better days
Well-Known Member
Nice article today by Oliver Kay in The Times saying the situation the club finds itself in is a disgrace
Sympathetic article in The Times sports section today (1 Viewer)
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SkyBlueSoul
Well-Known Member
In case anyone can't access it (needs a subscription online)
Friday, September 5, 2014. The matrix signs on the M6 warned of a “Major Event”. The tailbacks around the Ricoh Arena confirmed as much. There was elation in the air as Coventry City and their fans made their way back after 503 days in exile. Kick-off had to be put back 15 minutes as a crowd of 27,306 filtered into the stadium. Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town blared out as the players took the field. They beat Gillingham 1-0 and the jubilant front page of the next day’s Coventry Telegraph read, simply, “Home at last!”
It was not just a homecoming. It was a vindication of Coventry’s supporters who, through the strength and solidarity of their protests, had practically forced the club’s reviled owners and Coventry city council to bring some kind of resolution to the fierce, acrimonious, dunderheaded rent dispute that had led to the team being exiled an hour away in Northampton the previous season. As Shaun Harvey, the Football League chief executive, said that night, the fans “have been campaigning hard, properly and effectively. The return here is, to a certain extent, down to their persistence.”
The most powerful words came from Steven Pressley, Coventry’s manager at the time. “What has been evident over the past 14 months,” he said, “is that every person in the city has been affected by us not playing here. Our supporters have shown that ultimately, football is about the people and they should be proud of themselves. The club can’t survive without the supporters. We have so much hard work ahead of us, but we’ve given people hope. Let’s hope it’s not a false dawn.”
Well it was. So was winning the Checkatrade Trophy two years ago and promotion back to Sky Bet League One last season under Mark Robins. All of it has proven to be a false dawn because, barring an unlikely end to the impasse between the warring factions, Coventry and their supporters are about to find themselves homeless again — or even expelled from the Football League altogether.
A brief recap: Coventry fell into severe financial difficulty after relegation from the Premier League in 2001, following a 34-year stay in the top flight, with serious errors made by successive ownership regimes. The move to the new 32,609-capacity Ricoh Arena four years later was seen as the answer to all the club’s prayers, but the terms of their 49-year rental agreement from Arena Coventry Limited (ACL) were deemed to be unfavourable by Sisu, a Mayfair-based hedge fund which bought the club in 2007.
As results suffered and relegation to League One loomed in 2012, Sisu went to war with the council, defaulting on rent payments in an attempt to secure a new deal. The dispute got so nasty and, frankly, so stupid that Coventry spent the entire 2013-14 season and the first weeks of the following campaign playing in Northampton while the Ricoh remained empty. Attendances at Sixfields barely got above 2,000, with many fans boycotting in protest while others watched, forlornly, from a hill overlooking the ground. Eventually, with all parties suffering, common sense took over — but only briefly.
Four and a half years on from that homecoming, Coventry’s supporters are in despair once more, their hopes, dreams and loyalties again treated as collateral in the dispute between a hedge fund, city council and, now, a successful but nomadic rugby union club who call themselves Wasps but are, as far as this story is concerned, cuckoos in the Ricoh nest.
Barely had Coventry moved back to the city in 2014 when ACL, owned jointly by Coventry city council and the Alan Edwards Higgs Charity, was sold to Wasps Holdings.
Wasps (or London Wasps as they had been known for the previous 15 years) wanted to relocate to the Midlands and found Coventry city council only too amenable to their plans.
The relocation is working out wonderfully for Wasps, who have found and, it must be said, engaged impressively with, a new fanbase. To put it mildly, though, their arrival has done the local football club no favours. Their refusal to discuss a new rental arrangement with Coventry — unless Sisu agrees to drop its legal challenge over Wasps’ acquisition of the stadium from the council — is not one that will earn them too many friends across their adopted city. The anti-Sisu statement is one that every Coventry fan will understand and relate to, but Sisu, whose ownership of the club has been catastrophic on every level, is not the victim of this impasse. Coventry and their supporters are.
The EFL has given Coventry a deadline of April 25 to clarify where they will play their home games next season or face the threat of expulsion from the League. On Thursday, the club confirmed their options have been reduced to two possible groundshares, which will mean leaving the city again. And whether that involves playing at the stadiums of Birmingham City, Leicester City, Walsall, Burton Albion, Northampton Town or anywhere else, there are serious doubts among Coventry’s supporters about whether the club could survive a second spell in exile. This one would potentially be much longer, since the Ricoh is now being used by Wasps and since progress on a new stadium, which again would require some level of cordiality between club and stadium, has been slow, bordering on non-existent.
“It should never have been allowed to come to this,” Moz Baker, chairman of the Sky Blue Trust, says. “A community football club, with Coventry’s history and heritage, having to move out of its own city? For that to happen once was careless for it to happen again is pure negligence on everyone’s part.
“You look at the statements coming out from all parties and they only seem to be interested in playing the blame game. In the meantime, it feels like the club is suffering a slow, lingering death.”
Alarmist? No, this impasse really is in danger of killing Coventry City. In the club’s accounts for the year up to May 31, 2018, in which they made an operating loss of £1.56 million, the auditors warned that uncertainty over the stadium “may cast significant doubt on the company’s and the group’s ability to continue as a going concern”.
The auditors are looking at the potential cashflow difficulties if Coventry are forced to groundshare and if attendances plummet as they did during that year at Northampton (average league attendance 2,287). Supporters worry about the long-term consequences of exile. It is hard enough for a club outside the Premier League’s elite to appeal to young fans. How do you urge your kids to support their local team if that team is no longer local?
Coventry’s average league attendance of 12,337 is the fifth-highest in League One but, in 2005-06, their first season at the Ricoh, it was 21,302, the tenth-highest in the Championship. The Sisu effect has already damaged Coventry severely even without the threat of another period in exile, this time indefinite.
There will be some who suggest that this is just market forces, the harsh reality of life outside the Premier League, but that is not the case with Coventry. The problem has been dire, intransigent and, seemingly, vindictive ownership, facilitated by the weakness of English football’s authorities and aggravated by a council who have sought to fight fire with fire.
An unwelcome complication has been the arrival of a rugby union franchise which presumably imagines that if Wasps are able to make a new start elsewhere, so too can the football club that was formed in 1883 by workers at the Singer bicycle factory, half a mile from Coventry’s previous home at Highfield Road.
What a mess. What a disgrace. What a travesty — certainly for Robins, his players and the club’s staff but above all for those supporters who, having welcomed the club back to their city in 2014, having enjoyed victory at Wembley in the past two seasons, having dared to believe that Coventry City may be on the up again after years of turmoil, now find themselves fearing for the club’s existence once more.
They will pray for all parties to come to their senses over the next 13 days but the worry is that it has gone far beyond that point. One day, they hope, there will be another homecoming to celebrate. But how much more damage can the club take before that happens?
Friday, September 5, 2014. The matrix signs on the M6 warned of a “Major Event”. The tailbacks around the Ricoh Arena confirmed as much. There was elation in the air as Coventry City and their fans made their way back after 503 days in exile. Kick-off had to be put back 15 minutes as a crowd of 27,306 filtered into the stadium. Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town blared out as the players took the field. They beat Gillingham 1-0 and the jubilant front page of the next day’s Coventry Telegraph read, simply, “Home at last!”
It was not just a homecoming. It was a vindication of Coventry’s supporters who, through the strength and solidarity of their protests, had practically forced the club’s reviled owners and Coventry city council to bring some kind of resolution to the fierce, acrimonious, dunderheaded rent dispute that had led to the team being exiled an hour away in Northampton the previous season. As Shaun Harvey, the Football League chief executive, said that night, the fans “have been campaigning hard, properly and effectively. The return here is, to a certain extent, down to their persistence.”
The most powerful words came from Steven Pressley, Coventry’s manager at the time. “What has been evident over the past 14 months,” he said, “is that every person in the city has been affected by us not playing here. Our supporters have shown that ultimately, football is about the people and they should be proud of themselves. The club can’t survive without the supporters. We have so much hard work ahead of us, but we’ve given people hope. Let’s hope it’s not a false dawn.”
Well it was. So was winning the Checkatrade Trophy two years ago and promotion back to Sky Bet League One last season under Mark Robins. All of it has proven to be a false dawn because, barring an unlikely end to the impasse between the warring factions, Coventry and their supporters are about to find themselves homeless again — or even expelled from the Football League altogether.
A brief recap: Coventry fell into severe financial difficulty after relegation from the Premier League in 2001, following a 34-year stay in the top flight, with serious errors made by successive ownership regimes. The move to the new 32,609-capacity Ricoh Arena four years later was seen as the answer to all the club’s prayers, but the terms of their 49-year rental agreement from Arena Coventry Limited (ACL) were deemed to be unfavourable by Sisu, a Mayfair-based hedge fund which bought the club in 2007.
As results suffered and relegation to League One loomed in 2012, Sisu went to war with the council, defaulting on rent payments in an attempt to secure a new deal. The dispute got so nasty and, frankly, so stupid that Coventry spent the entire 2013-14 season and the first weeks of the following campaign playing in Northampton while the Ricoh remained empty. Attendances at Sixfields barely got above 2,000, with many fans boycotting in protest while others watched, forlornly, from a hill overlooking the ground. Eventually, with all parties suffering, common sense took over — but only briefly.
Four and a half years on from that homecoming, Coventry’s supporters are in despair once more, their hopes, dreams and loyalties again treated as collateral in the dispute between a hedge fund, city council and, now, a successful but nomadic rugby union club who call themselves Wasps but are, as far as this story is concerned, cuckoos in the Ricoh nest.
Barely had Coventry moved back to the city in 2014 when ACL, owned jointly by Coventry city council and the Alan Edwards Higgs Charity, was sold to Wasps Holdings.
Wasps (or London Wasps as they had been known for the previous 15 years) wanted to relocate to the Midlands and found Coventry city council only too amenable to their plans.
The relocation is working out wonderfully for Wasps, who have found and, it must be said, engaged impressively with, a new fanbase. To put it mildly, though, their arrival has done the local football club no favours. Their refusal to discuss a new rental arrangement with Coventry — unless Sisu agrees to drop its legal challenge over Wasps’ acquisition of the stadium from the council — is not one that will earn them too many friends across their adopted city. The anti-Sisu statement is one that every Coventry fan will understand and relate to, but Sisu, whose ownership of the club has been catastrophic on every level, is not the victim of this impasse. Coventry and their supporters are.
The EFL has given Coventry a deadline of April 25 to clarify where they will play their home games next season or face the threat of expulsion from the League. On Thursday, the club confirmed their options have been reduced to two possible groundshares, which will mean leaving the city again. And whether that involves playing at the stadiums of Birmingham City, Leicester City, Walsall, Burton Albion, Northampton Town or anywhere else, there are serious doubts among Coventry’s supporters about whether the club could survive a second spell in exile. This one would potentially be much longer, since the Ricoh is now being used by Wasps and since progress on a new stadium, which again would require some level of cordiality between club and stadium, has been slow, bordering on non-existent.
“It should never have been allowed to come to this,” Moz Baker, chairman of the Sky Blue Trust, says. “A community football club, with Coventry’s history and heritage, having to move out of its own city? For that to happen once was careless for it to happen again is pure negligence on everyone’s part.
“You look at the statements coming out from all parties and they only seem to be interested in playing the blame game. In the meantime, it feels like the club is suffering a slow, lingering death.”
Alarmist? No, this impasse really is in danger of killing Coventry City. In the club’s accounts for the year up to May 31, 2018, in which they made an operating loss of £1.56 million, the auditors warned that uncertainty over the stadium “may cast significant doubt on the company’s and the group’s ability to continue as a going concern”.
The auditors are looking at the potential cashflow difficulties if Coventry are forced to groundshare and if attendances plummet as they did during that year at Northampton (average league attendance 2,287). Supporters worry about the long-term consequences of exile. It is hard enough for a club outside the Premier League’s elite to appeal to young fans. How do you urge your kids to support their local team if that team is no longer local?
Coventry’s average league attendance of 12,337 is the fifth-highest in League One but, in 2005-06, their first season at the Ricoh, it was 21,302, the tenth-highest in the Championship. The Sisu effect has already damaged Coventry severely even without the threat of another period in exile, this time indefinite.
There will be some who suggest that this is just market forces, the harsh reality of life outside the Premier League, but that is not the case with Coventry. The problem has been dire, intransigent and, seemingly, vindictive ownership, facilitated by the weakness of English football’s authorities and aggravated by a council who have sought to fight fire with fire.
An unwelcome complication has been the arrival of a rugby union franchise which presumably imagines that if Wasps are able to make a new start elsewhere, so too can the football club that was formed in 1883 by workers at the Singer bicycle factory, half a mile from Coventry’s previous home at Highfield Road.
What a mess. What a disgrace. What a travesty — certainly for Robins, his players and the club’s staff but above all for those supporters who, having welcomed the club back to their city in 2014, having enjoyed victory at Wembley in the past two seasons, having dared to believe that Coventry City may be on the up again after years of turmoil, now find themselves fearing for the club’s existence once more.
They will pray for all parties to come to their senses over the next 13 days but the worry is that it has gone far beyond that point. One day, they hope, there will be another homecoming to celebrate. But how much more damage can the club take before that happens?
chiefdave
Well-Known Member
Not so hot on fact checking at the Times then. :facepalm:
SkyBlueSoul
Well-Known Member
"The problem has been dire, intransigent and, seemingly, vindictive ownership, facilitated by the weakness of English football’s authorities and aggravated by a council who have sought to fight fire with fire."
This line sums it up for me. Like other articles it's very hard on SISU (for very good reason) but at least acknowledges the council's role in this shit show.
This line sums it up for me. Like other articles it's very hard on SISU (for very good reason) but at least acknowledges the council's role in this shit show.
Sky Blue Pete
Well-Known Member
Yep that’s the one
Captain Dart
Well-Known Member
Yeah he misinterprets Wasps situation, they're losing more money annually than the Sky Blues and owe Richardson about £18M.
Liquid Gold
Well-Known Member
Henry Winter getting his facts from the trust by any chance?
Captain Dart
Well-Known Member
Liquid Gold
Well-Known Member
Yep seen it’s Oliver Kay, he tweeted that he wrote it after speaking to the trust so...
peace ndlovu
Well-Known Member
That’s about the best national media article I’ve seen on our plight.
The others seem to rely on a the lazy narrative of exclusive blame on our shit owners, letting the shit council off Scot free.
I do like the reference to the ‘franchise rugby club’.
Hope the unholy trinity of arseholes involved, have some sort of awakening in the next 11 days...but I think there’s more chance of a sea of half and half Cov/Sunderland scarves this afternoon
The others seem to rely on a the lazy narrative of exclusive blame on our shit owners, letting the shit council off Scot free.
I do like the reference to the ‘franchise rugby club’.
Hope the unholy trinity of arseholes involved, have some sort of awakening in the next 11 days...but I think there’s more chance of a sea of half and half Cov/Sunderland scarves this afternoon
