Jim's column 17.12.2016

Thursday night's defeat to Sheffield United was City's sixth straight league defeat – ironically with probably their best display of the six. The last time City lost five consecutive league games was four years ago just after the club were relegated from the Championship. Andy Thorn's final game in charge was a 2-2 home draw with Bury and Richard Shaw and Lee Carsley were put in temporary charge of the team. After a thrilling 3-2 League Cup win over Birmingham City, the caretaker duo were in charge for four league games, all of which were lost. A 1-0 loss at Crewe was followed by a 2-1 home defeat to Stevenage and away defeats at Tranmere (0-2) and Shrewsbury (1-4). Mark Robins took over as permanent manager and lost his first game in charge (a 2-1 home defeat to Carlisle).

You have to go back 43 years for the last occurrence of a City side losing more than five consecutive league games. For several months of the 1972-73 season City fans were drooling over the football produced by Joe Mercer and Gordon Milne's team. The signings in October 1972 of Colin Stein and Tommy Hutchison sparked an unbeaten run of eight games and three FA Cup victories took them to the sixth round for the first time in 10 years. The Cup run ended at Molineux and City's subsequent form collapsed -they won only one of their last ten games and lost the last seven in a row. The seven included home defeats to Leeds, Derby and Liverpool and away reverses at Everton, Sheffield United, Chelsea and Wolves. The team finished 19^th after being 10^th before the Wolves Cup-tie. There was no rational explanation for the collapse by a very strong and experienced side that in addition to Stein & Hutchison contained Willie Carr, Dennis Mortimer, Chris Cattlin, Roy Barry, Mick Coop and Brian Alderson. Older fans remember that team with fondness and overlook that end of season collapse.

There are only two occasions in which City have lost more than seven consecutive league games. In the 1924-25 relegation season from Division Two they lost eight in a row between early November and early January including heavy away defeats at Hull (1-4), Derby (1-5) and South Shields (1-4). The record run however was set in 1919-20 when City lost their first nine games after joining the Football League Division Two. The run, which commenced with a 5-0 opening day home defeat to Tottenham was:

Aug 30 Tottenham (h) 0-5

Sept 3 Leeds City (a) 0-3

Sept 6 Tottenham (a) 1-4

Sept 11 Leeds City (h) 0-4

Sept 13 Birmingham (a) 1-4

Sept 20 Birmingham (h) 1-3

Sept 27 Leicester (a) 0-1

Oct 4 Leicester (h) 1-2

Oct 11 Fulham (h) 0-1

Manager Will Clayton was sacked after the loss at Filbert Street and secretary Harry Harbourne took over in a caretaker capacity with the board of directors selecting the team until 22^nd November when new boss Harry Pollitt arrived.

One of the most interesting stats from Thursday night was given to me by fellow historian Geoff Moore. Amongst other things he tracks players who have appeared at the Ricoh and tells me that Blades' substitute Leon Clarke set a record by appearing for his seventh different club at the stadium. He first played against the Sky Blues for Wolves at Highfield Road in 2004 and scored in a 2-2 draw. His first appearance at the Ricoh was in 2006 for Wolves then in 2010 he played there for Sheffield Wednesday and the following season he was in QPR colours as a substitute. In November 2012 he scored twice for Scunthorpe before joining City in January 2013. Since leaving City he appeared for Bury in the 6-0 hammering last season and on Thursday night took his total to seven as a brief substitute. Clarke, now aged 31, has played for seventeen different clubs, a number of them in more than one spell and according to Geoff has played for ten of the current League One clubs.

Billy Sharp, who scored both Blades' goals in Thursday's game has now netted eight goals in nine games against the Sky Blues with four of them on live television. He netted in City's 0-4 defeat at Southampton in their final game in the Championship in 2012 and a header at Bramall Lane a year ago before Thursday's brace.

Jim's column 19.12.2015

Coventry City's exciting eleven-game run without defeat in league games came to an end on Sunday at Bramall Lane in disappointing circumstances. The result was a travesty and the Blades could not believe their luck in finishing the game with eleven men, avoiding a goal when the ball clearly crossed the line and scoring the only goal with a deflection off Billy Sharp's shoulder. The Sky Blues had by far the better of the game and should have won comfortably.

As I have previously written, the run of 11 games, six wins and five draws, equals the run in the autumn of 2001 when Roland Nilsson took over from Gordon Strachan, and that was the best run since Jimmy Hill's 'Invincibles' in the 1966-67 Second Division promotion campaign. During that 25-game run City ground out a lot of results without playing well and after Christmas there were few attractive games. They won only four away games, drawing eight but at home they were unbeaten with eleven wins and two draws. Older fans will remember the backs to the wall draws at Rotherham, Crystal Palace and Bristol City and the scraped home wins over Norwich, Preston and Carlisle. My point is, I don't expect to see City play champagne soccer every week between now and the end of the season in order to win promotion.

Before today's game with Oldham, City, coincidentally, have 25 games remaining in League One and a repeat of the famous 1967 run would give them 15 wins and 10 draws for a total of 94 points and ample for automatic promotion. The fans just have to pray that they don't have one of their post-Christmas slumps.

After Billy Sharp scored the winning goal on Sunday Benjamin Lipman enquired if Sharp was close to matching Richard Cresswell's scoring record against the Sky Blues. Sharp's record is good – five in seven games – but Cresswell has scored nine against us since 2001. Neither player is likely to overhaul the record holder, a certain Alan Shearer who netted 18 league and cup goals against us for three different clubs between 1991 and 2005. Other deadly strikers against City include Tony Cottee (14), Ian Rush (14) and Bob Latchford (13).

There was some cheer in the City camp last weekend – on Friday night the youth team beat Premier League Stoke City to advance into the fourth round of the FA Youth Cup for the second season running. It was the first victory over a Premier League side since 2003 when City beat Everton in round three before going out of the competition to Nottm Forest. The scorer of the only goal of the night at Leamington FC's Harbury Road ground was Bassala Sambou who has now netted all seven of City's goals in the competition.

He has already overtaken James Maddison's haul of six goals in last season's competition and a host of other City youngsters who have also netted six in one season including:

Bob Allen (1967-68), Trevor Smith (twice in 1969-70 and 1970-71), Steve Livingstone (1986-87), Andrew Ducros (1994-95) and Gary McSheffrey (twice in 1998-99 & 1999-00).

Only Tom English has scored more than Sambou. In 1978-79 the Sky Blues started in the qualifying rounds and English scored nine goals in ten cup games to set the record. Sambou has scored seven in three!

                                                            Tom English

Interestingly, of the six-in-a-season scorers only McSheffrey and Livingstone really achieved their potential and some would argue only Gary did.

Mick Samuel sent me an email this week to tell me about the passing of Eve Shirley. Eve and her late husband Jim ran the Sky Blue hostel for young players in Catherine Street during the time that Noel Cantwell was manager in the late 1960s. Many of City's outstanding youth players of that era would have been looked after by Eve and Jim. Eve passed away in Newquay, Cornwall, aged 91.