Jim's column 20.8.2016

Coventry City's disappointing start to the league campaign has seen them glean only two points from their opening three games and also fail to find the net. It is the first time in the club's League history dating back to 1919 that the team has failed to score a single goal in its first three matches. There have been numerous occasions of the opening two games failing to yield a goal but not three. The last such instance was in 2011-12 (ominously the relegation season from the Championship) when Andy Thorn's team suffered single-goal defeats to Leicester (home) and Birmingham (away) before opening their account with a Lukas Jutkiewicz effort in a 1-2 defeat at Crystal Palace. The 1958-59 season offers some crumbs of comfort however – Billy Frith's side had a dreadful start to their first season in Division Four, drawing 0-0 at home to Darlington before defeats at Oldham (0-2) and Shrewsbury (1-4) left them 23^rd in the table. The side recovered to have a remarkable season, scoring 84 goals and winning promotion at the end of the season. More recently, in 1999-2000, Gordon Strachan's team failed to net in two opening defeats (Southampton home and Leicester away) but the signing of Robbie Keane in time for the third game (Derby home) sparked a remarkable home season with the Sky Blues described by TV pundits as the Entertainers.

The start is, in some ways, hardly surprising, with the departure of last season's golden duo, Armstrong and Murphy, but the team did score 67 goals last season, the second highest haul in almost 40 years. Let's hope Tony Mowbray can pull a couple of deadly strikers out of the hat before the end of the month.

The last time City failed to score in three consecutive games was only last April (Colchester, Wigan & Gillingham) but I guess it feels so much worse because it is the first three of the season. The last time the team failed to score in more than three was in 2003 when Gary McAllister's team failed to net in any of the last five games of the 2002-03 campaign and then drew 0-0 with Walsall on the opening day of the next season, making it six without a goal. Michael Doyle ended the drought the following Saturday in a 1-1 draw at Ipswich. In total the team went 527 minutes without a league goal.

The worst ever run by the club was 1048 minutes over 11 games in that infamous first season in the league in 1919-20. After Tommy Lowes had scored in 1-2 home defeat to Leicester on 4^th October the team went 11 whole games without scoring until Christmas Day when Billy Walker netted a penalty in the club's first ever league win (3-2) over Stoke. Somehow I don't think that record will be challenged this season.

Keith Ballantyne always comes up with interesting questions and this week he asked if Sam Allardyce is the first former City player to manage England or did Stuart Pearce hold the post for a short time. Sam, who played 32 games for the Sky Blues under Bobby Gould in the 1983-84 season, is the first former player to hold the permanent position, but Pearce was caretaker for one match in 2012 after Fabio Capello resigned in protest at John Terry being stripped of the captaincy. Pearce was in the post for just one match, a 3-2 Wembley defeat to Holland, before Roy Hodgson was appointed. It is just over four years ago but looking at England's starting line up that night makes interesting reading. Only four of the starters made Roy Hodgson's squad at this summer's Euros (Hart, Welbeck, Smalling and Cahill) whilst the likes of Scott Parker (captain that night), Micah Richards, Adam Johnson and Frazier Campbell have virtually disappeared from the scene.

                                                                 Stuart Pearce

Pearce was signed from non-league Wealdstone for the Sky Blues also by Bobby Gould (what an eye Gouldy had for talent) and was a virtual ever-present alongside Big Sam in City's defence in an exciting campaign.

It has been mentioned before but Sam's appointment means that all four home nations are currently managed by former players or managers of Coventry City with Gordon Strachan in charge of Scotland, Michael O'Neill (Northern Ireland) and Chris Coleman (Wales). Congratulations are due to the the latter two whose teams exceeded all expectations at the Euros.

JIM'S COLUMN 8.1.11

A miserable Christmas period saw the Sky Blues win one point from five games and slip out of the play-off positions to 11th position as I write this. They now have 35 points from 26 games and are four points off the play-off positions. The division continues to throw up more and more strange results and although the Sky Blues have more points at this stage than all but two of the last nine seasons (2001-02 and 2002-03 the exceptions) a chance has been missed to consolidate a position in the top six.

The last few weeks has seen a glut of managerial changes, the majority of them being sackings. It is sad to report that two ex-City players were victims of the sack just before Christmas. Sam Allardyce was very unfortunate to get the order of the boot from Blackburn Rovers and his departure means that no ex-City players are managing in the Premier League. His replacement, for the time being anyway, is former City assistant boss Steve Kean who had two years at the Ricoh under Chris Coleman.

Paul Trollope of Bristol Rovers is another ex-City manager to be sacked before Christmas. He only played a handful of games for City, at the fag-end of the disastrous 2001-02 season (a Jim Smith signing if I remember correctly) but had had a five-year spell as manager at Rovers. Interestingly four of the last five Rovers’ managers were ex-City men with Trollope preceded by Ray Graydon, Gerry Francis and Garry Thompson.

The Championship’s struggling clubs have been changing managers like a merry-go-round in recent weeks with Preston, Crystal Palace, Burnley and Sheffield United all having changes. The Blades’ change was enforced on them by Gary Speed’s elevation (is that the right word) to Welsh national boss. Blades’ fans did not seem unduly worried about Speed leaving as they languish near the foot of the table and it offered an opportunity to former City boss Micky Adams to return to the Championship. After leaving Coventry, some say unluckily, Micky had a bad time at Brighton but has rejuvenated his managerial credentials with a spell at Port Vale in League Two. Now he has landed his dream job, managing the team he has not only supported since he was a boy but also started his playing career with. His next league game will see him returning to the Ricoh Arena almost exactly four years to the day of his departure as manager.

Talking of former players Ken Jones of Finham sent me a nice letter a few weeks ago with a cutting from The Packet, a Cornish newspaper. It was a match report of Falmouth Town’s 2-1 win over Witheridge in the South West Peninsula League. Former City midfielder Sean Flynn, now aged 42, is the Assistant manager/player for Falmouth. Flynn (pictured below) joined City from Halesowen Town in November 1991 and made his first team debut on Boxing Day and scored in a 3-0 win at Bramall Lane. Between 1991 and 1995 he made over 100 appearances for the Sky Blues scoring 10 goals.

Today is FA Cup Third Round day, a day that used to be such an exciting one in the football calendar. Now for all but a handful of non-league or lower division sides it is a damp squib day. The FA Cup has lost its glamour and all across the country season ticket holding fans will be expected to cough up extra money to pay for a cup tie, just after they have maxed out on the credit cards in the run up to Christmas and in the January sales. Gates across the country will be pitifully low with a gate of well under 10,000 expected at the Ricoh for the visit of unattractive Crystal Palace. Last season just over 7,000 attended the Portsmouth replay and after City’s miserable Christmas results I think today’s gate may struggle to top that. Palace may well be buoyed by a new manager (or caretaker Dougie Freedman) and they will not need reminding that they have never lost at the Ricoh with four wins and one draw since 2005. When you consider that in the only other FA Cup meeting between the clubs (in 1908) Palace won 4-2 at Highfield Road the omens seemed stacked against City. That game back in 1908 by the way was a memorable one in the club’s history. They had reached the equivalent of the Third Round for the very first time, as a Birmingham League club, and their efforts not only attracted a Highfield Road record crowd of 9,884 but also brought them national press exposure for the first time. Although beaten by their South London opponents City were, within six months, voted into the Southern League and the club never looked back.