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In 'Trials of a Sky Blues Fan' we will be posting your stories of life
supporting Coventry City; from choosing the Sky Blues, your first game, the
highs and lows, favourite players and memorable moments.
If you would like to submit your story, please send it to Peter Reynolds
HERE. Your story will be embellished with relevant pictures, displayed on
the site, and passed to the members magazine editor. We'd love to hear from you.
If you need help putting your account together, no problem !
Barry Chattaway
Robin Morden
Robin Ogleby
Peter Reynolds
Number four is written by our resident
photographer, Barry Chattaway
"What Made me become a London Sky Blue"
I can’t see
how I qualify as being a London Sky Blue, since I have never lived in London.
However I have now got the identity as being the cclsc man in the Midlands
contact, for any deals that are going at the club shop, also useful for any
snippets of news that has not yet reached the TV, papers or any of the net works
down there in London, the capital is not always first.
I also come
in useful for pick up’s and set downs at the station on match days on the odd
occasion. I was also detailed to search out drinking venues in and around the
Ricoh Stadium in the first season of opening.
Right : Hinckley. it's er ... near Nuneaton; best
known for textiles, dry cleaning and Barry Chattaway ...
How I became
a London Sky Blue came about in the mid nineties, after a few seasons of buying
match day tickets on a walk up system, I decided to get my son Matthew and I a
season ticket each. Our chosen seats were in the East stand at HR, we sat in
block 8 row 22, one row in front of Eric Whiting (the then social secretary) &
Val Johnson, a few seats along from Eric sat Martin Scragg the Travel secretary
and on our right sat John Bryant.
We had good
seats with a great view of the pitch, at the first game when we took our seats I
was tapped on my shoulder by Eric, with Eric being Eric was enquiring as to why
we were sitting there, I asked him why and he replied “because two young girls
were there last season”. I obviously ignored him and concentrated on the match
in hand.
As
time went by we started talking more often and Eric took a shine to Matthew, if
and when we scored he would give Matt a pat on his back, as we had bought
Matthew a new Duck Down coat for the winter, so time Eric patted his jacket the
feathers would come flying out.
Towards the
middle of the season Eric said why don’t you come and have a pre match drink
with me and the other cclsc members for the next home game, so we did for the
very next home game, while there at the Greyhound pub I was asked if I was going
to the cup game away at Blackburn Rovers, with that I said I would go and Eric
organised my ticket and told me the travel arrangements.
I was to join
the train at Nuneaton and travel up with the cclsc members, there I met Terry
Potts, Colin Heys and many others. On our return journey I was approached by
Eric, Terry and I think Martin was in there somewhere and asked me if I would
like join the supporters club, I agreed and from that day and ever since I
became a London Sky Blue Supporter and have not regretted since, having had some
good times and events and met some good friends.
Left : Barry's match-day accessories.
Barry
Chattaway (Hinckley)
Number three is written by much travelled club stalwart Robin Morden ...
First Visit by Robin Morden
It was a frosty Boxing Day
in 1951 when City were in the old Divn. II.
I was just 8
years old. At the suggestion of my older brother Alan (12), and no doubt with
some heavy supporting arguments from me, we left the family Christmas
celebrations near the Toll Gate pub on the Holyhead Road in Allesley and went
down to Highfield Road to see the holiday game against Bury.
RIGHT : BURY 1951
As you would expect,
Highfield Road was full for a Christmas match (26,538). We arrived around kick
off as, when we got in, there was a massive wall of adults in front of us. No
problem, as we were quickly passed over the heads of the crowd down to the very
front, ending up right by the flag in the southwest corner. Pretty exciting
stuff. We were so close to the action that, leaning as far as we could over the
low brick wall surrounding the pitch, we could almost touch the players taking
corners.
I remember the frosty day,
the baggy black shorts of the Bury players and the curved roof of the old
corrugated iron stand. And that’s about it. Not much of a recollection really.
But it has stayed with me for over 50 years.
I did remember that Bury
were the opposition and the score was a 3-0 win for Coventry. What I didn’t
remember was that 1951/52 was a relegation season. City finished in 21st
place and played in the old Divn. III South the following season.
I have not lived in the
City since 1953 when we moved to Birmingham, and in the years that followed
there were many afternoons on the terraces at Old Trafford, Main Road and
Edgeley Park after we moved to Cheshire. At college, it was Huddersfield Town at
their old Leeds Road ground.
I
was working in hotels in Mombasa (right) on the Kenya coast in 1967 when city
were promoted to Div 1 and so had to watch their progress from afar. There
followed many happy years travelling around Africa working in hotels.
Expatriates working in Africa tend to be rugby fans, football be ing
the Africans game, but I watched it whenever I could. One year I saw the
Rhodesian (Zimbabwean) Cup final in Bulawayo. (Peter Ndlovu’s hometown) The
local team were called Sables and the opposition was from Harare. There was a
highly charged atmosphere in the ground and the rhythmic chanting of the
opposing fans made the hair stand up on the back of your neck. In Nairobi we
would drive out to the airport to get the UK Sunday papers off the overnight
plane from London. In Mombasa, you had to wait for the Monday edition of the
local paper. Despite all the other distractions along the way, it was the need
to get Coventry’s result that was paramount, and I knew where my true loyalties
lay.
Eventually, I returned to
live in Dunstable, and started to watch City around the London grounds, as I
still do to this day, and became a member of the London Supporters club. The
next game I saw at Highfield Road was the glorious sunny Sunday morning in May
1985 when City thumped Everton, who were already champions, 4-1 to stay in the 1st
division. What a memory that is.
One Saturday in May 2004 I
took my great nephew Elliott, and his friend James, who live in Balsall Common,
for their first trip to Highfield Road. City didn’t win, but they had a great
time and their names were read out over the tannoy at half time. We sat
comfortably in the Sky Blue stand, on a lovely sunny day and ate ice cream. As
far removed from that cold and misty December day in 1951 as you could get. I
only hope the boys will remember their first visit and the memory of it will
stay with them over the years, the way mine has.
Number two is by Competitions Manager, Robin Ogleby
Robin Ogleby - Sky Blue since 1966
My first season
following the Sky Blues was 1996-67, England had won the World Cup and the City
won the 2nd Division Championship, gaining entry to the top division in England
for the first time.
ROBIN & GEORGE OGLEBY - THE NEXT SKY BLUES MANAGER ?
My dad took me to my first
game on January 3rd 1967 and I saw the Sky Blues take on the mighty Newcastle
United in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. The atmosphere at Highfield Road that day
was more than an eight year old could take in. There was a crowd of over 35,000
and boys had to take wooden boxes to stand on if they wanted to see anything of
the pitch at all, rather than the back of old men’s ears. Fortunately my dad
seemed to know one of the stewards in the Sky Blue Stand (which these days is
segregated for the away fans) and he kindly let us in to stand in one of the
aisles.
A number of years later I took
my own son to his first game at Highfield Road. The match was a 0-0 bore draw
against Bradford, the atmosphere had evaporated, and the City were finally
relegated. I was thoroughly depressed, but George thought the game was great. I
remember looking at his face when he entered the ground for the first time and
he saw the enormity of it all and the greenness of the pitch. I wondered if his
expression was the same as mine was all those years ago against Newcastle.
He absolutely loved the game
even though it was obvious to everyone else that each player on pitch couldn’t
wait for it all to be over and for their summer holidays to start. George was
hooked. Although my lad was born and raised in Croydon he is a Sky Blue through
and through – and is contemptuous of the all those ‘glory hunter’ boys in his
class at school who support Arsenal one week and United the next.
That first game against
Newcastle was special. Seven goals and we only just lost. I can still recall one
player in blue lying on the ground (Ian Gibson I think) all alone clutching his
head after having missed a clear chance to put us ahead, all the energy draining
out of him. We had battled hard but, good as we were, we were not quite good
enough. This theme was to recur time and again throughout the years.
We
always fought well against the big guys but never quite came out on top
(although twenty years later for one glorious and unbelievable moment, this
pattern would be reversed in extra time at Wembley when the final goal in a five
goal thriller would be scored by us).
In my first Latin lesson at
Bablake the teacher said that if we never remembered a single thing he was going
to teach us we would always remember how to decline the verb ‘porto’. And
although my mind is blank in terms of many of those games and teams I have seen
over the years, I still somehow manage to decline the names of the eleven
players who lost to Newcastle but then went on to win the league in 1967 –
Glazier; Bruck; Kearns; Farmer; Curtis; Clements; Key; Machin; Gould; Gibson and
Rees. Probably not a particularly tall one amongst them but as they looked out
of the poster on my bedroom wall, they were all giants. I wrote a letter and
sent it to Highfield Road asking for each player’s autograph and details of
where they lived. A few weeks later I received a single page through the post
with all the signatures printed on – and it was difficult to make out which was
which. But I was happy.
I became a goalkeeper at
school and quickly learned to march nervously back and forth between the goal
line and penalty spot just like Bill Glazier. And I never wore any gloves. My
dad said he used to be schoolmates at Mosely Road juniors with Reg Matthews,
another goalkeeper in the old black and white days when we were in one of the
Third Divisions. Matthews also played for England though. Glazier would have
done, but he broke his leg instead.
The
next Christmas my brother and I got Sky Blue football kits for presents and we
wore them every day during the holidays. We later had subbuteo sets and while
other kids started to collect ‘second’ teams like Arsenal and Liverpool, I
painstakingly sat down and painted thin black and green stripes on my second set
– this being the colour of the City’s best ever away kit. Some of my mates
discovered that all the City players lived in Allesley Park and so we all
marched off to get some autographs one Sunday afternoon. The only one we got
belonged to George Curtis. I remember being the only one with the courage to
knock on his door and ask his wife ‘is George in?’ Later on, coincidentally, my
family would move house to the same road as the Iron Man and we would get
Christmas cards every year from his wife. The next time I actually spoke to him
though was many years later at a CCLSC function in a pub in London after he had
become the manager of the team that won the FA Cup. I don’t think he remembered
that I had woken him from his Sunday afternoon nap to ask for his autograph
twenty years previously.
My first inclination that
football can be bad as well as good came later in 1967 that year when my dad
took me to see Fulham in the First Division. We lost 3-0 on a cold November
afternoon and I remember thinking that as long as I would live I would always
consider this as being the worst game I have ever seen. I was a grumpy old man
at the age of nine. Afterwards I waited outside the players’ entrance for an
eternity, determined to get an autograph and turn the day into a success. I
eventually got debutante and keeper of our dreams Ernie Hannigan to sign my
match day programme. On the way back though, I noticed that the autograph was a
bit faint and so I wrote over it to make it look better. But it just turned out
a mess. Fortunately we found out that Hannigan had moved in at the back of the
fields we played football in and worked out that if we were to tease his
daughter long enough she would run home to get her dad to sort us out. But I
don’t think he ever came. Years later I read in the Sun that Hannigan had become
a window cleaner in Australia.
My friends and I also later
realised that all the City players really lived in Finham (which was two long
bus rides away from where we lived). We eventually tracked down Ernie Hunt’s
house and dragged him to his front door wearing just a bath robe.
He
seemed happy enough to sign our autograph books – but we had less luck at the
nearby homes of Noel Cantwell and Neil Martin. Why were so many footballers in
those days called ‘Ernie’? To complete the set, I caught up with Ernie Machin
in the run up to a big cup game against Liverpool walking up King Richard Street
on his way to the dressing rooms – presumably he had just got off the bus? I
didn’t have any money to get into the game myself but chatting to Machin on that
street corner helped me soak up some of the atmosphere. I now wonder, many years
on, however, what I would say if my own 10 year old lad turned round and told me
that he had spent the afternoon lurking round street corners many miles from
home?
My father’s family had (before
he was born) moved down from Sunderland in the 1920s looking for work. He
therefore used City’s promotion to the big time as an opportunity to trace his
roots and track down some great aunts. I used the long trip up to the north east
to try out the rattle I had eventually finished making in woodwork lessons at
school. It certainly did the trick – the rattle created a hugely annoying noise
and sometimes managed to clock rival Sunderland fans on the head accidentally
(as we all stood together on the terraces in those far off seat-free windswept
happy days). The collision of wood to head also gave me the opportunity to
remind one home fan standing next to me that we had just taken their top striker
(Neil Martin) off their hands and so we must have been the bigger club.
Fortunately Martin’s Finham neighbour Ernie Hunt spared my blushes by scoring a
last gasp equaliser.
Back at Highfield Road, Hunt
continued to excite and entertain us. My dad had discovered that there was a
little slither of a terrace along the front of the posh Main Stand where
youngsters could get a full view of the pitch and get up very close to the
action. We would be on the corner with the Spion Kop and marvel at how Ernie
would always manage to take the ball to the corner flag and shield it with his
back to the action, standing there for ages until some oaf of a defender would
get so annoyed and hack the ball out for a corner. Ernie would then turn round
and wink at us kids. Job done. I’m sure I later spotted a close-up picture of us
all in a match day programme standing there marveling. And I also certainly
recall, before we turned all posh and started standing in front of the Main
Stand, an absolutely terrific picture on the cover of the Spurs programe in 1969
of tiny Ian Gibson saluting the massed Spion Kop crowd after scoring a stunner
against Newcastle two weeks before. There we are for all to see for eternity, my
dad, my brother and me, cheering ecstatically as another little City star had
turned over one of the big boys. Fortunately, over the years brief moments like
this seem to stand out more clearly than the many disappointments.
I
think though that the player whose performances gave me the most consistent
pleasure at Highfield Road was Tommy Hutchison. He patrolled his wing
tirelessly, was never afraid to take on anyone, and was the ideal City player
because he always seemed happier to fight for lost causes than to give up. His
work rate and dedication was tremendous but later I was to discover that his
commitment to the well being of the team didn’t stop with the final whistle. By
this stage I had become a careworn twenty-something with a bigger interest in
lager than football. I discovered with some amusement that all the City players
no longer lived in either Allesley Park or Finham – but my local pub, the Toll
Gate. Every Saturday night, towards the end of his time at Highfield Road,
‘Hutch’ would bring his team mates (Gary Gillespie and Ray Gooding seemed to be
regulars) to sit quietly in the corner of the room and take abuse from the
locals after each defeat. On one occasion he seemed particularly keen to
introduce City’s brand new continental signing to the traditions of the English
post-match warm down. Roger van Gool was delighted to be able to demonstrate
just how keen he was to fit in to this new culture. Before long he was walking
through the crowded pub balancing a pint of beer on his head, wearing a huge
smile which seemed to hide the fact that he hadn’t realised he had been set up
by his new colleagues. For an encore he drank the beer down in one and then
spent some time standing on his head in the middle of the room with everyone
looking on in amazement. Spurs might have bought Ossie Ardiles rather than Van
Gool – but in seven years time at Wembley we would all know which side had the
better team.
Regardless of results and lack
of success over the years (other than
1967 and 1987) City have generally managed to unearth characters with the wit
and grit to take on the big boys – from Ian Gibson through to Willie Carr, Ernie
Hunt, Tommy Hutchison, Ian Wallace, Steve Hunt, Danny Thomas, Dave Bennett,
Lloyd McGrath, David Speedie, Kevin Gallacher, Peter Ndlovu and Dion Dublin. The
club is now easily at its lowest point since I started supporting them but I
look at my lad George’s face when we travel to and from the matches and it looks
as if the magic of excitement and expectation is still there somewhere. He is
already building up a list of his own heroes, David Thompson, Gary McAllister,
Mo Konjic and Gary McSheffrey. He has also come face to face with Dave Bennett
(down the Earlsdon Cottage after the Bradford game) and Micky Gynn, has been
taken aback that at 8 years of age he was almost the same size as David
Thompson, and has been patted on the head by Big Mo’s plaster cast.
On
another occasion I was pleased to be able to persuade Mo to ring George at home
on my mobile to ask him what position he played in the school team (centre back,
just like his hero). This Christmas we went to Gillingham and saw what must have
been one of the worst City performances of all time – but on the way back rather than turn round and say
‘Dad, I think it’s about time that I got myself a new club before it’s too late
– after all I have never lived anywhere apart from Croydon’, he sat on the train
thinking about that amazing goal Richard Shaw had scored at the previous game in
Gillingham seven months earlier.
Robin Ogleby joined CCLSC in 1986 and lives in Croydon.
Number one is written by your site designer ...
Peter Reynolds -
Sky Blue since 1982
My first ever game was City v
Wolves in the third round of the F.A. Cup. I was 12 at the time. I can’t
remember who scored for City that day, but Wayne Clark popped one in from close
range for Wolves; at the heart of the West end where I sat that day.
The following season my
Grandmother handed me £30 on my birthday (quite handy for the start of the
season, being August 4th), and I cycled up to Highfield Road to the
old ticket office in the main stand, which resembled the inside of a stuffy old
bank. Having chosen my seat in the then Sky Blue Stand (block A, now an away
supporters area), I waited in anticipation for my season ticket.
As
an enthusiastic young teenager I cycled to each home game from Nuneaton. I
filled a scrapbook with stats on every game, and a rating for each player. I
even wrote a letter to then Manager, Bobby Gould, to tell him about it.
Imagine my delight when he took the trouble to write back, including a team
poster signed by all the players together with an invitation to watch training
and meet the City heroes !
A friend gave me a lift to the
Sky Blue Connexion that day. We we’re told that Mr Gould ‘was not here’ and to
go to Highfield Road instead. We were taken up the tunnel to watch training from
the sidelines. No Bobby, and few players were interested in signing autographs.
Training that day was led by then assistant manager Don Mackay. Imagine my
disappointment when I returned home to find that Bobby had been sacked that
morning ! City lost the following day 2-1 at home to West Ham.
I bought a season ticket the
following year, but that was the last one for few years. I’d turned 16, the
price had doubled, and I had no way to pay with school out, and college in.
A
year later an advert for turnstile operators appeared in the Evening Telegraph.
I duly applied, and attended an interview in the old oak panelled board room. My
first game was on the away turnstile on the Old Kop for the season opener
against Arsenal. There was a hurricane blowing around the UK that night, and
perhaps that added something to rejuvenated Cyrille’s scorcher which set up a
2-1 win in what was to become ‘the year that was’
As
a club employee I had no trouble getting a £6 stand ticket for Wembley. And
what a day that was. The staff were all housed in block G, and the famous
Houchen header was followed by the scorer himself running over towards us to
celebrate his goal.
Cup final day didn’t get off
to the best of starts. Dad was to take me from Nuneaton down to Wembley, and sit
outside with my brother and listen to the game on the radio. We made it no
further than Rugby before the car broke down – low oil pressure. Dad had to be
towed back down and I flagged a lift there and back.
I continued as a turnstile
operator the following season; though it wasn’t to last. I enjoyed the game too
much and took advantage of my free pass to watch and attended fewer and fewer
matches for work duty. No surprise when no pass arrived the following season !
The
intervening years saw some highs and lows. Perhaps the game I remember most was
the 5-4 Littlewoods Cup win over Forest. Quite a nerve jangler – going 4-0 up,
4-4 at the break, and the winner in the second half. Kevin Gallacher had a
superb game – my favourite ever Sky Blue along with Brian Borrows.
After the pain of relegation
my fledging computer business indulged in a spot of sponsorship. Our choice of
players to sponsor seemed to be as effective as our choice of left backs – first
of all Marcus Hall then Dean Gordon. We sponsored the league cup match against
Rushden with 50 guests to dinner, and a great moment when I went to meet the
captains in the centre circle just before kick off (and City won 8-0 too !). We
also later sponsored the Wimbledon and Gillingham fixtures.
The Wimbledon game
is particularly memorable as I proposed to the now Mrs Reynolds on one knee just
outside the boardroom door. We announced our engagement to the assembled guests
and Directors much to the delight of everyone in the room. Mike McGinnity
proposed a toast, and later gave us use of his Bentley for a trip to the Hilton
!
We married in June of 2003
with a small service back in the boardroom. The club were superb and made our
day really special.
Last season we stretched to an
executive box; one of those on stilts with a balcony between the main stand and
West end, an unsettling experience on a windy day, ‘what wobbles doesn’t fall
over’. The business has closed now though so it’s back to the terraces.

At the time of
writing, all is not well at Highfield Road. The football is generally
uninspiring, debts are high, the Chairman appears to be at war with his own
fans. Our big hope is the new stadium. It’s only half built, but already looks
special. Let’s hope it inspires the Sky Blues on to better things and allows me
to fill in a few more chapters of my “Trial of a Sky Blues fan.”
Highfield Road, however, will
always hold a special place in my heart for the many reasons I have described.
Peter Reynolds edits the CCLSC
website and lives in Telford
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