Six wins out of seven following victory at Hillsborough

The Sky Blues made it six league wins out of seven with their injury-time winner at Hillsborough last Saturday. Ellis Simms, unlucky not to be on a hat-trick after what looked a perfectly good goal in the first half was disallowed, was on hand to pounce when the Wednesday ‘keeper James Beadle failed to catch a long punt. For the second game in a row the team scored an injury-time winning goal, a feat I can’t find a precedent for. Six wins out of seven is the best run by a City team since the League 1 championship season when the last seven games before lockdown yielded six wins and a draw. Saturday’s victory over the Owls lifted the side into seventh place in the table, their highest placing this season.

The performance at Hillsborough wasn’t brilliant and the team rode their luck a bit in the second half but as a friend said to me ‘It’s a sign of a good side to win when they’re not playing well’. I find some of the criticism of the last two performances strange - I remember City’s 1966-67 Division two promotion season and after Christmas, as Jimmy Hill’s team extended their unbeaten run, there were many close shaves with defeat and at times the football was pretty ugly. Opposition managers and some of the media criticised Hill’s tactics and physical approach but the history books record the club won the title and reached the First Division for the first time in their history.

Today Preston North End are in town and City will need to be at their best to end the dreadful run of 22 league games without a victory over the Lancashire team. The last win was in September 2007 when late goals from Dele Adebola and Michael Doyle gave City a 2-1 win.

Another sad passing to report this week. Former journalist and broadcaster Marshall Stewart died aged 88 last month. Marshall was the author of the first book written about Coventry City, ‘Miracle in Sky Blue’, published in September 1967. A thin, but fascinating book covering the club’s rise from Division Four to Division One. Marshall, a Cov kid who was later made a Freeman of the city, had covered the club’s affairs in the now defunct Coventry Standard from the 1950s and later joined the BBC where he was the editor of the Today programme. He continued as a senior editor in broadcasting with LBC, a further stint at the Beeb and with ITV in the Midlands. I remember purchasing his book outside Highbury where City were playing for the first time in September 1967 and my interest in the club’s history stemmed from that book. I got to meet Marshall some years ago and enjoyed his stories of covering Coventry City. RIP Marshall.