After a run of ten games without a win stretching back to September, the Sky Blues managed to gain all three points against Peterborough United last Saturday but it was a close run thing. When Posh scored their equalising goal things looked bleak for Chris Coleman and it was hard not to imagine a loud anti-Coleman protest if Freddy Eastwood had not completed his hat-trick and clinched the points for the Sky Blues. The bad run came to an end but it was hardly convincing. It was, by the way, City’s first home win on a Saturday since the 1-0 win over Doncaster in March!
Freddy was the star of the show and rightly got all the plaudits in the press.
Coventry City hat-tricks are as rare as an MP’s honest expense claim. Unbelievably it was the first City league hat-trick for almost eight years – since Lee Hughes scored three at Crewe in a 6-1 romp in early 2002. You have to go back even further to find the last home league hat-trick, that was Darren Huckerby in a 4-0 win over Nottm. Forest in 1999. In fact it is only the third home hat-trick in twenty years and the last ten league hat-tricks for the Sky Blues are:
1.10.88 David Speedie v Middlesbrough (h) lost 3-4
2.1.89 David Speedie v Sheffield Wed (h) won 5-0
14.8.93 Mick Quinn v Arsenal (a) won 3-0
14.3.95 Peter Ndlovu v Liverpool (a) won 3-2
4.12.95 Dion Dublin v Sheffield Wed (a) lost 3-4
9.8.97 Dion Dublin v Chelsea (h) won 3-2
25.4.98 Darren Huckerby v Leeds (a) draw 3-3
9.1.99 Darren Huckerby v Nottm Forest (h) won 4-0
9.2.2002 Lee Hughes v Crewe (a) won 6-1
12.12.2009 Freddy Eastwood v Peterborough (h) won 3-2
During the period Kevin Gallacher, Huckerby, John Aloisi & Gary McSheffrey have all scored hat-tricks in cup games with McSheffrey’s the last against Rushden & Diamonds in 2002.
We can only imagine what fun it was watching Coventry City in 1931-32, that season the immortal Clarrie Bourton scored seven hat-tricks in his haul of 49 league goals. That is more than City players have managed in the last 14 years.
Since Hughes’ three goal strike at Crewe in 2002, two players have scored league hat-tricks against the Sky Blues. In 2004-05 QPR’s Jamie Cureton scored three in the 4-1 victory at Loftus Road and in 2005-06 Vincent Pericard of Plymouth netted all three in Argyle’s 3-1 win.
Talking of Argyle, City travel there today in a vital game trying to end their Home Park bogey. Since Plymouth came into the Championship in 2004 City have lost four out of the five games there, drawing the first one. This is one record that needs breaking today!
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