City would have played Watford twice in three weeks if the home game had not been postponed because of the red storm warning for the day of the match and tomorrow there’s another quirk of the fixture programme that has us playing our return game with Coventry just over a month after we drew 2-2 up there in Frank Lampard’s first game in charge.
Since then, Coventry have done better than us, but no more than okay overall under their new, high profile, manager – they’ve won three, drawn one and lost two and routed Plymouth and played out a non event goalless draw with Millwall in home games played over Christmas. However, a 4-1 loss at Portsmouth in the match before that rather bears out that a team which was being tipped for automatic promotion by some back in August has had an inconsistent season of under achievement so far and, if the threat of relegation, which was real enough in the opening months of the campaign, has rather died away, Coventry are showing few signs of putting together their usual strong run at this time of year that we became used to seeing under Mark Robins following what was an almost traditional slow start.
I’d say teams in the bottom six of the Championship are treating a home fixture against this season’s Coventry team as a winnable fixture. Before last weekend, I would have said that this line of thinking did not apply to City with their ludicrously poor home results which have seen them deservedly beaten seven times already on their own pitch with less than half of their home fixtures played.
However that performance on Sunday, totally at odds with what you’d expect from a team that was winless in nine games before they faced a Watford team with nine wins and two draws from their eleven matches played at Vicarage Road has produced hope where there’d previously been none. With a weather forecast almost as bad as the one that got the Watford game called off, who knows what to expect tomorrow? I’m going to be a coward and not make a prediction, but seeing as I would have had it down as an away banker after the Oxford embarrassment, I suppose it’s a step in the right direction!
Here’s the normal seven questions on our next opponents with the answers to be posted on here on Thursday.
60s. This striker spent much of what was a twenty three year career spread over four decades flitting either side of a border with the occasional jaunt to the Midlands thrown in as well. Coventry were the sixth of thirteen teams he played for and he arrived there after playing on the other side of that border I mentioned for clubs four and five (in fact, his time at club five was sandwiched by two spells with club four). It was during these years before he signed for Coventry that he had his best time as a goalscorer with all of his five international caps being earned while with club number five. His goalscoring return for Coventry was respectable enough, but he was thirty four when he left them and only played for one other Football League club that was very close to that border after that, before resuming his border crossings in non league football and he was still scoring goals for the Bears at a healthy rate when. he called it a day at forty three, can you name him ?
70s. This midfielder from the north east signed for Coventry as a teenager and became if not a first team regular, then a trusted squad member over a five year period.There was also a loan spell to another club named City who were involved in a pretty notorious game with Coventry a few years earlier, before an eventual permanent move to a club which I believe have regained a status unique among EFL clubs this year after having to share it with another for a while. Forty odd years ago, an ACL injury was often a career ender and so it proved to be in our man’s case after he had played less than ten league games for his new club. He attempted a comeback with non league Oval dwellers from the Midlands before enjoying a long career in coaching including a spell with Coventry where he played a ;leading role in getting the club to two Cup Finals before going on to work for Birmingham and Newcastle. Who is he?
80s. A runt in midfield gets to renew at beginning of year (5,6)
90s. Which Coventry player from this decade is now manager of a club in the UK where he is frequently rumoured to be on the brink of the sack despite, according to Wikipedia, having only lost twelve out of seventy three matches since he took charge?
00s. Strip call.
10s. Sounds like it was a cropped artisan who scored against City!
20s. Which twenty two year old Londoner in the current Coventry squad created a record in international football early in 2024 which can never be beaten?
Answers
60s. Flint born Ron Hewitt spent most of his long career with clubs close to the England/Wales border with Coventry being one of the exceptions to that rule. Hewitt enjoyed most success during two spells at Wrexham either side of a spell at City when he earned his international caps and was a member of the squad for the 1958 World Cup. After leaving Coventry, he signed for Chester before dropping into non league football and he was still scoring goals at a rate of better than one in two for the Bears of Congleton Town when he retired in 1071.
70s. Ray Gooding played just short of fifty league games for Coventry over six years starting in 1976. He had a loan spell with Bristol City quite soon after a relegation shoot out game between the two teams which ended as very tame draw because results elsewhere meant both of them would stay in the First Division. Gooding signed for Plymouth (the only club to play in green in the EFL following Forest Green’s relegation last season) before injury ended his pro career. He made a short comeback playing for Bedworth United before he became Academy Director at Coventry at a time when they twice made it to the FA Youth Cup Final.
80s. Wayne Turner.
90s. Rangers manager Phillipe Clement played twelve games for Coventry in season 98/99.
00s. Rob Page.
10s. Shaun Miller scored Coventry’s goal in their 2-1 defeat by City in a League Cup tie in 14/15.
20s. Coventry goalkeeper Oliver Dovin was born in London, but has opted to represent Sweden as his mother is from that country. He made his full debut for Sweden in January 2024 in a 2-1 win over Iceland and became that country’s first goalkeeper to be born in the the twenty first century.
