Sunday, 15 December 2024

Lions tamed again at the New Den

Frank Lampard got his first victory as Coventry City head coach at Millwall last week with a gutsy display in challenging weather conditions at the New Den. Ephron Mason-Clark's second half goal their third win in five visits to New Cross following the 2-1 win in 2020-21 and the 3-0 last season. It's a massive turnaround in City's fortunes in that part of South London – prior to 2020 they had won only twice in 20 visits at either the Den or the New Den (they moved in 1993), stretching back to 1955. Even in the title-winning seasons of 1963-64 and 1966-67 Jimmy Hill's team failed to win at the intimidating old stadium in New Cross. In 1963-64 Jimmy's team drew 0-0 at Cold Blow Lane in a game where City's penalty king Ron Farmer had the only penalty miss of his career. Then, three years later, the Sky Blues lost an early season game 1-0 in their Second Division title season. The only wins in that run came on Boxing Day 1955 when goalkeeper Reg Matthews, soon to be capped by England, put on a brilliant display to thwart the South Londoners and then post-match got embroiled with Millwall fans abusing City's players as they boarded their coach to return home. City won the game 2-0 with goals from Alan Moore and Ken McPherson. Then in 2015 Tony Mowbray's exciting young team won there 4-0 with goals from Adam Armstrong (2), Ruben Lameiras and Jim O'Brien. 

My story about former Coventry City youth player Johnny Stevenson playing for Australia in the 1970s I had emails regarding teammates of Stevenson. Jon Strange asked me about Trevor Smith who played on the left wing in the team but never made the first team. Birmingham-born Trevor, namesake of a famous Blues centre-half from the 1950s, was only 15-years-old when he was a regular in the 1969-70 youth team and went on to play in the youth team for three seasons. He was released by Coventry in the summer of 1972 and joined Walsall but made only three appearances for the Saddlers before dropping into non-league. Over the next few seasons he played for Kidderminster, Cheltenham, Warley Borough, Lye Town, Stourbridge, Bromsgrove, Alvechurch, Oldbury United and AP Leamington.


Another member of that memorable youth team of 1969-70 was Alan Green who was also 15-year-old at the start of that season. Philip Burton pointed out that he won an international cap for his adopted country, USA. Alan, a member of the England Youth team that won the European Championships in 1972, made over 100 first team appearances for the Sky Blues between 1972 and 1979 before moving to the States playing for Washington Diplomats, Jacksonville Tea Men, Golden Bay Earthquakes and New York Cosmos. In 1983 he obtained American citizenship and the following May won his one and only cap against Italy at New York Giants Stadium, a 0-0 draw. He was up against Italian legends such as Franco Baresi, Gaetano Scirea, Roberto Mancini and Marco Tardelli.

For those of you struggling about what to buy your Coventry City-mad loved ones I can recommend three books recently published. First, Michael Keane's 'A Season To Remember '– the story of the 1986-87 season, the season when City stunned the football world by winning the FA Cup. People forget that it was more than the Cup winning season and that John Sillett and George Curtis turned the club's fortunes completely around by playing flowing attractive football and finished in the top half of the First Division for only the fourth time in 20 years. The team won 14 home games, more than any other season in the last 57 years! The book superbly covers the season, match by match.

Talking about 1987, Dave Bennett's biography entitled 'Benno' has recently been published by Pitch Publishing. Co-written by Rich Chamberlain, the book reveals a lot of detail about Dave growing up in Manchester and his early career at Manchester City. With some fascinating stories about the '87 Cup run it's well worth a read.

Finally, Steve Phelps, another regular writer on all things Coventry City, has published an updated version of his 'On This Day'. There is at least one story for every day of the year in diary form and covers all the major events in the club's history. It is an excellent stocking-filler for Sky Blue supporters. 

Sunday, 1 December 2024

Coventry City's international managers

After three weeks of speculation Frank Lampard has been named as the new Coventry City head coach and takes charge of his first game today at home to Cardiff City. Frank, of course has had an illustrious playing career playing almost 900 games and scoring over 200 goals as well as winning 106 full caps for England. His appointment is probably the highest profile one since Ron Atkinson arrived in 1995, and for a time helped the club hold their head above water in the Premier League. Time will tell whether it is a good decision as Frank has the ghost of Mark Robins and his seven years of success looking over his shoulder.

He is the 42nd City manager/head coach (excluding caretaker or interim managers) since the club joined the Football League in 1919. He is also the 17th former international to sit in the boss' chair and the eighth former England international. Of the 17 only one, Roland Nilsson, can top Frank's number of caps. Roland won 116 caps for Sweden in a dazzling playing career.

                                                Roland Nilsson, City's most capped manager

The seventeen former internationals are as follows:

Roland Nilsson (Sweden) 116 caps

Frank Lampard (England) 106

Terry Butcher (England) 77

Iain Dowie (Northern Ireland) 59

Gary McAllister (Scotland) 57

Phil Neal (England) 50

Gordon Strachan (Scotland) 50

Noel Cantwell (Republic of Ireland) 36

Chris Coleman (Wales) 32

Steven Pressley (Scotland) 32

Don Howe (England) 23

Gordon Milne (England) 14

Peter Reid (England) 13

Joe Mercer (England) 5

Harry Buckle (Northern Ireland) 3

Harry Storer (England) 2

Eric Black (Scotland) 2


Ed Blackaby is regularly in touch with tit-bits about Coventry City's history and recently came up with a fact that was new to me. It concerns Johnny Stevenson, a young Scottish player who was on City's books in the late 60s/early 70s. He was the nephew, through marriage, of City forward at the time, Gerry Baker. Johnny, a midfielder, was part of probably City's greatest ever youth team which included Dennis Mortimer, Alan Green, Bobby Parker and Jimmy Holmes. The team reached the FA Youth Cup final in 1970 only to lose to Tottenham after a two legged final and two replays. Johnny was one of only three members of that team who didn't progress to the first team (David Icke and Ivan Crossley were the others) In those days I used to attend youth games when they were held at Highfield Road and remember the memorable performances by that team. They beat Brentford 13-0 and Shrewsbury 6-0 with Johnny scoring a stunning donkey kick goal a few weeks after Ernie Hunt did it in 1970, before it was outlawed. 

Ed reminded me that Johnny moved back to Scotland after being released in 1972 and played for Hearts for three seasons and briefly for St Johnstone before emigrating to Australia. The surprising information is that he played two games for the Australian national team in 1978 whilst appearing for Sydney City. In 1978 he was selected to play against Greece and the following year against Yugoslav club side Partizan Belgrade. The latter game probably doesn't count as a full international as it was against a club side. We can however say that Johnny was an Australian international.


                                     The 1970 youth squad

It reminded me of another former Coventry City player, full-back Terry Springthorpe, who emigrated to the US in 1951 (months after a big money move from Wolves) and in 1953 was capped by the USA against England!