johnniericoh
Member
It was the 1966/1967 season, yes that's the one, apart from the 1987 cup glory year the fact that CCFC reached the pinnacle of English football by being promoted that year to the then First Division was a dream masterminded and achieved by the maestro Jimmy Hill.
After years of playing Bury, Walsall, Northampton etc the Sky Blues would be entertaining Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal et al at Highfield Road - watching George Best, Bobby Charlton, Dennis Law, George Graham, Peter Osgood: the list was endless.
It was in this setting that my mate, Burnsy and I had, in that first season in the top flight seen 39 out of the 41 previous games travelling all over the country (except for Newcastle and Sunderland - too far in those days).
On the 11th May 1968 we were sat on a coach travelling down to Southampton to watch our boys do the business whilst keeping an eye on other results because we were third bottom level on points with Sheff U who were in one of the two relegation spots.
There were several permutations to attain safety all dependent upon our match of course and Sheff U at home to Chelsea.
Our match was a bruising affair throughout even though Southampton had nothing to play for with our Maurice Setters absolutely outstanding walking off the park at the end 0-0 his head bloodied covered in mud and glory.
Because Chelsea beat Sheff U we managed to stop up by one point and survived to complete 34 years of unbroken membership of the elite.
So it's a quick exit from the south coast on the coach once again and we set off slowly in a line of traffic heading for Cov.
At the same time shock had descended on me when considering the magnitude of what we had achieved with 4 out of the last 5 games away and our heroics that afternoon I turned round and said; Burnsy wtf are we doing heading back without a beer in our bellies and not paying our respects to our fabulous team ?
And with that we jumped off the moving coach and headed back into Southampton with no plans for transport and we didn't give a toss. Found a nice cosy boozer until the early hours of the morning and by sheer fluke a group of Cov fans walked in and offered to take us back home after we plied them with one or two jars.
So all ended well - great day out - nerves jangling - not realising that this last minute safety scenario would stretch out for many seasons to come.
THOSE WERE THE DAYS
PUSB
After years of playing Bury, Walsall, Northampton etc the Sky Blues would be entertaining Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal et al at Highfield Road - watching George Best, Bobby Charlton, Dennis Law, George Graham, Peter Osgood: the list was endless.
It was in this setting that my mate, Burnsy and I had, in that first season in the top flight seen 39 out of the 41 previous games travelling all over the country (except for Newcastle and Sunderland - too far in those days).
On the 11th May 1968 we were sat on a coach travelling down to Southampton to watch our boys do the business whilst keeping an eye on other results because we were third bottom level on points with Sheff U who were in one of the two relegation spots.
There were several permutations to attain safety all dependent upon our match of course and Sheff U at home to Chelsea.
Our match was a bruising affair throughout even though Southampton had nothing to play for with our Maurice Setters absolutely outstanding walking off the park at the end 0-0 his head bloodied covered in mud and glory.
Because Chelsea beat Sheff U we managed to stop up by one point and survived to complete 34 years of unbroken membership of the elite.
So it's a quick exit from the south coast on the coach once again and we set off slowly in a line of traffic heading for Cov.
At the same time shock had descended on me when considering the magnitude of what we had achieved with 4 out of the last 5 games away and our heroics that afternoon I turned round and said; Burnsy wtf are we doing heading back without a beer in our bellies and not paying our respects to our fabulous team ?
And with that we jumped off the moving coach and headed back into Southampton with no plans for transport and we didn't give a toss. Found a nice cosy boozer until the early hours of the morning and by sheer fluke a group of Cov fans walked in and offered to take us back home after we plied them with one or two jars.
So all ended well - great day out - nerves jangling - not realising that this last minute safety scenario would stretch out for many seasons to come.
THOSE WERE THE DAYS
PUSB
