Jim's column 12.9.2015

For Coventry City fans of a certain age, Mick Kearns is a true legend. Nuneaton-born Mick was the ultimate one-club man, making 385 appearances for City between 1957 and 1967. His career
spanned the whole of the immy Hill era & he had the honour of representing the club in all four
divisions of the Football League plus the old Third Division South. Mick is a great supporter of the
Former Players Association & has won the annual golf competition on at least two occasions.

During the summer he asked me to remind him of the club's overseas tours in which he took part & I was able to supply him with a list of the foreign tours during his time at the club.

1962 West Germany (3 games)
1963 West Germany (4 games)
1964 Spain (1 game)
1965 Iceland (3 games)
1966 European Tour (West Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium. 4 games)
1967 West Indies (5 games)

Mick informed me that he didn't go on the 1962 tour to West Germany as he was doing his National Service.

The full list of games the club played during those tours is as follows:

11-5-1962 Hanau won 3-2
13-5-1962 Hassfurt won 2-0
16-5-1962 Singen won 3-0
26-5-1963 Neumunster won 3-1
28-5-1963 Bad Neuenahr won 6-1
29-5-1963 Kaiserslautern won 2-0
24-5-1964 Onteniente won 5-2
24-5-1965 KR Reykjavik won 4-1
26-5-1965 Keflavik won 4-1
28-5-1965 Iceland XI won 3-0
25-5-1966 Offenbach Kickers drew 0-0
31-5-1966 FC Austria Vienna lost 1-4
3-6-1966 Young Fellows Zurich lost 2-3
6-6-1966 Union St Gilloise won 3-1
2-6-1967 Trinidad & Tobago XI won 5-2
4-6-1967 South Trinidad XI won 4-3
6-6-1967 Barbados XI won 3-2
12-6-1967 Barbados XI won 2-0
18-6-1967 Bermuda Police won 8-0

It is interesting to note that all the tours were post-season, unlike the modern trend to have pre-season tours. In 1964 and 1967 the club took the players away to celebrate winning the Division Three & Division Two championships and the game in Spain in 1964 was apparently organised at very short notice against a Spanish Second Division side near their resort of Gandia. The 1966 tour was an interesting one in that the Rover Car company provided the club with a fleet of Sky Blue Rover 2000 cars in which to travel Europe & the team did various marketing exercises for the company to promote sales of the popular car.

                                              Sky Blue Rovers set off for European tour 1966
Sunday's victory at Burton was impressive & lifted the Sky Blues to the heady heights of second place in the table. It was a rare away victory on live television. You have to go back to November 2008 and a 1-0 win at St Andrews, courtesy of a Clinton Morrison goal for the last away league victory 'on the box'. Since then the team had been 'live'  eight times away from home. The record up till Sunday was dire with six defeats & two draws:

2008-09 Reading lost 1-3

2009-19 Derby lost 1-2

2009-10 Scunthorpe lost 0-1

2009-10 Leicester drew 2-2

2010-11 QPR lost 1-2

2011-12 Ipswich lost 0-3

2011-12 Southampton lost 0-4

2013-14 Bradford C drew 3-3

Jim's column 2.11.13

During the 1960s Coventry City were the most innovative football club in England. Led by chairman Derrick Robins and manager Jimmy Hill, the Sky Blues were always looking for publicity and were probably the first club to develop 'media relations'. The Sky Blue kit, Sky Blue Radio with pre-match entertainment, the Sky Blue Special train that carried fans to away games, were just a few of the ideas implemented by the club during that golden period.

In 1966 the Sky Blues planned an end of season European tour in a fleet of Rover cars kindly donated by the Rover car company. Chris Wilson of the Rover Sports Register contacted me recently asking if I had any information on the cars and the tour of Europe.

From Chris I discovered that Rover, with the blessing of Prime Minister Harold Wilson, lent the club nine Wedgwood Blue Rover 2000 cars for their 17-day trip that took in Frankfurt, Vienna, Zurich & Brussels. Wedgwood Blue was as good as Sky Blue. The idea was that City would play friendly games in each city and attend a 'promotional conferences' at Rover distributors and dealers to aid Rover's export efforts.

The tour started with anything but a friendly in Germany against Offenbach Kickers which was a bad-tempered affair, ended 0-0 and with Ronnie Rees sent off for a bad tackle.

The Rover cavalcade moved to Vienna where the Sky Blues were beaten 1-4 by Austria Vienna with Ernie Machin netting the consolation goal. Another defeat (2-3) followed against FC Zurich, Bobby Gould netting the City's goals. Three days later the Sky Blues finally won a game, beating Belgian side Union St Gilloise 3-1 with goals from Ray Pointer, Gould & Rees.

Ronnie Farmer was on that trip & remembers it well: 'The Rovers were brand new & we drove all the way from Coventry to Dover & then caught the ferry to the continent. The cars were great & we had a great three weeks in some lovely hotels. In Austria we stayed in a picturesque village in the mountains. The players took turns at driving & I'll never forget one day when John Sillett was driving our car. A sparrow hit the windscreen and he turned the windscreen wipers on & the bird was splattered all over the screen. After the tour I think we had the opportunity to buy the cars at a reduced price but I had just bought a new Ford Corsair. Like all our overseas trips there was a great camaraderie & we all got on well.'

I spotted former City striker Mick Harford at the Leyton Orient game and he had kind words to say about the Sky Blues saying they 'played really well, looked a unit and had a few outstanding players for League 1'. Mick of course had the briefest of careers at Coventry. Signed by Bobby Gould from Sunderland in the summer of 1993 his solitary appearance was as a substitute in the first home game of the season against newly-promoted Newcastle. Mick came off the bench for Tony Sheridan with sixteen minutes remaining and the score at 1-1. Five minutes from the end his looping header clinched the three points for the Sky Blues. Unfortunately Mick suffered back problems and didn't play again during his 13-month stay at Highfield Road. He did recover and joined Wimbledon and went on to play a further 60 games before taking up coaching. As a manager he has had spells with Rotherham & Luton as well as caretaker roles at Nottingham Forest & QPR. He is currently assistant manager to Steve Lomas at Millwall. He didn't tell me which players he might have been scouting for at Sixfields.