Jim's column 24.2.2018

The FA Cup run came to an end at Brighton's Amex stadium on Saturday but the Sky Blues' young team did the club proud against their Premiership opponents which included the impressive £14m record signing Jurgen Locadia.

The Amex attendance was reported as 26,966 which I think was quite impressive for a stadium that only holds 30,750 and the modern trend for attendances to be poor when Premiership sides entertain lower division teams.

City's following was reported as 4,529 but I believe there may have been a couple of hundred in the Brighton areas and not included in that figure. The Sky Blue Army's numbers were restricted by the allocation from Brighton and without a cap I think we would have topped the 7,873 that travelled to Milton Keynes for round four.

Since away fan numbers have been officially reported around 11 or 12 years ago, these are the top City away followings (Wembley apart):

11,423 v Man United (League Cup) 2007-08

7,956 v Arsenal (League Cup) 2012-13

7,873 v MK Dons (FA Cup) 2017-18

6,781 v MK Dons 2013-14

5,604 v Birmingham (FA Cup) 2010-11

5,186 v Arsenal (FA Cup) 2013-14

5,021 v Tottenham (FA Cup) 2012-13

4,988 v MK Dons 2012-13

4,846 v Blackburn (FA Cup) 2008-09

4,529 v Brighton (FA Cup) 2017-18

You have to admit they are impressive followings for a lower division club.

Talking about attendances I have to comment on the Accrington crowd figure two weeks ago. The club reported the 'official' attendance as 28,343 but most regulars realised there were nowhere near that number actually in the ground. Most estimates put the actual crowd at more like 21,000. The reason for the higher number being reported is that all EFL clubs (and Premiership clubs) have to include every season ticket holder whether in attendance or not and every ticket issued. The club gave away around 14,000 tickets to local schools for the game and all of these were included in the 'official' attendance when my view is that only about 50% of them were taken up.

In days gone by the official attendance was the number counted at the turnstiles, plus an allowance based on dividing season ticket numbers sold by the number of matches that season, but not (I believe) "complimentaries".  That was because the Football League were entitled to a share of the gate receipts, and therefore were more interested in the money than the number of spectators. In my opinion the league rules are crazy, especially when it comes to historic record-keeping, but the league have a poor record when it comes to recognising history.

Talking to other club historians I discovered that many Premiership clubs have virtually identical attendances for every home game despite there being numbers of empty seats and that the Manchester police reckon that Old Trafford attendances are sometimes 10,000 less than the 'official' attendance reported.

The 28,343 reported gate does set a new record for Tier 4 since the league's reorganisation in 1992 but it's lower than the highest since the 1958 reorganisation (when Division Four was formed) – that record is 37,774 for Crystal Palace v Millwall in 1961. The gate was also lower than City's tier 4 record, 28,429, set in 1958-59 for the Division Four promotion six-pointer with Port Vale.

Next Saturday's Legends Day is promising to be the biggest in terms of former players attending with 53 Fps confirmed as I write this. Several are attending for the first time including Micky Adams, Jim Blyth, Nick Pickering and Andy Marshall, and Mo Konjic is attending for the first time in many years. Seven decades of City players will be represented on a day that is dedicated to Cyrille Regis. Cyrille's widow Julia and a good number of his relatives are also attending as well as several football personalities keen to pay their respects to the big man. To see a full list of former players attending go to www.ccfpa.co.uk

Jim's column 25.10.14

Another disappointing away defeat at Oldham on Tuesday night saw the Sky Blues plunge to 20^th place in League One. It was the tenth away league game without a win, since Steven Pressley's men won 2-1 at Crewe at the end of March. Of the side who started at Oldham only two appeared at Crewe that day, Andy Webster & Jordan Willis. The fact there are so many new faces in the side might be one of the reasons behind City's form but having said that the side went seven games unbeaten earlier in the season.

The run has to get a lot worse to match the woeful away record under Andy Thorn when the team went 21 away league games without a win between April 2011 & April 2012, or the club's worst ever run of 28 in the 1920s.

The defeat at Boundary Park was the worst league defeat since the 1-5 thrashing by Tranmere at home last season & the worst on the road in the league since the 0-4 at Walsall in 2013.

City's away following on Tuesday night, 223, was the lowest of the season and you have to go back to March 2012 to find the previous lowest when 211 brave souls travelled to Cardiff for a midweek 2-2 draw. City's average away following is currently 1,190, one of the best in the division.

Last Saturday league leaders Bristol City had almost 3,800 fans at the Ricoh to see them win 3-1. That was the best away following at the Ricoh since Birmingham City brought 5,700 supporters in March 2012. In a crowd of over 22,000 City drew 1-1 – Marlon King replying for Blues two minutes after Gary McSheffrey had put City ahead.

Last week's review of the George Raynor book attracted a lot of interest from readers. Graham Smith tells me that there is a feature film coming out in the next couple of months about the legendary Brazilian Pele and George Raynor, played by Irish actor Colm Meaney. Raynor was the Swedish coach in the 1958 World Cup final when a 17-year old Pele introduced himself to the world, scoring twice & helping Brazil to beat the Swedes 5-2.

Kevin Ring reminded me that there is another, much older book, written by Raynor himself - 'Football Ambassador at Large'. There is a whole chapter on Coventry City and his year long battle with Erle Shanks and the Coventry board and he talks about the couldn't care less attitude of some City players. In the new book Ashley Hyne mentions Raynor's autobiography, which was ghost-written by famous BBC commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme. It's publication in 1960 by Stanley Paul was controversial in that Raynor strongly criticised the Football Association, who took legal action which had the book removed from book shops but not before several thousand copies had been sold. The book later had the offending passages removed & was re-printed by the Soccer Book Club. If Raynor had any chances of a job in the FA the less than subtle comments in the book scuppered them. Kevin also tells me that George lived on the Binley Road, on the corner of Uxbridge Avenue & the property is still standing.

Reader Tom Cope posed an interesting question- how many corners were there in the 1987 FA Cup final? The answer is that over the full 120 minutes including extra time there were 17 corners, 12 to Tottenham & five to the Sky Blues.

Another reader Keith Ballantyne asked me who the second Coventry City player to win a full international cap for England. He knows that Reg Matthews was the first in 1956 when the Cov kid won five caps in goal and was never on the losing side. The second came 27 years later when Danny Thomas won two caps on a summer tour of Australia. Both games, played in Sydney & Melbourne, ended in draws & Danny (pictured below) started in Sydney but was only a substitute in Melbourne. The only other Coventry City players to win full England caps are Cyrille Regis (one cap v Turkey in 1987) and Dion Dublin (three caps in 1998).

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.