90,000 was spent on Neil Martin from Sunderland who was a good replacement and scored many important goals for us.

The recent Southend home game saw City's two goals scored by central defenders, Reda Johnson & Sam Ricketts. Sam Gayton wondered when the last time that two central defenders scored in the same City game. It was a great question & I had to dig deep to find the answer. It was back on New Years Day 1997 when City drew 2-2 at home to Sunderland in a Premier League game. City went into the game on a four-game winning run but trailed to a 6^th minute Michael Bridges goal. Dion Dublin (playing in defence) headed City level four minutes later. After 18 minutes Steve Agnew put the visitors ahead again from the penalty spot after Liam Daish brought down John Mullin. Ten minutes later Daish made amends as he headed an equaliser. City looked the more likely winners until Dublin was sent off by Graham Poll five minutes before the break after retaliating against Bridges.

After the game City were in 12^th place in the table, and Sunderland one place higher. Both sides however struggled in early 1997 – Sunderland won only four out of 17 games – and on the final day of the season City saved themselves with that famous win at Tottenham, a result which sent Sunderland down.

Jim's column 5.9.2015

Monday night's home game with Southend was definitely two points dropped in my opinion. City had the lion's share of the play & deserved to win but not for the first time they failed to convert a penalty. They have now missed seven of the last eight penalties awarded, stretching back almost 18 months. Since 11 March 2014 when Callum Wilson & Carl Baker both scored penalties at Gillingham, the only successful penalty for Sky Blues has been Gary Madine at the same venue in January this year. The seven culprits to fail to convert are:

2013-14

Callum Wilson (Stevenage home)

Carl Baker (MK Dons home)

2014-15

Reda Johnson (Worcester FAC home)

Marcus Tudgay (Walsall away)

Gary Madine (Yeovil away)

Nick Proschwitz (Crawley away)

2015-16

Jim O'Brien (Southend home)

It's a sad state of affairs when so many professional footballers cannot score from twelve yards, especially when you consider that City's penalty kings Ronnie Farmer & Gary McAllister had such good records from the spot. Farmer missed only one in 23 attempts & McAllister one out of 16.

After the game manager Tony Mowbray wondered why Adam Armstrong, as a man used to finding the net, didn't insist on taking penalties. He would have the added benefit of improving his goal tally, something all strikers, whatever they may say, desperately want to do. It set me thinking about some of City's successful strikers over the years & whether they were penalty takers. Some of the most prolific didn't go anywhere near a penalty including 25-goal Terry Bly in 1963 and George Hudson, another 20 goals -a -season man. Bobby Gould managed 24 goals in 1967 without being a spot-kick man and Ian Wallace, Mick Ferguson and Terry Gibson bagged lots of goals without penalties. Similarly only one of Mick Quinn's 17 goals in 1993 was a penalty.

In more recent times Dion Dublin had half a season in 1998 as penalty specialist when McAllister was injured. He managed six league penalties which when added to his twelve from open play made him the Premiership's joint leading scorer. Later Gary McSheffrey's goalscoring record was enhanced by his penalty goals. In fact, but for his spot kicks Gary would have struggled to reach double figures in any season and in 2004-05 six of his 12 league goals came from the spot. Mind you he did miss more than his fair share too.

Two seasons ago Callum Wilson became the first City player to score 20 league goals in a season since Wallace in 1978 but only two of them were spot-kicks & I remember his dreadful miss against Stevenage which would have meant he equalled Quinn's post-war record of scoring in six consecutive games.

The bottom line is that the manager must appoint a penalty taker and probably get Ronnie Farmer down to Ryton to give him some coaching on the perfect spot-kick.

Older fans will remember the visits of Southend to Highfield Road in the 1960s & City failed to break that hoodoo on Monday night. Between 1961-64 Southend visited the old ground three times, drawing 3-3 in 1961-62, and winning 4-3 in 1962-63 and 5-2 in 1963-64. The latter result stunned City fans as the Sky Blues were top of Division Three at the time & heading for promotion. Monday night's draw means that the Shrimpers have not lost in Coventry in five league visits going back to 1960.