The Hunter
Midfield
We all know the way Coventry handled the last quarter of an hour of that game was shameful. I was at Goodison Park that night and the pain lives on! I was a young news reporter at the time and it's strange how things turn out. A couple of years later I moved into sports journalism and, many years down the line after moving on to Fleet Street, I was invited to work on screen with Sky Sports. Along the way I was asked to join the 'Jimmy Hill's Sunday Supplement' team...Sky always wanted at least one permanent journo hooked directly up to the director to manage Jimmy - who was still compus mentus but prone to politically incorrect asides. They were terrified he'd say something akin to "Arsenal are great but they just have too many black players...".If you weren't that sure -The Coventry Telegraph's explanation.
Coventry City's fierce rivalry with Sunderland explained
Coventry City will kick off the new 2022/23 Championship campaign against Sunderland but why do the two side's share such a fierce rivalry?www.coventrytelegraph.net
So the two journos to have this responsibility were Brian Woolnough (ex-Sun and Daily Star) and yours truly (Daily Express). We took turns and were never on handholding duty together. The panel was completed by two other journos and the "set" was Jimmy Hill's supposed kitchen.
I have to say Jimmy was a gentleman, if a little old school, but I could never resist (off camera) digging him out over the Bristol City farce. I did it, for obvious reasons, relatively good naturedly. I'd love to say he was embarrassed by it (maybe he was) but he was too much of a pro to show it. He always protested it was all about getting the fans into HIghfield Road. He could never convince me of that - or that the delay perfectly served his purposes.
I was saddened at his passing but it was no real surprise. He had to step down from his Sky duties when the first signs of dementia set in and it was not too long afterwards that he died. The programme, of course, lived on after him (without his name) as The Sunday Supplement. Brian and I then took turns to present it for a few years before Brian, too, sadly passed away and I left Fleet Street...passing the baton to Neil Ashton who duly gave way recently to Jacqui Oatley.
A win tomorrow would be the perfect message to send upstairs to Jimmy!