Coventry is a phoenix on rise from financial ashes
The National League One leaders have high ambitions of living up to their illustrious history
There are juxtapositions of old and new all over Butts Park Arena. A photograph of Coventry icon Harry Walker, England’s oldest living international who turns 103 on Feb 11 and still attends the odd game at the club, hangs outside the Main Stand suite that bears his name.
Take a few steps outside and you can find nine-cap All Black Sam Tuitupou chattering into a mobile phone about backs moves: “We can set up the same way, just with the blindside winger on the inside...”
Coventry boast a proud history, but until recently, their future appeared bleak due to disastrous boardroom mismanagement which left them on the brink of financial ruin, not to mention the relocation of Wasps to the Ricoh Arena just under five miles away.
Their saviour was Jon Sharp, a businessman who made his money in aviation and who joined the board after helping with a bail-out in early 2010 as the club teetered towards bankruptcy for the second time in 18 months. Having made a nuisance of himself – in his own words – he was appointed chairman in 2012.
“I’ve always wanted a small fortune,” says the 70-year-old with a glint in his eye. “The best way to do that is to start with a big one and buy a rugby club. The truth is I’m a Coventry kid. I grew up in the 1950s when this was the centre of the motor industry. I remember my dad saying, ‘Do you know what these car workers are earning? Twenty pounds a week’. An astonishing amount of money. Then the industry declined. Coventry went through its second time in the ashes after Nov 14, 1940, when German bombs meant 30,000 people lost their homes in one night. It rose like a phoenix then. I think it’s doing that again.”
Coventry has been named UK City of Culture for 2021, and the rugby team are creating a buzz, too. The runaway leaders of National One, English rugby’s third tier, have an average attendance of 1,746 at their city-centre home this season. And while Blackheath beat them 61-29 a fortnight ago, ending their run of 16 consecutive victories, Coventry responded with a 57-12 win over Esher. They are 15 points clear of second-place
Darlington Mowden Park with an eye-popping points difference of 484.
It is a far cry from even two years ago, when Coventry had garnered a reputation as mercenaries and were drifting – a change that can be attributed to Rowland Winter’s arrival from Cambridge as director of rugby.
“We needed to freshen things up,” explains Winter, 32. “Before, recruitment might have prioritised a rugby CV over personality. Now, we look at both. We’ve got two or three big-name CVS, but we also have 30 or 35 lads on their way up.”
Winter’s full-time training schedule encompasses 18 hours per week. Around 20 of the squad also contribute up to 20 hours of community coaching, creating a “virtuous circle” of engagement and income.
“When [towering Tongan] Latu Makaafi turns up at a local primary school, he probably scares the kids,” Winter says, “but the knock-on effect is massive. They are more likely to come back and sit in the stands with their family.”
If last season’s fourth-place finish signalled consolidation, a busy summer underlined loftier ambitions. Tuitupou traded Sale Sharks for Butts Park and Scotland centre Alex Grove became one of a few to move in from Moseley. Louis Deacon and Nick Walshe, both former England Under-20 coaches, were added to the backroom.
Over a coffee, Winter talked Luke Narraway out of retirement and into a two-year deal. The back-rower, who made seven Test appearances for England, has been able to fit playercoach commitments alongside working for his father’s Worcesterbased butchery company.
“In pre-season, I was pleasantly surprised at the standard of player we had,” says Narraway. “I can safely say there are players here who are better than there were in some Premiership squads I was in.”
While Sharp admits “snide tweets from other clubs about ‘overpaid galacticos’” are an inevitable by-product of Coventry’s ambition, he is also candid about economics. “There was a proposal bandied about this season that was going to limit clubs in our league to £250,000 in wages,” he says. “None of the teams in the top half are near that. In fact, we know one of the new entrants is four times that. We’re nowhere near the highest payer in this league.”
Sharp tells how Coventry’s impressive infrastructure means they do not have to “go to players’ agents, knock on the door and ask how much they are going to cost”. Sustainability is their aim. “We sat at an executive committee meeting the other night looking at the month’s accounts,” he says. “They’re getting better and better. The profit and loss is not good – there are loans and donations in there, but that’s a rugby club.”
Phillip Crossman, previously managing director of Honda UK, has been brought in as chief executive, and Butts Park is now a multi-use venue, hosting conferencing and events, from pop concerts to comedy clubs via wedding receptions. There are plans for an all-weather surface for round-the-clock community activity – and “more tries”, according to Winter.
A place in the second tier for the first time since 2010 is the big goal. Neither Sharp nor Winter think Wasps’ move has affected them. They have been loaned players, such as flanker Jack Willis and hooker Gabriel Oghre, and sent plenty the other way for A League games.
They also retain equally important links with Leicester Tigers and Northampton Saints.
Another member of the current England Under-20 crop, intelligent centre Fraser Dingwall, has been back and forth from Franklin’s Gardens. The knowledge and networking of Walshe and Deacon has proved valuable in this regard.
Coventry’s leading voices are so considered that you wonder whether the Premiership might be a covert objective.
Winter mischievously suggests that Wasps could cope with noisy neighbours – “Manchester United and Manchester City do all right alongside each other” – but refuses to look too far ahead.
“It’s about securing promotion, then how we can turn Championship survival into top half, then top half into top four. That might take four, five years,” he adds.
“By that point, will the RFU have closed off the Premiership? Potentially. There is no point us looking beyond what we can immediately get our hands on, which is Championship rugby.”