Why was Highfield Rd called Highfield Rd??? (1 Viewer)

ExmouthNeil

Well-Known Member
Ok.... I know the ground was adjoining Highfield Rd, but it wasn't the closest road or the road nearest to the main stand???

Just wondered if anyone knew???

Cheers, Neil.

Oh.... and before anyone says it wasn't SISU's OR ACL's fault but it might have been the Council's...LOL
 

rondog1973

Well-Known Member
It's because the ground was built on Highfield Road. If you look where HR ended and where King Richard St started, join the two and the road ran along the front of the West terrace.
 

blueflint

Well-Known Member
It's because the ground was built on Highfield Road. If you look where HR ended and where King Richard St started, join the two and the road ran along the front of the West terrace.

agree thats about right
 

ExmouthNeil

Well-Known Member
I was lookin at an old aerial photo of Highfield Rd and just wondered why Highfield as opposed to all the other little roads around the ground... Suppose it was a good job there wasn't Six fields next to the ground....lol
 
1

1940 oldfive

Guest
Ok.... I know the ground was adjoining Highfield Rd, but it wasn't the closest road or the road nearest to the main stand???

Just wondered if anyone knew???

Cheers, Neil.

Oh.... and before anyone says it wasn't SISU's OR ACL's fault but it might have been the Council's...LOL

did the city not have their registered office in Highfield rd. many years ago.
 

NorthernWisdom

Well-Known Member
king richards st led to the main stand and was there just as long

Nope, Highfield Road was there before King Richard Street. King Richard Street was extended past Britannia Street later.

Thackall Street was also built later. At one point the route would be: Highfield Road - fields - Mowbray Street - Stoke Road Ground.

So as the club were playing at Stoke Road, that's how they'd have known Highfield Road, as the only road that lead to the piece of field that would become the new football ground.

Ground and housing/roads all springing up quickly around this period as it's a time of great change in and around the city. Originally this is right on the outskirts,not even 'Coventry' as 'Coventry' was originally known ;)
 
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Covstu

Well-Known Member
if you liived in Highfield Rd and the club moved to the Ricoh, does that make you less of a fan due to the previous geographical arguement??? Sorry couldnt help myself!!!!!
 

Monners

Well-Known Member
if you liived in Highfield Rd and the club moved to the Ricoh, does that make you less of a fan due to the previous geographical arguement??? Sorry couldnt help myself!!!!!


So that now makes me more of a fan than last season as Cov now play 3 miles from my home! :)
 

torchomatic

Well-Known Member
The BIG question is, why were we called The Bantams? There are lots of theories but no definitve answer. I have a couple of Bantams CCFC handbooks, one from 1914 and one from 1919 where they list players who died during the war. I'll try and scan it one day as it's very interesting.
 

Monners

Well-Known Member
The BIG question is, why were we called The Bantams? There are lots of theories but no definitve answer. I have a couple of Bantams CCFC handbooks, one from 1914 and one from 1919 where they list players who died during the war. I'll try and scan it one day as it's very interesting.

I assume you have seen the wiki "fact" that it was down to being a bit lightweight for the Southern League, and as we didn't have a nickname, then this one stuck. I wouldn't know if there was anything in this.
 

torchomatic

Well-Known Member
Yeah, seen that one. Along with bantams used to run at the side of the pitch before we had proper stands, the name of the coach firm that used to drive us to games. Who knows. Maybe Jim Brown if anyone.

I assume you have seen the wiki "fact" that it was down to being a bit lightweight for the Southern League, and as we didn't have a nickname, then this one stuck. I wouldn't know if there was anything in this.
 

smileycov

Facebook User
The BIG question is, why were we called The Bantams? There are lots of theories but no definitve answer. I have a couple of Bantams CCFC handbooks, one from 1914 and one from 1919 where they list players who died during the war. I'll try and scan it one day as it's very interesting.

There is a Bantam Pub in Northampton!!! perhaps was fate :thinking about:
 

wingy

Well-Known Member
From Jim Brown recently In the CT ,not necessarily definitive.

Over the years I have been asked hundreds of times: “Why were Coventry City nicknamed the Bantams before Jimmy Hill turned them into the Sky Blues?”
According to David Brassington’s excellent history of the club, Singers To Sky Blues, published in 1985, the Bantams nickname was first used in 1908 after Nemo in the Midland Daily Telegraph pointed out that City, who had recently been admitted to the Southern League, were one of the only clubs not to have a nickname.
He asked for suggestions and, being the lightweights of the league, the Bantams nickname was adopted and soon afterwards the small fowl was used to depict the club in newspaper cartoons.
However, I recently came across a letter from a Mr Kennell to the Coventry Telegraph from 1967.
He recalled asking his father 40 years earlier why they were the Bantams and his father had explained that the were named after the bantam weathercocks on the spires of the three main churches of the city.
I wonder if anyone has any other theories for the nickname?
 

mds

Well-Known Member
Copied from
http://thebeautifulhistory.wordpress.com/clubs/coventry-city/

Incidentally, the black and red colours and the number of small players in the team earned them the nickname “The Little Blackbirds”. Coventry’s original nickname “Peeping Toms” came from the well-known historical local character. When Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of Coventry the people of the town were supposed to be behind closed doors. Peeping Tom broke the curfew to get a peek at Godiva.

They have also been known as “The Bantams”, arguably from those that were formerly kept in the ground. A more accurate and plausible explanation however is that Coventry were first called “The Bantams” after a local newspaper noted that they were one of the few clubs who did not have a nickname. Bantams are renowned as fighting birds. “Bantams” was suggested and stuck with the press and supporters. They remained “The Bantams” until the summer of 1962 when Jimmy Hill re-christened them “The Sky Blues”, a more up-to-the-minute sounding title, when they switched to their eye-catching all-sky-blue kit from the royal-blue and white stripes. Everything about the club reflected the new modernistic approach to marketing that at the time was innovative.
 

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