On Monday evening Coventry City will attempt to reach the FA Cup Sixth round for only the third time since the club won the famous trophy under John Sillett and George Curtis in 1987. 37 years have passed since that memorable day and the club's record in the world's most famous club competition has been pretty woeful. This is only the eighth time in those years that the Sky Blues have reached the last sixteen and four of those occasions came in successive seasons in the late 1990s when Gordon Strachan was in charge. The results of the previous seven appearances in the last sixteen since 1987 are:
26 February 1997 Derby County away Lost 2-3
14 February 1998 Aston Villa away Won 1-0
13 February 1999 Everton away Lost 1-2
29 January 2000 Charlton Athletic home Lost 2-3
16 February 2008 West Brom home Lost 0-5
24 February 2009 Blackburn Rovers home Won 1-0 (after 2-2 draw)
17 February 2018 Brighton away Lost 1-3
On the two occasions that they have reached the last eight they have failed against Sheffield United (in 1998) and to Chelsea (in 2008).
Monday's game is City's 17th FA Cup game against non-league opposition since the war and in the previous sixteen the Sky Blues have progressed on 12 occasions. However the ghosts of Kings Lynn, Sutton United, Worcester City and Wrexham linger over the club's FA Cup history almost as much as the triumphant 1987 story. Let's pray that Mark Robins' side can ignore those ghosts and take the club to the last eight for only the eighth time in their 140-year history.
The hard fought 1-0 victory at Stoke last week made it 20 successive league and cup games that the team have scored. You have to go back 11th November to find the last time the team failed to find the net – a 0-0 home draw with Stoke, coincidentally the game that the manager switched to a back four after several years playing a back three. In 20 games the team have scored a staggering 43 goals, albeit 11 in the FA Cup. Several readers have asked if this run is a club record but there is some way to go to match Jimmy Hill's team from the 1966-67 Second Division promotion season. In that momentous campaign, after a 1-0 defeat at Millwall in September 1966 the team went 29 scoring games before a 0-0 draw at Northampton in March 1967. After that scoreless draw the team scored in a further 16 scoring games including the first six games in Division One. In more recent times Mark Robins' 2012-13 team had 24 successive scoring games as he rejuvenated the club following relegation to League One.
Ed Blackaby has recently acquired a programme from a friendly game played at Highfield Road in 1962. On 11 December 1962 City played a friendly game with an England Youth XI and put out a full first team for a midweek game in the middle of a 46-game season (and the club was still in the FA Cup). A measly crowd of 3,448 watched the Sky Blues beat the England team 2-1 with goals from Hugh Barr and Ronnie Rees. The England team went on to win the European Youth Championships the following May and included many young players who went on to have successful top flight careers including Chelsea's Ron Harris, Tottenham's Phil Beal and Sheffield United full-backs Len Badger and Bernard Shaw. The outside right is David Pleat who had already made a scoring debut for Nottingham Forest in Division One but would be released two years later having made only six appearances. He went on to play 170 odd games with various lower division sides before making his name as a very successful manager with numerous clubs. Strangely, none of the England youth team won full England caps.
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