Coventry City v Huddersfield Town
The Sky Bet Championship
Wednesday December 16th - 20:00 ko
at St. Andrew's Trillion Trophy Stadium

Clarrie was involved in another club record when they got their biggest win by beating Bristol City 9-0 in April 1934, in which he scored four goals. They were getting closer now to promotion. Only the champions of each of the regional 3rd divisions got promoted and Coventry did this by winning the 3rd division south in 1936. And it was Clarrie again who sealed the deal, scoring three minutes from time to beat Torquay Utd, and with Luton drawing their final match at the same time, City overtook them to take the title and a place in Division Two.

Their good form continued and missed promotion by just one point in 1938, but that old chestnut "financial difficulties" reared it's ugly head once more and amongst others having to be sold was Clarrie, who was sold to Plymouth Argyle. Then along came the war. They played some wartime games, but that came to an abrupt end in November 1940 when Coventry was blitzed by the Luftwaffe. Over 1,200 people were killed in the raids and the Highfield Road stadium was badly damaged.

Storer left to manage Birmingham City after the war and was replaced by his assistant Dick Bayliss. He got them to a comfortable mid table position but then died tragically in 1947, after becoming seriously ill when he was stranded in a snow storm whilst out on a scouting mission. He was replaced by Billy Frith, who couldn't improve on mid table mediocrity and when that turned into relegation form, Storer was persuaded to leave St Andrews and return to Coventry.

He stopped them from going down, but that was just a temporary reprieve as they did go and get relegated in 1952 and were back in Div 3S. He stayed on for a couple of years but left again in 1954 as City ambled along in the 3rd tier, with crowds getting smaller. They were one of the teams who had proposed that the two 3rd divisions be nationalised and in 1958 this came about. Unfortunately for them, they finished 57/58 in 19th and so were placed in Division 4.

Frith had returned as manager and he got them back up to the 3rd division after just one season in the 4th, finishing as runners up to Port Vale. They almost made it back to back promotions, but didn't and Frith left the club in 1961. This was a huge turning point for the club as he was replaced by the man who was the chairman of the PFA, Jimmy Hill, who had been the chief campaigner for getting the maximum wage scrapped. He sparked off what became known as the Sky Blue revolution. He changed the kit and the club nickname and the form of the team.

He got them promoted in 1964, back in the 2nd tier after 12 years out. They finished mid table, then missed promotion by a single point, but then in 66/67, they finally made it to Division One. They went up as champions, with Wolves as runners up and they were the opponents in the penultimate match of the season that saw Highfield Road's highest ever attendance. A crowd of 51,455 turned up to see Hill's Sky Blues win 3-1, which backed up by a win in the final game, gave them the 2nd Division title.

This promotion to Division One meant that they became the only club to have played in all "five" of the top English leagues. Division One, Division Two, Division Three (North), Division Three (South) and Division Four.

An eager anticipation was growing in the city for the start of their first top flight campaign, but then Hill announced he was leaving, two days before the first match. He was going to work for London Weekend Television, from where he would go on to be the regular host of Match Of The Day for 16 years. He stayed on for the first few games until the club appointed Noel Cantwell as his replacement.

They struggled in the first few seasons, flirting with relegation, until in 1969/70 they had their highest ever finish when they ended the season in 6th place in the First Division. This earned them their first crack at Europe in the Fairs Cup, which ended at the 2nd round against Bayern Munich. Later on in that season, they scored this goal against Everton, which won Goal of the Season on MOTD. A classic piece of skill from Willie Carr to set up Ernie Hunt to beat future Town keeper Andy Rankin in the Everton goal, which the boring bastards that run the game subsequently outlawed. That's a shame, because I'd been practicing doing the donkey kick all on my own. I could kick the ball up, swivel and shoot and score every time in my own back garden (or just my own mind). I was brilliant at ten years old.  

Jimmy Glazzard

Coventry in popular culture: Well next year, Coventry is going to be the UK City of Culture, as opposed to the European City of Culture that we've now been Brexitted from. Here's a video from their successful bidding campaign.



It is of course, most famous as a place where you send unpopular people to, a place where some lass rode on horseback with no clarts on and famous for getting the shit kicked out of by the Luftwaffe. We'll start there.

During the 2nd world war, Coventry was bombed several times, the fourth most bombed city behind London, Hull and Plymouth. But it was on the night of November 14th and the following morning that the most damage was done and consequently named the Coventry Blitz. Like most of the West Midlands, Coventry had factories making cars, bikes, engines and also munitions factories. Coventry Ordnance Works was one of the biggest and it's said that they turned out 25% of all British aircraft during the war. So it's fair to say they were a legitimate target.

However, the 14th of November raid is thought to be Hitler's revenge for the RAF's raid on Munich a week earlier, as the targets were not just industrial, but also civilian and the historic city centre, where the cathedral took a particular pounding. There were 515 German bombers from Luftwaffengruppenkommando 3 involved in what they were calling Operation Moonlight Sonata. The raid lasted for ten hours and in that time, only one of the buggers was shot down.

The cathedral was set alight by a wave of incendiary bombs at around 8pm and despite being put out by the volunteer firefighters, a second wave blazed out of control after the water mains had been burst by high explosive bombs. By the time the all clear was sounded at around 6 in the morning, it was destroyed, along with over 4,000 homes, around a third of the city's factories and another third badly damaged. Around 600 people died that night, but it wasn't the last raid on Coventry and by the end of the last one in 1942, over 1,200 people had lost their lives.

It was much later revealed that the boffins in Bletchley Park had intercepted messages warning of the 14/11/40 blitz, but Winston Churchill had denied Coventry sufficient air cover defences as he didn't want the Jerries to know that we had cracked their codes. A moral dilemma for the big man. Obviously keeping that a secret helped the Allies win the war, but at a high price for this particular city.



Lady Godiva, before becoming rhyming slang for a five pound note, was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman. She was married to the Earl of Mercia and he was the bloke responsible for imposing taxes on the local populace. The Lady was unimpressed by what hubby was charging the plebs and begged him to be more lenient with his tolls. The dirty old sod said he would do something about it only if she would get her kit off and ride through the streets of Coventry on horseback in the nuddy. Now the Lady was no shrinking violet and took him at his word and off she went, with only her own long hair to cover her embarrassments.

Anyway, the Earl commanded that the people stay at home on the day, using the slogan "Stay home - Curtains closed - No Peeping". A sort of 11th century lockdown. But like today, you can't always make people do what they don't want to do and so one young boy did actually peep. His name was Tom and this is where the name Peeping Tom originates from. The little tosspot immediately regretted it though. He was struck blind!



The origin of sending someone to Coventry as a form of ostracization could possibly come from the punishment given to young pervy Tom, though that doesn't seem likely. The old wives tale that something else young boys might do whilst gawping at naked chicks makes you go blind, probably originates from this nonsense though. No, sending someone to Coventry most probably came from the times of the Civil War when Coventry was a Parliamentary stronghold and the Royalist prisoners were sent there. Nobody knows for certain though.

Coventry City was mentioned in a Monty Python sketch. It was the Communist Quiz (World Forum) skit when an important looking current affairs programme with notable famous Communist leaders, turned out to be a General Knowledge quiz. The presenter (Eric Idle) tricked Che Guevara by asking the question; "Coventry City last won the FA Cup in what year?" It was of course a trick question as Coventry City have never won the FA Cup. This sketch later became outdated when Coventry City did win the FA Cup in 1987.

They also get a mention in the 2008 Christmas episode of Gavin and Stacey when Gav asks Stace why are they buying goalkeeper gloves for Nessa's Christmas present. She replies that she's thinking of taking it back up again and that she used to be goalkeeping coach at Coventry City and she is still good mates with Steve Ogrizovic.

Funny man Guz Khan is from Coventry and taught at Grace Academy before quitting to become a stand up.



Actors Billie Whitelaw and Clive Owen, athletes Marlon Devonish and David Moorcroft and the England Test cricketer Ian Bell are Coventrians and the Welsh snooker player Dominic Dale was born there.

Singer Hazel O'Connor was born there, but the most famous birth in Coventry was the birth of the 2 Tone movement of the early 80s with bands such as The Specials and The Selecter at the forefront of the movement. Get your shades and your pork pie hat on and bop around your lap top to these two top Two Tone toons.

Stay home - Curtains closed - Watch telly!

1. Which club did Mark Robins manage after managing Town?
   
2. Who did Coventry beat in the 2017 EFL Trophy Final?
   
3. Who is Coventry City's all time leading goal scorer?
   
4. Who did Lee Fowler score his only Town goal against?
   
5. Who did Coventry's Liam Kelly play for in Scotland?
   
6. Where did Tyler Walker go on loan last season?
   
7. When did Town last play Coventry in the league?
   
8. Who did Coventry beat in the 1987 FA Cup semi final?
   
9. How old was Joe Walter when he died in 1995?
   
10. Coventry City last won the FA Cup in what year?
    

(14-12-2020, 00:07)Lord Snooty Wrote: Forgot that, Theo. Uncle Ed and Aunt Jen went to that Springsteen gig.

Anyway, I ran out of available space and had to cut some bits out again.