History of Coventry City F.C.
Coventry City Football Club is an English football club based in Coventry, central England. The club was founded in 1883 from employees of the cycle (and later car) manufacturer Singer Motors and changed its name from Singers F.C to Coventry City F.C. in 1898. 'The Sky Blues' advanced to Division 1 in 1967 and retained their position for 34 years, winning the 1987 FA Cup. The club was a founding member of the Premier League in 1992.
Founding
When originally founded in 1883 by William Stanley (football manager) who was the manager and secretary for two years and also play in center-forward position. The rest of the team were employees of a cycle manufacturer Singer, the club was known by the name of that company, Singers (a local firm). Ten years later, the club turned professional after a very successful season (1891-92) in which three separate cups were won (The Birmingham Cup, The Wednesbury Cup and The Walsall Cup). Local businessman David Cooke (later to become an infamous chairman) produced a 'Three Cups Tobacco' to celebrate the event. In 1898, the club was renamed Coventry City just prior to a move to new playing fields on the site of Highfield Road in the Hillfields district of the city, the stadium they called home for the next 106 years. The club became a registered Limited Company in 1907 recording a capital of £2,000 in 5-shilling shares.
Coventry City were originally known as 'the Bantams' (a nickname shared with Bradford City) before adopting their sky blue identity in the early 1960s. Coventry were first called the Bantams in December 1908 after the local newspaper noted that they were one of the few clubs who did not have a nickname. Being the lightweights of the Southern League, the Bantams was suggested and stuck with the press and supporters. (They remained as the 'Bantams' until the summer of 1962 when Jimmy Hill re-christened them the 'Sky Blues' and the club switched to an all sky blue kit.)
Rising to the top
The club was elected to Football League Division Two immediately after the First World War. In the first season they found themselves second-from-bottom with only two games to play, both of which were against Bury F.C. Coventry narrowly avoided relegation, drawing 2-2 at Bury and winning 2-1 at home, consigning Lincoln City to relegation from the league. However, three years later in March 1923, an FA investigation concluded that 'an arrangement was made between Bury and Coventry City, allowing the latter to win'. The Coventry City chairman David Cooke, along with ten other officials, received a life ban from football.
In the same season Coventry City went eleven games (equivalent to 997 minutes of football) without scoring a single goal, a feat which is believed to still be a league record. In contrast, in April 1934 Coventry recorded their largest ever league victory, 9-0 against Bristol City F.C. This tally included five goals from Clarrie Bourton, who still holds the record for the number of goals scored in one season (50).
The introduction of a new continental-style all sky blue kit (making Coventry the first team to play in matching shorts and shirts) and the new nickname the 'Sky Blues' in 1962 was the start of a revolution at Coventry City, aided by investment by chairman Derrick Robins. They had won promotion from the Fourth Division in 1959 and, basking in the success of England's legendary win the 1966 World Cup, finished the 1966-67 season as Division Two Champions, under the management of Jimmy Hill. City went unbeaten in 25 games as they were promoted to the promised land - Division 1. During this period, attendances rapidly increased and on 29 April 1967 an old League Division 2 fixture with local rivals Wolves attracted a record 51,455 crowd at the Highfield Road stadium, which has stood to this day.
Hill's revolutionary touch saw him introduce special sky blue trains to away matches, pre-game and half-time entertainment (pre-dating Sky Television by almost 30 years), supplied young fans with soft drinks and snacks, and even penned the club's signature anthem "The Sky Blue Song" (sung to the tune of the Eton Boating Song). Controversially, Jimmy Hill resigned from the club on the eve of the team's First Division debut to move into a career in television.
Entering First Division
Coventry retained their First Division status at the end of the 1967-68 season and would continue to defy the odds as the seasons passed, finishing between 6th and 19th in the top division and sometimes avoiding relegation on the last day of the season when all hope seemed gone.
In 1970 Coventry scored one of the most famous goals in the history of the game. In their home game against Everton F.C., City were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the Toffees' penalty area. Willie Carr proceeded to grip the ball between his ankles before flicking it up into the air behind him for Ernie Hunt to volley it over a bewildered Everton wall and into the top corner. Though the 'Donkey kick' was allowed to stand, the FA banned the technique on the grounds that it constituted a 'double-touch' of the ball. Aside from changing the laws of the game, the goal also won the Match of the Day 'Goal of the Season' competition.
In 1970-71, manager Noel Cantwell led Coventry into their only European campaign to date. They played in the European Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (renamed the UEFA Cup the following season), beating Bulgarian side Trakia Plovdiv 6-1 on aggregate in the first round. In the second round they notably beat Bayern Munich 2-1 in the home leg, but lost 3-7 on aggregate.
Jimmy Hill returned as Managing Director in 1974 and continued to reform the game. In 1975 Derrick Robins retired as chairman, emigrating to South Africa, to be replaced by Jimmy Hill. In 1981 he transformed Highfield Road into the country's first all-seater stadium under the slogan "You can't be a hooligan sitting down.". However, the idea backfired when Leeds United fans tore the seats out to use them as missiles when they lost their League Cup quarter-final to Coventry. The terraces were reinstated and Hill left the club in 1983. The stadium also gained the first electronic scoreboard, flashing in scores from around the country. The 1983-84 season also saw Coventry thrashing Liverpool 4-0 at Highfield Road, at a time when Liverpool were arguably the best team in the world and constituting the Reds' single worst defeat in over a decade.
Coventry City have a reputation for 'innovative' kit designs. The club's chocolate brown 'egg timer' away shirt of the mid-late 1970s regularly tops polls for the worst kit in football league history, a fact that has since given it cult status in the game. The club re-issued replicas of the shirts in 2000 in response to increased interest in vintage shirts.
The 1980-81 season saw Coventry reach the League Cup semi-final, narrowly losing away to West Ham United in the second-leg after being ahead from the first game. The following season saw the club banned from wearing their home shirts during televised games. Under advertising regulations, teams were not permitted to display sponsors names on their shirts (this ban was lifted for the 1983-84 season). Coventry had just announced the football league's first club sponsorship deal, and so to work around the ban Jimmy Hill tried to have the club renamed 'Coventry Talbot' to highlight the partnership with the locally based car manufacturer. When this failed he commissioned a club home shirt onto which the Talbot 'T' symbol was boldly integrated into the design, which was promptly banned for televised games.
FA Cup glory & 1987-1990
In 1987 they won the FA Cup, beating an impressive Tottenham Hotspur side 3-2 in the final after extra time, the score having been 2-2 after 90 minutes. It is generally considered as one of finest finals of all time in terms of footballing technique, fair play and sheer excitement. This also finally made archaic the famous Monty Python 'World Forum' sketch, in which Coventry City's last FA Cup win is a trick question asked in a game show, as they hadn't won the Cup to that point. They were denied their chance to play in the European Cup Winners' Cup because of the ban on English teams following the 1985 Heysel Disaster.
Coventry City's youth team also won the FA Youth Cup in 1987 (beating Charlton Athletic 2-1) to secure a remarkable 'double'. Aside from Coventry, only Arsenal, Liverpool and Everton have ever won both the FA Cup and FA Youth Cup in the same season.
Key players in Coventry City's FA Cup winning team included goalkeeper Steve Ogrizovic, defender and captain Brian Kilcline, midfielders Dave Bennett and Lloyd McGrath, and strikers Cyrille Regis and Keith Houchen, who scored the famous diving header. Their manager at the time was John Sillett.
The following season's opening game, the Charity Shield against Everton, saw Sillett introduce his new signing David Speedie with the quote "For too long this club has shopped at Woolworth's, from now on we'll be shopping at Harrods." In 1988-89, he guided Coventry to the club's second best ever league finish of seventh place in the First Division - ahead of bigger and higher-spending clubs like Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. However, the season also saw Coventry lose in the third round of the FA Cup to Sutton United[1] at Gander Green Lane in one of the biggest giant-killing shocks in the competition's history. City lost 2-1 in a close game on a terrible playing surface, though Coventry fans were understandably incensed by the humiliation of the result and some of their players' post-match excuses.
The 1989-90 season saw Coventry reach another League Cup semi-final, narrowly (and many still believe unfairly) losing to the eventual winners Nottingham Forest.
Near misses
By 1990-91, Coventry's problems with league form returned and in November 1990 Sillett was sacked after five years in charge. He was replaced by Terry Butcher, the former England defender who was released from his contract with Rangers in a £350,000 deal. Butcher, aged 32, became player-manager and at the time was the youngest manager employed in English league football. However, he was sacked in January 1992 after just over one year in charge. Don Howe took over as interim manager until the end of the season. His replacement was West Bromwich Albion's Bobby Gould, who in 1988 had led Wimbledon to a famous FA Cup final triumph over Liverpool.
Coventry narrowly avoided relegation at the end of the 1991-92 season and the club took its place in the inaugural FA Premier League.
Life in the Premiership
Coventry seemed set for at least a top-10 finish as they entered 1993 following the arrival of high-scoring striker Micky Quinn, who ended the season as one of the Premiership's leading scorers with 17 goals. A phase in late winter which saw six games pass without a goal, and they slipped to 15th in the final table. Despite being more than slightly overweight, Quinn was an idol for thousands of football fans, giving rise to the chant, "He's fat, he's round, he scores in every ground, Micky Quinn."
Quinn scored a hat-trick for Coventry in their opening game of 1993-94 away to Arsenal, a 3-0 win, but was unable to build on his good start.
Coventry had a decent start to the 1993-94 season but Gould resigned in October and his successor Phil Neal secured an 11th-place finish. In February 1995, with Coventry battling relegation for the first time in three years, Neal was sacked. Neal's demise at the club will always be linked to his appearance in the infamous "Cutting Edge" television documentary "The Impossible Job" (popularly known as "Do I Not Like That?"), which followed the England team's failure to qualify for the USA '94 World Cup. Neal was an assistant to Graham Taylor, the then England manager, and the astonishingly frank and darkly comic documentary cast Taylor, Neal and fellow assistant Lawrie McMenemy in an unattractive light.
Ron Atkinson, who had achieved managerial success with West Bromwich Albion, Manchester United, Sheffield Wednesday and Aston Villa, was appointed as the new Coventry City manager in February 1995. He brought in Leeds United midfielder Gordon Strachan as his assistant and long-term replacement, as well as drafting in Aston Villa midfielder Kevin Richardson as club captain. Soon after Atkinson's arrival City's Zimbabwean international Peter Ndlovu became the first visiting player in 33 years to score a hat-trick at Anfield. Atkinson steered Coventry to Premiership survival in 1995 and 1996 before he became Director of Football in November 1996 and Strachan took over as manager.
After losing their penultimate game of the 1996-97 Premiership campaign, it looked as though Coventry's long spell in the top flight was at an end; but thanks to a win away at Tottenham on the final day of the season, and with both Middlesbrough and Sunderland failing to win, the Sky Blues managed to survive relegation yet again. Their defeat in the penultimate game of the season would have relegated them had it not been for a 3-point deduction imposed on Middlesbrough for postponing a December fixture against Blackburn Rovers less than 24 hours before kick-off. The 1997-98 season saw Coventry reach the FA Cup quarter-finals, surprisingly losing away to Sheffield United (a division below them) in a replay.
Strachan guided Coventry to 11th, 15th and 14th-place finishes in the Premiership over the next three seasons. Their luck finally ran out on 5 May 2001 when a 3-2 defeat, ironically at the hands of arch-rivals Aston Villa, ended their impressive 34-year tenure in the top flight (a game they were winning 2-0 at half-time, away at Villa Park).
Life outside the Premiership
Five games into the 2001-02 season manager Gordon Strachan was sacked, shortly after an embarrassing 1-0 defeat at home to Grimsby Town. He was replaced by 38-year-old team regular Roland Nilsson, who took on the role of player-manager. Nilsson was dismissed at the end of the season after failing to get Coventry into the play-offs. This was particularly disappointing for Coventry fans, as the club had been one of the favourites to win the title at the start of the season. He was replaced by 37-year-old Gary McAllister, also a player-manager, who had been on the club's books from 1996 to 2000 before being transferred to Liverpool.
Midway through the 2002-03 season, McAllister's men still stood a good chance of making the Division One play-offs. But they won only one league game after the turn of 2003 and finished 20th in the final table - just two places above the relegation zone. Their form in 2003-04 was slightly better but McAllister left halfway through the season to spend time with his seriously ill wife, Denise. Assistant manager Eric Black took charge and kept the club well clear of the drop zone and facilitated some excellent results. Before the final match of the season, he was replaced by former Sunderland manager Peter Reid. This decision proved a very unpopular one with the majority of the club's fans, as Black (who was popular and had been doing a good job with relatively limited resources) had been seen to have been ousted for a 'big name' whose management style was perceived as 'old school' and not fitting with the modern game. As a protest against the decision and gesture of support for Black, thousands of fans arranged to turn up to the final game of the season against Crystal Palace in black clothing. Reid caused further anger when he worked in Portugal for the BBC during the summer of 2004, when many felt he should have been scouting and trying to improve the stretched playing squad.
On 13 January 2005, the club touched off a controversy when it announced that the traditional badge would be replaced with an updated, more modern version. Fan reaction was swift and negative, and under pressure from supporters' groups the club cancelled plans to change the crest.
Peter Reid lasted just eight months before the club's dismal league form led to his departure and in January 2005 he left the club looking in real danger of relegation to League One. The club's board replaced Reid with former Leicester City manager Micky Adams. Adams helped the Sky Blues stay clear of the Championship drop zone in their final season at Highfield Road before relocating to a new 32,600-seat stadium at Foleshill (later named the Ricoh Arena as part of a sponsorship deal). As an ex-Coventry player from 1983 to 1987, Adams was a popular choice with fans as he had a genuine fondness for the club and preferred a more technical and Continental approach to playing than his predecessor. In the 2005-06 season, Coventry City finished a respectable 8th in the Championship (missing out on the Premiership play-offs by only two league places), which represented good progress from the previous season's narrow escape from relegation. Micky Adams was expected to challenge for a play-off position in the 2006-07 season but was relieved of his duties in January 2007 after a string of poor results and an embarrassing FA Cup exit at the hands of lower league Bristol City, bringing to an end his two-year reign.
Operation Premiership
During the 2005/06 campaign, as fans grew increasingly discontent at the lack of progress in the club, the club's senior management were replaced. The incoming management team: Paul Fletcher, Managing Director; Ken Sharp, Marketing Director and Mal Brannigan, Finance Director; had contributed to the new sense of enthusiasm felt at the club. They launched 'Operation Premiership', a 3-year plan to get Coventry back in the top league. To help achieve that they brought in new investment and created initiatives such as 'True Sky Blue' (aka Private Seat Licence), which gives fans the chance to buy a seat for life. In turn, more money has been invested in the squad, allowing Adams to invest in 11 players before the start of the 2006-07 season.
The 2006/07 season started with the most optimism for years, with genuine belief the club could mount a serious challenge to get back to the Premiership based on the turn in fortunes of the club with the new stadium, innovative board, good manager and squad, as well as the previous season's improved form. This, however, lessened after only 4 points and 2 goals from the first 4 games and the sale of star player, Gary McSheffrey to local rivals Birmingham City for a maximum of £4million, with £2.3 million upfront and the rest based on Birmingham and international appearances. The season went further downhill when they were embarrassingly knocked out of the League Cup in the first round 3-1 by Football League Two side, Hereford United.
They were then drawn against Bristol City in the 3rd round of the FA Cup, 20 years after their majestic triumph in the competition. A large following of just under 3,000 Sky Blues travelled to the Ashton Gate stadium in the hope of some respite from their appalling league form. Many sections of the media pinpointed this as a 'must-win' fixture for Adams. His future looked bleak as Coventry were 3-1 down in the first half only to claw back one goal before half-time and then stage a stirring comeback to draw 3-3 with Stern John grabbing the equaliser. In the build-up to the replay however Coventry produced arguably their worst defensive performance for years and succumbed to a 4-2 home defeat against a distinctly average Crystal Palace side on 13 January. Coventry went on to lose the replay 2-0 in spite of a spirited 2nd-half comeback. With fans calling for the head of under-pressure manager Micky Adams, his position became untenable and he was dismissed the next day.
Assistant Manager Adrian Heath was named caretaker manager and threw his hat into the ring for the full-time position despite a demoralising 3-2 defeat away at Plymouth Argyle in his first game in charge. Heath made way for new manager Iain Dowie who signed a three-year contract and declared his ambition to guide Coventry back into the Premiership. He led Coventry to a 4-1 demolition of Barnsley and secured 17th place (lower mid-table) in the Championship after a 2-1 away win over Burnley in the season's final game. Whilst still distinctly 'work in progress', Dowie's team selections looked defensively better-organised than his predecessor's, with more attention paid to solid midfield possession, a more fluid counter-attacking strategy and some shrewd new signings. They began the 2007-2008 season with impressive away wins at Barnsley and Cardiff, and reached the third round of the League Cup without conceding a goal, meeting Manchester United in that round, causing a shock by defeating the reigning Premiership champions 2-0 at Old Trafford to advance to the 4th round. Both goals were scored by Maltese international striker Michael Mifsud (who also hit the woodwork to deny him a hat-trick) in front a 74,000-strong crowd, including some 11,000 Sky Blues supporters. They eventually succumbed in this competition after a 2-1 loss to the Premiership's West Ham United in a game the Sky Blues completely dominated (West Ham's goals came from a cruel deflection and a highly fortunate goal deep into injury time), thus missing out on a lucrative place in the quarter-finals.
Following a highly successful start to the season, Dowie was named "Manager of the Month" for August 2007, having secured top position after the first four league games and two successive League Cup wins. However, by February 2008 the team had slumped to a lowly 19th position in the league table.
On 6 October 2007, Paul Fletcher tendered his resignation in the wake of numerous takeover bids being priced out of the market, leaving both Operation Premiership and the long-term financial future of the club up in the air. Then, on 10 October 2007, Geoffrey Robinson resigned as Chairman of Coventry City Football club, stating that he wished to devote his time to pursuing his Parliamentary career. Joe Elliott promptly took over as Chairman on the same day, with rumours rife that the club was close to being called-in by administrators whilst burdened with estimated debts of £38 million. In response to takeover talks, the club confirmed that two consortia, one led by former Chairman Geoffrey Robinson and the other led by former footballer Ray Ranson, had offered takeover bids for the club. Nonetheless, the club filed for administration with a 14 December 2007 deadline to avoid administration by closing a takeover deal.
The Ranson/SISU Era
On 14 December 2007, Ray Ranson and the SISU group successfully completed the takeover of the football club with half an hour to spare before going into administration. They required 90% of shares, which was acquired in January to take full control. As of 11 February 2008, Ian Dowie, Tim Flowers and Bob Dowie were sacked with immediate effect, with one win (4-0 against Barnsley) in their last 6 league matches - leaving them 19th in the Championship and 4 points from relegation. John Harbin and Frankie Bunn were placed in temporary charge of first team affairs in a joint caretaker role. After a 5-0 humiliation at the hands of West Brom, they were replaced on 19 February 2008, with former Fulham and Real Sociedad manager Chris Coleman. Coventry's Championship status was not secured until the final game of the season, where despite losing 4-1 away at Charlton Athletic Coventry finished in 21st place due to Leicester City failing to beat Stoke City.
125 Years
To commemorate Coventry City's 125th Anniversary and in recognition of this landmark campaign the Club is considering introducing a special celebratory crest for the 2008/09 season. The idea of a new crest was widely discussed at a recent meeting with the Coventry City Supporters' Consultative Group (SCG) and was also given the thumbs up at the latest Former Players' Association monthly meeting. The final crest for next season will be decided on Wednesday 5 February.