Jim's Column 29.10.23

Sir Bobby Charlton, the finest English footballer of the post-war era, sadly passed away last weekend and his death was honoured at many football grounds this week. His glittering career with Manchester United saw him play 810 games for his only club and win 106 caps for England. He also left his mark on Coventry City appearing on a number of occasions against the Sky Blues and showing his shooting prowess to its full.

Manchester United manager Matt Busby gave Bobby his first team debut as an 18-year-old in October 1956 and the Ashington-born prodigy didn't let Matt down. He scored two goals in a 4-2 victory over Charlton and by the end of that season he'd scored 12 goals in 17 games, won a league championship medal, an FA Cup runners up medal and scored against Real Madrid in a European Cup semi-final. The Busby Babes were the outstanding post-war English club and would surely have won a third successive league title in 1957-58 but for the tragic air crash at Munich in February 1958 and may have given Real Madrid a closer run in the European Cup. At the time of the crash Charlton was in top form and scored nine goals in the previous five games including two in Belgrade the previous day.

Charlton, still strapped in his seat, was thrown clear of the burning wreckage of the plane and dragged to safety by goalkeeper Harry Gregg. Eight of his team-mates (five of whom were current internationals) and 13 other passengers didn't survive. Bobby lost his best friends and his mentors on that snowy day in Munich but was back in action within three weeks and helping a makeshift United team reach the FA Cup final, swept on by a national wave of emotion.

I have three distinctive memories of Bobby Charlton playing against Coventry City. The first was in 1963 and United's post-Munich rebuilding was well under way when they came to Highfield Road for an FA Cup sixth round tie. In his first full season Jimmy Hill had become Cup giant-killers and seen off two Second Division sides Portsmouth and Sunderland, the latter five days before the United tie in a feverish atmosphere that saw City score two late goals in front of over 40,000 at Highfield Road. City were in the last eight of the competition for the first time since 1910.

As a schoolboy Bobby Charlton was one of my heroes in those less partisan days when you could admire players from clubs you didn't necessarily support and I can remember the excited anticipation of seeing Charlton at Highfield Road almost as much as hoping City would win.

Three days of almost continuous rain had left the pitch a sticky mess and I stood with my dad on the Kop, soaked to the skin. The rain was forgotten as the Sky Blues started superbly with Terry Bly netted from a Willie Humphries cross after five minutes and for the next fifteen minutes dominated their higher status rivals. Then Bobby, transformed into a left winger but with a roving brief, took over and United found their stature. Albert Quixall crossed, Denis Law flicked it on and Bobby's first-time shot beat Bob Wesson for the equaliser. Maurice Setters, later to play for City, drove United on and but for him and Charlton the Reds would not have won the tie. Four minutes into the second half Charlton burst through the Coventry defence at such speed that his marker, John Sillett, and company just stood and gaped while he let loose a right-foot rocket from 18 yards. United scored a third goal when the muddy surface contrived to give Quixall an easy goal but Jimmy Hill's team were not disgraced by the 3-1 scoreline. 

The second memory was Coventry's next encounter with Bobby in 1967-68, their first season in the top flight. I bunked off school to get to Old Trafford for the night match to see a masterclass 4-0 victory for the Reds. John Aston and George Best scored first half goals and after the break United put the Sky Blues on the rack with continuous, smooth-moving pressure with some thunderbot shooting. Aston headed a third goal before Charlton scored the best of the night. Derek Henderson in the Coventry Telegraph described it thus: 'a Charlton special, City back-pedalling and realising the damger too late as the England man hit a 30-yard shell-like effort which kept the applause going for over two minutes.'

                            Bobby Charlton and Willie Carr tussle for the ball in 1969

Charlton inspired United to European Cup glory that season with two goals in the final against Benfica but a few weeks earlier the great man could do little to stop the Sky Blues beating United 2-0 at Highfield Road to help their relegation battle no end.

The third and final memory is from his penultimate season at United in 1971-72. On Easter Saturday United, league leaders up to Christmas but in a slump that saw them finish eighth, took City apart in the first 45 minutes at Highfield Road. Best and Ian Storey-Moore, with his dashing white boots, scored early goals but Bobby's left foot goal from a free-kick on the edge of the area took the biscuit. 

He did make one last apperance at Coventry, a 1-1 draw the following season in Tommy Docherty's brawling thugs team in which Charlton looked decidedly uncomfortable.

Football has changed so much since Bobby's heyday and it is difficult to know where he stands in the pantheon of the game's great players. Whilst I didn't appreciate his great performances against my team I did recognise his unique talent and I can say that in an England shirt he gave me some of the most pleasurable moments of my football watching life. Since his retirement no English player has yet matched his achievements on the pitch. 

It's also sad to report the death, at the age of 65, of former City player Dave Ellis. At the age of 16 Dave was signed from Bedworth United in 1975 and played for City in the FA Youth Cup in 1975-76 alongside Garry Thompson and Paul Dyson and made six appearances for the reserve teaam. After leaving the club in 1977 he spent two years in Melbourne, Australia and played for Mooroolbark United FC. After returning to the UK he had spells with Northampton and Bristol City without making senior appearances. His son Ryan sent me this lovely picture of Dave (right) signing for the Sky Blues with the club's assistant manager Bob Dennison and his parents.

JIM'S COLUMN 16.1.10

This year’s FA Cup run came to a shuddering halt at a freezing Ricoh Arena on Tuesday night with Portsmouth gaining revenge for the defeats of 1910 and 1963 with their late goals. With City’s excellent record in league games this season (they are the only Championship side who haven’t conceded a goal in the last five minutes) I was contemplating a fourth round tie with Sunderland when Stephen Wright headed into his own net, then Pompey did it again in added time at the end of extra-time with Mokoena heading home unmarked.

The gate was a pitifully low 7,097 – the lowest home FA Cup crowd since 1909. Apart from visits from Middlesbrough and Chelsea, City’s crowds in the competition have slumped in the last few years and the last FA Cup game at Highfield Road in 2005 attracted only 7,628 was the lowest for almost a century. On Tuesday the cold weather and the fact that the game was televised had a big impact and the other games on the night also had low crowds with under 10,000 at St.Andrews and barely more than 7,000 at Derby and Bristol City, and under 6,000 at QPR. The last time a crowd as small watched City at home in the competition was for a Qualifying round tie against Wrexham in October 1909.

My comments about the Portsmouth games in 1963 prompted some correspondence including a long email from Dave Walker of Allesley Park. He was at the first replay at Highfield Road but didn’t expect to see the second replay. He takes up the story:

At the time, I was an apprentice at Coventry Gauge and Tool Co., (£3 7s 6d a week), and out of the blue, one of my mates, John Taylor, came round to my machine and said, ‘If we can swing it with the management, would you be interested in us getting a coach party to go to Tottenham for the replay’, which was on a Tuesday night. What a question?

In double quick time, we got permission from the company, to knock off early, to travel to London, with the proviso that we put in unpaid overtime to make up the lost time, for which we had no objection at all, booked the coach, which I seem to remember cost about ten bob a head and we set out, full of hope for Tottenham.
The game was a cracker and as you can imagine the Sky Blue song was belted out by all concerned on the way back.

Next came the Sunderland match, which was something of a problem for me, in that I had been born in Sunderland (my mother’s home town) but lived in Coventry since 1952 which was my dad’s birthplace, but was, by now a confirmed City fan. I have heard some cheers in my time, in big stadiums, but when the ball went through Jim Montgomery’s hands into the net it was a wonder the Kop and old stand at Highfield Road didn’t collapse.

The next problem was getting tickets for the Manchester United tie, which I did, but only at the last minute. That game was a bit sad, in that there will, for all time, I suppose, be a debate as to whether Willie Humphries’ shot crossed the line of not, plus City being undone by an incredible goal from Bobby Charlton. A ‘nothing’ situation, with John Sillett marking him and a thunderbolt shot, totally out of the blue that nearly broke the net. Genius in action.

As I write this Gary Madine’s move to Coventry City from Carlisle is in doubt. Nevertheless he is approaching a Coventry City record as a substitute. The tall striker has now appeared on nine occasions as a substitute without ever starting a game. The club record of sub appearances before a full league debut is held by Gary McSheffrey who made 11 sub appearances before his first league start in April 2002, although he did start a couple of League Cup games before then. In second place is Wayne Andrews who made 10 sub appearances for the Sky Blues without ever starting a game.

JIM'S COLUMN 9.1.10

I am very surprised that no commentators have mentioned the coincidence in the fourth round FA Cup draw this week. A victory over Portsmouth in next week’s replay will mean an attractive game with Sunderland. The last time City beat Pompey in the competition (in 1963) they also earned a home tie with Sunderland. They went on to beat the Black Cats on one of the most emotional nights in the club’s history and reached the quarter- finals of the competition. They lost to the eventual winners, Manchester United but it was those memorable cup games that put Coventry City back on the football map after more than a decade in the doldrums.

Any City fans aged 55 or over will have the Sunderland game etched on their memories. If they were there they will remember the massive crushing crowd, officially counted at 40,487 but believed to be more like 50,000 after two gates were broken down. Then they will remember City trailing to a first half goal, before pummelling the Wearsiders, and finally breaking them with goals from Dietmar Bruck and George Curtis in the last ten minutes. Many of those older fans will argue that it was the finest City victory of the post-war era, better than Wolves in ’67 or Wembley in ’87, and they will wax lyrically about the stars of that team like Willie Humphries, Terry Bly, Ronnie Rees, etc.

The weather this week has reminded me of that dreadful winter of 1963 and Coventry City’s performances as the country came out of the freezer helped Sky Blue fans forget about the awful weather.

To earn the tie with Sunderland, City, a Third Division side, needed three games to dispose of Portsmouth, then a Second Division side. The first game ended 1-1 at Fratton Park on a wet Wednesday night. Ron Saunders, later famous for managing Aston Villa, scored an early goal for Pompey but a battling Sky Blues performance was rewarded with Ken Hale’s 85th minute equaliser. Three days later the sides fought out another draw at Highfield Road with the biggest crowd of the season, so far, 25,642 watched City squander a 2-0 half-time lead (two goals from Jimmy Whitehouse) with former City player Albie McCann and Saunders levelling the scores and extra-time throwing up no outright winners. In those days there were no penalty shoot-outs and replays continued until a winner emerged so a second replay was planned for the following Tuesday night at neutral White Hart Lane. This time the Jimmy Hill’s boys made no mistake, coming from a goal down (that man Saunders again) to win 2-1 through goals from Terry Bly and Whitehouse and the Sky Blue song echoed around Tottenham’s famous stadium.

The other omen in the FA Cup this year is that the Sky Blues and Pompey have only met in the FA Cup on two previous occasions and on both occasions City have progressed to the quarter-finals. Exactly 100 years ago the teams, both then playing in the Southern League, were drawn together in a second round tie (equivalent of today’s fourth round). City had pulled off the shock result of the first round by winning at First Division Preston. A goal from Freddie Chaplin was enough to sink Pompey at Fratton Park in front of 11,631. City went on to beat another First Division side Nottingham Forest in the third round before losing 0-2 to Everton in the quarter-finals. Wouldn’t it be nice for the Sky Blues to emulate that great team from 1910 which first put City’s name into the headlines of the national newspapers with their giant-killing exploits.

It is sad to report the death of former City player Ron Wykes who passed away on 27 December aged 90. Although he never appeared for the first team he was a very promising youngster when the war broke out in 1939 and one who we can honestly say ‘but for the war’. A wing-half, Ron returned to Highfield Road after the war and was a regular for the reserves for the 1946-47 season.