The Sky Blues bounced back from the defeat at Wrexham last weekend to record another home victory, 3-1 over Sheffield United on Tuesday night. The CBS Arena has certainly become a fortress for the team, especially since Frank Lampard took charge last November. Only two regular season league games have been lost in the last 23 and those were to last season's promoted clubs, Leeds United and Burnley. History tells us that strong home form is the key to successful promotion campaigns:
1935-36 Division 3S champions Played 21. 19 wins, 1 draw, 1 defeat.
1958-59 Division 4 runners up Played 23. 18 wins, 4 draws, 1 defeat.
1963-64 Division 3 champions Played 23. 14 wins, 7 draws, 2 defeats.
1966-67 Division 2 champions Played 21. 17 wins, 3 draws, 1 defeat.
2019-20 League 1 champions Played 17. 11 wins, 5 draws, 1 defeat.
With 16 home games remaining this season a continuation of the home form would probably guarantee a play-off position even if the team lost all its away games. The outstanding start to the season puts the Sky Blues in a very strong position for an automatic promotion spot. However there is a long way to go and I remind readers that despite a 15-game unbeaten start in 1937-38 the team failed to get promotion after a mediocre second half of the season. Similarly, in 1950-51, City were top of Division Two on New Year's Day but faded and finished seventh.
The goals continue to flow for the team and after 14 games they have scored 39 – the highest in all four English leagues. Readers are asking 'what is the club record for goals scored?'
The answer is 108 in 1931-32 – the season that the legendary Clarrie Bourton rose to prominence and netted 49 league goals as City finished 12th in Division Three South. They scored 106 the following season (finishing sixth), 100 in 1933-34 (runners up). In 1934-35 they finished third but only scored 86 goals. Promotion finally arrived in 1935-36 as the Bantams scored 102 goals. Since then the best season has been in the 1963-64 Division Three championship season when 98 goals went into the opposition's net.
It is interesting to note that in the record breaking 1931-32 season City had scored 32 goals after 14 games whilst the current team has 39 to its credit.
Last week's trip to Wrexham was City's first league visit to the Racecourse Ground since 1963-64 when Jimmy Hill's side drew 1-1 on the way to winning promotion from Division Three. It was only the fifth league visit in 100 seasons of league football. City had the rare occurrence of conceding a hat-trick with Wrexham's expensive striker Kieffer Moore becoming only the third player to score three or more against City in a league game in the last eight seasons (Portsmouth's Callum Lang and Hull's Oscar Estupinan are the others). A lot of fans thought Moore had an excellent scoring record against the Sky Blues but in fact he had only managed three in seven games before last week, two for Cardiff in 2020-21 and one for Ipswich in 2023-24.
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