Jim's column 5.1.2019

Santa Claus was good to Coventry City this year. After a poor run of results – four league defeats in a row and no wins in seven – the Sky Blues bounced back with three straight wins over the holiday season. Tight but deserved home victories over Charlton and Southend were followed by a comfortable win at Wycombe on New Years Day. Daniel Davenport asked the pertinent question : when did City last win all three Christmas games?

There have been some good Christmas's over the years but you have to go back to 1959 for the last time they recorded three victories – coincidentally the season after the club won promotion from the Fourth Division. The run started on Christmas morning – the last time City played on the 25th December – with a 5-3 victory over Wrexham with four goals from Ken Satchwell and another from Peter Hill watched by 17,500 at Highfield Road. The following day, as was the tradition back then, the two clubs met again at Wrexham's Racecourse Ground and Satchwell was on fire again, scoring two of the goals in City's 3-1 victory with Ray Straw netting the other.

In those days New Year's Day wasn't a bank holiday so there were no fixtures on the 1st January but the following day City entertained York City and Satchwell made it eight goals in three games scoring twice in a 5-2 home win with Peter Hill, Straw and an own goal also on target in front of 14,400. City did leave it late however with three goals in the last nine minutes.

                                                              Ken Satchwell                                

The run of three victories (six points not nine in those days) lifted City to third place in Division three, four points behind leaders Bury and three back from Southampton. City eventually finished fifth as Saints and Norwich won promotion.

This year's Christmas run coincided with victories over three of the teams they defeated in the excellent run in October and resulted in three doubles being recorded in a matter of seven days. I'm pretty confident that is a first for the club.

The win over Southend was particularly satisfying as it was the first home league win over the Shrimpers since 1960. Since then the Essex club have made six trips to Coventry and won three and drawn three. Older Sky Blue fans will remember the embarrassing 5-2 defeat inflicted by them in the 1963-64 promotion season. Jordy Hiwula therefore ended an awkward bogey record against Southend.

Several readers thought we had fielded our youngest ever side in the Southend game with Zain Westbrooke making his first start. Zain is actually older than the player he replaced, Luke Thomas, and therefore the starting XI v Charlton was younger. My age expert Geoff Moore ran the numbers for me and for the Charlton game the starting XI had an average age of 22 years & 250 days and is the youngest for a league game since September 1983 when the average age of Bobby Gould's starting XI at West Ham was 22 years & 248 days. That line up was as follows: Suckling (17), Hormantschuk (20), Roberts (27), Grimes (26), Peake (26), Jacobs (22), Butterworth (18), Withey (23), Platnauer (22), Gibson (20), Adams (21). The youngest team ever put out by Coventry City was at Cheltenham this season in the FL Trophy which had an average age of 21 years & 33 days, 25 days younger than the youngest ever league side which played at Manchester City in 1980.

Jim's column 24.11.2018

Coventry City have a history of developing young talent and blooding them in the first team that stretches back to before World War Two. Harry Storer, City's legendary manager in the 1930s gave Second Division debuts to teenagers such as Ted Roberts, Plum Warner, Ellis Lager and George Mason. In the 1960s Jimmy Hill had faith in youngsters like Bobby Gould, Ronnie Rees and Mick Coop before a glut of kids came through under Noel Cantwell - the team that reached the 1970 Youth Cup final spawned eight first teamers, all of them making their debuts as teenagers. It has continued almost non-stop ever since with few barren periods where the club had to rely on the transfer market. Last week Mark Robins put out a first team at Cheltenham in the Football League Trophy that was the youngest starting XI in the club's history. The average age of the team that took the field was 21 years and 33 days, 25 days less than the previous record set at Maine Road in 1980.

The team comprised of: O'Brien (26), Grimmer (24), Mason (21), Eccles (18), Williams (19), Thompson (19), Jones (21), Bayliss (19), Bakayoko (22), Ngandu (17), Shipley (21). When the first substitute Sam McCallum (18) came on the average age dropped to 20 years 301 days and when Jack Burroughs (17) came on for Tom Bayliss it dropped even further, to 20 years 236 days. The final substitution – Jak Hickman (18) for Johnny Ngandu – pushed the average up a shade. Some people will argue that it was a meaningless game in a fairly meaningless competition but it still qualifies as a competitive first team game. Congo-born Ngandu meanwhile became the sixth youngest player to start a first team game. He was only 19 days past his seventeenth birthday and slots into the top ten.

1. Brian Hill (April 1958) 16 years 273 days
2. Isaac Osbourne (April 2003) 16 years 308 days
3. Perry Suckling (August 1982) 16 years 320 days
4. George Curtis (April 1956) 16 years 351 days
5. Dietmar Bruck (April 1961) 17 years 9 days
6. Johnny Ngandu (November 2018) 17 years 19 days
7. Colin Holder (April 1962) 17 years 73 days
8. Conor Thomas (Jan 2011) 17 years 92 days
9. Lol Harvey (Nov 1951)  17 years 101 days
10. Bobby Parker (March 1970) 17 years 137 days

                                                                 Johnny Ngandu 

Going back to 1980, Gordon Milne was reaping the benefit of many years of the club investing in youth and luring some of the country's best talent to Coventry. The young team would go on to reach the League Cup semi final and only lose out on a trip to Wembley by virtue of a late West Ham goal in the semi final second leg. The team that Milne put out at Maine Road was: Les Sealey (23), Steve Jacobs (19), Brian Roberts (25), Andy Blair (20), Paul Dyson (20), Gary Gillespie (20), Peter Bodak (19), Garry Thompson (21), Mark Hateley (19), Danny Thomas (19), Steve Hunt (24). Nine homegrown players plus Gillespie who was signed as a 17-year old.

Many thanks to Geoff Moore for his statistical help.

Keith Ballantyne regularly asks interesting questions and was recently struck by the somewhat unusual occurrence of a player scoring, and then finding himself in goal a couple of minutes later - the game in question being Ipswich v Preston, and the player being Paul Gallagher after the Preston goalkeeper received a red card, all substitutes having been used.

He wanted to know whether this unique honour has ever fallen to a City player. He recalled David Speedie going in goal for Oggy during a 4-1 defeat at Millwall in 1989, but it was David Smith who scored for City on that occasion. With the advent of multiple substitutions and the almost universal inclusion of goalkeeping substitutes it is very uncommon these days to find an outfield player going 'between the sticks'. I was able to tell him that no City player has scored a goal and then donned the goalkeeper's jersey. The nearest incident to this occurred in 1958 in a home game with Aldershot. City goalkeeper Jim Sanders broke his leg and full-back and captain Roy Kirk went into goal for the last half an hour. With six minutes left and City winning 7-1 they were awarded a penalty. Kirk raced from his goal to the other end to take the penalty but blasted it over the bar.

Next week I'll tell you about other outfield players who went in goal for City.

Keith's other question is regarding goalkeepers who have scored for and against City. He remembers, only too well that Oggy scored against Martin Hodge and Sheffield Wednesday in a 2-2 draw at Hillsborough in 1986 as he was at that game but he seems to remember that another keeper did the same to Oggy some years later, and Watford came to his mind as the offending side, but he's not really sure.

It was Watford Keith and a goalkeeper called Steve Sherwood. In January 1984 City entertained the Hornets, then managed by Graham Taylor. It was a very windy day at Highfield Road and Sherwood's long punt bounced on the edge of the City penalty area. City's goalkeeper, Raddy Avramovic and Watford's Nigel Callaghan challenged for the ball but the Yugoslav 'keeper missed his punch and the ball ended up in the City net. Watford went on to win 2-1. I'm not aware of any other goals scored by goalkeepers in City games.

Jim's column 10.12.2016

Coventry City's miserable season hit another low on Sunday as they capitulated to League Two Cambridge United in their FA Cup clash. For the third season running the Sky Blues have been knocked out of the competition by a club from a lower status; Cambridge following Worcester City and Northampton Town as David's to City's Goliath. Few City fans travelled with confidence but the size of the defeat, 4-0, was a shock, being the club's heaviest loss to a lower status club since they first entered the Cup in 1895. Before Sunday City had lost only once by more than two goals to a lesser club – in 1922 as a Division 2 side they were defeated 3-0 at New Brighton from the Lancashire Combination in the equivalent of the First Round.

Another record set on Sunday was the four goals by Cambridge's Luke Berry – the first man to score four against the club in an FA Cup game. Berry has never been a prolific scorer – in 2014-15 he made 31 appearances for Barnsley and scored once – but it was a day to remember for him on Sunday. Berry is only the fourth opposition player to score four in a game since the war, the others being:-

1946-47 Jackie Gibbons (Bradford P.A. A) City lost 1-5

1983-84 Ian Rush (Liverpool A) City lost 0-5

2000-01 Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (Chelsea A) City lost 1-6

Since JFH's four goals sixteen years ago, City have only had seven hat-tricks scored against them, and two of them came on successive Saturdays in 2013 when Nahki Wells (Bradford City) and Ryan Lowe (Tranmere) netted three each. The last FA Cup hat-trick by an opponent was by Colchester's Rowan Vine in 2004 in a 3-1 replay defeat at Layer Road.

I always rely on fellow City historian Geoff Moore when it comes to City's youngest and oldest teams and he has been in touch recently. City's youngest ever starting line up was at Manchester City in November 1980 when Gordon Milne put out a side with an average age of 21 years and 58 days.

That team was: Les Sealey (23), Steve Jacobs (19), Brian Roberts (25), Andy Blair (20), Paul Dyson (20), Gary Gillespie (20), Peter Bodak (19), Garry Thompson (21), Mark Hateley (19), Danny Thomas (19), Steve Hunt (24). Nine homegrown players plus Gillespie who was signed as a 17-year old.

Geoff informs me that the youngest starting team this season was Scunthorpe (h) with an average age of 22 years 59 days but for the FLT game at Wycombe last month the average was 21 years 120 days. That line up was:

Charles-Cook (22), Dion Kelly-Evans (20), Sterry (21), Finch (20), Turnbull (22), Harries (19), Lameiras (21), Rose (26), Maycock (18),Thomas (19), McBean (21).

At half-time Haynes (21), Jones (19) and Bigirimana (23) were introduced for Sterry, Rose and Lameiras, bringing the average age down to 20 years 274 days, the youngest Coventry City side on the pitch for a competitive game.

Robert Yates enjoyed my piece last week on the two memorable games 50 years ago. He wrote:

'I remember that season well, going to all the home games and selected away games, I was 18 that year, and not having my own car yet, took the trip to the Wolves game on the Red House coach, probably costing about 7/6d. I was on the South Bank at Molineux, rather conspicuous in my blue mac and sky blue 6 foot college scarf, but it was an incredible game, and with your details from the game, it could have happened yesterday, but I remember Gibson's goal at our end and as you say, a lot of Wolves pressure after that.

After Wolves had equalized, and were pressing hard, there was an amazing miss by Ernie Hunt, but some local guys behind me said, "Eh, you don't support this lot , do you mate?" after that City scored two more goals and I looked around and my local commentators had disappeared!

The Ipswich game was also incredible on the Friday night as they were top of the league at the time, and I remember the headlines in the Coventry Telegraph the next day; "Sky Blues G-men (Gould and Gibson) Grill the Leaders". John Key scored in both games and was a very under-rated player on the right wing.

Amazing, that then you had to catch up with the stories mainly in the 'Pink' and other papers, there was no local radio phone ins!'

Jim's column 11.10.2014

The big story of the week was Coventry Council's sale of their shares in ACL to Wasps RFC & the possible ramifications. The story obviouslyovershadowed events on the pitch – a welcome point against Crawley after three successive defeats & progress in the Football League Trophy (aka Johnstone's Paint Trophy) with a very young side.

The Crawley game was watched by a pitifully low crowd of 7,708 – the lowest home league crowd in the city since January 1986. Then City, struggling in the relegation zone, lost 0-2 to Graham Taylor's Watford for whom John Barnes scored both goals in front of 7,478. That was the lowest league crowd since April 1962 when the club had two end of season crowds under 6,000. Watford were making their second visit to Highfield Road in fourteen days having won 3-1 in an FA Cup Third round tie two Saturday's previously when the attendance was 10,500. Fourteen months after that miserably poor crowd the Sky Blues were at Wembley in the FA Cup final in front of 98,000! It shows how a club's fortunes can change in a short space of time.

On Tuesday night a crowd of 7,273, far more than many were expecting, attended the Exeter tie in the Football League Trophy. They witnessed a solid 3-1 victory from Steven Pressley's side who worked hard to break down a packed Exeter defence. With a 2-0 half-time lead Pressley was able to introduce two more of the promising under 18 side, George Thomas & James Maddison. The former made one appearance last term & Maddison was making his third appearance from the bench this campaign & both gave mature & exciting performances. With the Sky Blues also fielding youngsters Lee Burge, Aaron Phillips, Ryan Haynes, Jordan Willis & Conor Thomas I had a feeling that the side that finished the game was one of the youngest City X1s of all time.

The record youngest City X1 is the team that started versus Manchester City away on 22 November 1980 which had an average age of 21 years and 58 days. Geoff Moore who tracks this interesting statistic tells me that Tuesday's final X1 averaged just 21 days more, so it was probably the second youngest of all time and the youngest ever for a home game. For the second time this season the finishing line-up was comprised of nine home-grown players – a fantastic achievement by the club & the Academy set-up ably led until last season by Gregor Rioch.

Talking of Aaron Phillips, the youngest scored a superb brace of goals & supporters were asking if a full-back has ever scored a hat-trick for the club. I can find no record of a defender ever scoring three in a game. The last full-back to score two in a game was Steve Morgan in a 3-0 League Cup victory over Wycombe Wanderers in 1993-94 season and Steve Phelps reminded me that Brain Borrows got two in a 5-1 victory over Liverpool in December 1992. Over the years City have had very few prolific full-back goalscorers. Bobby McDonald scored a few goals as did Danny Thomas and of course Aaron's father David was playing at full-back when he scored at Sutton in 1989.

                                                                Steve Morgan              

Exeter, making their first trip to the city since 1958-59 season, had a vociferous band of almost 500 supporters who never gave up their chanting & were rewarded with a late consolation goal. Coventry is not a happy hunting ground for the Grecians; they have won only twice in 19 visits & the last time was back in 1934 in a Division Thee South Cup tie.

Kevin Ring found last week's piece about the 1964 friendly with Brazilian America FC interesting & remembers attending the game. He recalls that the old Atkinson's Stand had been demolished in the few days since the final league game with Colchester, leaving the two wing stands (that had been erected during the 1963-64 season) either side of a big gap of rubble. In the subsequent weeks the centre blocks of the new Sky Blue Stand were erected in time for the start of the new season. He pointed out that in the Jimmy Hill era the club played many foreign sides in friendly games at the old stadium including Slovan Bratislava, TSV Aachen, Ferenvaros of Hungary & Stade Francais, several of whom were 'big' clubs in Europe at the time.

Jim's column 22.3.14

Coventry City pulled off a rare feat on Sunday in the home game with Port Vale. 0-2 down going into the last ten minutes, goals from Jordan Clarke & Callum Wilson secured a valuable point. The rare feat was coming from two goals behind to draw & it was the second time that the team have done it since Steven Pressley arrived as manager just over a year ago. In March last year in Pressley's first home game in charge, the side were down 0-2 to Colchester but goals from Callum (his first senior goal) and Carl Baker won the point. That was first time  City had got a draw from 0-2 down since a 2-2 home draw with Middlesbrough in 2009.

Just over a year since Callum's first goal against Colchester and we are now marvelling at his stunning form which has harvested 19 goals this term. As I wrote last week his 18th league goal on Sunday brings him level with Dion Dublin (1997-98) as the most successful strikers in one season since Ian Wallace scored 21 in 1977-78. Who would bet against Wilson topping Wally's haul?

Callum's superb late strike against Port Vale was his fourth in consecutive league games a feat not achieved by a Coventry player since Marlon King in April 2011. The next target for Callum is the six in a row which Micky Quinn achieved in his first six games in a City shirt in 1992-93. The club record is nine held, of course, by the legendary Clarrie Bourton in 1932. In 1985 Terry Gibson scored in seven consecutive games but his run included two League cup games & a Full Members Cup game.

Sunday's starting line up was one of the youngest to appear for the club with an average age of 22 years & 329 days. That included two players (Murphy & Baker) who are over 30. Friend Geoff Moore who keeps tabs on this statistic pointed out that if either Billy Daniels or Lee Burge had started instead of Baker or Murphy it would have been the youngest starting line up in the club's history, with an average age of under 21, beating the record set in 1981 at Maine Road of 21.18 years.

Harry Hennessey asked me on Twitter this week if I could list the Bayern Munich side that played against Coventry City in 1970 in that famous European Fairs Cup second round tie. The Bayern side which included four of the West German national side that had reached the World Cup semi finals just four months previously was:

(1st leg in Munich) Maier: Hansen, Koppenhofer, Beckenbauer, Scwarzenbeck, Roth, Zobel, Mrosko, Schneider, Muller, Brenninger.

For the return game in Coventry Pumm replaced Roth and Uli Hoeness replaced Schneider. Hoeness, who was only 18 at the time and in his first season with Bayern, was recently jailed for tax evasion. I'm sure most City fans don't need reminding that Bayern triumphed 6-1 in the first leg before the Sky Blues regained a bit of pride by winning the second leg 2-1. The goals in the first game were scored by Schneider 2, Muller 2, Schwarzenbeck & Roth with Ernie Hunt replying. At Coventry Neil Martin & John O'Rourke scored with Hoeness replying. Bayern reached the quarter finals of the competition before going out to Liverpool who themselves lost to eventual winners Leeds United in the semi-final. In the final Leeds beat Juventus over two legs and on the away goals rule.

JIM'S COLUMN 20.8.2011

It was a day of double celebration in the McSheffrey household last Saturday. Gary celebrated his 29th birthday by appearing for his home town club at the ground of his former club, Birmingham City. The other celebration was Gary's 200th appearance in a Coventry shirt in all competitions. Gary made his debut as a substitute at Villa Park in February 1999 aged 16 years 198 days and was the youngest ever City player at the time as well as the youngest Premiership player. Subsequently he has lost both records, the former to Ben Mackey and later Jonson Clarke-Harris, and the latter to Aaron Lennon. He is the 45th Coventry player to reach the 200 game milestone and the first since Michael Doyle.

Talking of young debutants, several readers have been asking where the current crop of youngsters stand in the chart of youngest ever City players. Despite Gael Bigirimana, Josh Ruffels and Conor Thomas being only 17-years old, Thomas is the only one to make the top ten youngest. All three were born in October 1993 and are therefore 18 in October. When Thomas debuted as a substitute against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup last season he was 17 years and 71 days placing him 9th in the all-time chart (62 days older than Dietmar Bruck) but the youngest to play an FA Cup tie. By all accounts none of the lads let the side down at Selhurst Park and we have to hope that they all have big futures ahead of them, preferably with the Sky Blues.

Similarly several readers were wondering if the team that finished the game on Tuesday evening was the youngest City team ever. My friend Geoff Moore tracks this record very closely and assures me that City have fielded younger teams. The average age of Tuesday nights final XI was 22.8 years. That is some way off the age of the side that played at Manchester City in November 1980 which was 21 years and 58 Days. The team that day by the way was: Les Sealey: Steve Jacobs, Harry Roberts, Andy Blair, Paul Dyson, Gary Gillespie, Peter Bodak, Garry Thompson, Mark Hateley, Danny Thomas, Steve Hunt. City lost 0-3. In 2003 Gary McAllister put out several City teams with an average age of under 22.

City's depressing start to the season continued at Selhurst Park losing to two late goals and you have to go back a long way to find the last time the team lost their first three league games. It has happened on only three previous occasions: 1968-69, 1949-50 and 1919-20. The good news is that in none of those seasons were the team relegated. In 1919-20, the club's first season in the Football League, the team lost their first nine games before staging a miraculous recovery to finish 20th out of 22, albeit with the help of some bribery. In 1949-50, Harry Storer's team rallied to finish 12th. In 1968-69 City were hampered by playing their first two games away from home because the new stand at Highfield Road wasn't ready but won their fourth game (4-2 against West Brom) and despite a long struggling season did enough to stay in Division One.

Fortunately for me I have been spared the sight of the Sky Blues this season. Owing to family health problems I am extending a stay in France and may not see my beloved Sky Blues for some time. The internet and in particular internet radio enables me to keep track of news and games but Tuesday night’s game left me with nails bitten to the quick and I forced to drain my sorrows with copious amounts of red wine!