Jim's column 16.3.2013

 Coventry City's topsy-turvy season continued this week and is actually getting a little predictable. The Sky Blues impressive away form continued with an away win at Scunthorpe, a club record 11th league win on the road beating the 10 by Noel Cantwell's Europe-bound team in 1969-70. Then, three days later, the depressing home form continued with a 2-2 draw with lowly Colchester United. Yet another late goal by Carl Baker saved City's bacon and kept the embers of the play-off fire glowing slightly. It will need a miracle or a serious collapse by at least two of the teams ahead of them in the table for the Sky Blues to seal a place even if administration is avoiced. They probably can't afford to lose more than two of the remaining eight games and having failed to win three league games in a row all season that seems too tall an order. No City team has won three consecutive league games since December 2010 when, under Aidy Boothroyd, home wins over Burnley & Middlesbrough sandwiched a win at Scunthorpe.

The away form continues to be impressive and another club record is just around the corner - most away goals in a season. The record was set in 1963-64, the Third Division Championship season, when the team won eight away games and scored 36 goals. The current team have scored 34 goals on the road and look certain to overhaul the record. One would have thought City's team of the early 1930s would have scored more away goals - between 1931 & 1936 Harry Storer's team scored 100 goals in four out of five seasons but Storer's team's strength was at home where they scored 70 or more goals in those four seasons. The best away haul by the 'Old Five' team was 34 in 1931-32 (Clarrie Bourton's golden season when he scored 49 league goals) when ironically they won only one away game all season.

I would like to welcome Sky Blues' new manager Steven Pressley who arrived last week from Falkirk. Pressley is City's fifth manager of the season, easily a record, even for Coventry City. The most managers in a season previously was in 2003-04 when Gary McAllister stood down owing to his wife's health, replaced by Eric Black who was then cruelly jettisoned by the board in favour of Peter Reid who had just one game in charge (a fine win over play-off bound Crystal Palace). Pressley is the 38th permanent manager of the club since the club joined the Football League in 1919 and the 12th since the club left the Premiership in 2001. He is also the 10th former City player to be given the job, the others being Jimmy McIntyre, Billy Frith, Bobby Gould, George Curtis, John Sillett, Gordon Strachan, Roland Nilsson, Gary McAllister and Micky Adams. I don't count Terry Butcher who was recruited as Player-Manager. In addition, as Ken Foster, several other former players have been 'caretaker' managers including Lee Carsley, Richard Shaw, Steve Ogrizovic, Trevor Peake and Charlie Elliott. Coincidentally Pressley and I have something in common - we were both born in Elgin, Scotland, albeit 21 years apart.

Ed Blackaby found the article about Coventry City's loan players interesting and sent me his Best Loan XI, which I find hard to argue too much with:

Luke Steele

-------------

Richard Duffy

Dean Leacock

Gary Caldwell

Stephen Warnock

---------------

Jordan Henderson

James Bailey

Oliver Norwood

Jack Cork

----------------

David McGoldrick

Craig Hignett

Personally I was not a big fan of Cork and would prefer Johnnie Jackson to him in midfield and Marton Fulop would get my nod in goal.

Ed also wanted to know if Errington Kelly, who was in the 1983-84 team picture, ever played a first team game for the Sky Blues. Born on the island of St Vincent in the Caribbean, Kelly had been on the books of Bristol Rovers under Bobby Gould, prior to Gouldy's first spell as manager in 1983. Kelly joined the Sky Blues that summer and did feature in a couple of pre-season friendlies but failed to break through to the first team. In early 1984 he joined Peterborough and made over 100 appearances over five seasons.

Sue Standbridge sent me an old Coventry City team picture and asked if I could help with the players' names as her parents were scratching their heads over most of the players.

The picture is from 1948-49 season and the players (and officials) are as follows:

Back Row (L to r): Harry Barratt, Don Dearson, Dick Mason, Dennis Tooze, Alf Wood, Les Latham, Len Wilford, Fred Gardner, Unknown.

Third Row: Tom Crawley (Assistant trainer), Harry Bull, Jack Snape, Jack Evans, Stan Smith, George Mason, Wally Soden, Ron Cox, Jack Lovering, J Llewelyn, Bill Morgan (Trainer).

Second Row: Dick Hill (Coach), Billy Frith (Manager), Walter Brandish (Director), Keith Moulton (Director), H E Jones (Director), Frank Stringer (Chairman), Walter Young (Director), Phil Mead (Director), Dr WD Coghill (Medical Officer), Bernard Hitchiner (Secretary).

Front Row: Dennis Simpson, Trevor Lewis, Les Warner, Fred Bett, Ted Roberts, Peter Murphy, Norman Lockhart, Alec McIntosh, Ted Shore.

If anyone recognises the player on the far right of the back row please let me know.

Jim's column 9.3.2013

The seventh annual Coventry City Legends Day was a great success with 48 former players hosted by the Former Players Association at last weekend’s home game with Swindon Town. The bad result and poor performance didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the ex-Sky Blues and a great time was had by all. As usual there were emotional moments and this year’s was when Lol Harvey met former teammate Ronnie Waldock for the first time since 1954. The two grew up in the same town, Heanor in Derbyshire, but had not been in touch since Ronnie or ‘Polly’ as he was known, was sold to Sheffield United. After the match the traditional party took place in the G-Casino and included a moving rendition of Moon River from the legendary Ernie Hunt and a full-throated Sky Blue Song from all present. More information and pictures can be found at www.ccfpa.co.uk

On Saturday I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Sexton, son of the late Dave Sexton, City’s manager 1981-83. Chris spoke about his father’s ability to remember everything about games without taking notes. A young Chris used to go to matches with his Dad when Dave was scouting as part of the England set up. All around them scouts and journalists would be making notes but Dave just watched the match. When he returned home he could recall everything about the game and would write his report from memory.

Deputy Chairman John Clarke resignation from the football club board this week is sad. John has been a City fan since the 1960s and his passion for the club is undimmed. I would like to thank him for the staunch support he has given the Former Players Association. When the Association was formed in 2007 he wanted to be involved from the outset and became the Founding patron, every year raising money from the directors and Associate directors to support us. With the current state of affairs at the football club I am not surprised he is standing down. The impact on his family and working life over the last two years must have been enormous and he has always handled himself in a dignified manner despite some vitriolic abuse. 

Several fans have told me about goings on at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground on Tuesday night. Ex-City player Andy Morrell is manager at the Conference club and has surrounded himself with a bevy of ex-Sky Blues. On Tuesday five ex-City men played in the 4-1 victory over Ebbsfleet which keeps their promotion campaign on track and three of them scored. Dele Adebola, on loan from Rochdale, netted after three minutes with Kevin Thornton scoring the third after half an hour. With the referee about to blow for half-time Robert Ogleby, a former City youth player, made it 4-0. Stephen Wright also played and Morrell himself came on as a substitute in the second half.  The common question was have three-ex-City players ever scored for another team. The answer is yes, back in the 1930s. There were strong links between City and Walsall and in 1932 City director Bill Slade left the club to become manager of Walsall. He signed several City players to add to a couple they already had and for a couple of seasons there were regularly 6-7 ex-City men in the Saddlers Third Division North team. In 1933 Walsall pulled off one of the biggest Cup shocks of alltime, beating Arsenal at Fellows Park. The Walsall team wore City’s blue and white shirts that day and the whole forward line were ex-City players with two, Gilbert Alsop and Bill Sheppard scoring the goals in the 2-0 victory.  There were numerous occasions when three ex-City men notched goals for the Saddlers and I found one game, a 5-3 win over Tranmere in 1934 when four scored goals (Alsop, Sheppard, Freddie Lee and Reuben Woolhouse).

Talking of Dele Adebola, I learned this week that he holds the record for the most substitute appearances in a career. Up to this week he has made 196 league appearances as a substitute plus a further 30 in Cup games. Wrexham is the 13^th club of his career which started at Crewe back in 1993. 48 of those sub appearances were whilst he was at Coventry.

Coventry City’s turnover of players has not been extraordinary (34 players used to date and the record is 44) but in the last three league games I think some kind of record was set. Of the 10 outfield players in all three games, none of them had appeared in the first game of the season at Yeovil in August. Of the ten who played at Yeovil, three have left the club (Kilbane, Hussey and Brown), three were on the bench (McDonald, Clarke & Fleck), one (Wood) is injured, one (Daniels) has not been heard of for some time and two (Barton & Ball) may be in line for a recall soon. Goalkeeper Joe Murphy, of course, has been Mr Consistency, an ever-present in the league and missing in all but a game and a half in Cup games, the half being that suicidal second half against Crewe in the JPT.

Jim's Column 2.3.2013

It's Legends Day at the Ricoh Arena again today and whilst preparing to write this week’s column I looked back two years to see what I said about Legends Day 2011. Then it coincided with a new board at the football club and I wrote the following:

The faces in the boardroom are mostly new but the owner, SISU, is unchanged and little was said to reassure the long-suffering fans that much will change. SISU have had three years to progress the stadium ownership issue and have achieved little. Before SISU, Paul Fletcher, easily the best Chief Executive in the modern era in my opinion, resigned in frustration at the lack of progress with the owners of the stadium (and too much tinkering from a chairman who thought he knew best). In the three years since SISU saved the club in the last crisis there has been little or no progress on the playing side. On Wednesday the new chairman (Ken Dulieu) got off to a bad start when his assertion that a meeting was planned with the council was exposed as a myth by council leader John Mutton.

One way forward may be for all the parties (including the politicians) to get off their high horses, stop posturing and sit down together and thrash out a solution that benefits the football club’s supporters and the city of Coventry. Until that happens our football club will just stagger from this disaster to the next.

Sadly I could have written virtually the same piece today as the stadium issue (and it's not just about rent) rumbles on unresolved. None of the parties in this whole sordid soap-opera is blameless but having rejected the Manhattan Capital Partners and Paul Fletcher in 2007 and SISU subsequently, I just wonder who Coventry Council and the Higgs Trust would do business with. When one scans the owners of Premiership and Football League sides I struggle to find many who would surely satisfy the council's criteria. In the intervening two years the club's on-field fortunes have slipped and no prospective owner would countenance buying the club without the stadium issue removed as the club is financially unsustainable in its present state. Unless of course a Russian or Arab oligarch is prepared to bank roll the club - but would the council deal with them?

Back to something far more important today - the seventh annual Legends Day, organised by the Former Players Association, with around 50 former players planning to attend. All eras are well represented especially the 1970s with some of the great names from that decade including Colin Stein, Tommy Hutchison, Roy Barry, Willie Carr and Ernie Hunt amongst others. The traditional half-time parade will take place so I urge you to be in your seats to give these great servants of the club a rousing reception that befits their status. After the game the legends will be in The G-Casino to meet the fans and have some fun on stage. It promises to be another great day. I am not too modest to say that in the six years since the inaugural Legends Day the Former Players Association have achieved all that it set out to. That was to bring the former

 players and managers back to the club to meet their old colleagues and ensure their place in the club’s history was properly recognised.  To all my fellow committee members and all the friends who give their time to help us at our events, a massive thank you.

Tuesday night's victory at Bournemouth (the first league win there since 1957) was the 10th away win of the season and equalled the record set by Noel Cantwell's team in 1969-70.  With three away wins in Cup competitions (Dagenham & Redbridge, York & Crewe) City's travelling army have had much more to shout about than last season when only one away win was achieved all season.  My away following records only go back to 2006 but this season’s league average is currently 1,153 which is the best since my records begin. Last season an average of 918 followed the team so that is a 25% increase, in a lower division. One wonders if the home gates would have seen a similar increase if the home form had been as impressive.

Southampton’s central defender Aaron Martin arrived on loan this week and made his debut at Bournemouth. By all accounts it was an impressive debut by the 23-year old. Aaron becomes the tenth loanee used by the Sky Blues this season. This is just one short of the club’s highest number, 11 used in 2002-03. For me that was the worst season I have ever witnessed as a fan and the quality of the loanees was generally poor. For the record the magnificent eleven were:

Steve Walsh, Gary Caldwell, Richie Partridge, Brian Kerr,  Craig Hignett, Jamie McMaster, Dean Holdsworth, Juan Sara, Vicente Engonga, Christian Yulu, Matt Jansen.

My views on loan players was previously tainted by the poor quality of players acquired in the early seasons out of the Premiership but this season the quality has generally been far superior than in previous campaigns and players like Bailey, McGoldrick and Leon Clarke have turned our season around.

Jim's column 23.2.2013

In last week's column I wrote about Mark Robins' record as a manager and it generated a lot of interest with many surprised that his win percentage was higher than Jimmy Hill. I mentioned the managerial reign of Jesse Carver, the last City boss to be lured away to another club and fellow Sky Blue historian Paul O'Connor pointed out that Carver & Robins league records are remarkably similar.

 The two records are:

	PL	W	D	L	FOR	AGST	PTS	PTS per GAME	%WINS
Carver	26	14	4	8	47	31	46	1.769	53.85
Robins	25	13	5	7	45	27	44	1.760	52.00

Paul points out that it’s not a fair comparison but if managers since 1919 are compared on points per game assuming 3 points for a win, they have the two best records of any manager (apart from Lee Carsley!). Carver actually had a higher percentage of wins than Robins. Paul also pointed out that Harry Storer, Jack Fairbrother, Eric Black and Roland Nilsson all had a higher wins percentage than Jimmy Hill. It is worth noting too that Carver’s record was based on a strong home record (12 wins, 2 draws and 0 defeats) as opposed to Robins’ poor home record but strong away record.

City's interest in  the Johnstone's Paint Trophy ended on a cold night in Cheshire as City failed to do themselves justice until the referees watch ticked past the 90 minute mark and a good number of their fans, including me, had left the Gresty Road stadium. BBC CWR had poor Dan ringing in without knowing the final score and he argued till he was blue in the face that the game had ended 0-0. I was 20 minutes down the M6 when I managed to pick up CWR and learned that I had missed the late goals. This is not going to be Coventry's year for a trip to the final at Wembley and our hopes now rely on finishing the league season with a strong vein of form to reach the automatic promotion places or more realistically the play- off positions. Their rivals have been catching up with their games in hand and as far as City fans are concerned, with mixed results. Swindon shook off the departure of Paulo Di Canio and won well at Tranmere, who seem to have hit the wall. Whilst Bournemouth slipped up badly at Preston, Yeovil's outstanding form has lifted them into the top six. As of this morning two points separate the top six and with Seventh-placed Brentford a further two points behind and the Sky Blues four points behind the Bees.

Today four of the top six meet each other with Sheffield United travelling to Bournemouth and Doncaster entertaining Yeovil. After today's home game with Crewe the Sky Blues have two massive games with a trip to Bournemouth's Dean Court on Tuesday night followed by a home cracker with current leaders Swindon Town. With 13 games left the Sky blues probably need 27 points (9 wins) to finish in the top six. Any defeats in the next three games could signal the end of City's play-off push.

City travel to Dean Court for a league game for the first time since the 1963-64 promotion season when they slipped up 1-2 to the Cherries and their only win in 11 league games there since the war was in April 1957. They did travel there for a League cup tie in 1988 when John Sillett's team comfortably won 4-0 on the way to a 7-1 aggregate win. Since then the ground at Dean Court has been transformed with the pitch being rotated 90 degrees and all the stands being rebuilt. After last week's ninth away win at Bury City are now on the brink of equalling the club record of 10 wins on the road set in 1969-70.

Swindon are another side who haven't played the Sky Blues for many years until this season. They did have one season in the Premier League in 1993-94 but before that City and Swindon hadn't met in league action since 1964-65 when the Robins were relegated from Division Two.

Next Saturday's game is also the annual Legends Day at the Ricoh, the seventh year running the event that brings City's former players together has been held. I hate to tempt fate but the Sky Blues have never lost on the six previous Legends Days. Around 50 former players are expected to be entertained to lunch by the Former Players Association and will be presented to the fans in the traditional half-time parade. Several attendees will be making their first appearance at a Legends Day including former player and manager Bobby Gould, Kevin Gallacher, Gerry Baker and a veteran from the 1950s, Ronnie Waldock. After the game tHe day ends in the traditional way with appearances on the stage at the G Casino. It should be a great day.

Jim's column 16.2.2013

At the end of another tumultuous week in the history of Coventry City the Sky Blues have lost their 11th manager in 12 years with Mark Robins, 146 days into the job, leaving to join Huddersfield Town. Many fans are understandably upset and annoyed that Robins has walked out on the club, especially as he has been instrumental in a big turnaround in the club's fortunes since arriving in late September.

In those 146 days his team have played 25 league games, winning 13, drawing five and losing seven. In cup competitions they have played eight, winning five and losing three. His win ratio in league games is 52% , the best in the club's history, even emulating Jimmy Hill's record in the Sky Blue era, although to be fair JH's career spanned six years.

Robins' team has lifted the fans' spirits after the depressing relegation season and a woeful start to this campaign. The away form especially has been phenomenal, setting a club record of six consecutive league wins and losing only twice in 12 games and the club record of 10 away wins in a season stands a fair chance of being broken. The goals have flowed in especially in November and December when McGoldrick was on fire and the goals per game of 1.80 is the best under modern managers. 

Not everyone has been totally convinced about Robins however. One blogger this week didn't think Robins was the Messiah and pointed out that the home form under him has been very poor, five league defeats since he arrived and only five wins in 13. The critic also pointed out that with City's salary budget (allegedly one of the three largest in the division) they should be winning this many games and be in a top six position. He went on to say that the two home defeats last week highlighted the shortcomings in defence, and the lack of punch in attack and a feeling that maybe we have been rumbled. On several occasions Robins' team has shown little idea how to break down a hard-working, defence-minded team of which there are many in this league and who all seem to raise their game at the Ricoh.

The irony is that the club have for the first time in years lost a manager to another club after sacking nine of their previous managers, the exception being Gary McAllister who resigned to support his dying wife. Some have argued this week that the club have treated some of their managers so badly that they deserve being shafted by Robins.

The last man to walk out on Coventry City to join another club was Jesse Carver in 1956 after six months in charge. It was a major shock in the football world when City unveiled Carver as their new manager. The Liverpudlian Carver was a highly rated coach in Italy at the time and many wondered why he chose to manage an English Third Division side. Chairman Erle Shanks made him one of the highest paid managers in the English game with a salary close to £100 per week (at a time when most players were earning £15). 

 Carver arrived with a tan that complemented his man about town personality and with his tailored light grey suits and camel coat he looked more like a Hollywood film mogul than a football manager. He warned supporters not too expect too much but his words went unheeded – promotion talk was, as always, in the air.
 His innovations were far-reaching, from wooden shoes and bathrobes for the players to prevent them catching cold whilst getting out of the showers to made to measure lightweight continental boots for all the players. He also bought 40 footballs, one for each player on the staff as he expected them to practice their ball skills at all times. He also brought from Italy former Swedish national coach George Raynor as his number two, another man with an outstanding reputation on the continent.
Over 24,000 fans were at the opening day win over Bournemouth and the football was slick and exciting. At home Carver’s team were unbeatable but away from home they struggled for results and promotion hopes looked slim. Throughout the autumn rumours persisted of a move back to Italy but these were quashed by Shanks.
 By now it had become apparent that Carver and Raynor’s continental style was not quite enough to win promotion amidst the hurly-burly of the Third Division and Carver re-shaped his approach. In December he bought Ken McPherson from Middlesbrough, a big bustling centre-forward and the team won five games on the trot culminating in a 5-1 thrashing of Millwall in front of a crowd of 30,000.
 But there was another major story brewing. Behind the scenes Carver had made it clear to Shanks – he wanted to leave. The Midlands didn’t suit his wife’s health and he made an urgent request to be released from his three-year contract. The board reluctantly agreed and Carver left the club on New Years Eve. He denied that there were any other offers for his services but within hours of him returning to Italy on 3^rd January 1956 Internazionale announced he would be their new manager.
 City released him on the understanding that he didn’t work in England during the remaining period of his Coventry contract. He did return to a coaching job at Tottenham in 1958 but failed to settle and later he moved to Portugal. After a spell in the USA he retired to England in the late 1960s.
 Between Carver and Robins Coventry had 26 permanent managers and 19 have been given their P45s. The seven not sacked include four who moved upstairs (George Curtis, Joe Mercer, Gordon Milne and Ron Atkinson), one who walked out (Bobby Gould), Gary McAllister and one, Jimmy Hill, who left football for a plum job in television. Now JH was a true messiah!

Jim's column 9.2.13

The last week has seen Coventry City hit the heights and plummet the depths with vastly contrasting results. The 2-1 win at Bramall Lane was a massive result in City's quest to reach the League One play-offs and the eighth league away win of the season. City put on another impressive away display to clinch the points despite a fierce rearguard action in the second half. The club record for away wins is 10, set under Noel Cantwell in the old Division One in 1969-70; a feat that earned a sixth place finish and qualification for the old UEFA Fairs Cup. No Coventry City side has ever won nine away games in a season but there have been five previous occasions when there have been eight away victories - in 1937-38, 1938-39, 1963-64, 2001-02 & 2003-04. With seven away games remaining there must be a good chance of equalling the club record, if not setting a new record.

In 1969-70 Cantwell's team which featured many high quality players including Willie Carr, Ernie Hunt, Ian Gibson, Bill Glazier, Chris Cattlin and Roy Barry, achieved some amazing away results, especially after having won only three road trips in the previous two seasons. Amongst the grounds they won at were Highbury, White Hart Lane, Derby's Baseball Ground and Molineux (where they clinched the European place). However in a similar vein to this season the team struggled to replicate their away form at Highfield Road, winning nine out of 21 at home.

The win at Bramall Lane raised expectations for the Johnstone's Paint Trophy tie with Crewe on Tuesday night.  Sadly it all went wrong for the Sky Blues and the full house crowd of 31,054 was left frustrated as despite their team have the lion’s share of the play and numerous chances the visitors took advantage of some naive play and racked up an impressive 3-0 win. The odds must be heavily in Crewe's favour now but I'm sure the Sky Blue Army will travel in hope that the deficit can be recovered. The defeat was the team’s biggest home loss since Bristol City won 4-1 at the Ricoh in March 2011.

As expected that crowd set a competition record for a non-final tie, topping the previous record of 29,901 set at Southampton's St Mary's Stadium against MK Dons two years ago. It was also the second largest crowd to watch the Sky Blues at the Ricoh - just 350 odd below the Chelsea crowd in 2009. It was however the largest night home crowd since the West Ham League Cup semi final in 1981. There must have been thousands of City fans paying their first visit to the stadium for some years. Many people have commented that whenever the club get a big crowd they fail to perform and the statistics bear that out. Last week I listed the top eight gates at the Ricoh and of these, plus the Crewe game, City have won only one, drawn three and lost five. What has to be borne in mind however is that the biggest gates were almost always against clubs from a higher division or from near the top of the same division.  

31,407 v Chelsea (FA Cup) 2008-09. Lost 0-2

30,154 v Crewe (JPT) 2012-13.  Lost 0-3

28,184 v Leeds United  2010-11.  Lost 2-3

28,163 v West Brom (FA Cup) 2007-08. Lost 0-5

28,120 v Middlesbrough (FA Cup) 2005-06.  Drew 1-1

27,992 v Wolves 2007-08. Drew 1-1

27,212 v Birmingham 2006-07. Lost 0-1

26,856 v Wolves 2005-06. Won 2-0

26,723 v Leicester 2005-06. Drew 1-1

It hasn't always been the case that the team don’t perform in front of a big crowd however. In 1967 a record Highfield Road crowd of 51,452 saw the Sky Blues beat Wolves and in 1963 a crowd approaching that figure saw Third Division City knock Second Division Sunderland out of the Cup. 

Jim's column 2.2.2013

On Tuesday evening Coventry City will run out to a crowd approaching 30,000 for their JPT Northern Area final first leg tie with Crewe Alexandra. Although the match is already a sell-out for Coventry fans, the final attendance is difficult to predict because of Crewe’s unsold allocation of tickets and how many seats will be unavailable because of segregation. We do know that City have sold ‘over 28,000’ tickets and that means that a new record will be almost certainly be set for the competition for a non-final match. The record, 29,901, was set two years ago at Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium for their area final with MK Dons. 

The ground record at the Ricoh is 31,407 for the Chelsea FA Cup fifth round tie in 2009 and largest crowds since the stadium was opened in 2005 are:-

31,407 v Chelsea (FA Cup) 2008-09

28,184 v Leeds United  2010-11

28,163 v West Brom (FA Cup) 2007-08

28,120 v Middlesbrough (FA Cup) 2005-06

27,992 v Wolves 2007-08

27,212 v Birmingham 2006-07

26,856 v Wolves 2005-06

26,723 v Leicester 2005-06

That record is highly unlikely to beat topped but it will be the second highest Ricoh crowd in the eight years that the stadium has been open. It will also be City’s biggest home crowd for a night game for 32 years – in 1981 35,411 watched the League Cup semi final first leg against West Ham.

The Coventry element of the crowd is going to be close to 29,000 and one of the biggest ‘home’ contingents for a long, long time. Bearing in mind that for the Chelsea game there were around 5,500 away fans, the home element was in the region of 26,000. That attendance was the largest for a Coventry home game since before Highfield Road was made all-seater in 1981 – the aforementioned West Ham League Cup game. I seem to remember that there were around 5-6,000 Hammers’ fans that night, making the ‘home’ following 29-30,000. So I think you have to go back to 1977 when Liverpool came to Highfield Road for a League Cup replay (they won 2-0) when the attendance was 36,105 and I ‘m pretty certain that there weren’t too many Liverpool fans for an evening match five days before Christmas.

Keith Ballantyne was in touch after the recent Tranmere home game and said he remember City playing Tranmere at Highfield Road in the FA Cup in early 1968. It was the first time he went into the, then new, West End terraces. The teams drew 1-1 but Tranmere pulled off a Cup shock by beating the Sky Blues 2-0 in the replay at Prenton Park. Keith thought that Tranmere’s former City centre-forward George Hudson did not play in that match at Coventry, but took part in the replay and scored.

He asked me to clarify that point and also asked if any other ex-City players had featured in any of our other Cup disasters, including the infamous Kings Lynn game in 1961.

‘The Hud’ played in both the cup-ties in 1968 and missed a good chance in the first game. In the replay he scored the second goal (George Yardley scored the first) in the Cup upset in front of an excited Prenton Park crowd of 20,996. Hudson, who had controversially been sold to Northampton by Jimmy Hill in 1966, had joined Tranmere from the Cobblers in January 1967 but his goalscoring form was on the wane and just over a year later he was released by Tranmere and his professional career was over.

As for other ex-Sky Blues to appear in FA cup shocks against their former club I can think of Gary Bannister (for Sheffield Wednesday) in 1984 and Louis Carey (for Bristol City) in 2007. The Owls, then a Second Division side, knocked out the Sky Blues, a First Division outfit at the time, in a 3-2 win at Hillsborough. Bristol, a league below City in 2007, beat City 2-0 in the Ricoh Arena replay after a 3-3 draw at Ashton gate. I am sure there are more.