City’s fall: SfC Opinion

An all to common splattering of empty season. Photo owned by Zimbio.

Now excuse me while I vent…

“We’ll have a punt”.

Those were the now infamous words to leak out the mouth of Bryan Richardson nearly 20 years ago when asked about the club he ran, Coventry City, would do under his stewardship of the clubs finances.

The man at the fore of the ‘Punt’. Bryan Richardson.

20 years later? Well we sit 23rd in the third tier of English football-lowest position since 1959- and we are managerless, rudderless, clueless and near-penniless as well.

So what happened with that ‘punt’ then Mr Richardson?

It was the Richardson-led board who thought it’d be good to build the footballing equivalent of the Enterprise. Remember the original plans for the new stadium; a revolving, retracting, singing and dancing pitch, built like the stadium Schalke now call home.

Astronomical debts, hinged with an arena financed and owned in a complex way which Im not going to go into now at risk of mis-quoting the procedure. However set up, the football club make pennies from the arena.

That is what that punt left us with.

Yes, Mr Richardson you gave us the talents of Dion Dublin, Darren Huckerby the sculpted play of Gary McAllister and the raw, incredible talent of a 19-year old Robbie Keane. But we fell behind, something I am guessing you noticed as we scrambled to keep tabs on our rivals.

May 2001, we finally succumbed and dropped out of the top flight after 35 years. Gordon Strachan, a manager it could be argued you fell into having a success with, had built 2 and arguably 3 teams in his four-and-a-half-years at the club and had each prime talent plucked, usually by Aston Villa.

You held on too long Mr Richardson, with all pointing the blame at the owners and even with yourself jumping in on the remaining carcass of the once proud club, it goes a lot further back than Onye and his mate Leonard and Ken did. The rot had set in a long time ago.

I am writing just an hour or so after the latest knock to the reputation of Coventry City, my club, our club, still so many people with pride, albeit dwindling, to say that we follow this ridiculous football club.

So I must apologise for the rambling nature of this.

The blame game is easily played. The snigger met with ‘Im a Coventry fan’ is more than irritating, especially when it comes from between the boundaries of this City.

I have long said that the City faithful, weathered and just desolate as it ever has been, always looks on our plight with a sadistic sense of humour.

This past April, two-thousand of us hardy souls trudged down to Southampton to get a look-see in on their promotion party. That is a fan base with a sadistic sense of humour.

We gained friends that day, if not points.

We were played off the park by a team we once matched every year.

Now, six games in and we are now getting similar treatment from Tranmere Rovers and Stevenage.

That is the Lee Nelson of all this, just not funny.

It’s beyond a point of no return.

The tag of ‘a big club’ in this league is preposterous. We were a club, despite what some in power said, that was always an underdog. Last day miracles are not what a ‘big club’ should have to do to survive.

Who do we have to save us?

Well this managerial appointment which has taken as long as a Guns n Roses album will plaster over the wounds a bit, but so, on current viewing did the haul of signings in the summer.

As well as that we have a former high-rolling banker and his merry crew somewhere in the world plotting a takeover, apparently anyway.

But remember this, when Richardson left the club and Mike McGinnity stepped into the breach, he often said that the last board was to blame for the evolving tide of debt wiping the club off of its perch.

McGinnity though, was on that ‘last board’ and from what I can remember, was prominent at some stage as a Richardson ‘understudy’. Step forward nearly 10 years and we have Joe Elliot sitting on a similar perch of ‘this board’.

Joe Elliot, who brokered the SISU deal, now wants to take their place.

Mr Elliot was the man behind the sponsorship of the Youth team in years gone by. He was a presence in the corridors of power far before he teamed up with Gary Hoffman in the away ends of most games last summer.

He was the man who brought ‘this board’ into play, they had Southampton in their sights and he drove them off the M6 at Junction 3 and into our clutches.

Someone connected with that decision, although it was incredibly desperate with a club once more sitting on the edge of an abyss, should not be now preaching a change, no matter the so called broken promises.

SISU, with the benefit of hindsight I concede, didn’t see what they were getting into, they wanted a piece of the football pie and took the wrong piece. The job was a big one and they now, 5 years down the line, realise that.

We now realise that these are not the people to take us forward in the near future as the financial clout of the company is not what the modern game requires.

This, is just the lay of the land, I expect that this won’t be universally agreed with, but this is a marriage staying together for the good of the kids.

City fans vent their frustration in any way possible.

There is no other option, just like five years ago when Joe Elliot brokered this deal.

From the inception of the Premiership, it was a slow, painful death of our football club. It set in before SISU made a hash of assembling, or not doing so as the case was, a squad last summer. It set in before Andy Thorn was sacked three weeks ago.

Two weeks ago, I trudged with an eventful journey, to Crewe. For the first time since youthful naivety subsided I went expecting a return journey reinvigorated. Instead we were left heads bowed and trying to hide our affinity to the club.

Decisions made have cost this club so much. It’s costing us, as fans, any sense of enjoyment of following the club to the Wirral and the like.

That is long gone. Players, with a sprinkling of ‘local product’ in the side just don’t seem to have it in them to produce.

That is a problem all of its own.

Sheff: From £4million man to a frustration like no other.

Gary McSheffrey, was some six years ago, a £4 million pound player. He was the best player outside of the Premiership. Now, well I really don’t know what has happened?

I’m not one to question a player’s desire, as the look on his face when he re-signed last summer was a picture of having that ‘glint’ in his eye we saw when he was scoring for fun before his move.

But something has happened to him. The life of a footballer, even at this level is often an accusation point of reason for ‘not trying’. But with McSheffrey, such a drop off is glaring and watching him at Crewe two weeks ago, he looked to be running on empty, on September 1st.

The exuberance of youth was killed last year as they suffered defeat after defeat. Jordan Clarke, Conor Thomas and Cyrus Christie had that baptism of fire and seem to be still suffering a hangover of sorts.

There were 4,000 hardy souls at the Ricoh against Burton two weeks ago. Then 9,000 last Sunday as Stevanage took a deserved win back down south with them.

This club is dying, no dodging it, it may have taken me 1000 words to get to that line, but it is.

This City we live in is begging for something to shout about. Look at pictures of the town centre in 1987 shows that there was once something there, an appetite for it.

But now, a wonder round the city centre, or a local supermarket and you see people with Luis Suarez, Wayne Rooney and the like emblazoned on their back.

In 10 days, we go to Arsenal and I can confidently say, there will be more than 9,000 in the plush surroundings of the Emirates that night.

You speak to those people and when you mention Chris Hussey, Cody McDonald to them. It’s that same glazed look you have when you walk away from the Ricoh every other Saturday.

They play for Coventry you add.

Well they are s**t then is the response.

Well yes, but have any of those seen them play?

This mentality is something which really frustrates me. I was bought up to support this club.

I understand those with allegiances because of family roots or an acquaintance at a young age saw you follow them up the motorway to sit on the Kop or Stretford End.

But don’t, please, stand a mere two miles away from where they play and send down that judgement of the team without knowing where Cody plays.

The club was the heartbeat of this city as much as Peugeot and Jaguar factories once were. That pulse is slowing and you are clamouring to disassociate from the defibrillator before the last rites are read.

Generalising? Maybe so;

But the snigger I get when I say I’m a City fan has driven me to it. Next time success comes, those same people will be the talking heads outside the ticket office talking about how they’ve been through it all, even if it is from their sofa watching ‘their team’ on Football First.

This City is 9th (?) biggest in population in this City, for its ONLY football team, to get under 10,000 is laughable and us who trudge are not the one’s laughing.

This club will continue to slide down into the never-return depths if the attendances do similarly.

The people in power and not the extras from Allo Allo.

The ownership talk of ‘product on the pitch’ and how that will bring people back. No, don’t subscribe to that at all.

You not there now and haven’t been since Dion and Hucks left?

Don’t bother coming back. If this club ever gets the chance to right the ship, sail back onto steady waters, the people who go to Crewe, Tranmere away or sit as the only one on a row at the Ricoh have the only divine right of being there. Not those who will turn back on to Football First as soon as we lose in stunning fashion.

The club is slipping away from those in the Sky Blue Trust; it’s slipping away from those who are the punchline of an old Jasper Carrott joke. It has long slipped away from being the pulse of the city.

Education and hopeful future career has taken me out of the City walls, but wearing that Sky Blue shirt, no matter how ghastly it looks, is what associates me with this city.

Jimmy built this club to what it once was. Photo from TheGuardian.co.uk

The club built by Jimmy; was brought success by George and John; was a Premiership survivor under Strachan is struggling to keep us going.

If any of the players in this current squad read this, unlikely I realise, forget this bonuses nonsense.

Forget the wage packet and the roof above your head. This club was around before you signed your name on that contract.

You now have what people label themselves as in your hands and hanging of your ability.

Forget if you don’t like him next to you. Or don’t like the style of play or techniques. You are doing something 9,000 of us would do for nothing. You are representing us in a way which I am sure is hurting your pride.

Ignore the minority who just bash you to relieve some anger from Luis Suarez being despicable or Anton Ferdinand’s non-contact with John Terry

When you trudge off, in win or loss on Tuesday or next weekend, take a moment as you clap the support you get.

Properly look. Look at the expressions, hear what we are saying and respect it. Don’t click that block button, or get on the proverbial high horse on the social media. Listen, respond and you will find that whatever happens, THIS weathered group of fans will be there, before we slip down further.

And as for SISU, now fronted by Mr Fisher and Steve Waggott; you have to get this decision right. Three weeks is far too long to make this decision, Richard hasn’t made it an easy one like Andy Thorn did 16 months ago.

But this decision, if made right will see those fans step back, will see the clubs stock rise and will see the mood and pulse around the club raise as well.

But now, excuse me while I go and scream into a pillow.

If you have lasted this long thank you for reading, please share and feedback is ALWAYS welcome and as ever- PUSB!

CTID