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Coventry City’s sorry saga moves to new ‘home’
Crisis club start life in Birmingham with a victory but it brings few smiles
Gregor Robertson
August 5 2019, 12:01am, The Times
Swathes of empty seats greeted Coventry’s first match at St Andrew’sSTEPHEN LAWRENCE/TPI/REX
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How has it come to this — again? It was a question that was impossible to shake off on Saturday as, for the second time in six years, Coventry City began a season playing their home games outside their city. The parlous state of their fellow Sky Bet League One clubs Bury and Bolton Wanderers, and a wearying familiarity with this long-running and demoralising saga, has perhaps dulled the sense of outrage towards Coventry’s plight. But as their season kicked off against Southend United at Birmingham City’s St Andrew’s stadium, their new groundshare 22 miles from the Ricoh Arena, it all became very real.
“For the last 12 years, it’s felt like death by a thousand cuts,” David Eyles, the Sky Blues Trust chairman, says. “Since 2007, I can’t remember a Saturday afternoon where I’ve just talked about the football; it’s always been about the off-field matters. I just want to go back to being a fan again.”
Eyles, along with about half of Coventry’s fans who attended home games at the Ricoh last season, will not be making the journey to St Andrew’s. “To me it just doesn’t feel right,” he says. “I’m not criticising anybody who does go. We’ve all been left with a very difficult choice as Cov fans. But, while it’s said that the move outside the city is temporary, it could be for a lot longer.”
“So, how did we get here?” are the opening words of A Club Without a Home, a book by Simon Gilbert, the former Coventry Telegraph reporter, that charts the labyrinthine course of events that led the top-flight stalwarts of 34 consecutive years to their previous season in exile, in Northampton, in 2013-14, and the battle to return to the Ricoh, the 32,000-seat stadium specially built for the club by the city council, but now owned by Wasps, the rugby union club.
After buying the club in 2007, Sisu, a London-based hedge fund, spent millions, only to lead Coventry to two relegations and the fourth tier for the first time since 1959. It attempted to financially ruin the Ricoh’s operating company, which was owned by the city council and a charity, in order to buy a share in the stadium for a knock-down price. It has pursued a series of expensive and fruitless court cases over the council’s sale of the Ricoh to Wasps. And in the process it has destroyed, beyond repair, relations with the one-club city’s fan base.
After Sisu’s failure, in April, to agree a new tenancy agreement with Wasps, who are happy for Coventry to play there, but not, understandably, while they are a sitting litigant, the club were left with no alternative but to groundshare, or lose membership of the Football League. Sisu has asked the European Commission to investigate its claim that the Ricoh was undervalued by £27 million when sold by Coventry City Council.
It is an exasperating tale from which no party emerges with any credit, including the EFL, whose continued impotence leaves supporters struggling to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Coventry will spend the season 22 miles from home as the Ricoh Stadium dispute rumbles onSTERHEN LAWRENCE/TPI/ REX
“Sisu have made noises about building their own stadium,” Eyles says. “But it would take about three years from getting planning permission to actually having a stadium erected. And the relationship with the council hasn’t exactly been great. So, while it starts with one year, it could be three, or it could be five. The fear is that we become a nomadic football club.”
Coventry’s previous exile, 35 miles away at Northampton Town’s Sixfields, brought the biggest boycott of an English team by their supporters since Wimbledon’s relocation to Milton Keynes in 2003. The average attendance for “home” matches at Sixfields was 2,364, the lowest in the club’s Football League history and a drop of 78 per cent from the 10,938 average at the Ricoh the previous season. Protesting fans memorably took up residence on the steep slope overlooking Sixfields dubbed “Jimmy’s Hill” during every home game.
If there is one positive to be taken, this season already feels different. On Saturday there were no protests, just sadness and perhaps even a flicker of defiance. Only 3,000 season tickets have been sold compared with 7,000 last season. And the 5,500 home fans inside the near-30,000 capacity St Andrew’s provided stirring support throughout a deserved win that suggested Mark Robins’s dynamic young team are right to have been tipped as a dark horse in the race for the League One play-offs.
A fine second-half strike by Zain Westbrooke sealed a 1-0 win against Southend, who rallied late on and struck the crossbar but could not find an equaliser. Five of Coventry’s ten summer signings were in a starting XI with an average age of 24, while 18-year-old Josh Eccles, a second-half substitute, was one of three home-grown teenagers on the bench. The fruitful academy which has produced, among others, James Maddison, Callum Wilson, Cyrus Christie and Tom Bayliss, the talented 20-year-old midfielder sold to Preston North End for about £2 million on Friday, continues to be a shining beacon in the darkness.
“Everyone in the stadium has contributed to a good day,” said Robins, the former Manchester United striker who praised the positive atmosphere engendered by the supporters. “We’ve got the experience of winning here, early on, which is outstanding.”
Many supporters are determined to focus on the football: a new Coventry City Supporters’ Club has been founded in the city in a bid to “build the bond between players and supporters”, as Sue Medlock, the group’s co-chair, says. “It’s so important, now, more than ever, that we support the team.”
Coventry City’s sorry saga moves to new ‘home’
Crisis club start life in Birmingham with a victory but it brings few smiles
Gregor Robertson
August 5 2019, 12:01am, The Times
Swathes of empty seats greeted Coventry’s first match at St Andrew’sSTEPHEN LAWRENCE/TPI/REX
Share
Save
How has it come to this — again? It was a question that was impossible to shake off on Saturday as, for the second time in six years, Coventry City began a season playing their home games outside their city. The parlous state of their fellow Sky Bet League One clubs Bury and Bolton Wanderers, and a wearying familiarity with this long-running and demoralising saga, has perhaps dulled the sense of outrage towards Coventry’s plight. But as their season kicked off against Southend United at Birmingham City’s St Andrew’s stadium, their new groundshare 22 miles from the Ricoh Arena, it all became very real.
“For the last 12 years, it’s felt like death by a thousand cuts,” David Eyles, the Sky Blues Trust chairman, says. “Since 2007, I can’t remember a Saturday afternoon where I’ve just talked about the football; it’s always been about the off-field matters. I just want to go back to being a fan again.”
Eyles, along with about half of Coventry’s fans who attended home games at the Ricoh last season, will not be making the journey to St Andrew’s. “To me it just doesn’t feel right,” he says. “I’m not criticising anybody who does go. We’ve all been left with a very difficult choice as Cov fans. But, while it’s said that the move outside the city is temporary, it could be for a lot longer.”
“So, how did we get here?” are the opening words of A Club Without a Home, a book by Simon Gilbert, the former Coventry Telegraph reporter, that charts the labyrinthine course of events that led the top-flight stalwarts of 34 consecutive years to their previous season in exile, in Northampton, in 2013-14, and the battle to return to the Ricoh, the 32,000-seat stadium specially built for the club by the city council, but now owned by Wasps, the rugby union club.
After buying the club in 2007, Sisu, a London-based hedge fund, spent millions, only to lead Coventry to two relegations and the fourth tier for the first time since 1959. It attempted to financially ruin the Ricoh’s operating company, which was owned by the city council and a charity, in order to buy a share in the stadium for a knock-down price. It has pursued a series of expensive and fruitless court cases over the council’s sale of the Ricoh to Wasps. And in the process it has destroyed, beyond repair, relations with the one-club city’s fan base.
After Sisu’s failure, in April, to agree a new tenancy agreement with Wasps, who are happy for Coventry to play there, but not, understandably, while they are a sitting litigant, the club were left with no alternative but to groundshare, or lose membership of the Football League. Sisu has asked the European Commission to investigate its claim that the Ricoh was undervalued by £27 million when sold by Coventry City Council.
It is an exasperating tale from which no party emerges with any credit, including the EFL, whose continued impotence leaves supporters struggling to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Coventry will spend the season 22 miles from home as the Ricoh Stadium dispute rumbles onSTERHEN LAWRENCE/TPI/ REX
“Sisu have made noises about building their own stadium,” Eyles says. “But it would take about three years from getting planning permission to actually having a stadium erected. And the relationship with the council hasn’t exactly been great. So, while it starts with one year, it could be three, or it could be five. The fear is that we become a nomadic football club.”
Coventry’s previous exile, 35 miles away at Northampton Town’s Sixfields, brought the biggest boycott of an English team by their supporters since Wimbledon’s relocation to Milton Keynes in 2003. The average attendance for “home” matches at Sixfields was 2,364, the lowest in the club’s Football League history and a drop of 78 per cent from the 10,938 average at the Ricoh the previous season. Protesting fans memorably took up residence on the steep slope overlooking Sixfields dubbed “Jimmy’s Hill” during every home game.
If there is one positive to be taken, this season already feels different. On Saturday there were no protests, just sadness and perhaps even a flicker of defiance. Only 3,000 season tickets have been sold compared with 7,000 last season. And the 5,500 home fans inside the near-30,000 capacity St Andrew’s provided stirring support throughout a deserved win that suggested Mark Robins’s dynamic young team are right to have been tipped as a dark horse in the race for the League One play-offs.
A fine second-half strike by Zain Westbrooke sealed a 1-0 win against Southend, who rallied late on and struck the crossbar but could not find an equaliser. Five of Coventry’s ten summer signings were in a starting XI with an average age of 24, while 18-year-old Josh Eccles, a second-half substitute, was one of three home-grown teenagers on the bench. The fruitful academy which has produced, among others, James Maddison, Callum Wilson, Cyrus Christie and Tom Bayliss, the talented 20-year-old midfielder sold to Preston North End for about £2 million on Friday, continues to be a shining beacon in the darkness.
“Everyone in the stadium has contributed to a good day,” said Robins, the former Manchester United striker who praised the positive atmosphere engendered by the supporters. “We’ve got the experience of winning here, early on, which is outstanding.”
Many supporters are determined to focus on the football: a new Coventry City Supporters’ Club has been founded in the city in a bid to “build the bond between players and supporters”, as Sue Medlock, the group’s co-chair, says. “It’s so important, now, more than ever, that we support the team.”