2019/20 Prediction League; Game 17 v Coventry City (away)

Div3North · 31-10-2019, 22:55

Coventry City

V

Accrington Stanley

2019/20 Prediction League; Game 17 v The Eagle Hawks (away)

Coventry Eagle Hawks? Hands up if you had one of them! ME! Gosh – 50+ years ago, that was - and I thought nothing of cycling from South Manchester up to Rochdale or Oldham and back; mark you, in those days there wasn’t any traffic to speak of ……………. Then later I inherited my Dad’s Honda 50 (after somebody did a U-turn in front of him and put him in hospital); Easy Rider? Eat the shirt!

You all know how much I hate statistics ……………. Well, to try and get over my phobia about numbers I did a bit of looking up; did you know that:

1. We’ve won 3 League games (out of 15) ……………… Only Bolton and Southend have won fewer
2. We’ve drawn 5 games; only four sides have drawn more (Coventry and Blackpool on 7, Gillingham and Shrewsbury on 6)
3. We’ve lost 7 games; only four sides have lost more (Southend 12, MK PhoneyWombles 10, ProperWombles 9 and Lincoln 8)
4. We’ve scored 17 times; only 6 sides have scored fewer (Bolton 5, MKD and Shrewsbury 12, Pompey 15 and Burton and Southend 16)
5. We’ve conceded 26 times; only 3 sides have conceded more than us – Southend 43, Bolton 28 and Tranmere 27

At the moment I keep looking at the results, thinking “Thank Goodness they’ve lost as well ………..” Not good, though. Seriously needs to change. And speaking of change, Jimbo McMorecambe’s gone from McMorecambe to McAFC Fylde! Bentley was, of course, the longest-serving Manager in the top four Tiers; Dave Challinor at Kirkham and Wesham AFC was the second longest-serving if you add the Bananarama to the equation ………. I suspect The Coasters may be in a false position this season (“Just like us!” I hear you all shout), although they did sell off the Crown Jewels in the summer without necessarily getting equivalent replacements…………… mind you, my older granddaughter’s boyfriend – did I mention him before? – is at their Academy, and it looks like he’s getting a scholarship for the next two academic years, so there’s maybe hope yet! Jimbo should have a better budget at Mill Farm, which in turn might show how good a tactician/manager he is; and Morecambe are being run pro tem by Ellison and Roche – “The Kevin and Barry Show”; and King Coley is now the fifth longest-serving manager in the Football league at slightly over 5 years (this time), after Gareth Ainsworth, Eddie Howe, Sean Dyche and Maurizio Pochettino ……..

Which started me thinking (again) about professional longevity of managers; were you aware, for example, that of the list of current EFL Managers (not counting any PrawnButty teams), 48 of 71 have been in post for less than 12 months, and of those, 15 for under three months? Or that only 14 of the 71 have sat in the same Hot Seat for more than 3 years? Then I looked at the all-time longest serving managers in English football ………………. Fergie? – not a chance; 10th on the All-Time List (Arsenal Winger’s 11th) …………….. So this week’s Starter for 10 is this; Who holds the record as the all-time longest-serving Manager in English football history, how long did he serve (continuously) and which club was he at? And who is/was the Runner-Up?

Historically a part of Warwickshire, at the last census Coventry’s population (316,915) made it the 9th largest City in England; surrounded by Birmingham, Leicester and Warwick (Point of Information; can you be surrounded on three sides?), it lies 11 miles South-West of the geographical centre of England – well, I say that, but there are massive disputes, and infinite methods of calculating “the centre of England” which place it, amongst other places, (a) in the middle of Morecambe Bay,(b) near Dunsop Bridge, and (c) in a field near Whalley ……. Ordnance Survey – the usually accepted determination – has it on Lindley Hall Farm, between Fenny Drayton and Higham on the Hill in Leicestershire (there’s blue plaque, I think, but of you go looking for it the Farmer will set his dogs on you …………. Or was it his wife?)

It has, as you’ll all remember, two Cathedrals- the one bombed during the War (The Cathedral Church of St Michael), and the current Sir Basil Spence-designed 1962-consectrated one built next to its remains; the 9th Bishop of Coventry (nine Bishops in 57years? The tenure’s about the same as a Footie Manager) is Bishop Christopher Cocksworth (or “Bish” to his mates). You also want to know that Coventry is to be the UK City of Culture in 2021, beating off such Cultural Titans as Stoke, Sunderland, Swansea and Paisley …………. Culture? Paisley?

Coventry City wasn’t always Coventry City; the club was formed as Singers F.C. in 1883 following a general meeting of the Singer Factory Gentleman's club. The played as “Singers FC” for 15 years, and were often invited by rival fans to “Give us a song”. They adopted their current name in 1898, and the Football League in 1919. Their first season in Division Two wasn’t spectacularly good – they finished 20th of 22, with a record of 9 wins, 11 draws and 22 defeats, scoring 35 and conceding 73, and their total of 29 points needing them to apply for re-election (which they got, unlike Lincoln City in 21st, who were relegated – but happily the Third Division started the next season………………….

Known as the Sky Blues (because they wear sky-blue shirts – Doh!) they won the FA Cup in 1987 (Keith Houchen), and - managed by Jimmy Chinn – sorry, Jimmy Hill – they were promoted to the top flight for the first time in 1967, remaining in Division 1 for 34 years; when they went down the GreasyPole in 2001, only Liverpool, Everton and Arsenal could boast longer consecutive tenures than them ………… In 2012 they went down to League One (the first time in 48 years), and in 2017 they went down to League Two, at the same time as winning the EFL Trophy, doing Oxford 2-1 …. In 2018 they went back up, winning the Playoff Final 3-1 against Exeter; last season they ended up 8th, with 18 wins, 11 draws, 17 defeats, 54 scored and the same conceded, and 65 points. Having played at Highfield Road between 1899 and 2005 (which was the first all-seater stadium in 1981, they now (don’t very often) play at the Ricoh Arena – having moved to Northampton, they’re now camping out at Birmingham City’s ground (currently, if not ironically, known as the St Andrew’s Trillion Trophy Stadium (they wish!)

They parted company with 13 in the summer; GK Lee Burge went to the Moggies, striker Stuart Beavon to non-league, CB Tom Davies to Brizzle, RB Jack Grimmer to Wycombe, CMF Tom Bayliss to PNE (wasn’t he England Cricket Team’s Head Coach until the summer?) and striker Conor ‘Charlie’ Chaplin went to Baaaaahnsley ……….. they brought 13 in, best known being RB Fankaty Dabo from Chelsea, CB Kyle McFadzean from Burtons the Tailors, striker Matt Godden from the Posh and LW Gervane Kasteneer from NAC Breda

Their record at home is W6 D1 L1 GF12 GA6; away, it’s W0 D6 L1 GF8 GA12, for an overall P15 W6 D7 L2 GF 20 GA 18 for 25 points and 6th place ………… their losses were 4-0 away at the Millers, and 1-0 at home to Tranmere in the next match they played ……… They’re at Colchester in the FA Cup Round One (my home-town team, as you might remember), so I’m delighted for the Us that they’ve got Man U away in the EFL Cup Quarter Final; Coventry went out of the EFL Cup 3-0 at Watford, having done Exeter over like a shoal of kippers (4-1) in Round One, and have to vanquish Southampton u12s (am I allowed to say that?) on Bonfire Night to reach the knockout bit of the Troffy ………….. they’ve used 22 players so far this season, 12 of whom have scored, and their most prolific are Amadou Bakayoko, Matt Godden and ZainOutOfWestlife, each with 3 …………… if you ignore the two defeats, they haven’t won twice on the run, nor have they drawn two games consecutively (WDWDWDWDWD etc); bad news is that the drew last time out!

Wycombe, Peterborough and Oxford have all taken 11 points from their last five games; Southend and the PhoneyWombles have managed one point each; Coventry’s last five read LLDWD, so five points from five games …………..They got £13 million in 2000 from Inter Milan for Robbie Keane and spent half of it on Craig Bellamy from Norwich (sounds about right!); Clarrie Bourton holds their single-season goal scoring record (50 in 1931/32) and also managed to score 182 in 241games ; famous managers include Noel Cantwell, Joe Mercer, Gordon Milne, Bobby Gould, Phil Neal, Ron Atkinson, Tony Mowbray and Thomas Cobley …………… last season we drew 1-1 at their place (our goal by Zanzala Enterprises, theirs after 87 mins), but when they came to us they did us 1-0; Bugg4r!

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 3.00pm on Saturday 2nd November; Steve Ogrizovic played 601 games for them between 1984 and 2001; they won the Southern Professional Floodlit Cup in 1960 (which sounds like a tournament set up to make money and not much else!); they’ve also won the Birmingham Senior Cup 3 times (I don’t know if they’ve ever won the Coventry Senior Cup); this season, six clean sheets, failed to score five times (seven, if you count their two Troffy games, eight including the loss to Watford); gives us some cause for optimism, maybe – eight blanks in 19 games …………. If we can score, we can win ………….. but I’m prepared to prophesy that if we DON’T score we won’t!

And the longest-ever serving FL Manager was the Baggies’ Fred Everiss, who reigned for 46 years (1902 – 1948) – although he was technically the “Secretary-Manager”; the Directors picked the team, and WBA didn’t formally have a post of “Manager” until Fred retired (he did win the League and the FA Cup during his time)…………. His son Alan worked for/was associated with the club for 66 years …………. Fred was closely followed by Aston Villa’s George Burrell Ramsay (1884 – 1926, so 42 years) – also Secretary-Manager - whose association with Villa (where he won them 6 League Championships and 6 FA Cups - second only to Arsene at Arseneal) began by chance when, walking past a team training session in the park, he was apparently asked to “make up the numbers”, and so impressed them that he was signed on! He described their playing style in the early days as “a dash at the man and a big kick at the ball” (I seem to remember watching games like that!)

So now you know!

Good luck to everyone!................. Keep the Faith!............... And thanks for playing!