Jim's column 16.2.2019

                                                               Steve Murcott 

The sad news of the passing of England’s 1966 World Cup goalkeeper Gordon Banks was met with deserved universal praise from the football world. Gordon was the best goalkeeper in the world in the golden years at the end of the 1960s and had a major influence on Leicester City and Stoke City as well as the England national team.

Gordon had some memorable matches against the Sky Blues playing for both Midland clubs and also played at Highfield Road in Bill Glazier’s testimonial game, two years after his tragic car accident in 1972.

By the time of his first appearance at Highfield Road in December 1964 Gordon was a veteran of over 200 games for Leicester including two losing FA Cup final appearances. He had won his first England cap in 1963 and had immediately established himself as England’s number 1. The League Cup quarter final draw had paired the Foxes with the Sky Blues and although Coventry were fresh out of Division Three they fancied their chances of causing a shock against their mid-table First Division rivals.

Banks had a relatively quiet night as his forwards took advantage of George Curtis’s early injury to hammer Jimmy Hill’s team 8-1, the club’s biggest post war defeat. The only shot that got past him was a George Hudson overhead kick for a consolation goal.

Two months earlier City had paid a world goalkeeper record fee of £35,000 for Bill Glazier but Bob Wesson was the unfortunate ‘keeper that night, standing in for the cup tied Glazier. Glazier was already in England manager Alf Ramsey’s thoughts having made his Under 23 debut a week before the Leicester game. By the spring of 1965 the impressive Glazier was being tipped to be part of Alf’s 1966 World Cup squad after three clean sheets for the Under 23s. Tragedy struck at Maine Road on Easter Saturday when Bill broke his leg in a clash with Manchester City’s Glyn Pardoe. The serious break kept him out for a year and his World Cup hopes were dashed.

I’m not suggesting that Glazier would have taken Banks’s place in the 1966 tournament but he would have made a valuable number two to Gordon.

By the time City were promoted to Division One in 1967 Gordon had left Leicester for Stoke and the Sky Blues had the Indian sign over the Potters for two seasons with Gordon letting in three goals in successive seasons at the Victoria Ground. In the 1968-69 season he was in goal for Stoke as City, inspired for once by the twin strikers Tony Hateley and Neil Martin, recorded a 3-0 victory.

That defeat apart Gordon generally looked the top class ‘keeper he was when facing the Sky Blues and usually had good protection from some fearsome defenders such as Dennis Smith, Alan Bloor and Eric Skeels. One exception was the game at Highfield Road in December 1970. A dour game was decided by a weak John O’Rourke header which slipped embarrassingly past Gordon’s left leg. Coming months after his wonder save from Pele’s header in Guadalajara six months earlier it was a stunner for everyone.

After the car accident in 1972 that cost Gordon the sight in one eye he never played competitive football in England again. However he did turn out in Glazier’s testimonial in 1974 alongside eight others from the 1966 final with only Bobby Charlton and Nobby Stiles not appearing. The ever so friendly game ended 6-6 with Glazier emerging from goal for the last 10 minutes to score two goals but no one cared about the result. Despite letting in six goals City fans had seen the finest English goalkeeper of all time make a final bow.

Talking of goalkeepers I have to mention David Stockdale’s appearance as an emergency loan at Rochdale last week. He put in an impressive performance as the Sky Blues finally recorded a victory at Spotland at the tenth attempt in almost 100 years not least with his superb save from Henderson in the second half. Unless Lee Burge is unable to return from injury today against Walsall Stockdale will join the ‘one game heroes club’ joining Steve Murcott and Mick Harford. Murcott was the youth team goalkeeper who, in 1979, was called out of the stands when Jim Blyth ricked his back in the warm up prior to the home game with Norwich. He kept a clean sheet as City won 2-0 but never played for the first team again. Harford, the current manager of runaway leaders Luton, was signed by Bobby Gould in 1993 and came on for his debut as a substitute in a home game with Newcastle with 16 minutes remaining. He scored the winning goal five minutes from time with a looping header but a back injury meant he never played in a Sky Blue shirt again.

Jim's column 22.04.2017

It's now official, Coventry City are relegated to League Two (tier 4). Good Friday's 1-1 draw with Charlton Athletic meant that the Sky Blues were unable to catch the sides immediately above the four relegation places. The draw finally put City fans out of their misery – most of them have known for weeks that relegation was inevitable, probably before Mark Robins arrived to offer a small glimmer of hope. At least he got the team winning a few home games and showing a bit of passion. I think most fans realised that Robins was brought in to start the planning for next season and over the few weeks he has seen performances over a wide range of the spectrum – from gritty wins over Port Vale and Bristol Rovers to capitulations at Rochdale – to be clear where the problems lie.

So, next season the Sky Blues will play in the fourth tier of English football for the first time since 1959. That was the first season of that division and City were there through a reorganisation of the league and not as many believe through relegation. Up until 1958 the Third Division consisted of two regional leagues (North and South) and when the 92 clubs voted to reorganise these divisions into a Third and Fourth league, it was decided that the top half of the Third North and the Third South would comprise the new Third Division and the bottom half of the two old leagues would make up the new Fourth Division. City, by virtue of finishing 19^th in Division Three South were put in the new Fourth Division. Strictly speaking therefore, City have never been relegated to tier 4 before!

In 1958-59 City, under the management of Billy Frith, had a poor start with only one point from their first three games leaving them in 23^rd place. A run of 15 games with only two defeats saw City surge into the promotion race and in early December they hit the top. A slight dip in March saw Port Vale overhaul them and win the title with over 28,000 watching the teams meeting at Highfield Road. Frith's team finished runners-up with York City and Shrewsbury also promoted. The success was based on an excellent home record with 18 victories and just one defeat, and the best defence in the division with only 47 goals conceded against 84 scored.

Fans are already looking at the likely opponents next season and although Doncaster, Plymouth and Portsmouth have clinched automatic promotion, it's not clear who will be in the play-offs with eleven clubs still capable of qualifying for places 4 to 7. At the foot of League Two there is a scramble to avoid the trapdoor and any two of nine teams could lose their league status. So at this stage it's only certain that we will be visiting Chesterfield (already relegated from League One) and Notts County. However it's fairly clear that there will be first league visits for the Sky Blues to Barnet, Morecambe and probably Cheltenham and Wycombe. The whole picture will be a lot clearer after today's games but it seems that City will also be making their first league visit to Accrington since 1960 (when Stanley played at their former ground, Peel Park) and first time to Lincoln since an FA Cup game in 1963.

Easter Monday offered the Sky Blues an opportunity to end the Spotland curse but they spurned it, losing 2-0. They have never won at Rochdale in nine league and cup visits stretching back to 1920 when Dale were a non-league side and defeated Second Division City 2-1 in an FA Cup replay.

Several readers believed that City are the first team that has played in the Premier League to be relegated to the fourth tier but this is untrue – Bradford City, who were relegated from the Premier League with the Sky Blues in 2001, had four seasons in League Two and Portsmouth were in the Premier league as recently as 2010. The statistic that is true is that City are the first of the original members of the Premier League to be relegated to the fourth tier. Another original member, Oldham, seem to have done enough to avoid being relegated but Swindon, Premier members in 1993-94, are looking very precarious in 22^nd place.

Jim's column 20.9.14

With no column last week I have to start by mentioning the incredible attendance at the Gillingham game two weeks ago. The final figure of 27,306 was largest City home crowd for a night league game since August 1978 when the defending league champions Nottingham Forest visited Highfield Road and 28,585 watched an enthralling 0-0 draw. That was three years before Jimmy Hill decided to make the club all-seater and reduce the capacity of the old stadium to just over 20,000. Later the capacity was increased by the re-opening of the Spion Kop terracing and the visit of Liverpool in August 1987 pulled in over 27,500 for an afternoon game but that was never bettered. The previous best 'night' crowd for a league game was 27,212 for a 1-0 defeat to Birmingham City in 2006. The Gills crowd was the sixth highest crowd for a City game at the Ricoh and the second highest for a league game, topped only by the 28,184 for Leeds in 2010-11 but there were over 6,000 Leeds fans present.

Dave Long asked how the Gillingham crowd compared with the total number of City fans who travelled to Sixfields for league games last season. That figure was 39,599 at an average of  1,722 per game. We can only hope that City’s home gates never slip as low again & the attendances of the 2013-14 season are an one-off & consigned to the history books.

How sad then that the attendance versus Yeovil last Saturday dropped to just over 11,000. Coincidentally the last big crowd at the Ricoh, for the JPT regional semi-final with Crewe in 2013, was followed days later by the visit of Yeovil. Then the crowd slumped from 31,054 for Crewe to 11,277 for Yeovil. A number of factors affected last Saturday’s attendance. Firstly the ticket prices for Yeovil were back to normal with no ‘special deal’. Secondly, the Gillingham game was an ‘event’ and attracted a lot of floating fans as well as many non-City fans who just wanted to be there for the homecoming. Thirdly, many people cannot afford to pay for two games in just over a week & would always opt for the Gillingham game. Finally, there are a number of fans who are sticking by their ‘Not One Penny More’ stance & vow not to return to the stadium until the owners have gone. It's unlikely that crowds will increase appreciably unless the team show consistent home form & they look capable of a serious challenge on the top six. The current form suggests that after years of under-performing the latter may be possible this campaign. Midweek games traditionally attract lower crowds & the Sky Blues have no midweek home league games between now and Christmas. If the reasonable form continues gates could well stay over 10,000 for the foreseeable future, although a Tuesday night game v Scunthorpe in February might test my prediction.

Today the Sky Blues travel to Rochdale, a ground that they have always struggled on. They have failed to win on all four visits, one league game in the 1920s & three Cup trips since 1971. In 1971 Noel Cantwell's side had played in Europe but were dumped out of the FA Cup by Third Division Rochdale for whom David Cross, later to join City scored. Then in 1991 in a League Cup tie Terry Butcher's team took a 4-0 first leg lead to Spotland only to slip up 0-1 to a Fourth Division side. The last banana-skin was in 2003 in the FA Cup fourth round when Gary McAllister's team were humbled 0-2. Surely Steven Pressley's side can come away with something today.

City’s new striker Simeon Jackson became City’s first international player for over two years when he appeared for Canada against Jamaica, the country of his birth, last week. Simeon, who has won around 40 caps for Canada and is City's first ever Canadian international, came on as a substitute in the 3-1 victory in Toronto. The last time a City player played for his country was in June 2012 when Sammy Clingan & James McPake appeared for Northern Ireland in a 6-0 drubbing from Holland in Amsterdam with Oliver Norwood whose loan from Manchester United had formally ended also appearing. Neither Clingan nor McPake appeared again for the Sky Blues after their appearance in Holland. McPake, who won his only cap that night, had spent the second half of the 2011-12 season on loan at Hibernian & three weeks after the Holland game he joined Hibs on a permanent basis. He has recently joined Dundee, newly promoted to the SPL. Clingan, who left the club as a free agent in June 2012 is appearing for Kilmarnock in the SPL.

If you have a question about Coventry City's history send me an email at clarriebourton@gmail.com & I will attempt to answer it.