Duo needed fresh starts for careers

THIS week the fans have said goodbye to two very special Coventry City players who will hopefully live long in the memory and always be welcomed back to the CBS Arena.

Jordan Shipley and Jodi Jones leave the club amid mixed feelings, the heart telling us that it’s sad to see them go, some clinging to the fact that both still have plenty to offer for the Sky Blues. The head, however, tells us it’s almost certainly the right time for them to move on, not least for the sake of their own careers.

Both have touched the hearts of the supporters in different ways. Shippers because he’s ‘one of our own’ who has come up through the Academy ranks from the tender age of seven to realise his dream of playing for his boyhood club.

Jodi is a whole different story of a footballer who joined the club as a relatively shy but incredibly talented teenager who set the place alight for a regretfully all too short-lived period of time; a true favourite who we have seen grow as a human being through the adversity of three agonising knee ruptures. The fans have been his rock through some of the darkest days no young man should have to experience as he battled back from a sequence of potentially career-ending setbacks.

During his time out he refused to feel sorry for himself, instead helping little Coventry girl Teigan Buckley, raising thousands of pounds as he tried to support her fight against a terminal brain tumour.

Both players have shown when they have played this season that they can still do a job, Shippers in arguably his best position at the top of a midfield box, and Jodi also floating behind the strikers. But this is a team and squad that has evolved in recent years and needs new players to take the club to the next level. That’s no disrespect to either, but at 24 years of age they need to play. Fresh starts will do them the world of good and they go with the club’s and supporters’ blessings and good wishes, everyone grateful for their contributions and excited to see how their careers hopefully take off from here.

They’ve done themselves and the club proud, and will be missed. Good luck lads!