Some years back when City were in the Premiership and our home was Highfield Road – remember these heady times? – I remember seeing a book in the Sky Blue Shop proclaiming “If Titanic was painted Sky Blue, it wouldn’t have gone down”. Ironic, then, that a couple of days after the centenary of that ship’s sinking, Coventry City Football Club lose at “home” (let’s be real, the Ricoh – a FIFA approved, state-of-the-art, Olympic soccer stadium – is rented property) to a team that is already relegated and without scoring a goal, sinking the club to the depths of third-tier soccer for the first time in nigh-on 50 years. It’s a disgrace.
I firmly believe the rot set in with the Richardson/Strachan era. The club was put into crippling debt and the set on a slippery slope towards the depths of the Football League during which time nothing of significant consequence was done to stop the slide.
I still remember standing at the Kop end behind the goal at that pivotal Kings Lynn FA Cup defeat and feeling downright miserable, only to be shortly swept up in the launch of the Jimmy Hill Sky Blue revolution and being part of a roller-coaster ride to the height of English soccer. What are the chances of something similar happening again? Very, very little I fear. The current powers that be need to be shipped off into the sunset, hanging their collective heads in shame, and replaced with people with money, a genuine love and understanding of the game and a realisation that Coventry City Football Club should be the pride of the Midlands, not playing the role of little orphan Annie.
Dare I say that in recent memory the other team that wears Sky Blue managed to go from three to one, and look where that team is now. Oh that something similar should happen to Coventry City. Takers anyone?
Let’s all sigh together...
Mike Monk
Chairman
Coventry City Cape Town Supporters Club