Jim's column 14.2.15

On Tuesday evening the Sky Blues' shrinking attendance fell to a new 50-year low with only 6,885 fans paying for the privilege of watching another poor home performance against Scunthorpe. The attendance was the lowest for a league game in the city since Easter Monday 1962 when 5,965 turned up for a 1-1 draw with Bristol City. The circumstances of that game are interesting however. Jimmy Hill had taken over as manager the previous November but his honeymoon period was over & his early impact on the team's fortunes had petered out. The side had won just once in six games & a final position well below halfway in the old Division Three was certain. A crowd of almost 14,000 had watched his first home game but the disillusioned fans had drifted away & only one of the previous five home games had attracted over 9,000. The Port Vale home game a week earlier had attracted 5,894.

Hill had his plans & was on the verge of the inspired signings of Willie Humphries & John Sillett but the fans had little or no inkling that the most exciting period in the club's history was just around the corner. Now, 53 years later, few City fans would dare to think things will change so dramatically at the club.

The even more worrying statistic is the club's average attendance this season. Even with the inflated crowd of 27,000 for the Gillingham game, the average is currently 9,320. With gates unlikely to improve between now & the end of the season, the final figure will be lower not higher. Leaving aside last season at Northampton, that average is the worst in the club's Football League history. Only twice since 1919 has the average fallen below 10,000, in 1925-26 & 1927-28 seasons. In 1925-26 the team were playing their first and only season in Third Division North, having been relegated from Division Two the previous year. They went from playing teams like Chelsea, Wolves & Manchester United to facing tiny clubs such as New Brighton, Ashington, Nelson & Durham City. Gates started at the 15,000 level but despite remaining unbeaten at home in 16 games up to the end of March crowds dwindled, especially after Christmas and there were several crowds under 6,000 with the lowest 4,744 to see a 5-2 victory over Hartlepool in the final home game. The average was 9,505. Two years later, with the team now switched to Division Three South the crowds peaked at 15,000 for the visit of Plymouth in September but were under 9.000 by Christmas. The average was skewed somewhat by a Monday afternoon game in February when 2,059, the lowest ever league crowd at Highfield Road, watched a 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace. The side won only five home games all season and finished 20^th of 22 teams with a final average attendance of 9,388. At the moment that is the lowest average in club's league history (barring Northampton). That record will go this season.

Interestingly the lowest post-war average was in 1982-83 when, at the all-seater stadium Dave Sexton's side averaged 10,552.

Lifelong City fan Dave Long asked me to provide the details of the FA Youth Cup final game against Arsenal in 2000. It was his daughter Esme's first trip to Highfield Road.

It was the first leg of the two legged final & City were in the final for the second year running, having lost to West Ham the previous year. The game took place on 4 May 2000 and the teams lined up as follows:

City: Gary Montgomery: Richard Spong, Daniel Hall, Craig Strachan, Calum Davenport, Tom Cudworth, Lee Fowler, Robert Betts, Gary McSheffrey, Simon Parkinson (sub Jason Ashby), Craig Pead (sub Martin Grant).

Arsenal: Graham Stack: Israel da Silva, Nicolo Galli, Liam Chilvers, John Halls, Steve Sidwell, Rohan Ricketts, David Noble, Jerome Thomas, Jay Bothroyd, Graham Barrett.

Arsenal, coached by former City manager Don Howe, were without their star player, Jermaine Pennant, allegedly a £2m signing from Notts County the previous year, but still fielded eleven youth internationals. City, coached by Richard Money, started strongly but were undone by three Arsenal goals in 21 minutes after half-time. Thomas, Barrett and Sidwell netted & although Gary McSheffrey scored a late goal it was a comfortable victory in front of 10,280.

In the second leg at Highbury the following week Arsenal won 2-0 with goals from Bothroyd & Sidwell to lift the trophy 5-1 on aggregate. Messrs Bothroyd, Barrett & Ricketts all subsequently played for the Sky Blues. Of the excellent young Arsenal side only Barrett, Pennant & Ricketts appeared in an Arsenal league line-up – and none of them made more than 12 appearances – whilst only Bothroyd & Barrett won full caps for their country. Six of the Coventry side made it through to the first-team with McSheffrey & Davenport having successful careers.

JIm's column 21.12.13

Two home games at Sixfields in the last seven days have witnessed pitifully low crowds. City fans have become used to small attendances in their temporary Northampton 'home' but the gates against Crewe Alexandra & Hartlepool plumbed new depths. The 2-2 draw with Crewe was watched by the club's lowest ever league crowd of 1,618 whilst on Tuesday night for the FA Cup replay with Hartlepool there were only 1,214 in the ground, the lowest FA Cup crowd for a home game since records were kept. Low crowds are the norm for FA Cup replays these days. City's last home replay in the completion four years ago, against Premiership Portsmouth, attracted just over 7,500 - less than half than the crowd three days earlier for a league game with Barnsley. Compare that to some of the crowds for home replays in the 1950s & 60 - 23,500 that watched Huddersfield in 1955, 25,000 for Pompey in 1963 & almost 28,000 for Crewe in 1966. The FA Cup just doesn't get the pulses racing like it used to. One record still intact is the lowest home crowd for a competitive game set in 1985 when 1,086 turned up at Highfield Road for a meaningless Full Members Cup tie with Millwall. Who, that night, would have thought that eighteen months later a quarter of a million people would turn out in the streets of Coventry to acclaim the Wembley heroes.

Talking of Barnsley, City's replay victory earned a trip to the Championship club on the first weekend in January and early indications point to a large City following at Oakwell. Barnsley might be struggling in the league but with Danny Wilson appointed as manager this week and an excellent FA Cup pedigree in recent seasons, they will be tough opponents. The clubs have never met in the FA Cup but City's recent record at Oakwell is good. They have lost their last two visits there but before that had registered four consecutive victories.

The Sky Blues travel to Swindon today for a league game & their record at the County Ground does not augur well. Since 1953 City have won just one of 12 league visits to the ground although they have won two FA Cup ties there (1966 & 2001). I can also vividly remember a League Cup tie there in 1968-69 season. Swindon, then a Third Division side, had held First Division City 2-2 at Highfield Road and most City fans relished a trip to Wiltshire to put their lower status opponents back in their place. Swindon, inspired by the irrepressible Don Rogers blew City away and deserved their 3-0 victory. The Robins went on to win the League Cup final at Wembley adding other First Division scalps Burnley & Arsenal on the way to lifting the trophy.

Leon Clarke continued his impressive scoring record on Tuesday night, netting twice to take his season's tally to 14 from 22 appearances. Since making his debut on 1st January he has scored 24 goals in 38 appearances (36 starts & 2 subs). Tuesday's brace was his fourth of the season, equalling David McGoldrick's record last season. The last player to score five braces in a season was Michael Mifsud in 2007-08. It is four years this month since Freddie Eastwood scored City's last hat-trick and maybe Leon can crack that record before the season is out.

Follow me on twitter @clarriebourton

Jim's column 17.8.13

Coventry City's first game outside of the city boundaries took place at Northampton Town's Sixfields Stadium last Sunday and what a goal feast the small band of around 1,000 City fans witnessed. 3-0 ahead at half-time for the first time in over six years, Steven Pressley's young team ran out 5-4 winners over relegated Bristol City. 

I have been bombarded with questions all week about other high scoring games involving the Sky Blues and have compiled a list of all those games where there were eight or more goals in the last fifty years:

1963-64 City 8 Shrewsbury 1

1963-64 QPR 3 City 6

1964-65 City 5 Ipswich 3

1964-65 City 1 Leicester 8 (League Cup)

1964-65 City 3 Rotherham 5

1964-65 City 5 Newcastle 4

1974-75 Middlesbrough 4 City 4

1977-78 City 5 Norwich 4

1981-82 Southampton 5 City 5

1983-84 Southampton 8 City 2

1985-86 City 7 Chester 2 (League Cup)

1985-86 City 4 Birmingham 4

1990-91 City 5 Nottm Forest 4 (League Cup)

2002-03 City 8 Rushden & Diamonds 0 (League Cup)

2004-05 City 6 Derby 2

It was the first 5-4 scoreline since the famous victory over Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest in November 1990 when City led 4-0 before half-time only to be pegged back by a ten-minute Nigel Clough hat-trick before Steve Livingstone grabbed the winner. It was only the fourth time in the club's history that they have won 5-4 with the others coming in 1977 (the famous Christmas game when only a late Jim Blyth penalty save avoided a 5-5 draw with Norwich), 1965 (City led top of the table Newcastle 5-1, only to hang on to win) and 1963 (George Hudson netting a hat-trick on his debut). City have only once been on the receiving end of a 5-4 scoreline, at Southampton in 1950.

As expected the crowd at Sixfields was pitifully low and boosted by over 1000 Bristol City fans. the official attendance of 2,204 was just above the lowest home league crowd in the club's history, 2,059, set in February 1928 for a Monday afternoon 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace. A couple of readers pointed out that according to the Breedon Complete Record book published in 1991 there was a crowd of 1,660 v Hartlepools United in 1926. However there has subsequently been more research and the official league attendance records confirm the gate at this game was actually 4,744. My feeling is that the all-time low crowd will be broken before too long at Sixfields unless a good number of City fans have a change of heart and travel to Northampton.

I have a few reader's queries to cover over the coming weeks and will start with one from Dean Nelson who remembers Rotherham's John Galley being hit by a City fan in 1966 and seemed to think there was another instance. Galley, normally a centre-forward who had tormented City's defence (and scored a hat-trick on his Millers' debut) in the aforementioned 3-5 game in 1964, had taken over the 'keeper's jersey in the Christmas game at Highfield Road after regular 'keeper Alan Hill had broken his finger trying to stop a goal-bound Bobby Gould shot. Galley upset the City fans behind the old Covered End & one angry fan climbed over the wall & attacked Galley. Police dragged the culprit away & removed him from the ground but Galley was seen as the villain of the piece by the home supporters. City ran out 4-2 winners. If anyone can recall another incident where a fan attacked a visiting goalkeeper please let me know.

Jim's column 17.9.11

Finally the fans saw a goal for the Sky Blues at the Ricoh Arena. After 413 goalless minutes Lukas Jutkiewicz's 58th minute penalty broke the season’s home duck and was the first home goal since Marlon King's 5th minute effort on Good Friday against Scunthorpe United. In between there had been three goalless home games, two 0-0 draws and the opening day defeat to Leicester (0-1).

413 minutes is a record for the Sky Blues at the Ricoh, topping the previous worst of 361 minutes which occurred over the last four home games of 2006-07 and ended in the first home game of 2007-08, a 1-1 draw with Hull City.

The longest run without a home goal was set in the calamitous first season in the Football League in 1919-20. Then the Bantams, as City were known, failed to score in six successive home games. Goal-times are not available for that season but it will have been at least 540 minutes without a goal, and possibly as many as 600. Gordon Strachan's relegation team of 2001 went pretty close to that unwanted record, failing to score at home in 536 minutes between John Hartson's Easter Monday goal against Sunderland and an own goal by Stuart Pearce of Manchester CIty in mid-September. The run included two goal-less Premiership games (Liverpool and Bradford City) and the first three home games in the lower division (Wolves, Forest and Grimsby) after which the hapless Strachan was sacked.

Tim James emailed to say he found my piece on the lowest City home crowds a couple of weeks ago interesting but wondered if City had had lower crowds than the 12,292 for last season’s Doncaster game at Highfield Road. City’s lowest ever football league crowds at Highfield Road were as follows:

2,059	Crystal Palace	1927-28	Div 3 South	*
3,000	Portsmouth	1924-25	Div 2	*
3,974	Newport County	1954-55	Div 3 South
4,000	Fulham	1922-23	Div 2	*
4,744	Hartlepools U	1925-26	Div 3 North
4,785	QPR	1953-54	Div 3 South
5,073	Ashington	1925-26	Div 3 North
5,329	Brighton	1930-31	Div 3 South
5,479	New Brighton	1925-26	Div 3 North
5,626	Crystal Palace	1956-57	Div 3 South

*midweek afternoon game

Three of the four lowest were for midweek games played in the afternoon in the era before floodlights, whilst the three small crowds in the 1950s were, if memory is correct, midweek 5.30 kick-offs (so that the game could be completed before dusk).The 4,744 versus Hartlepools United in 1925-26 stands as the lowest Saturday home league crowd. The lowest Saturday crowd of the modern era (i.e. post 1967) was 7,478 against Watford on a miserably wet day in January 1986.

After City left the Premiership in 2001 there were nine league crowds lower than the 12,292 for last season’s Doncaster game:

10,872             Wimbledon      2003-04

11,557             Crewe              2003-04

11,796             Wimbledon      2002-03

11,797             Cardiff              2003-04

11,862             Bradford C      2003-04

11,966             Gillingham        2004-05

12,148             Wigan              2004-05

12,157             Preston            2004-05

12,226             Watford          2003-04

Not surprisingly Wimbledon feature twice – their away followings, which were never large, had dwindled to a handful – and, if memory serves me correctly, Cardiff fans were banned from the 2003-04 game.