Jim's column 9.3.24

The goals are pouring in at the CBS Arena right now with another five against Rotherham United this week with Ellis Simms netting his second hat trick in eight days. The Sky Blues have now netted 38 goals in league and cup games in 2024 – only Liverpool have scored more in all four divisions. Poor old Rotherham had a nightmare evening after their goalkeeper, rated by many as the one of the best in the division, made a cataclysmic mistake.

The victory had me scouring my records for big wins and hat tricks, so here goes.

It was only the fifth time since the club moved to the CBS/Ricoh Arena in 2005 that the team have scored five or more goals and now it's happened two games in a row. The biggest home wins in the nineteen years have been:

6-0 v Bury 2015-16 (League 1)

6-1 v Derby 2005-06 (Championship)

5-0 v Maidstone 2023-24 (FA Cup)

5-0 v Rotherham 2023-24 (Championship)

5-1 v Walsall 2012-13 (League 1)

There was also the 6-1 victory over Millwall at St Andrews in 2020-21.

The last 5-0 win at home before Tuesday was the thrashing of Premiership champions Blackburn Rovers at Highfield Road in 1995. In addition City scored four goals in the first half for only the third time at the CBS, the others being the Bury game and the 4-1 win over Gillingham in 2015-16.

Simms' three goals was the club's first league hat trick since Godden's three at Tranmere in 2020 and the first at the CBS since Mark McNulty's against Grimsby in 2018. It's also only the fifth at the stadium since its opening in 2005, the others being Fredy Eastwood, Jodi Jones and Jacob Murphy. This makes Ellis the first player to score two hat tricks at the Arena. Additionally it's the first time a Coventry player has scored successive home hat tricks since Darren Huckerby scored three on successive Saturdays in January 1999 against Macclesfield (FA Cup) and Nottingham Forest and only the fourth time since the war. Ron Hewitt also scored successive home hat tricks in 1961 (against Hull and Torquay) and in 1947 the prolific George Lowrie managed three in a row. Welsh international Lowrie had a magnificent first season after war scoring 29 goals of which 22 were at Highfield Road including four hat tricks and a four-goal haul.

Let's not forget successive away hat trick scorers. Matty Godden managed two in a row in the 2019-20 promotion season, at Wycombe and Tranmere, and George Hudson achieved the feat in 1963 with three at both Trowbridge in the FA Cup and at QPR.

Jim's column 9.11.2019

Max Biamou had an interesting week. Despite receiving a red card on Saturday for a bad challenge against Accrington on Saturday the club circumvented the rules to play him in the EFL trophy game against Southampton on Tuesday evening. The three-game suspension for the red card was temporarily forgotten as the French striker scored a hat trick to virtually guarantee the club’s place in the knockout stages of the competition. Let’s hope those stages generate bigger crowds for a competition that is really struggling to attract the fans. The crowd at St Andrews on a bitterly cold Tuesday was only 375, the smallest for a competitive home game since 1900, although I did find a crowd of 306 at Highfield Road in November 1940 for a War League game which was strictly speaking not a competitive game.

Max is the first Coventry City player to score a hat trick in a Cup competition since Gary McSheffrey netted three in a 8-0 home victory over Rushden and Diamonds in the League Cup in 2002-03. Since 2000 there have been only ten Sky Blue hat tricks, as follows:

2000-01. John Aloisi v Preston (h) League Cup

2001-02. Lee Hughes v Crewe (a)

2002-03. Gary McSheffrey v Rushden (h) League Cup

2009-10. Freddy Eastwood v Peterborough (h)

2015-16. Jacob Murphy v Gillingham (h)

2015-16. Adam Armstrong v Crewe (a)

2017-18. Jodi Jones v Notts County (h)

2017-18. Marc McNulty v Grimsby (h)

2017-18. Marc McNulty v Cheltenham (a)

2019-20. Max Biamou v Southampton (h) EFL Trophy

Older City fans may remember Robert (Bob) Dobbing, a full-back who was a regular in the reserve team between 1967-69 but never quite made the first team. Sunderland-born Dobbing joined City straight from school and played in the same youth team as Willie Carr, Jeff Blockley and Trevor Gould. After emigrating to Australia in the 70s he was chosen to represent Australia but broke his leg before the game. He lives in Melbourne but still has family in the North East and they have been in touch with the bad news that Robert has prostate cancer. He had an operation this week and everybody is hoping that he has a successful outcome. CCFPA have sourced a 1960s style City shirt for him and that is winging its way to him in Australia.

                                                         Bob Dobbing with son Steven and daughter Natasha

Jim's column 16.1.2016

The fabulous 5-0 victory at Crewe's Gresty Road ground two weeks ago had me scrabbling through the records again, something I've had to do a lot during this exciting season. Adam Armstrong finally got the hat-trick he deserved after so many braces (five in total) and after failing to score an away goal since August. He certainly made up for it at Crewe and even dispatched a penalty, something few City players have shown proficiency at in the last two seasons.

It was the first hat-trick by a City player in an away game for 14 years - since Lee Hughes at the same ground in 2002 – and only the third in the last 20 years, the other being Darren Huckerby at Elland Road in April 1998. That memorable season of 1997-98 when City were denied a place in the FA Cup semi finals in a penalty shoot-out at Bramall Lane, was the last time City had two league hat-tricks in a season with Huckerby's partner in crime Dion Dublin snatching the first in a famous 3-2 opening day victory over a star-studded but petulant Chelsea.

Earlier in the season Armstrong became the second youngest City player to score two goals in a game, narrowly failing to beat Tommy English's record. However Adam did manage to smash English's record as the youngest hat-trick scorer. Adam, at 18 years and 326 days is just over six months younger than English was when he scored three of the City's goals in a 4-1 home win over Leicester City in March 1981. English was a prodigious talent but his goalscoring feats don't stand up against the man from Tyneside – English took 50 league appearances to reach 16 league goals, Armstrong took 22.

                                                        Tommy English

Other young hat-trick scorers for City have been Ronnie Rees who scored three in the 8-1 thrashing of Shrewsbury in 1963-64 at the age of 19 years and 201 days and Willie Carr was only a few weeks older when he netted three in a 3-1 home victory over West Brom in 1969. Bobby Gould, Mark Hateley and Ian Wallace all scored hat-tricks for the club before they reached their 21^st birthday.

City scoring five goals in a game was commonplace in the 1930s and the team earned the nickname of the 'Old Five' because they hit a nap hand so often. Between 1931 and 1936 the team scored 350 goals in 105 home league games, an average of more than three a game, losing only eleven games. The Crewe victory was the first time City have scored five in a league since the first game at Sixfields in August 2013 when they defeated Bristol City 5-4. You have to go back to November 2012 for the last five goal winning margin – at Hartlepool. The Crewe victory was only the second time that City have won an away game by a 5-0 scoreline, the first being that Hartlepool game.

It was only the ninth time in 52 years that City have scored five or more goals on their travels. The previous eight are:-

November 2012 5-0 at Hartlepool

April 2008 5-1 at Colchester

May 2004 5-2 at Gillingham

January 2004 6-1 at Walsall

February 2002 6-1 at Crewe

January 1998 5-1 at Bolton

January 1993 5-2 at Blackburn

May 1982 5-5 at Southampton

Before that you have to go back to November 1963 when City won 6-3 at QPR, after which the QPR manager Alec Stock described Jimmy Hill's team as 'the best Third Division side I have ever seen'.

Finally a comment about the attendances. At the start of the season I predicted that if we were in the top six at Christmas we would be getting 15,000 crowds and the Boxing Day crowd exceeded that. On Tuesday night there was a slight but expected dip to 15,671 – still the best January home league crowd since 2008.

If you strip out the away fans (1,359) there were 14,312 'home' supporters. Exactly a year before, against Swindon, there were 6,594 'home' fans in a crowd of 7,098. That makes an increase of 117% from a year ago, a phenomenal jump and a reflection not only on City's elevated league position but also the outstanding home form which has combined results with attractive football.

JIM'S COLUMN 19.12.09

After a run of ten games without a win stretching back to September, the Sky Blues managed to gain all three points against Peterborough United last Saturday but it was a close run thing. When Posh scored their equalising goal things looked bleak for Chris Coleman and it was hard not to imagine a loud anti-Coleman protest if Freddy Eastwood had not completed his hat-trick and clinched the points for the Sky Blues. The bad run came to an end but it was hardly convincing. It was, by the way, City’s first home win on a Saturday since the 1-0 win over Doncaster in March!
Freddy was the star of the show and rightly got all the plaudits in the press.

Coventry City hat-tricks are as rare as an MP’s honest expense claim. Unbelievably it was the first City league hat-trick for almost eight years – since Lee Hughes scored three at Crewe in a 6-1 romp in early 2002. You have to go back even further to find the last home league hat-trick, that was Darren Huckerby in a 4-0 win over Nottm. Forest in 1999. In fact it is only the third home hat-trick in twenty years and the last ten league hat-tricks for the Sky Blues are:

1.10.88 David Speedie v Middlesbrough (h) lost 3-4
2.1.89 David Speedie v Sheffield Wed (h) won 5-0
14.8.93 Mick Quinn v Arsenal (a) won 3-0
14.3.95 Peter Ndlovu v Liverpool (a) won 3-2
4.12.95 Dion Dublin v Sheffield Wed (a) lost 3-4
9.8.97 Dion Dublin v Chelsea (h) won 3-2
25.4.98 Darren Huckerby v Leeds (a) draw 3-3
9.1.99 Darren Huckerby v Nottm Forest (h) won 4-0
9.2.2002 Lee Hughes v Crewe (a) won 6-1
12.12.2009 Freddy Eastwood v Peterborough (h) won 3-2

During the period Kevin Gallacher, Huckerby, John Aloisi & Gary McSheffrey have all scored hat-tricks in cup games with McSheffrey’s the last against Rushden & Diamonds in 2002.

We can only imagine what fun it was watching Coventry City in 1931-32, that season the immortal Clarrie Bourton scored seven hat-tricks in his haul of 49 league goals. That is more than City players have managed in the last 14 years.
Since Hughes’ three goal strike at Crewe in 2002, two players have scored league hat-tricks against the Sky Blues. In 2004-05 QPR’s Jamie Cureton scored three in the 4-1 victory at Loftus Road and in 2005-06 Vincent Pericard of Plymouth netted all three in Argyle’s 3-1 win.

Talking of Argyle, City travel there today in a vital game trying to end their Home Park bogey. Since Plymouth came into the Championship in 2004 City have lost four out of the five games there, drawing the first one. This is one record that needs breaking today!