BUSST & BOOM
Sky Blues hero hopes club’s hard work will not be in vain
DAVID BUSST wants a deserved promotion for Coventry to help the club fulfil their potential again – on and off the pitch.
Today the EFL board meet to map out the future for the halted divisions below the Premier League before member clubs decide the outcome by a vote.
Most are expected to agree to ending the season now.
And for Coventry, top of League One, seven points clear of third with a game in hand, it is a case of what happens next.
Busst, 52, the club’s former defender whose career was famously ended by a horror injury, believes rubber-stamping promotion on an average points per game basis is the best way.
He said: “After all the hard work we have done all year long, we are at the top of the league.
“Not all will be as black and white as Coventry’s situation but hopefully people will understand that is how we have to do it if we can’t complete the season.”
Coventry are on the road back, having been relegated from the
Premier League in 2001 after 34 years in the top flight.
They believe they could cope in the Championship after twice holding landlords Birmingham, with whom they have been ground-sharing at St Andrew’s this term, in the FA Cup before going out on penalties.
The club, owned by hedge fund Sisu, have furloughed their entire squad. But promotion would significantly help by increasing the pressure to agree a new lease at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, owned by rugby club Wasps.
Head of community Busst, whose office is at the Ricoh, said: “Why should we be playing outside Coventry and our fans travelling extra distances? I am at the Ricoh every day and we have to take all our stuff on a matchday up the motorway. We want to be back playing in Coventry.”
It was on April 8, 1996 that Busst suffered a broken leg in the Premier League at Manchester United. He was forced into retirement after 23 operations, with his nightmare compounded by an MRSA infection that left him with a right leg he says now resembles “a shark bite”.
He has thrown himself into helping the club’s local community for the past 23 years.
He runs Sky Blues in the Community, a registered charity, which has temporarily swapped football for delivering food parcels for the vulnerable.
Busst said: “For some of them it is their only way of getting food and that is harrowing.There is the odd person who comes and asks for an autograph.
“There are not many but one of them was a Manchester United fan ironically.”