Jim's column 8.3.14

Last Sunday's 0-0 draw at home to Shrewsbury was a very rare occurrence - the first goal-less draw in a Coventry league game since 17 March 2012.  That day Andy Thorn's side grabbed a point at Watford to end a dreadful sequence of 10 away defeats stretching back to October 2011 and kept their first clean sheet on the road of what was a dire season that culminated in relegation from the Championship. Of the side that won a point at Vicarage Road only Joe Murphy & Jordan Clarke are still at the club. The last home game to end  0-0 before Sunday was also against Watford, earlier in the same season.

Sunday's clean sheet was the first that City have kept in 16 league games -since the 3-0 home win over Notts County in early November. When I checked the records I realised that it was the club's worst run without a clean sheet for thirty years. Between Christmas 1983 and August 1984 Bobby Gould's team failed to keep a clean sheet for 22 league games. The worst run in the club's league history is 23 set in the 1956-57 Division Three South season.

On Wednesday evening the Sky Blues got back to winning ways with a 2-1 victory over Walsall. Callum Wilson was back on the score-sheet after his two-month absence and netted his 15^th league goal of the season to draw level with Leon Clarke in the scoring charts. This is the first season for 35 years that two Coventry players have netted 15 league goals (Ian Wallace & Mick Ferguson were the last in 1977-78). Callum is now one goal short of McGoldrick's 16 league goals last season which was the best haul by a City player since Dion Dublin's 18 in the Premiership in 1997-98, and on the evidence of Wednesday night's performance looks well capable of smashing that record.

Following my piece about the origin of the Bantams nickname used by the club from 1908 and 1962 I had several readers give me their view. Graham Smith, author of Sky Blue Heaven, wrote: 'Regarding the Bantams nickname, I can add some detail to how it came about. When I was researching my book "Sky Blue Heaven" at Coventry library in the Evening Telegraph archives, I found the sequence of articles that led to the name.

To summarise, as you said, in 1908, "Nemo" invited ideas for a club nickname. There was a suggestion "that the three geese that promenade themselves about at Highfield Road would make a good mascot."

On November 7, 1908 a reader from Berry Street offered the name "The Bantams" saying "it is a good sporting name and judging by the weight and physique of the Southern League teams...City are surely the lightweights...Perhaps one of our fur and feather supporters will be kind enough to present a bantam to the club as a mascot." Nemo reckoned it to be "Not half a bad idea."

Nevertheless, other ideas kept coming, including ,"The Pedallers," (cycle industry) and "The Watchdogs," (watchmaking), "The Sinners," "The Terriers," "The Chickens" and "The Pip-Pips." But, by the end of the month, Nemo was referring to the teams as the Bantams.

Incidentally, in 1922, City nearly became "The Scrapers." A ballot was held to coincide with the change of colours to green and red halves. The prize of two guineas attracted ideas such as "The Velocipedes" and "The Oojahs," but retaining the Bantams name was the overall winner.

Mike Young also sent me copies of the above fascinating articles from the Midland Daily Telegraph which confirms the above. He had also heard it said that an enthusiastic supporter's donation of a pair of bantams cemented the deal and that the club were named after a make of car constructed in the City at the time. I have heard the 'Singer Bantam' story before and don't buy it as the car was only launched in 1935.

 In last week's tribute to former City player Gordon Nutt there was a picture of the club's youth team from 1949 & several readers have tried to name all the players. Former player Lol Harvey was at the club at the time & could name most of the people in the picture. 

Back row (L to R): Ces Barratt (coach) (father of Harry Barratt), ? Bates, John Quinney, Reg Matthews, Bill Lovett, Albert 'Bulldog' Sneddon, unknown, Harry Moore (trainer).

Front row (L to R): Gordon Nutt, Philip Cresswell, unknown, unknown, Billy Watson.

Can anyone fill in the gaps?

Jim's column 15.2.14

As I write this the weather forecast for the next few days is not good. More rain is expected before today's home game with Bradford City and there must be some doubts whether the game will go ahead. It is a month since the last home game at Sixfields after the postponement of the Walsall game two weeks ago and as a result the Sky Blues have now played five successive away games. Several readers have pointed this out and asked when the club last had such a run. Older fans will remember the bad winter of 1976-77 when the Highfield Road pitch suffered serious drainage problems and the team played eight consecutive away games between 22 January and 2 April. Only one win (at Leeds) and one draw resulted from the eight matches and City spiralled from a comfortable mid-table position into a relegation battle which went to the wire and only resolved in that dramatic 2-2 draw with Bristol City on a Thursday night in May.

The 1976-77 season was the worst season in the club's history for postponed games with five call-offs with the famous Bristol game postponed twice, on 1 January and 1 March. That season even eclipsed 1947 & 1963, the UK's worst winters since World War 2, for home games called off. In 1947 City had three home games called off & because of government restrictions on midweek games they didn't complete their fixtures until the last week in May and the First Division title wasn't decided until June. In 1963 football was decimated again by snow and ice and City didn't play a game for two months but although there were 21 postponed away games (including 16 FA Cup ties at Lincoln) there were only two home games called off.

The Walsall postponement was the first Coventry City home game to be called off because of weather since January 2002 when the New Years Day fixture with Rotherham and the FA Cup tie with Tottenham four days later were postponed because of snow on the Highfield Road pitch. 

Ed Blackaby e-mailed me recently about Lee Hurst, a Coventry-born youngster who broke into the first team in 1991 and played 55 first team games before suffering a career-ending injury at a pre-season training camp in 1993. Lee, an all-round midfield player, had had an outstanding season in 1992-93 and looked to be a first-team regular for years to come before his unfortunate accident. He still lives in the area & runs a successful painting & decorating business & has attended several Legends Days. Ed's question was regarding another City player from the same period called Lee Hirst who he thought came from Scarborough.

Ed is correct. Lee Hirst was a central defender who scored the 93rd minute winning goal for Scarborough against City in a two legged League Cup tie in 1992-93. Bobby Gould signed Hirst for the Sky Blues the following summer and although he was given a squad number and played in one pre-season friendly he could not break into the first team & after a season in the reserves was released. One of his contemporaries at City told me that Hirst had a blinder for Scarborough but never repeated that form at City. Hirst had tough competition at Highfield Road; Gould had successfully converted Phil Babb to a central defender & he and Peter Atherton had excellent seasons plus there was also a young Dave Busst as back-up.

Today the Sky Blues entertain the Bantams (Bradford City). Over the years I have been asked hundreds of times 'Why were Coventry City nicknamed the Bantams before Jimmy Hill turned them into the Sky Blues?'

According to David Brassington's 'Singers to Sky Blues' excellent history of the club published in 1985, the Bantams nickname was first used in 1908 after Nemo in the Midland Daily Telegraph pointed out that City, who had recently admitted to the Southern League, were one of the only clubs not to have a nickname. He asked for suggestions and being the lightweights of the league the Bantams nickname was adopted & soon afterwards the small fowl was used to depict the club in newspaper cartoons. However I recently came across a letter from a Mr Kennell to the Coventry Telegraph from 1967. He recalled asking his father 40 years earlier why they were the Bantams & his father had explained that the were named after the bantam weathercocks on the spires of the three main churches of the city. I wonder if anyone has any other theories for the nickname?