RTG’s totally and utterly (we hope) indispensable guide to this season’s away grounds.
THE OPPO – Coventry City aka The Sky Blues
DATE – Saturday 7th August 2004
KO TIME – 5.35pm (to facilitate Sky Sports live coverage)
THE GROUND – Highfield Road, Coventry– click here and here for maps of the area – the arrow points to where the ground is.
Highfield Road is close to the centre of Coventry, handy for the A45/A46 ring road and also close to jcn 2 of the M6 and the M69 link road southbound from the M1.
Up to 4,000 away supporters are accommodated in 5 blocks of the Mitchell & Butler Stand and this is the view you’ll get. Away supporters take both the upper and lower tiers of the stand, although tickets for the upper tier are normally sold first. Disabled supporters have their own dedicated area, in the corner between the away supporters’ stand and the McDonalds Family Stand. The entrances to the Mitchell & Butler stand are on Thackall Street.
TICKETS
General sale will commence at 10.00am on Wednesday 28th July 2004 –
subject to availability.
GOING BY CAR?
· Travelling from the north east, get yourself onto the A1/A1M southbound; just after you pass A1(M) junction 45 (for the A64 Leeds/York road) you’ll see signs for the M1 – so take the M1 south. You join the M1 at jcn 48 and you need to stay on it until you reach jcn 21.
· Leave the M1 at jcn 21 and pick up the M69 signposted ‘Birmingham, Coventry’
· Leave the M69 where it runs out – at its junction with the M6 jcn 2 – take the the A4600 following signs for Coventry.
· After 1.5 miles take the second exit off the roundabout, so that you stay on the A4600.
· After 2.5 miles turn right onto the B4110 Swan Lane – then left onto Mowbray Street then right onto King Richard Street – and you’re there!
There’s street parking close to the ground – as ever, please park considerately and watch out for ‘residents only’ schemes.
Note: apparently the Coventry ring road is a total nightmare. One of the online Coventry fanzines says “Imagine having a motorway with a junction every 100 yards and you start to get a feel for it.”. The fanzine suggests you get into your chosen lane very early, and to let people on at junctions – “Cov drivers assume you will give way. If you don’t you’ll have a prang”.
GOING BY TRAIN?
From the north-east the journey will take you 3 – 4 hours. The 12.40am Virgin Trains direct service from Newcastle will get you to Coventry at 4.23pm. If you don’t fancy cutting things quite so fine then the 11.22 Virgin service fron Newcastle gets you to Birmingham just before 3pm, then change for the 3.15 Virgin service to Coventry, arriving at 3.35pm.
Coming back is the problem though…there are no trains that’ll get you back the same night (but scroll down to our ‘stopping over’ section if you want hotel details!!)
Coventry railway station is a good 15 – 20 minutes’ walk from the ground so if you ARE using the train allow time to walk from the station to the ground, or have money on you for a cab. For route and ticket information call National Rail Enquiries on 08457 484950 or check the National Rail website.
Alternatively ALS are running their usual coach service – click here for details.
STOPPING OVER?
Hotel Campanile, Wigston Road, Coventry – tel 024 7662 2311
Holiday Inn Express, A45 Kempass Highway – tel 02476 417555
Churchill Hotel, Walsgrave Road, Coventry – tel 024 7644 7459
Hilton Hotel, Paradise Way, Coventry – tel 024 7660 3000
Old Ball Hotel, Walsgrave Road, Coventry – tel 024 7645 9016
Sleepers Hotel, Thomas St, Crewe – tel 01270 585555
Coventry supporter Nuggie tells us there are also plenty of B+B places close to Coventry rail station.
SCRAN AND BOOZE
The Old Ball Hotel on Walsgrave Road is recommended by some Sunderland supporters – RTG Away Reportsmeister, Herts, says “They charge you to get in but it’s a canny pub. It is always a decent mix of us and them so you can make stunningly witty remarks like “£1.80 a pint – that’s cheat, I mean cheap” and “is there a cheat anywhere, I mean seat”. – It’s the way i tell ’em.”
The Rose & Crown on Walsgrave Road also comes recommended, as do the Rose and Woodbine on Barras Green and Biggin Hall Hotel on Binley Road. The Hastings Tavern, on Clay Lane, apparently has separate bars for home and away supporters. There’s a pub called The Rocket, close to Coventry rail station which welcomes away supporters.
Far Gosford Street is worth finding as there are several pubs and places to eat all on the one street.
It’s also said to be worth finding Clay Lane /Barras Heath as this also has some pubs and “possibly the best chippy in Coventry”, the Barras Heath Chip Shop. If you’re travelling from the north-east, you’ll come through this area anyway.
LEND US A FIVER I’M OUT OF CASH
Several options, all within a 10 – 15 minute walk. There’s a Lloyds TSB at 87 Far Gosford Street, then a Coventry Building Society, HSBC and another Lloyds TSB all on Walsgrave Road.
IN THE NEWS
Out-ofcontract SAFC defender Phil Babb had talks with Coventry about moving there this close season, but instead decided in favour of retiring from the sport.
Gerard Houllier has been linked with taking over from Peter Reid at the start of the 2005-06 season – if the businessman who wants to take over the club gets his way.
Spurs’ Tim Sherwood signed for the Sky Blues in July on a two year deal. Reidy also had his eye on Teddy Sheringham, but he subsequently joined West Ham.
This is Coventry’s final season at Highfield Road – they move to their new stadium, the Jaguar Arena, at the start of the 2005/06 season.
LAST SEASON
Finished 12th out of 24 with 65 points.
HEAD TO HEAD
We’ve played the sky blues 28 times in the League in recent years: we’ve won eight each, and drawn 12.
LAST 6 MEETINGS
08/12/03 Cov 1, Sunderland 1 (Downing 8)
08/11/03 Sunderland 0 Cov 0
16/04/01 Cov 1, Sunderland 0
28/10/00 Sunderland 1 Cov 0 (Thome 52)
12/02/00 Cov 3, Sunderland 2 (Phillips 57, Rae 88)
29/08/99 Sunderland 1, Cov 1 (Phillips 73)
TRIVIA
– Best league win: 9-0 vs Bristol City in 1934.
– Worst league defeat: 2-10 vs Norwich in 1930.
– Record transfer fee received: £13m from Inter Milan for Robbie Keane (Aug 2000)
– Record transfer fee paid: £6.5m to Norwich for Craig Bellamy (Aug 2000)
The club was formed in 1883 by players from the Singers cycle factory.
In 1898 the team cut its links with Singers, changing its name to Coventry City FC, moving to Highfield Road a year later.
In 1920, the club avoided relegation by bribing the opposition to throw a match. A bung of £400 was sufficient to ensure that Bury lost 1-0 to City, and thus condemn Lincoln to non-league football. The Coventry chairman David Cooke, and others, were subsequently banned from football for life.
In 1959 Jimmy Hill (yes, THAT Jimmy Hill), who was then chairman of the PFA, became CCFC manager – it was his idea to ‘rename’ the team from ‘the bantams’ to the ‘Sky Blues’. He later went on to become the club’s chairman.
Perhaps the most infamous incident involving Sunderland and Coventry came in 1977…but the two teams weren’t even playing each other at the time. Coventry were due to play Bristol City at Highfield Road and Sunderland were away at Everton. Jimmy Hill delayed the kickoff at Highfield Road by five minutes as many Bristol supporters were delayed by traffic. With five minutes to go and Coventry holding Bristol to a 2-2 scoreline, word reached them that Sunderland were losing at Everton (they eventually lost 2-0) and the score was displayed on the Coventry scoreboards, so that both sets of players were aware. RTG’s away match reports-meister Herts takes up the story: “When they realised they only needed a draw to both stay up the two teams spent 15 minutes kicking back and forward to each other, condemning Sunderland to relegation with Stoke and Spurs. Coventry finished 19th of 22 and Bristol City 18th. A Football League inquiry was held but Jimmy Hill, who was in a senior postiion at the Football League did not stand to one side while the inquiry was held – instead he made sure he was in a position to interfere the whole way through. Coventry were asked to try not to do it again
(yeah, right) but the result stood.
“20 years later when we were top-flight relegation rivals once again, this time us at Wimbledon and Coventry at Spurs (if we both got the same result SAFC stayed up but our defeat meant they knew they could stay uip by getting a result) somehow 15,000 SAFC supporters managed to make it down to South London for a 3.00 kick-off while 3,000 Coventry supportes faced such appaling traffic delays in getting to North London (I assume all us SAFC supporters flew to Gatwick otherwise we would have been using the same roads) that their kick-off was delayed by 15 minutes again. Once again we went down.”
Hill’s plan to rename the club “Coventry Talbot” in the late 70’s lost him much support from the fans, and was vetoed by the League. He then turned Highfield Road into England’s first all-seater stadium in 1981 but as a result, the atmosphere and crowds both dwindled. Eventually he arranged for some of the seats to be removed to create a standing area.
Former Sunderland manager Terry Butcher was previously manager at Coventry from November 1990 to January 1992. losing the majority of matches he oversaw.
In 1995 Bryan Richardson bought the club, installing Ron Atkinson and Gordon Strachan at the helm. During his 5 year spell at the top, Strachan was credited with buying players rejected by other clubs and helping them become successful at Coventry – eg Dion Dublin, Noel Whelan and Darren Huckerby.
Famous former Sky Blues: Peter Shilton, Craig Hignett, Dean Holdsworth, Craig Bellamy, Gary Breen, Matt Jansen, Carlton Palmer, Tim Flowers, John Hartson, Robbie Keane, Colin Hendry, Dion Dublin, George Boateng, John Salako, Magnus Hedman, Gordon Strachan, Lee Hughes.
Credits CCFC, ‘Gary Mabbutt’s Knee’, Nuggie Srikanthapalan, ‘Herts’, Link, Multimap, Rough Guide to English Football, Soccerbase, streetmap.co.uk, RAC, BBC, National Rail.