Jim's column 1.5.2021

 Coventry City sealed their place in the EFL Championship last weekend despite losing to their bogey team Preston North End. No one expected a smooth passage in the higher division and realistic fans were saying at the start of the season that 21st place would be acceptable. Now we can relax in the knowledge that a second season in tier 2 awaits us. The three-match winning run in six days the week before last was crucial and the true Coventry City relegation fighting spirit emerged with a home win over play-off chasing Barnsley sandwiched between away victories at Rotherham and Stoke. At the crucial time Mark Robins' team came up with not only their first back-to-back victories but made it three wins in a row at Stoke.

Following my piece about former City chairman Erle Shanks two weeks ago I received a nice email from his grandson Chris Pendle who wrote:

Thank you so much for the amazing article on Erle Shanks, my Grandfather, in the Coventry Telegraph last Saturday. Coventry City did recognise what my Grandfather had done for the club because, as from the early 1960s, he was given three seats in the Directors’ Box for life - which I benefited from because, from 1963 onwards, when I was was only 10 years old, he would take me to games on a regular basis. That continued until I was old enough to take him. Later on I still had the use of the tickets until my Grandfather’s death in 1999 since when I have been a season ticket holder.
Your article reminded me of stories from my grandfather particularly the saga of Jesse Carver who my Grandfather felt let him and the club down very badly. I think that the thing that gave him the most satisfaction was the part he played in the club purchasing the ground at Highfield Road.

City travelled to Huddersfield Town today for their penultimate league game and will play their first competitive game at the John Smith's Stadium. The two clubs have miraculously managed to avoid each other, league-wise, for 49 years – since they met in the old First Division in 1972. The Terriers were relegated that season and within three years they were in Division Four. They bounced back however and spent several seasons in tier 2 before being relegated again in 2000-01, the same season that the Sky Blues dropped out of the Premiership. In 2011-12 when Coventry dropped into League One Huddersfield were going in the opposite direction and they missed each other again. Since then Huddersfield have been in the Championship, apart from their two seasons in the top flight that ended the season before last. In 1972 the clubs met at the old ground, Leeds Road which was replaced in 1994 by the current ground previously known as the Galpharm and project managed by former City chief executive Paul Fletcher. City did play a League Cup tie at Leeds Road in 1977 and won 2-0 and have played a pre-season friendly at the new ground in 2009 (a 0-0 draw). That game in 1972 ended in a 1-0 win for the Sky Blues with Ernie Hunt grabbing a goal which guaranteed City's survival with four games of the season remaining.

That leaves Fulham as the club that City have avoided meeting for the longest period. Somehow the West London club and the Sky Blues have not been in the same division since 1968 (City's first season in the top flight) when the Cottagers were relegated. It looks increasingly likely that this will change next season as Fulham struggle to avoid relegation and many City away fans might get their first visit to Craven Cottage.

        City's Ernie Machin tussles with Fulham's Johnny Haynes in City's last league visit to Craven Cottage

The Preston defeat saw City concede their eleventh penalty of the season and Alan Browne duly converted it as have the previous ten penalty takers. Eleven is one short of the club record for a season – in 2013-14 they conceded 12. However in 2013-14 Joe Murphy managed to save five of them and therefore this season's eleven is a record for penalties 'scored' against us. In addition there were penalties conceded at MK Dons and Gillingham in the League Cup, the former which was saved by Marosi. Someone asked me to analyse who had conceded the 13 penalties. The offenders were:

Ben Wilson 3

Kyle McFadzean 3

Michael Rose 2

Declan Drysdale 1

Callum O'Hare 1

Ben Sheaf 1

Dom Hyam 1

Sam McCallum 1

Jim's column 17.4.2021

I am in regular contact with Marshall Stewart, author of Sky Blue Miracle, the first and one of the best books on the history of the football club, and he recently suggested that I write about Erle Shanks, an influential and sometimes controversial director of the club before and after World War Two. Born in 1901 he was the son of Ernest O Shanks, the owner of a Coventry-based timber company, and his wife Florinda.

                                                 W Erle Shanks

He first came to prominence at Highfield Road in May 1936 just weeks after City had clinched promotion to the old Second Division. A new stand was planned for Highfield Road, replacing the old John Bull Stand which had been in situ since the ground first opened in 1899. The old stand, on the south side of the ground (at the top of King Richard Street) only held a few hundred patrons and was in a poor state of repair.

The new stand was originally called the 'Promotion Stand' later became known as the Main Stand and was severely damaged by fire in 1968. The club did not have the money to both finance team strengthening for the higher division and carry out all the ground improvements and the Midland Daily Telegraph reported that 'an appeal fund to raise the £5,000 was to be supervised by William Erle Shanks, the owner of a timber merchant and joinery firm based in Foleshill'.

Shanks, a public spirited supporter who no doubt saw an opportunity of some substantial work for his company, would administer the ‘Stand Fund’ and organise a system of “district collecting agents”. A donation of 500 guineas by the football club inaugurated the appeal fund and Shanks’ open letter in the MDT urged all local businesses and individual supporters to make generous donations. In the same edition of the newspaper manager Harry Storer confirmed the club’s financial donation and revealed that Shanks had recently turned down an offer to join the board as the appeal would take up too much of his time. By August 1936 he had changed his mind and became a key member of the board, heading the Ground sub-committee and becoming involved with the negotiations over the Highfield Road ground lease.

The appeal failed to raise the full £5,000 required and Shanks was scathing of local businesses for not supporting the club. The new stand was completed for the new season however and Shanks persuaded Sir John Siddeley to lend the club the money to buy the freehold of Highfield Road from the Mercer's Company, a deal which strengthened the club's position as they entered Division Two.

By 1939 Shanks had emerged as the most dynamic of City's directors and soon after war was declared in September of that year he presented a plan for how the club could survive the hostilities which included the retention of manager Harry Storer (on a reduced salary) and the groundsman to ensure that the club was ready for resumption of activities as soon as possible.

After the war Shanks stood down from the board and was appointed vice-president of the club before becoming president in 1950 following the death of Alderman Fred Lee. In 1953. with City back in Division Three, however he resigned from that position in protest at the sacking of manager Harry Storer and led a shareholder's revolt that saw the majority of the board resign in April 1954 with Erle stepping in to be chairman. One of his first tasks was to bring onto the board businessman, Derrick Robins with whom he had close business ties. For the first time since the war the club had dynamic men who would make things happen but success was not quite around the corner.

           1954: Derrick Robins, Erle Shanks, new signings Colin Collindridge and Tommy Capel, manager Jack Fairbrother.

Storer's replacement Jack Fairbrother resigned in the autumn of 1954 allegedly over the sale of Eddie Brown to Birmingham and director's interference in the dressing room. Erle had ambitious plans however and in January 1955 announced a major coup by persuading top coach Jesse Carver to give up a job with AS Roma to become City's manager on a large salary the following season. For half a season Carver put City back on the football map with lots of continental ideas and some attractive football but by the start of 1956 he was on his way back to Italy. Shanks recruited Harry Warren to replace Carver but it was a poor decision and within 15 months Warren was sacked and Billy Frith came back for a second spell as manager.

In April 1958 Shanks resigned as chairman after a lot of pressure from shareholders and the club heading into the new Fourth Division. According to the Coventry Telegraph the resignation came after an incident following a home defeat to Swindon. Shanks had stormed into the home dressing room and in front of the manager and several other directors severely criticised the players’ performance. The late Lol Harvey, who played that night remembered it well: ‘Erle was known to have a short fuse but all the players liked him because he cared so much about the club. That night we had been dreadful but were shocked when he came into the dressing room – he never came in there – and started ripping into the players in general. He didn’t criticise me though, I remember he turned to me and said, ‘well played Lol’’.

Shanks resigned that night and a club statement said that the lack of success on the playing field had caused Mr Shanks ‘bitter disappointment and has been poor reward for his ceaseless and untiring efforts. Like directors before and after him Shanks’ hard work and financial backing was taken for granted by many fans. They didn’t appreciate what Shanks had done, especially in 1936 when his involvement in the ground improvements and their funding was crucial in the club’s development. His Herculean efforts to bring success to the club, displayed by his coup in bringing Carver to Coventry and his invaluable committee work, were matched by his impatience for success.

I had the pleasure of meeting Erle Shanks in the early 1990s by which time he was living in a Coventry residential home and he was a feisty character with strong views on football, lots of memories and still an avid City fan. He died in 1999, aged 98.

If you have a question about Coventry City's history please drop me an email at clarriebourton@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter @clarriebourton

Jim's Column 10.4.21

Peter Carroll posed an interesting question recently. He asked how many players have pulled on a Coventry City jersey but have never kicked a ball in Coventry.

It's probably easier to list those that have played for the club at the Ricoh, before the move to St Andrews in 2019. There are eleven in total.

Dom Hyam

Max Biamou

Jordan Thompson

Jordan Shipley

Amadou Bakayoko

Liam Kelly

Jodi Jones

Morgan Williams

Jack Burroughs

Sam McCallum

Brandon Mason

Out of 31 players who have appeared for the club this season and are still at the club or out on loan, 23 have never played for the club at the Ricoh. There may be several of the 23 who will never play at the Ricoh including current loanees Leo Ostigard, Matty James, Ben Sheaf and Viktor Gyokeres.

Several of the current squad have played at the Ricoh, against City. Marko Marosi appeared for Doncaster, Kyle McFadzean has played there for Crawley, MK Dons and Burton. Matty Godden appeared for Stevenage and Peterborough. Jamie Allen played for Rochdale and Burton (scoring for the latter) and Ben Wilson appeared for Bradford City. Interestingly all five played at the Ricoh in 2018-19.

Peter seems to remember Nahki Wells, Bristol City's scorer in City's Bank holiday victory , scoring against us previously. He did, for Bradford City in 2013-14 when he scored a hat trick in a 3-3 draw at Valley Parade. He left Bradford for Huddersfield a few weeks later for a sizeable fee and has subsequently played for Burnley, QPR & Bristol City. I understand he is one of the highest paid players in the Championship currently. That game in 2013 incidentally, was his only other appearance against the Sky Blues so his record against us is played two and four goals.

Mark Browne is a City fan with also strong allegiances to Millwall. He collects City programmes and wanted to know about a pre-season friendly game at Highfield Road in August 1990. The game was against non-league Halesowen Town and I believe it was part of the deal that took Halesowen's Andy Pearce to Highfield Road earlier that summer. Normally these types of game would take place at the non-league club's home ground to generate some extra revenue for the selling club. City were well into their pre-season campaign and four days earlier had defeated Czech side Banik Ostrava 3-2 at Highfield Road. John Sillett put out a strong team but the non-leaguers pulled off a surprise 1-0 win with a 73rd minute goal from Lee Johnson in front of a miniscule gate of 735. Also in the Halesowen team were Sean Flynn and Tim Clarke who both later signed for City.

Mark also reminded me that in a pre-season friendly game in Germany in 2003 the Sky Blues fielded two Scottish international trialists – Simon Donnelly and Phil O'Donnell. Donnelly, a midfielder, played over 150 games for Celtic and won 10 Scottish caps (when he would have been a teammate of Gary McAllister) before moving to Sheffield Wednesday in 1999. After his trial at Coventry he moved back to Scotland to St Johnstone and later played for Dunfermline and Partick Thistle.

O'Donnell, another midfielder, played for Motherwell and Celtic and won one Scottish cap in 1993 and joined Wednesday at the same time as Donnelly. He came from Bellshill in Lanarkshire where McAllister grew up so that was probably the connection with City. After his trial at Coventry he rejoined Motherwell and played for them until tragically suffering a fatal heart attack in a game in 2007.

The friendly, against German fifth division side Suhler SV, was won 2-0 with goals from Donnelly and Craig Pead.

If you have a question about Coventry City's history please drop me an email at clarriebourton@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter @clarriebourton

Jim's column 3.4.2021

 In their last game, at home to Wycombe, the Sky Blues drew 0-0 again making it seven goal-less draws in a season, six of them at home. The record for the most in a season is eight, set in 1970-71 under Noel Cantwell when the side were ultra cautious and scored only 37 goals and conceded 38 (the latter a club record low) in finishing 10th in the old First Division.

This seasons seven equals the number in the post-Wembley season of 1987-88 when John Sillett's team recorded six 0-0's at home and one away but still managed an impressive 10th place finish thanks to more away wins than at home.

The current situation with Rotherham and their backlog of games due to Covid-19 issues reminds me a little of the 1968-69 season when the Sky Blues were locked in a relegation dog-fight with neighbours Leicester City. I'm sure many younger City fans won't be aware of the circumstances of that season and I thought I would remind readers about City's great escape. In February Noel Cantwell's Sky Blues, who had survived on the final day in the previous campaign, looked doomed, at the foot of the table and five points behind 20th placed Leicester. A combination of a bad winter and Leicester's FA Cup run, which took them to the final, meant however that when Coventry finished their season Leicester still had five games to play.

After City played their final game, a thrilling, gutsy 0-0 draw against Liverpool at Highfield Road they had to sit and wait for 25 days while Leicester played their final five games and hope and pray that they wouldn't overtake City's final total of 31 points. The Foxes needed seven points out of 10 (only two points for a win in those days) to send City down.

At Wembley in the FA Cup Final, Leicester lost 1-0 to Manchester City and on the following Tuesday night played their first of the five league games, beating Tottenham 1-0 with an Allan Clarke goal. The following Saturday they lost 2-1 at Ipswich with a very late goal by Mick Lambert leaving them needing five points from three games. A 2-1 home win over Sunderland on the following Monday piled the pressure on the nail-biting Coventry fans and a nine day wait before the next game didn't help.

Their penultimate game was at home to Everton and the Foxes struggled for the first hour. Alan Ball gave the Toffees a 10th minute lead and the Merseysiders should have wrapped up the points before Graham Cross equalised with a controversial goal. The draw meant Leicester had to win their final game – away to Manchester United to stay up and send the Sky Blues down.

The big question was: how would United approach the game? In City's favour it would be Matt Busby's last game in charge and surely they would want him to go out on a high. In addition Noel Cantwell was a United old boy and had many friends at Old Trafford.

City fans were glued to the radio (no internet or iFollow in those days) and were stunned when David Nish put Leicester ahead in 35 seconds. Two minutes later George Best levelled the scores with a brilliant goal and a minute later Cross put through his own goal to give United the lead. Best continued to dazzle and United should have been further ahead by half-time. Two minutes after the break Peter Shilton just managed to beat away a Bobby Charlton special but the ball went to Denis Law who coolly volleyed home. Leicester fought hard, hit the post twice and Rodney Fern made it 3-2 in the 72nd minute but United saw out the game to end Busby's 24-year managerial reign with a victory and send Leicester down. Coventry City were safe!

The two sides had met at Highfield Road in early April and in front of over 41,000 City had won with a late Neil Martin goal just seconds after Leicester were denied a strong penalty claim at the other end. Those two points ultimately kept City in Division 1.

                 Neil Martin's winning goal against Leicester 1969

If you have a question about Coventry City's history please drop me an email at clarriebourton@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter @clarriebourton

Jim's Column 20.3.2021

 Coventry City's defeat at Luton on Tuesday evening saw the Sky Blues punished yet again for indiscipline. Whilst many believe that Kyle McFadzean didn't handle the ball on the goal-line three minutes before half-time, the referee sent off the defender and awarded the home side a penalty from which they duly scored.

Kyle became the 150th City player to be sent off since World War Two and joined an elite group of players to receive a red card three times. He received his marching orders at Rotherham last season and earlier this season for two yellow cards at Reading.

The previous members of the 'Three Red Cards' club are:

Dion Dublin, Paul Williams, David Thompson, Youssef Safri, Michael Doyle and Carl Baker.

'Fadz's' red card was the sixth for a Coventry player this campaign (five in the league, 1 in the League Cup) and we are now one card shy of the club record of seven in a season. The current record was set in the first two seasons after relegation from the Premiership (2001-02 and 2002-03) both saw seven red cards (all in the league).

The culprits back then were:

2001-02: Lee Hughes (2), Youssef Safri (2), David Thompson, Marc Edworthy and Jay Bothroyd.

2002-03: Calum Davenport, Safri, Craig Hignett, Dean Gordon, Gary Caldwell, Gary McSheffrey and Youssef Chippo.

Penalties conceded-wise we are heading for a new club record. Tuesday night's penalty was the eleventh conceded (10 League, 1 League Cup) and all 11 have been successfully converted by the opposition. The record for spot-kicks conceded in a season is 12 in 2013-14 season in League One and Joe Murphy set a record himself by saving five of them.

One record equalled on Tuesday night was the most penalties converted by the opposition in a season. The 11th, scored by Luton's Elijah Adebayo, matches the 1979-80 season when the Sky Blues conceded 11 and all were successfully converted.

I looked at the effect of those penalties on the final score of the relevant games. In 1979-80 only three results would have changed, a loss at Tottenham would have been a victory and defeats v Man United and Aston Villa would have been draws. The extra four points (there were only two points for a win in those days) would have lifted the team from 15th to 10th in the final table.

This season four league results would have been different if the penalties had not been awarded: two defeats (Watford and Forest) would have been draws, and two draws (Norwich and Birmingham) would have been victories. Theoretically, the penalties conceded made the difference of six points, and without them the team would now be in relative mid-table safety with 44 points. They also wouldn't have been eliminated from the League Cup at Gillingham!

Nigel Vines was in touch this week. His first game was a 1-1 draw with Sheffield Wednesday at Highfield Road. He remembers it was the game in which City's Roy Barry broke his leg. He asked if I could tell him the year. It was March 1970 and happened early in the game when Roy made a somewhat reckless challenge with Wednesday's Tommy Craig and came off worst. Many fans heard the crack of the bone and knew immediately it was serious. Referee Clive Thomas booked Roy as he was being put on a stretcher to leave the pitch. Roy had only joined the Sky Blues from Dunfermline in the previous October and had had a massive effect on City's form – they lost only three league games that he started before his tragic injury. After the Wednesday game City's route to European qualification wasn't affected and they achieved the club's highest ever finish, sixth. Roy's recovery was long and hard and he didn't play first team football again until the final game of the following season missing the European campaign that he had helped achieve.

             Roy Barry stretchered off in March 1970 after breaking his leg

Nigel also pointed out that in my piece last week about City games where they finished with nine or ten men I didn't mention the 3-3 draw with Portsmouth last year at Fratton Park after being reduced to 9 men. Apologies for that omission.

If you have a question about Coventry City's history please drop me an email at clarriebourton@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter @clarriebourton

Jim's Column 13.3.2021

 Another member of the Sky Blue Family passed away this week. Leamington-born Gordon Simms died aged 84 after a short illness. Gordon was a great supporter of the Former Players Association and a regular at home games for many years. Cranston & Plummers

Gordon grew up in Leamington attending Clapham Terrace primary school and Campion High School. He spent four years at Highfield Road in the 1950s but was unable to command a regular first team place. He was spotted playing for Leamington works team Flavels in 1955 by City coach Ted Roberts. In a game against Aston Villa’s 'A' team he gave the veteran Amos Moss such a roasting that Villa wanted him to go for a trial but when no one met him at the pre-arranged time outside Leamington Town Hall, Roberts stepped in and fixed a trial with City. In the trial, at Leek Wootton, Gordon scored the only goal and was signed on amateur forms. He was an apprentice plumber, one of three on City’s books at the time, and later taught plumbing at Mid Warwickshire College for over twenty years. A winger who could play on the right or left, Gordon scored lots of goals for the 'A' team and made a number of reserve team appearance before his sole first team game against Colchester in October 1957 (City won 1-0).

                                Gordon in his playing days

In 1958 he went into the army for his mandatory two years National Service and played regularly for a strong Army representative side which included Everton and England star Derek Temple. He was a Physical Education instructor in the Army and played some football for Notts County without appearing for the first team. After leaving City he played briefly for Nuneaton Borough and Lockheed Leamington before a knee injury caused him to hang his boots up. However it was only temporary – he visited the now celebrated Coventry-born acupuncturist, J R Worsley, and recovered so much that he managed a long career at Warwick Town in the Warwickshire Combination. For the last 25 years he had lived in Cubbington and a few years ago successfully fought off leukaemia.

Gordon was a regular in the Legends Lounge at the Ricoh and will be missed by his old playing colleagues such as Brian Nicholas, Bill Tedds, Ian Goodwin, Graham Walker, Ronnie Farmer and Ken Brown.

                    Gordon in 2015 with James Maddison & Ryan Haynes

He leaves a widow Enid, two children, son Chris (another Ricoh regular) and daughter Karen as well as five grandchildren and a great grandchild born in November who sadly he never saw.

RIP Gordon

After City's game at Blackburn two weeks ago, a game that saw Leo Ostigard sent off for two yellow cards, several people asked me what City's record was like when finishing matches with ten men. I did some research and discovered that unsurprisingly the Sky Blues rarely win when reduced to ten men with a red card.

City have had 149 players sent off in competitive games since the war and there have been five instances of two men sent off in the same game. Out of those 144 games the team has won 28 but all but five saw City leading at the time of the dismissal. Of those five, three wins came with 10 men overturning a losing position to win, all three in the 1990s:

1994-95 West Brom (a) FA Cup 2-1 (10 men City score two late goals to beat 10-man West Brom. (Paul Cook and Albion's Raven dismissed)

1995-96 Plymouth Argyle (a) FA Cup 3-1 (10 men City win after Dave Busst sees red at 0-0 and Argyle take lead)

1998-99 Charlton Athletic (h) League 2-1 (Charlton leading 1-0 when John Aloisi sent off but City score two late goals)

Two victories with 10-men came after the scores were level at the time of the red card:

2003-04 Cardiff (a) League 1-0 (Peter Clarke is sent off after 24 seconds. McSheffrey scores late winner)

2020-21 MK Dons (a) League Cup 1-0 (Declan Drysdale dismissed after 30 minutes, Walker scores 82nd minute winner)

There has been only two occasions when City have drawn a game from a losing position after players were sent off and both games saw City finish with nine men. In 1995-96 City were losing 3-2 at home to Wimbledon when Richard Shaw became the second City player to be shown a red card (Paul Williams got one in the first half) in the 81st minute. Two minutes later David Rennie equalised to make it 3-3 and earn a draw. Then last season at Portsmouth City were trailing 3-1 when Fankaty Dabo saw red. With fifteen minutes remaining Matt Godden scored a penalty but three minutes later substitute Gervaine Kastaneer was also sent off. In a hectic finale Michael Rose levelled the scores four minutes from time and the team held out for a 3-3 draw.

If you have a question about Coventry City's history please drop me an email at clarriebourton@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter @clarriebourton

Thanks to Mike Young for photographs

Jim's column 6.3.2021

Ian St John the former Liverpool and Coventry City player sadly passed away this week, aged 82. Many tributes have been paid to him in national newspapers and the media in general and his illustrious career with Liverpool, as a Scottish international player and his almost unique television career alongside Jimmy Greaves has been well covered. I thought it would be of interest to focus more on his Coventry City connection.

Liverpool paid Motherwell a club record fee of £37,500 to bring St John from Motherwell to Anfield in 1961, arriving at the same time as another Scot, centre-half Ron Yeats. They were the last pieces in the Bill Shankly jigsaw and kick-started the Reds' ascendancy to the top of English football. Promotion to Division One was achieved in the first season and over the next nine years St John, nicknamed The Saint and beloved by the Kop, was at the heart of a team that won two league titles (1964 and 1966), the FA Cup (1965), as well as reaching the final of the European Cup Winners Cup (1966). Ian made over 400 appearances for Liverpool and won 21 Scottish caps in an era when there were far less international games and the Scottish talent pool was overflowing.

Eased out by Shankly in 1971 he spent some time that summer in South Africa playing for Hellenic of Capetown before, in September 1971, aged 33, Noel Cantwell persuaded him to come to Highfield Road in a player-coach role with the early emphasis on a playing role.

                      St John with wife Betty & City boss Cantwell

Prior to his arrival his memories of Highfield Road weren't good. In 1967, days after City had clinched promotion to Division One, St John was in a Liverpool side that came down to play in George Curtis and Mick Kearns' testimonial game. He was on the end of a strong challenge from big George in the first half and had to leave the game. As he limped from the pitch he allegedly gave a mouthful of abuse to Curtis along the lines of 'we come down here for your testimonial and that's how you treat us'.

       The walk of shame after being sent off at Highfield Road on Boxing Day 1967

Five months later, on Boxing Day, the Reds returned for their first ever league game with the Sky Blues. City's Brian Lewis, always an abrasive character, was given the role of marking St John and their niggly exchanges exploded on the half hour. St John was lucky not to be booked for a blatant challenge on the halfway line. As the free-kick was taken St John reacted – either to a remark or as some say, Lewis grabbing the Scot in Vinnie Jones fashion – and felled Lewis with a right-hook. It was fully a minute before St John would walk and he received what Derek Henderson in the Coventry Telegraph described as ' the worst verbal roasting I have heard a Highfield Road crowd give a visiting player' as he made the slow journey to the tunnel.

Both Curtis and Lewis had departed Highfield Road when St John arrived in 1971 and he made his debut in a 1-0 home win over Tottenham and a week later returned to Merseyside and had the audacity to score City's winner in a 2-1 win at Goodison Park. The good form continued as the Sky Blues beat Leeds for the first time in the top flight with St John scoring the second goal in a 3-1 victory. City's form fell away after the three successive wins and they won only once in the next 13 games with St John a virtual ever-present in midfield. Cantwell came under pressure in the bad run and after Second Division Hull City won at Highfield Road in the FA Cup the genial Irishman was sacked.

In a shake-up in December Tony Waiters had been appointed Director of Coaching with St John elevated to Assistant Manager but it did little to improve matters on the pitch. In the aftermath of Cantwell's sacking Waiters walked out and St John told chairman Derrick Robins that he didn't want to stay in the circumstances and played the last of his 22 games for the club against West Brom on 17th March 1972, Bob Dennison's first game as caretaker manager.

The Saint played a few games for Tranmere Rovers the following season before suffering a broken leg and went into management. He was briefly a success at his old club Motherwell before three unremarkable seasons as manager of Portsmouth. Later he moved into the media where he carved out a new career as part of arguably the finest double act in football punditry, Saint and Greavsie. Jimmy Greaves cracked the jokes while Saint tried to keep a straight face and the chemistry proved a hit. During the 1987 FA Cup run Jimmy consistently tipped City to lose whilst, I am sure, secretly willing his old Chelsea team-mate John Sillett to be a success.

RIP Saint