Great when fans turn out in force
COVENTRY City’s home game with Sunderland saw a bumper 16,407 crowd at the Ricoh Arena, boosted by an excellent 4,900 following from Wearside. Apart from last season’s vastly inflated crowd for the Accrington game it was the biggest regular season league crowd at the stadium since Burton Albion’s visit in January 2016 when the attendance was 17,140.
Obviously the mass of Sunderland fans boosted it but the atmosphere generated by the larger than usual crowd was reminiscent of the days in the Championship.
The number of away fans was the largest since 2011-12 when Birmingham City brought 5,755 for the game in March.
City were in desperate trouble at the foot of the table and took the lead in the 70th minute through Gary McSheffrey only for their old boy Marlon King to equalise less than two minutes later.
Since the Ricoh opened in 2005 and accurate records began to be kept for the number of away fans there have been 15 instances of 5,000 or more visiting supporters, all of them in the Championship days.
The biggest was in 2010-11 when Leeds brought 6,366 to see a thriller.
Leeds led 2-0 at half-time before Lukas Jutkiewicz pulled one back. Then Max Gradel made it 3-1 with a penalty and Ben Turner made it 3-2 to set up a hectic finish with Leeds hanging on for a 3-2 victory.
The total crowd that day was 28,184 – the biggest crowd to watch a City home league game since 1980.
SkyBlueLewy asked me a question on Twitter last week. He wanted to know about a friendly that the Sky The programme cover from the Hastings v City friendly in July 1989 Blues played at Hastings in the early 1990s that his boss had attended.
The game took place on July 26, 1989 and was a testimonial for longserving Hastings player Wayne Peacock and City’s first pre-season friendly.
Hastings were managed by John Sillett’s brother, Peter, at the time and John took a strong City squad to the south coast.
City ran out 6-2 winners with goals from Brian Kilcline (pen), Dougie McGuire, David Speedie, Micky Gynn, Keith Thompson and Steve Livingstone.
Peacock had his moment of glory when he equalised Kilcline’s penalty with a penalty of his own and Stuart Dunbar scored a second equaliser before City upped the tempo in the second half.
Peter Sillett had an earlier spell as Hastings manager and in December 1980 City (for whom brother John was coach) opened the club’s new floodlights in a friendly game, winning 2-1.
Last week it was the 30th anniversary of Middlesbrough’s 4-3 win at Highfield Road, a game that saw hattricks from both David Speedie and Boro’s Bernie Slaven. I was asked how many City players have scored hattricks and ended on the losing side.
There have been two other occasions: In 1962 Terry Bly scored three in a 4-3 home defeat to Southend and in 1995 Dion Dublin scored three in a 4-3 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday.
That prompted a further question: How many times have players from both sides scored hat-tricks in City games?
In addition to Speedie/Slaven there are five others :–
1931-32 City 5 Fulham 5 (Billy Lake (Coventry) 3 / Frank Newton (Fulham) 3)
1933-34 Gillingham 3 City 7 (Arthur Bacon (Coventry) 5 / Arthur Mills (Gillingham) 3)
1937-38 Fulham 3 City 4 (Magnus McPhee (Coventry) 3 / Jim Hammond (Fulham) 3)
1962-63 City 3 Southend 4 (Terry Bly (Coventry) 3 / Mike Beesley (Southend) 3)
1990-91 City 5 Nottm. Forest 4 (Kevin Gallacher (Coventry) 3 / Nigel Clough (Forest) 3)
Finally a question from regular reader Ed Blackaby. Ed wanted to know the details of a game the Sky Blues played at Lockheed Leamington in February 1967. It was a charity game in aid of the Ken Shelton-Rayner Appeal Fund. The programme, dated January 8th when the game was originally planned for, explains that Ken, from Alderminster, needed a life-saving kidney machine which would cost £7,000. The proceeds of the match would go towards the appeal. The Sky Blues, who had won 1-0 at Bury the previous day, put out a strong team but were overwhelmed by the Brakes who ran out 5-3 winners. City’s goals were scored by Brian Lewis, Bobby Gould and Ronnie Rees and a crowd of around 2,500 watched the game.