Coventry

[Mercia Blackcat]

Doug was born in Suffolk and studied in the East Mids. Although he followed rugby he is an all round sports fan.
His main business is based in Stratford and got interested in CCFC during his time there.

I believe you're right when you say there are similarities between us. Two areas of old, traditional industries decimated by politics and cheap overseas labour. Certainly more to unite us than divide.

I have some great memories from up there.
Used to catch the bus from Houghton to Sunderland with my granda to buy single 45 records - 6/8d each, 3 for a pound.
Ralph Coates lived over the road from granda in Hetton.
Pop and crisps at the Comrades club.
First footing for 6d down Caroline street.
Granda staying up at night to stop leek slashers!
Many far distant memories.

Then the move south.
My early hero at Highfield road was Neil Martin, boy could he head the ball. Never seen anyone better.

You can probably tell our seasons already over, spending so much time on here, apologies, but living and returning up there was always a treat. (apart from that North Sea wind).

Coates went to Eppleton School up The Downs. He was so good that in PE he was only allowed to play one touch football otherwise he'd just dribble around everyone else and score every time he got the ball.

Ah, Neil Martin, was gutted when he left. He was great header of the ball and so classy with knock ons.

 

[The Fitter]

Will we like them more if they sign Dan Neil?

 

[pRICK]

Will we like them more if they sign Dan Neil?

No

 

[The soap powder]

Think they will need a massive investment to be anywhere near even staying up next season

 

[nandos sonic sauce]

Well, we've made it to the promised land after 25 years.

I was born at Thorpe hospital, Lived in Houghton and the rest of the family in Hetton.
I'm the 1st generation never to have worked down the pit. All my male relatives worked at Eppleton colliery.
My grandad occasionally would take me to Roker Park with my cracket on the minibus from the Three Tuns at Broomhill.
We moved down to Warwickshire when I was a nipper and started to go to Highfield Road with my mates.

So, I have a very keen interest in Sunderland being successful and hope you manage to finish above the Saudi oilers.

It's been said many times that what happened nearly 50 years ago was wrong. This was the actions of 1 man who thought he was acting in the best interest of his club. I would guess anyone in his position at whatever club would have done the same.

Of course we are likely to go straight back down next season, probably as bookies favourites.
Most fans are fully prepared for this and taking the benefit of the parachute payment with us will help in future years.

I have followed CCFC for many years, even seeing us beat Bayern Munich when Mueller, Maier, and Beckenbauer played.
Next year is for the generation of fans never to have seen us play at the top level.
Their football journey has been horrendous. Our shit owners sold Highfield road, couldn't afford the new stadium and had to be bailed out by the council, eventually selling to SISU. They were even worse, tried to buy the ground on the cheap by threatening then upping sticks to Northampton. We went bust and during this time dropped to L2. I took my grandson to his first football game at home to Yoevil - we lost 6-2. That's how far we had fallen.
Mark Robins steadied the ship and him and Ade Viveash (now at Boro) started the upward travel. This wasn't helped by the Council selling the ground to Wasps (without our knowledge) who churned up the pitch and piled on the rent and then kicked us out.
"Home" games went then to BCFC (with a one-off at Burton Albion) where the Covid year prevented us from celebrating as L1 champions.
MR and AV created some great memories at Wembley, even though Wright's big toe prevented us from making the greatest FA comeback against MU.

We finally saw off Wasps who issued a £36m bond to buy the stadium and then couldn't afford to pay it back - great news!

Welcome Doug King. - a local businessman who made a few bob and was a CCFC fan. He bought out SISU and then made the very unpopular decision to sack MR. To be honest since MR fell out with Ade and had him removed, Mark seemed a bit lost without his right hand man. King brought in Lampard with everyone thinking it's another Rooney/Gerrard appointment. Well, from 17th when he arrived to play offs was a fantastic run. No issues from me with you getting to the final.
This season King has bought the stadium, bought/loaned some key positions and despite out winter wobble have topped the league by 11 points.

King is a fan owner, who attends every match. He is not a billionaire and needs to be careful with his money and make sure we live within our means. His comments regarding Sunderland seem to have been taken out of context, not a criticism but just a way of saying that's how they did it but we can't follow that road.

Sorry for this rambling post, but we all know what a football club means to us. To me, there's no "shit", "tinpot" teams, just football clubs loved by their fans.
For Coventry I suspect the journey will be better than the destination, but at least we're there, and you never know - there's always hope.

See you next season.

Nice long informative post but sorry, you chose to support them so will have to accept most SAFC want yous relegated. Most Cov fans I have met have been bell ends of one kind or another. You seem a decent fella from the way you posted so fair to yourself for enjoying the moment.

The gulf in class is very evident very early on so you will have to transform your team if you want to stay up and hope you are lucky/clever in the transfer market. I am going down the thought that next year the 3 promoted teams will be relegated again as I don't think they are as good as the 3 who went up last season. By that I also add we finished about 25 points behind Leeds and Burnley and literally were ruthless in changing players who had got us up, Local lads and also our captain were all replaced and that's the only reason we stayed up.

I live down south of Coventry and have for many many years. Don't compare the clubs or our fans.

Will we like them more if they sign Dan Neil?

Why would we like them for signing a lad on a free transfer? I hope he doesn't go there as like and respect Neil

 

[Astute]

Now that ourselves and Leeds have survived it's apparently a piece of piss now for promoted sides.

So we're not supposed to have any thoughts on staying up after winning the Championship with the biggest gap to 2nd in the last 20 years and before we know a single signing?

Lampard has totally turned our club around in 18 months. Maybe we could get a couple of good loans from top Prem sides. A free signing or 2 then add to these the players we pay decent money for.

Your guess is as good as mine on who we start with. I might look at our squad and start preparing for the Championship again. But as things stand our aim is to beat the two sides again that comes up with us and hope for another Wolves.

It’s probably not even the money. How do they attract players, who’s running their recruitment, what’s his contacts in the continent etc.

Lampard will say who he wants to sign and our owner will do the negotiations.

 

[Longy]

Lampard will say who he wants to sign and our owner will do the negotiations.

Not many sides around these days who’s manager controls the signings do well.

Considering the average manager apparently lasts under 2 years (across the full 92 league clubs) & there’s only 10 managers lasted 3, it’s a short term outlook that eventually catches up on you.

We’re a perfect example of backing new managers to keep us afloat in our premier league years until we were left with a sea of unwanted players, on decent contracts & a financial anchor pulling us into league one.

 

[AC Mack]

But as things stand our aim is to beat the two sides again that comes up with us and hope for another Wolves.

18 points then, aiming high!

 

[halfpast3]

If we hadn't gone up MVE, Rudoni, Mason-Clark, Wright and Rushworth would have been moving to PL sides so those are the key players.

Who do you think from the premier league do you think would have been taking Mason-Clarke for example. The lad is 27 at the very start of next season, has never played in the top flight, in fact has only had 2 championship seasons. Best championship season is this one with 9 goals, 5 the one before.

Wright will likely start for USA in the summer. Mason-Clark is my one to watch. Lots said about the physicality of the Premier League, he's a machine.

Rushworth will either be playing for us as number 1 or another Premier League side next season.

Let’s make a charity bet. Mason Clarke won’t score more than 5 premier goals next season

Rushworth has had loads to do. We don't win the league without him.

His stats for a side who have effectively walked the league is remarkable. He's had to make 123 saves. Compare that to keepers last year. Those sort of numbers are what you'd see from sides being hammered every week.

Trafford - 88
Patterson - 91
Meslier - 65

I mean that isn’t a good thing by the way

It will.

There's no rude awakening for me. Look at how many sides go up and straight back down. Half that go up as champions stay up. The players have advanced very well under Lampard. It's difficult to say which players will step up and which ones won't.

If we didn't have Lampard I would be hoping just to not finish bottom. What he has done for us is give the players training and confidence to shoot from where he used to score from. Our GOTM has become what the GOTS used to look like.

I'm not saying we will stay up. But we have a better chance of staying up than many on here would like us to have.

Your chances of staying up depend totally on your recruitment. Your chances of staying up as it stands right now are about 1%. As good as Rushworth is it looks a terrible start to your business, your owner has basically said you won’t be spending fortunes and you are gonna blow 20m on a keeper that you almost certainly have loaned again for the season

 

[craigypants]

Who do you think from the premier league do you think would have been taking Mason-Clarke for example. The lad is 27 at the very start of next season, has never played in the top flight, in fact has only had 2 championship seasons. Best championship season is this one with 9 goals, 5 the one before.

Let’s make a charity bet. Mason Clarke won’t score more than 5 premier goals next season

I mean that isn’t a good thing by the way

Sakamoto another who looks good in the championship. 29 years old,small, not physical enough. Hadji Wright is 28. Van Ewijk seems ok but top level experience? Rushworth 25 this summer....older than Roefs and will cost more money. Not convinced. Victor Torp, 27 no top level experience and never capped for Denmark. Matt Grimes, Championship player, 31 years old. Bobby Thomas, 25 but think he could step up, Ballard did. Kitching.....26 and a Championship player. DaSilva...Championship player, 28 and ain't getting better in the Prem.

So Cov fans, good f***ing luck!! You'll need it in spades.

 

[ned_werby]

Coventry's biggest problem will be when Chelsea come calling for Fat Frank in the summer.

 

[HellsBells]

Nope. Only articles I've read say they are interested but so are other sides and Brighton are still to decide if they even want to let him go.

Given that he’s just swept the board at their POTS awards, if I were Brighton I’d be fleecing the fuck out of them.

 

[G Force]

Although I didn't admit that some of those saves were after we took the foot off the gas when we were winning by 4 or 5 goals most weeks.

In all seriousness, we've been open in all our games but have been absolutely ruthless scoring goals. We obviously won't go as mad next season, but I still think our games will be high scoring.

If you’re expecting your games to be high scoring then you could be in trouble. I’m sure the club will be more pragmatic than that

Going to toe to toe with these teams too soon would very likely see your current team ripped apart. Like others have said, it’s going to be down to the recruitment. You’ll need a very good window. Dont be too sentimental to the majority of players that got you there. You’ll have some that will make the step up, however most will need to be left behind to survive. It’s brutal.

After the lows you’ve seen over the last 25 years just enjoy the excitement and even the transfer rumours of the summer and see where you are end of the window.

 

[LDNCCFC]

Who do you think from the premier league do you think would have been taking Mason-Clarke for example. The lad is 27 at the very start of next season, has never played in the top flight, in fact has only had 2 championship seasons. Best championship season is this one with 9 goals, 5 the one before.

Let’s make a charity bet. Mason Clarke won’t score more than 5 premier goals next season

I mean that isn’t a good thing by the way

Your chances of staying up depend totally on your recruitment. Your chances of staying up as it stands right now are about 1%. As good as Rushworth is it looks a terrible start to your business, your owner has basically said you won’t be spending fortunes and you are gonna blow 20m on a keeper that you almost certainly have loaned again for the season

I'll take the bet. He's the one player I think will progress in the Prem. Unlike Sakamoto who will get bullied, Mason-Clark has the physicality and pace.

Rushworth for £20m is an absolute bargain. Not quite the £6m we offered in August, but he's the real deal who, if you believe the press, has been close to an England call up this season.

 

[Lemon Pie]

Well, we've made it to the promised land after 25 years.

I was born at Thorpe hospital, Lived in Houghton and the rest of the family in Hetton.
I'm the 1st generation never to have worked down the pit. All my male relatives worked at Eppleton colliery.
My grandad occasionally would take me to Roker Park with my cracket on the minibus from the Three Tuns at Broomhill.
We moved down to Warwickshire when I was a nipper and started to go to Highfield Road with my mates.

So, I have a very keen interest in Sunderland being successful and hope you manage to finish above the Saudi oilers.

It's been said many times that what happened nearly 50 years ago was wrong. This was the actions of 1 man who thought he was acting in the best interest of his club. I would guess anyone in his position at whatever club would have done the same.

Of course we are likely to go straight back down next season, probably as bookies favourites.
Most fans are fully prepared for this and taking the benefit of the parachute payment with us will help in future years.

I have followed CCFC for many years, even seeing us beat Bayern Munich when Mueller, Maier, and Beckenbauer played.
Next year is for the generation of fans never to have seen us play at the top level.
Their football journey has been horrendous. Our shit owners sold Highfield road, couldn't afford the new stadium and had to be bailed out by the council, eventually selling to SISU. They were even worse, tried to buy the ground on the cheap by threatening then upping sticks to Northampton. We went bust and during this time dropped to L2. I took my grandson to his first football game at home to Yoevil - we lost 6-2. That's how far we had fallen.
Mark Robins steadied the ship and him and Ade Viveash (now at Boro) started the upward travel. This wasn't helped by the Council selling the ground to Wasps (without our knowledge) who churned up the pitch and piled on the rent and then kicked us out.
"Home" games went then to BCFC (with a one-off at Burton Albion) where the Covid year prevented us from celebrating as L1 champions.
MR and AV created some great memories at Wembley, even though Wright's big toe prevented us from making the greatest FA comeback against MU.

We finally saw off Wasps who issued a £36m bond to buy the stadium and then couldn't afford to pay it back - great news!

Welcome Doug King. - a local businessman who made a few bob and was a CCFC fan. He bought out SISU and then made the very unpopular decision to sack MR. To be honest since MR fell out with Ade and had him removed, Mark seemed a bit lost without his right hand man. King brought in Lampard with everyone thinking it's another Rooney/Gerrard appointment. Well, from 17th when he arrived to play offs was a fantastic run. No issues from me with you getting to the final.
This season King has bought the stadium, bought/loaned some key positions and despite out winter wobble have topped the league by 11 points.

King is a fan owner, who attends every match. He is not a billionaire and needs to be careful with his money and make sure we live within our means. His comments regarding Sunderland seem to have been taken out of context, not a criticism but just a way of saying that's how they did it but we can't follow that road.

Sorry for this rambling post, but we all know what a football club means to us. To me, there's no "shit", "tinpot" teams, just football clubs loved by their fans.
For Coventry I suspect the journey will be better than the destination, but at least we're there, and you never know - there's always hope.

See you next season.

Really good post, enjoyed reading that.

The only thing I would point out is what I've highlighted in bold. There are very, very few people who would have done that. It takes a particular piece of work to do that - and he was certainly that, with bags to spare. That it still bothers people 50 years on is quite telling and so I'm afraid Coventry fans don't get to casually pass that off as, well, we'd have all done it. Sorry but that's simply not true. Not that people should be shouting at statues mind...that's a bit too far the other way.

Congratulations on your season, you've been the best team by a country mile and hope you're enjoying the celebrations.
The work needed from here is mind-blowing but at least you've got a month more than we had last year so use it wisely.
You can stay up if it all comes together (we did and very few thought we would) and I wish you all the best with it as long as it's not at our expense of course.

 

[Joebaker1]

Always interesting reading different perspectives about our "rivalry" with Coventry.
I remember the Jimmy Hill incident well also remember watching with absolute awe and wonder Willie Carr flick the ball up from between his heels for Ernie Hunt to smash the ball on the volley into the Everton net.
I've seen some Coventry supporters behave like absolute arseholes at the SOL when throwing projectiles from the top tier. I've also sat in the home end at Highfield Road where the lads around me clocked me as a Sunderland fan but I had no bother from them.
It was very amusing last season to hear some of their fans, Lampard himself and many in the media claiming that they deserved to beat us over two legs. Regis did an an absolute number on Lampard tactically and the players were brilliant. But I've no axe to grind with Coventry or their supporters. No doubt I'll get as annoyed as the next man when Sky and everybody else blow smoke up Lampards arse. He's done a very good job since he was appointed and he will be aware as we all are, that they have to strengthen if they are going to survive.

 

[halfpast3]

I'll take the bet. He's the one player I think will progress in the Prem. Unlike Sakamoto who will get bullied, Mason-Clark has the physicality and pace.

Rushworth for £20m is an absolute bargain. Not quite the £6m we offered in August, but he's the real deal who, if you believe the press, has been close to an England call up this season.

20 quid. Pick what charity you want me to pay it to if you win. If I win can you pay it to the Bradley Lowery foundation please.

 

[LDNCCFC]

20 quid. Pick what charity you want me to pay it to if you win. If I win can you pay it to the Bradley Lowery foundation please.

Deal! Birmingham Children's Hospital for me. Not sure if you can bookmark posts on here but remind me when he's on 5 goals after 8 games

 

[The Fitter]

So we're not supposed to have any thoughts on staying up after winning the Championship with the biggest gap to 2nd in the last 20 years and before we know a single signing?

Lampard has totally turned our club around in 18 months. Maybe we could get a couple of good loans from top Prem sides. A free signing or 2 then add to these the players we pay decent money for.

Your guess is as good as mine on who we start with. I might look at our squad and start preparing for the Championship again. But as things stand our aim is to beat the two sides again that comes up with us and hope for another Wolves.

Lampard will say who he wants to sign and our owner will do the negotiations.

In all fairness, Lampard is developing well as a manager and is no fool either. He'll also attract a better quality of player than McKenna/Farke/Parker could, so its a very valid point about which players you can sign. Should be able to take a few from Wolves and the other relegated sides, plus the best of the rest from the championship. The club and the team are ready for the step up, but it's going to be very very tough...however I reckon you'll survive as I've got a feeling your home record will be the difference.

 

[HeroHurley]

Well, we've made it to the promised land after 25 years.

I was born at Thorpe hospital, Lived in Houghton and the rest of the family in Hetton.
I'm the 1st generation never to have worked down the pit. All my male relatives worked at Eppleton colliery.
My grandad occasionally would take me to Roker Park with my cracket on the minibus from the Three Tuns at Broomhill.
We moved down to Warwickshire when I was a nipper and started to go to Highfield Road with my mates.

So, I have a very keen interest in Sunderland being successful and hope you manage to finish above the Saudi oilers.

It's been said many times that what happened nearly 50 years ago was wrong. This was the actions of 1 man who thought he was acting in the best interest of his club. I would guess anyone in his position at whatever club would have done the same.

Of course we are likely to go straight back down next season, probably as bookies favourites.
Most fans are fully prepared for this and taking the benefit of the parachute payment with us will help in future years.

I have followed CCFC for many years, even seeing us beat Bayern Munich when Mueller, Maier, and Beckenbauer played.
Next year is for the generation of fans never to have seen us play at the top level.
Their football journey has been horrendous. Our shit owners sold Highfield road, couldn't afford the new stadium and had to be bailed out by the council, eventually selling to SISU. They were even worse, tried to buy the ground on the cheap by threatening then upping sticks to Northampton. We went bust and during this time dropped to L2. I took my grandson to his first football game at home to Yoevil - we lost 6-2. That's how far we had fallen.
Mark Robins steadied the ship and him and Ade Viveash (now at Boro) started the upward travel. This wasn't helped by the Council selling the ground to Wasps (without our knowledge) who churned up the pitch and piled on the rent and then kicked us out.
"Home" games went then to BCFC (with a one-off at Burton Albion) where the Covid year prevented us from celebrating as L1 champions.
MR and AV created some great memories at Wembley, even though Wright's big toe prevented us from making the greatest FA comeback against MU.

We finally saw off Wasps who issued a £36m bond to buy the stadium and then couldn't afford to pay it back - great news!

Welcome Doug King. - a local businessman who made a few bob and was a CCFC fan. He bought out SISU and then made the very unpopular decision to sack MR. To be honest since MR fell out with Ade and had him removed, Mark seemed a bit lost without his right hand man. King brought in Lampard with everyone thinking it's another Rooney/Gerrard appointment. Well, from 17th when he arrived to play offs was a fantastic run. No issues from me with you getting to the final.
This season King has bought the stadium, bought/loaned some key positions and despite out winter wobble have topped the league by 11 points.

King is a fan owner, who attends every match. He is not a billionaire and needs to be careful with his money and make sure we live within our means. His comments regarding Sunderland seem to have been taken out of context, not a criticism but just a way of saying that's how they did it but we can't follow that road.

Sorry for this rambling post, but we all know what a football club means to us. To me, there's no "shit", "tinpot" teams, just football clubs loved by their fans.
For Coventry I suspect the journey will be better than the destination, but at least we're there, and you never know - there's always hope.

See you next season.

Congratulations on promotion, you've clearly been by far the best team in the Championship over the course of the season. Unlike in the semi final last season where it was only for about 20 minutes.

I'm going to spoil it though.

Hill was a cheating wanker, he wasn't somebody I ever liked and what he did in 77 was the most blatant case of cheating in football I've seen and I'm in my seventies. He knew exactly what he was doing and he revelled in it. I'm not sure if you've seen the video but it's on YouTube, when we played down at Fulham in the 00's. He loves it, knowing he cheated. Not one bit of remorse. What gets me is Coventry closed ranks around him as well. That's why as well as the way your fans went on againt us with this plastic rivalry and chucking missiles into where my grandchild was enjoying their first game with his Mam and Dad but had to leave in tears, I'm sorry but I hope you go straight back down never to be seen again.

I actually like Lampard too despite many on here not being of the same thought. My daughter in law is related to Joe Cole and he brought Frank along to a wedding anniversary party about 10 years ago. He was absolutely spot on with everything he did. Stood for pictures, signed autographs, donated a signed England shirt of his to my daughter in laws charity as well as a quite substantial amount of money and he got a big round in the bar. I've respected him even more since then.

Just a shame it didn't work out at Derby, Chelsea or Everton for him or else he'd be nowhere near the CBS.