Jim's column 6.3.2021

Ian St John the former Liverpool and Coventry City player sadly passed away this week, aged 82. Many tributes have been paid to him in national newspapers and the media in general and his illustrious career with Liverpool, as a Scottish international player and his almost unique television career alongside Jimmy Greaves has been well covered. I thought it would be of interest to focus more on his Coventry City connection.

Liverpool paid Motherwell a club record fee of £37,500 to bring St John from Motherwell to Anfield in 1961, arriving at the same time as another Scot, centre-half Ron Yeats. They were the last pieces in the Bill Shankly jigsaw and kick-started the Reds' ascendancy to the top of English football. Promotion to Division One was achieved in the first season and over the next nine years St John, nicknamed The Saint and beloved by the Kop, was at the heart of a team that won two league titles (1964 and 1966), the FA Cup (1965), as well as reaching the final of the European Cup Winners Cup (1966). Ian made over 400 appearances for Liverpool and won 21 Scottish caps in an era when there were far less international games and the Scottish talent pool was overflowing.

Eased out by Shankly in 1971 he spent some time that summer in South Africa playing for Hellenic of Capetown before, in September 1971, aged 33, Noel Cantwell persuaded him to come to Highfield Road in a player-coach role with the early emphasis on a playing role.

                      St John with wife Betty & City boss Cantwell

Prior to his arrival his memories of Highfield Road weren't good. In 1967, days after City had clinched promotion to Division One, St John was in a Liverpool side that came down to play in George Curtis and Mick Kearns' testimonial game. He was on the end of a strong challenge from big George in the first half and had to leave the game. As he limped from the pitch he allegedly gave a mouthful of abuse to Curtis along the lines of 'we come down here for your testimonial and that's how you treat us'.

       The walk of shame after being sent off at Highfield Road on Boxing Day 1967

Five months later, on Boxing Day, the Reds returned for their first ever league game with the Sky Blues. City's Brian Lewis, always an abrasive character, was given the role of marking St John and their niggly exchanges exploded on the half hour. St John was lucky not to be booked for a blatant challenge on the halfway line. As the free-kick was taken St John reacted – either to a remark or as some say, Lewis grabbing the Scot in Vinnie Jones fashion – and felled Lewis with a right-hook. It was fully a minute before St John would walk and he received what Derek Henderson in the Coventry Telegraph described as ' the worst verbal roasting I have heard a Highfield Road crowd give a visiting player' as he made the slow journey to the tunnel.

Both Curtis and Lewis had departed Highfield Road when St John arrived in 1971 and he made his debut in a 1-0 home win over Tottenham and a week later returned to Merseyside and had the audacity to score City's winner in a 2-1 win at Goodison Park. The good form continued as the Sky Blues beat Leeds for the first time in the top flight with St John scoring the second goal in a 3-1 victory. City's form fell away after the three successive wins and they won only once in the next 13 games with St John a virtual ever-present in midfield. Cantwell came under pressure in the bad run and after Second Division Hull City won at Highfield Road in the FA Cup the genial Irishman was sacked.

In a shake-up in December Tony Waiters had been appointed Director of Coaching with St John elevated to Assistant Manager but it did little to improve matters on the pitch. In the aftermath of Cantwell's sacking Waiters walked out and St John told chairman Derrick Robins that he didn't want to stay in the circumstances and played the last of his 22 games for the club against West Brom on 17th March 1972, Bob Dennison's first game as caretaker manager.

The Saint played a few games for Tranmere Rovers the following season before suffering a broken leg and went into management. He was briefly a success at his old club Motherwell before three unremarkable seasons as manager of Portsmouth. Later he moved into the media where he carved out a new career as part of arguably the finest double act in football punditry, Saint and Greavsie. Jimmy Greaves cracked the jokes while Saint tried to keep a straight face and the chemistry proved a hit. During the 1987 FA Cup run Jimmy consistently tipped City to lose whilst, I am sure, secretly willing his old Chelsea team-mate John Sillett to be a success.

RIP Saint

Jim's column 25.3.2017

A week tomorrow Coventry City are back at Wembley after a break of thirty years. As I have written previously, only City & Fulham of teams from the top three divisions have not appeared at the old or new Wembley in the intervening years. The circumstances however are very different. In 1987 City were having the club's best league season for almost ten years. Under the shrewd management of George Curtis and John Sillett they had been comfortably in the top ten all season, winning 14 out of 21 home games and since reaching Wembley by beating Leeds in the semi-final, they had lost just once in eight games. Confidence was high and although they finished tenth in the league they were only three points off sixth place.

Thirty years on it is a different story with the club in one of its worst runs ever with only two wins in 23 league games and on their fourth manager of the campaign. Relegation to the fourth tier is virtually certain and the team will struggle to reach forty points. There have been numerous nightmare games, home and away, and we can only hope that the team puts on a good performance at Wembley, win or lose. It would be a sad day if the players didn't perform on this big day for the club and the supporters who will turn the great stadium into a sea of sky blue. Have a great day City fans, you deserve it!

Arthur Warner, a regular reader from Binley wrote to me recently:

Your article about Christmas matches a few weeks ago brought back memories of the Liverpool Boxing Day match of 1967. I was there in the Sky Blue Stand at the Kop end which was the end that Gerry Baker scored the equaliser in the 1-1 draw. I remember the sending off of Ian St John for the punch on Brian Lewis, a hard midfield player who gave no quarter. The that the company I worked for in the 1980's had a forum at Highfield Road, and after lunch there was a talk from Ian St John. He talked about his time with Liverpool and talked about his sending off against the City in 1967. He told us that the great Bill Shankly, the Liverpool manager at the time, told him to report the next day at the training ground. On reporting Shankly told him to strip off and proceeded to black him up in the lower regions. It appears that it was a Gascoigne/Vinny Jones moment that caused the sending off. Shankly then invited the press in to show them what Coventry had done to 'his boy'.

Relating this story to friends in the pub before the Port Vale game someone suggested that in those days you had to do something pretty bad to get sent off, normally involving punches and fighting, and players rarely got sent off for bad fouls. I thought I would do some research into City's red cards over the years.

The first conclusion is that there were far fewer dismissals in those days; the chart below analyses City's 144 red cards since they joined the league in 1919.

1920s	4
1930s	2
1940s	4
1950s	3
1960s	5
1970s	11
1980s	17
1990s	32
2000s	43
2010s	23
Total	144

Before the 1960s dismissals were very rare indeed and in the six seasons that Jimmy Hill was manager (1961-67) only one player, George Hudson, got his marching orders. 'The Hud' was sent off at Huddersfield in 1965 for flooring John Coddington with a punch. I can only find one dismissal before the 1970s that was not for fighting or raising hands – Frank Kletzenbauer was sent off for two bad challenges on QPR's Clive Clark in an FA Cup match in 1960. Older fans will remember Maurice Setters and Liverpool's Alun Evans being ordered off at Highfield Road in a nail-biting 0-0 draw that kept City up in 1969.

In the 1970s retaliation became popular and Chris Cattlin, Donal Murphy and Jimmy Holmes all got sent off for that offence with the real culprits (Bobby Gould, Kenny Burns & Francis Lee) all getting off scot-free.

In the 1980s it was still more common for players to be sent off for punches or, in Steve Hunt's case, a head-butt, and Steve Jacobs, Terry Gibson (twice), Gary Bannister & David Speedie all saw red for adopting Marquis of Queensbury rules. The 1990s saw a rapid growth in red cards for the Sky Blues with the peak being hit in 1996-97 when six red cards equaled the total of the 20 mid-war years. That was topped in both 2001-02 and 2002-03 when City had seven men sent off in each season. However there has been a downturn since 2010 with only one dismissal in 2012-13 and two the following season. The type of offences has changed too – of the 54 red cards since 2002 only three players have been sent off for striking an opponent, Michael Doyle, Marlon King and Reda Johnson, and there are far more dismissals for persistent fouling, dissent and foul language.

This season City have picked up five red cards, the highest number since 2002-03, with young players bearing the brunt. It was more the exuberance of Ben Stevenson & Dion Kelly-Evans rather than malice that got them sent off in their first season, and Willis, Turnbull and Page were probably let down by their relative inexperience.

Finally, we are only two weeks away from the 10^th annual Legends Day organised by the Former Players Association (CCFPA). Already more than 40 Sky Blue stars of the past are lined up to attend & it promises to be another great day on 8^th April. A large contingent from Scotland will be in attendance including Tommy Hutchison, Roy Barry and Ian Wallace. The 1967 Division Two championship side, celebrating their 50^th anniversary will be well represented and include Bill Glazier flying in from Spain and John Tudor coming from the USA. It's also 30 years since the FA Cup victory and the 1987 side will be well represented. The football club are still taking bookings for the day and fans interested in being in the presence of our Legends should contact Suzette or Tynan at 024 7699 2330