City look to extend their winning run to three on Saturday with a first home game with Coventry in nine years. We’re unbeaten in our last five home matches against the Sky Blues, with four of them having been won, but, with our record at Cardiff City Stadium this season, we can take absolutely nothing for granted. Here’s seven question about this weekend’s opponents going back to the sixties.
60s. Although this local boy’s team had the better of things in the five times he faced City while playing for Coventry during this decade, this forward did not score in any of them and it wasn’t until he moved to the capital that he netted against us. He’d played for two midlands clubs before we came across him next one Boxing Day when we were beaten on a ground we’d got used to losing at thanks to a highly controversial and clearly wrong penalty award for a “foul” on him that I can still see in my mind’s eye to this day. By now, he was in a stage of his career where he never stayed anywhere too long and his next move took him back to London where he was part of a squad which won a high profile derby game at a neutral venue. He returned to a former lair as he was getting near to thirty and next encountered us when playing for a side that I believe suffered the heaviest ever defeat seen on Match of the Day while he was playing for them. After a short sojourn abroad, his last club wore the same colours as the country he never played for (but that doesn’t mean he was a stranger to international football) and he retired having never scored against us in a league game, can you name him?
70s. This Coventry Hall of Famer had no childhood affiliation to the club having been born in faraway Grimsby, but he made his specialist position his own at Coventry for the major part of his long affiliation with them. There were a couple of loan moves, one to a club now in the National League North which wore very distinctive shirts while he was there and another with a fast moving team who were, presumably, Motown fans. He did move on permanently right at the end of his career for a spell with a Midlands team that had been the best in the land a few years earlier, but were now back at the more mundane level they occupy today. He worked as an antiques dealer for a while after leaving the game – who am I describing?
80s. Patriotic fighting man? (5,7)
90s. Sort no brews at Billericay for midfield man. (7.6)
00s. This Lancastrian defender with a surname, and a voice, which should be familiar to City fans played twice against us in a season during this decade for Coventry with mixed results while on loan from his then parent club. He played for ten teams in all and Coventry was, just about, the furthest south he ever came to play his football. On the international front, he won a couple of caps and was picked for a World Cup Finals squad, but only got to play against Platinum Stars, can you name him?
10s. Which very recent opponent of ours played against us for Coventry three times early in this decade?
20s. The Coventry team for Saturday’s game is likely to contain someone who has already played against us at Cardiff City Stadium this season, who is he?
Answers:
60s. Former Wales and City manager Bobby Gould played five times against us for Coventry in the sixties, but scored his only goal against us while an Arsenal player in a FA Cup Third Round replay in January 1969. Gould’s wanderings took him to Wolves and West Brom before he signed for Bristol City where a game with us on Boxing Day 1972 was decided by a penalty awarded against Richie Morgan which was obstruction at the very worst. Gould then had a long stint by his standards at West Ham where he was a sub in the 1975 FA Cup Final win over Fulham before he left for a second spell at Wolves. Bristol Rovers were his next club and he was in their side which was beaten 9-0 by Spurs in front of the Match of the Day cameras in October 1977. After a year in Norway with Aalesunds FK, Gould wound down his playing career with Hereford before his retirement in 1979.
70s. Mick Coop spent fifteen years as a first team footballer at Coventry between 1966 and 1981 with the very large majority of his four hundred and twenty five appearances coming as a right back. A loss of form saw him loaned out to York City for a while in 74/75, but he regained his place on his return before another temporary move to the NASL with Detroit Express in 1979. Coop left Coventry some nineteen years after joining them as an apprentice when he signed for Derby for £20,000, but only played eighteen league matches for them before leaving league football.
80s. Tommy English.
90s. Stewart Robson.
00s. Stephen Warnock was on loan from Liverpool when he played against City for Coventry in a 3-1 home defeat in October 2003 and then when they gained a 1-0 win in the return fixture at Ninian Park some five months later in a match that saw both sides have a player sent off. Warnock, who works as a pundit for the BBC these days, won two caps for England and was in their squad for the 2010 World Cup, but he only got to play in a warm up game against South African club team Platinum Stars.
10s. Richard Wood was in the Rotherham side beaten by City on Tuesday and ten seasons ago he started for Coventry in their 2-1 home defeat by us in October 2010 and then in a 2-0 Boxing Day defeat at Cardiff City Stadium, he also came on as a sub in our 1-1 away draw in November 2011.
20s. Matty James of Leicester played against us in November while on loan to Barnsley, he is on loan to Coventry now and was in their side which drew with Watford last weekend.