Jim's column 23.5.2020

Last week's article about Coventry City away kits generated a lot of interest and prompted a further question. Tom wanted to know about the all red change strip that was worn up to the summer of 1969 when the club introduced the popular green and black version.

Coventry City's 'change' kit, to be used on away grounds (only) if there was a colour clash with the home team, had traditionally been red. In the 1950s it was red with white sleeves, similar to the famous Arsenal kits, with white shorts but prior to Jimmy Hill arriving in 1961 it had been an all red shirt with white v-neck and white shorts. In 1962, at the same time as introducing the all-Sky Blue kit he introduced the all red 'change; kit. The shirt, which had a round neck and long sleeves, had no piping and was worn with identical coloured shorts and socks. Its first outing came in September at Colchester in a 0-0 draw and was worn on 14 occasions that season. It was a tremendous season that saw the Sky Blues reach the quarter finals of the FA Cup and only fail to gain promotion because of the heavy fixture congestion resulting from the Cup run and the worst winter of the twentieth century. Of those 14 away games the team lost only twice whilst wearing red, at Portsmouth in the League Cup and at Reading near the end of the season and was dubbed 'the lucky kit' by Nemo in the Coventry Telegraph.

                          The red away kit at Cardiff in 1967

The kit continued to be lucky for the team up until the 1967 promotion with more wins than losses notwithstanding some notable losses, at West Brom in the 1965 League Cup (6-1) and at Everton in the FA Cup that season (3-0). The luck ran out in the First Division when in the first two seasons there were only two away victories (at West Brom and QPR) out of thirteen outings for the red strip. The last time the red strip was worn was at Everton on 12th April 1969, a 3-0 defeat. After seven seasons the kit was consigned to the dustbin of history and I can never remember seeing a fan wear a replica version of the shirt.

                             'Gibbo' in red kit

Michael Harrington posed a good question recently. He asked about a game against Preston at Highfield Road in January 1950. City won 1-0 with a goal from Ted Roberts but Michael wanted to know if Bill Shankly, the future legendary manager of Liverpool played for Preston, and also if another future famous manager, Tommy Docherty, played for Preston, and if it could have been his league debut, replacing the great Tom Finney who was injured.

Preston had been relegated from the First Division the previous season and Shankly, who was 36 years old, retired from playing in March 1949 when he was given his first managerial appointment at Carlisle. The Preston Plumber, Tom Finney, was out injured at the time. Docherty played at right half but it wasn't his debut; he had been signed the previous year from Celtic (to replace Shankly) and was already a regular. Preston regained their top flight status the following season but Finney again missed the game at Highfield Road but did finally appear at the old stadium in early 1956 in a friendly. In what I think was Joe Elliott's first ever City game, Finney gave a stunning performance in a 4-1 victory, scoring two goals and mesmerising City's veteran left back Charlie Timmins so much that City's manager George Raynor switched the full-backs at half-time.

Tony Monaghan's memory isn't good. He remembers a day when City were away to Stoke in the late 60s or early 70s. He says: 'we travelled to Stoke on the day only to find the match was postponed on the morning due to snow. We spent a great day in the pub with Stoke supporters. Can you tell me when this was and what was the result when the match was eventually played?'

The postponed game was on 20th January 1973. I remember it well as I travelled up to Stoke with a friend and we heard the game was called off as we came off the M6 at the Stoke exit. We turned round and went home! At the time City were flying high and had beaten Orient 4-1 in the FA Cup the week before. The game was rescheduled for 26th March by which time City had lost to Wolves in the FA Cup Sixth round and were on a run of games that saw them lose 10 of their final eleven games. Colin Stein put City ahead after five minutes but John Ritchie (47) and Sean Haslegrave (64) gave Stoke a 2-1 win.

Thanks to Dean Nelson for picture

Jim's column 28.1.2017

Coventry City's relegation-threatened team are just ninety minutes from Wembley after a successful penalty shoot-out at Swansea's Liberty Stadium on Tuesday evening. After a stuttering ninety minutes the young Sky Blues team made their experience count from the penalty spot with George Thomas, Gael Bigirimana, Kyel Reid and Ruben Lameiras all netting and Reice Charles-Cook saving two of the four Swansea efforts.

The penalty shoot-out success ended a run of three losses from similar sudden death endings. Last season they lost shoot-outs at Rochdale and Yeovil and in 2013 they lost at Leyton Orient, managed at the time by Russell Slade. The last victory from a penalty competition before Tuesday was a Football League Trophy game against Sheffield United in 2012 when a Joe Murphy master-class helped the Sky Blues to a 4-1 victory. City's record in all shoot-outs since their first at Reading in the Simod (Full Members) Cup in 1988, is now played nine, won four and lost five.

Saturday's league defeat to Fleetwood was manager Russell Slade's fifth league game in charge and he has still to record a victory. Several people asked me whether this is a record for a new Coventry manager. I've looked back at previous incoming managers (excluding caretakers) and Russell has some way to go to break the record, set in 1967 by Noel Cantwell. The Irishman, in his first management post, took over from Jimmy Hill before the Tottenham home game on October 14^th and did not record his first victory until December 16^th when a Bobby Gould hat-trick helped secure a 5-1 victory over Burnley. In his first nine league games in charge the team drew four and lost five.

Other incoming managers who had poor starts are Joe Mercer in 1972 – his team failed to win any of their first six games, and Terry Butcher who despite a thrilling 5-4 League Cup win over Nottingham Forest, similarly failed to win six league games after succeeding John Sillett in 1990.

On the flip side, the best incoming manager has to be Roland Nilsson who was unbeaten in his first 11 league games after replacing Gordon Strachan in September 2001. The great Harry Storer won his first five games at the start of his second stint as manager in 1948 – pulling the team away from the Second Division basement. In 1961 Jimmy Hill won four of his first five games in charge after replacing Billy Frith.

Chatting to former City chairman Joe Elliott recently he mentioned that his first ever City game was a friendly against Preston North End in 1956 and could I provide some details. The game took place on 28 January 1956, the day of the FA Cup Fourth Round. Both sides were out of the Cup so organised a friendly game at Highfield Road. First Division North End fielded 10 of the players who had beaten league leaders Manchester United 3-1 seven days previously, including one of the country's top stars Tom Finney.

City, fifth in Division Three South, had recently lost their manager, Jesse Carver, who had returned to Italy just months after arriving with a fanfare. His number two George Raynor was in charge and named the following team:

Reg Matthews: Frank Austin, Charlie Timmins: Iain Jamieson, Roy Kirk, Noel Simpson: Eric Johnson, Denis Uphill, Ken McPherson, Peter Hill, Ray Sambrook.

The weather was dismal with driving rain turning the pitch into a muddy quagmire and keeping the crowd down to 13,700. Many of the crowd came to see Finney – in those days before television was saturated with football, top stars had to be seen in the flesh and Finney had never played before at Highfield Road. They weren't disappointed as the England international right-winger turned on a magical display and Nemo wrote in the Coventry Telegraph: 'try as they might, neither Charlie Timmins nor Frank Austin, who swopped with his full-back partner in the second half, could do a thing with the Preston wizard'.

McPherson gave City a second minute lead following a 'gigantic goal-kick by Matthews' but Finney equalised from the penalty spot soon afterwards. Evans made it 2-1 for the visitors just before the break but in the second half North End were the superior side described by Nemo 'playing some of the best precision passing I have seen on a heavy pitch'.

Finney and Foster scored further goals with 'unstoppable shots' as Preston ran out 4-1 victors. Poor old Timmins failed to stop Finney once, 'I had not enough energy left to even shake hands with Finney afterwards', laughed Charlie after the game.

Two days later City hosted another top side in a friendly, San Lorenzo of Argentina. That, however, is a story for another day.

Jim's column 22.2.14

Steven Pressley blooded two more debutants on Tuesday night against Carlisle United and has now used 30 players in all games this season, a high number but still seven short of last season's total and well short of the club record 44 used in the dire 2002-03 campaign.  Loanees Chuba Akpom & Michael Petrasso (the club's first ever Canadian) became the 899th & 900th players to wear a Coventry City shirt in a competitive game since the club joined the Football League in 1919. It is less than seven years since Robbie Simpson became the 800th in a League Cup tie at home to Aldershot and less than 12 years since Steve Walsh (now he was one of our worst signings) became no. 700 at Watford.

Paul O'Connor has analysed the timescales of the 900 players and points out that there is a clear correlation between performance on the pitch and number of players used.

1-100                    (1919-1925) 6 years – early days of struggle

101-200               (1925-1931) 6.5 years – more struggles

201-300                (1931-1950) 19 years – granted included the 6 years of WW2 but many players came back to play – promotion and Div 2 consolidation.

301-400                (1950-1963) 11.5 years – not so settled and included the start of the JH upheaval

401-500                (1963-1980) 17 years – promotion and consolidation in top flight

501-600                (1980-1993) 13 years – survival but tempered by the Bobby Gould eras

601-700                (1993-2002) 9 years – survival but then relegation. (10% loans)

701-800                (2002-2007) 5 years – rudderless ship. (31 % loans)

800-900               (2007-2014) 6.5 years – continued decline and relegation (25 % loans)

Paul's analysis is spot-on and two other factors have influenced the modern day turnover of players. Until the 1990s there were few loan players but since the club's relegation in 2001 they have increasingly been forced into the loan market, mainly because of the flexibility & relatively low cost of taking loan players. In addition there has been a far greater turnover of managers since Gordon Milne's long reign ended in 1981. The greater turnover in managers, the greater turnover in players as new managers insist on building their own teams & often clear the decks of the old guard.

It is no surprise that the periods in the club's history with the lowest turnover of players, the 1930s and the 1960s, coincided with their most successful eras. The main managers in those eras, Harry Storer and Jimmy Hill, were both given time to build success & realised the benefit of a low turnover of players.

The death of the great Tom Finney last weekend prompted tributes at football grounds across England. I never saw him play in the flesh but have seen clips of him playing for Preston and England. Dean Nelson asked if Finney ever played against Coventry City during his long career. Preston did spend two seasons in the old Division Two between 1949-51 and Finney, nicknamed the Preston plumber because of his profession outside football, played in the two draws at Deepdale but did not appear at Highfield Road. Preston were promoted back to Division One in 1951 & with City relegated to Division Three the following year it seemed unlikely that Tom would ever play in Coventry. Then in January 1956 with both sides out of the FA Cup & with a free Saturday, a friendly was arranged.

Finney dazzled 13,000 rain-soaked spectators as Preston comfortably beat City 4-1. The England winger bamboozled City’s left-back Charlie Timmins so much that according to other City players Timmins pleaded at half-time for manager George Raynor to switch him to right-back. Raynor obliged, and Frank Austin faced 45 minutes of torment from Finney.

Dan Brown asked me for details of his first Coventry game which he thinks was against Liverpool in February 1992. The game was during the brief reign of Don Howe who had taken over a month earlier after Terry Butcher's sacking. Howe had recorded his first victory, 1-0 at Crystal Palace, a week earlier and a 0-0 with third-placed Liverpool was seen as a good result. Kevin Gallacher gave the Reds defence an uncomfortable afternoon & Grobbelar had to make three good saves to foil City. Liverpool faded after this game & eventually finished sixth whilst City were dragged into a relegation battle and only survived on the final day after Notts County beat Luton to make City's defeat at Villa Park immaterial.

The gate was 21,547 and the City line-up was: Ogrizovic: McGrath, Sansom, Robson, Billing, Atherton, Flynn, Emerson, Rosario, Gallacher, Smith D.

Liverpool's line-up was: Grobbelar: Jones, Burrows, Marsh, Wright, Tanner, Saunders, Houghton, Walters, Redknapp, McManaman. subs: Harkness & Rosenthal.