Jim's column 22.10.22

By the virtue of successive victories the Sky Blues climbed off the foot of the table where they had laid since the Hull game in September. The first away win of the season came at Cardiff on Saturday and was followed by another 1-0 win over Sheffield United on Wednesday. Thus ended the longest spell the club has spent in last place in a league table since 2017 in that horrendous season when they were relegated from League One.

Two more clean sheets made in five out of six since the draw at Luton and three in a row away from home. At the moment the team has conceded less goals per game than anyone in the Championship – a far cry from the nine goals shipped in three away games at Millwall, Hull and Norwich.

It was a rare three points at Cardiff – the first victory at the City of Cardiff Stadium after four defeats and a draw since the Bluebirds moved from Ninian Park in 2009. The last win in the Welsh capital was a 1-0 at Ninian Park in August 2007 courtesy of a Jay Tabb goal. City's win was also the first in Wales since then – a run of 13 games since that 2007 win (six at Cardiff, six at Swansea and one at Newport) although they did beat Swansea's under 21s on penalties in the EFL Trophy in 2017.

The winner was a rare home penalty for the Sky Blues – the first at the CBS Arena since early November last year in the 3-2 victory over Bristol City and the seemingly nerveless Martyn Waghorn buried it with his trusty left foot. Substitute Waghorn was substituted within a few minutes and became only the second City substitute to score and be subbed. The only other was Jay Bothroyd in a 2-0 away win over Gillingham in 2002. He also became only the sixth City substitute to score from a penalty and the first since Carl Baker at Gillingham in 2013. The others were Gavin Strachan, Don Hutchison, Patrick Suffo and Gary McSheffrey.

Referee Keith Stroud came in for some criticism after Wednesday's game and the implication of some was that City never did well when Stroud was the ref. I checked the records and it's not true. Last season Stroud was in charge when City won away at Blackpool, Peterborough and Fulham. He was also in the middle for the home games with West Brom (loss) and Preston (draw) and although he arguably missed a handball for one of the Baggies' goals he did add on nine minutes in the latter game for Preston's time-wasting which allowed Tavares to grab an equaliser. Since 2019 Stroud has been in charge of 11 City games and they have won four, drawn five and lost two.

Paul Tebbutt was in touch last week about his father Gordon Tebbutt, aged 88, who has been supporting Coventry City for most of his life. Gordon saw his first game in the 1945/46 season at the age of 11 and recalls watching Harry Barratt score four goals in an 8-1 win but he can’t remember who it was against. There were no 8-1 victories that season but Harry Barratt did score four goals on two occasions.

The first was on 15 November (a Thursday afternoon) when City beat Newport County 7-1. The other goal scorers were George Lowrie (2) and Dennis Simpson. The attendance was 3,146.

The second was against Millwall on 9 February 1946 which ended 7-2 to City. Barratt did score 4 goals and the other scorers were Emilio Aldecoa, Jose Bilbao and Dennis Simpson. Aldecoa and Bilbao were refugees from the Spanish Civil War who arrived in the U.K. before the war. City led 6-0 at half time. The attendance was 13,712.

                            The team that beat Millwall 7-2 in 1946

The games that season are not classified as 'official' games. Peacetime football did not recommence until August 1946 and the 1945-46 season was a transitional season run on a regional basis. City were in Football League South and played against all the top London sides as well as Aston Villa and Birmingham and finished 13th.

Jim's column 26.11.11

Two tough home games in a week saw City end their dismal run of home defeats with a hard-won point against Cardiff City following defeat to the Hammers on Saturday. The point enabled the team to avoid an unwanted record as four home defeats in a row would have been the worst run since the move to the Ricoh in 2005. You have to go back to the last winter at Highfield Road to find a worse run; in the period December 2004 to February 2005 City suffered five successive home defeats, as first Peter Reid, then his replacement Micky Adams failed to win a game. Cardiff meanwhile continue to be a thorn in City’s side. The Bluebirds have not lost at the Ricoh since April 2006 and have won three and drawn three of the games since. Former City Academy youngster Peter Whittingham continued his excellent goalscoring record against the Sky Blues with his fifth goal in five seasons.

Saturday’s gate of 20,524 was the second highest of the season (behind the 21,102 who watched the opening day derby with Leicester) and included a massive following from East London, numbering 6,254. Italian-based City fan Federico Farcomeni alerted me to the fact that the BBC incorrectly described West Ham’s large support as the biggest away following since the Ricoh Arena opened in 2005. I’m not sure where they got their information from but the cockney hordes numbered less than last season’s Leeds fans (6,274) and West Brom’s fans in 2007 (6,331). The Hammers' following did top Leicester's on the opening day (6,201).

This week marks the 50^th anniversary of the arrival of Jimmy Hill as manager of Coventry City. On the 25^th November the club were knocked out of the FA Cup by lowly Southern League side Kings Lynn and on 28 November manager Billy Frith and his backroom staff were sacked and Hill appointed as manager. The Kings Lynn defeat is always talked of as the game which changed the club’s history but in actual fact Frith’s fate had been sealed earlier, possibly as far back as September 1961 when City were dumped out of the League Cup by Workington. Either way a home league defeat to Crystal Palace a week before the Kings Lynn game was the final straw for chairman Derrick Robins and it was at a lunch at the chairman’s Leamington home days later that Hill was offered the job. Hill asked for time to consider the offer and took up an offer to attend the Kings Lynn game. In his autobiography JH describes events:

‘For a number of reasons it was thought prudent to keep my intended visit to Highfield Road a secret. A ticket for the far stand arrived in the post, not the stand in which the director’s box was situated. I sneaked into my seat, tucked my collar up around my ears and pulled a trilby hat well down over my forehead in the hopes that few people would notice me… not easy with a nationally known chin and here and there came acknowledgements, and stifled gasps of surprise that I should be at Highfield Road, the reason not easy for them to detect.’

You can imagine in the modern day social networking sites buzzing with this sort of news and Hill’s presence at the game would have been communicated to all and sundry by Saturday evening but it is clear that Frith had no inkling of what was coming.

On the day following the Kings Lynn game Hill telephoned a shocked Robins to tell him he had decided to accept his offer. Robins had assumed that the appalling performance would have dissuaded Hill from taking the job. Hill, who later said he had been courted by several clubs prior to Coventry’s approach, insisted that he had the power to appoint his own coaching staff. Thus began a partnership that would take Coventry City from Third Division strugglers to the First Division in five exciting seasons.

Long suffering South East-based fan George Ling is delighted to read that the club have recognised the Southern Professional Floodlit Cup success in 1960. He watched many of the games in the run to the final and points out that along with promotion from Division 4 in 1959 it was the only high spot pre-JH. He has mislaid his programme for the final against West Ham and wondered who scored the goals. George, Ron Hewitt scored both City’s goals in the 2-1 victory. City’s line up was as follows: Arthur Lightening, Don Bennett, Frank Kletzenbauer, Brian Nicholas, George Curtis, Frank Austin, Johnny Stephens, Ron Hewitt, Ray Straw, Peter Hill, Alan Daley.

JIM'S COLUMN 20.3.10

Tuesday night’s home defeat to Cardiff City put a large dent in Coventry City’s play-off hopes, especially after Saturday’s disappointing 1-1 draw with Plymouth Argyle. The gap between City and sixth-placed Cardiff is now five points and the Bluebirds have a game in hand.

In the face of some dreadful hype from supporters and the media I have urged a dose of realism for several weeks, pointing to the ambitious points total required for a play-off place and the fact that City faced home games with some of their bogey sides. Cardiff are one of those teams who have an impressive record in Coventry, having lost just once in the league since 1966, the final game of Dennis Wise’s short but impressive stay at the club. Cardiff boss Dave Jones is certainly getting his revenge on his former club who supposedly mistreated him after his 1979 transfer from Everton. Jones, like fellow signing Gary Collier, never recovered from a nightmare start in a defeat at Stoke on the opening day of the season, and started on nine games in almost three seasons. Since 2001 Jones has brought Wolves and Cardiff to Coventry on seven occasions and lost only once.

Five points have therefore been dropped against two teams supposedly out of form and ‘there for the taking’ and City followers are again guilty of counting their chickens before they hatch. Numerous reasons will be put forward for the two relatively poor performances and, yes, it was a dreadful penalty decision that cost City a vital penalty on Tuesday but my theory is that the players and the management had been taken in by the play-off hype.

Chris Coleman is normally a stubbornly measured interviewee who rarely gets carried away, but ahead of the Cardiff game he admitted in the press to looking at the league table ‘400-500 times a day’. Whilst this is probably a wild exaggeration, the fact that he even looked at the table is not good news. Judging from the team’s second half performance he would have spent his time better preparing them or watching videos of his impressive opponents.

Returning to the number of points required for the play-offs, Geoff Moore has provided me with some statistics on the number of teams achieving 69 points or above in all divisions since the play-offs came into being. No club has ever got into the play-offs with less than 70 points and until you get above 72 points the chances of getting there are less than 50:50. Many believe that this season 69 or even 68 points will be enough but the stats do not support that. By the way in 2000 Bristol Rovers reached 80 points in Division Two and missed out on the play-offs, finishing 7th.

Points In top six Out of top six % in top six
81 10 0 100
80 13 2 87
79 13 0 100
78 17 1 94
77 8 0 100
76 18 1 95
75 17 2 89
74 16 8 67
73 17 5 77
72 13 11 54
71 10 12 45
70 5 25 17
69 0 21 0

More stats were requested by several people including Steve Pittam and Dave Long. It’s the common belief that the Sky Blues’ results are better when Sammy Clingan is in the team and this table goes some way to supporting that view.

I looked at the record of each player this season and calculated the number of points won as a percentage of the points available when they were playing. I have only included the starting line-ups as it gets too complicated with substitutes. If a player had started every league game this season his record would be: Played 37, won 13, drawn 11, lost 13, points 50 which is 45% of the points available. The results make interesting reading and the top ten players are:

Pl W D L Points % points
McPake 13 7 4 2 25 64.1
Bell 13 6 5 2 23 58.9
Baker 9 4 3 2 15 55.5
Clingan 23 10 8 5 38 55.1
Barnett 13 6 2 5 20 51.2
Wright 30 11 11 8 44 48.9
Gunnarsson 28 11 8 9 41 48.8
Westwood 35 13 11 11 50 47.6
Cranie 30 11 8 10 41 45.5
McIndoe 37 13 10 12 49 44.1

James McPake and David Bell amazingly have only been on the losing side twice each and are well ahead of the field at the moment, and Baker, who has started only nine games is also ahead of Sammy. The Irishman however has an impressive record and it was not a coincidence that the team slipped from 11th to 17th during his absence from the side in the autumn. Bell’s position in the table may surprise many fans who feel we haven’t seen his best form this term but City’s strong form since early December coincided with his return from injury and has allowed Chris Coleman to play a true wide player on the right.