The fall out from Wednesday’s truly miserable loss to QPR has seen the predictable calls for Omer Riza to be relieved of his duties, but, on a personal level, it has been good to see at least as many fans pointing the finger at those who I believe to be most guilty.
The threesome who have overseen a big decline in standards since the 20/21 season (the ten years under Vincent Tan before that have to be deemed as a failure as well in my eyes), have, rightly, been criticised for their complete silence since the meeting between Omer Riza and Vincent Tan more than a fortnight ago and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the two matches played since then have seen a return to early season levels of performance.
Tomorrow, there will probably be the usual one thousand or more in the away section when we play at Coventry – those supporters in particular deserve far better than they’ve had to get used to in terms of communication from those at the top of the club, but that applies with bells on at the moment. Never has a club statement on how it intends to proceed been more needed under the current ownership.
We won’t be the story tomorrow though, it’ll be about Frank Lampard who will be taking charge of his first game as Coventry manager. All I’ll say about Mr Lampard for now is that I’d be very disappointed if there had been an announcement that he was taking over at the other CCFC, but, given the abject level of performance since we beat Norwich, I find it impossible to predict anything other than the Lampard era at Coventry starting with a comfortable win.
Here’s the usual seven questions dating back to the sixties on our next opponents.
60s. Was this midfielder a very early example of overseas footballers making an impression in the British game? Not really, but he would be regarded as unusual today as he was over seventy years ago when he played his first game for a Midland Second Division outfit. After five years of very sporadic first team appearances, he moved on to Coventry and it was here where the large majority of his near four hundred league appearances came over the next nine years. His departure from Highfield Road saw him return to where he started, but this time with a club that had become very much the lesser lights in the city. His last season as a player was spent with non league Gingerbreads and he then returned to Coventry to work as a youth coach for a short time before he got a job at a factory where he helped manufacture products that were, I suppose, linked to his surname – can you name him?
70s. On the subject of overseas players, this forward was born in the city where the county cricket ground floods every winter, yet ended up winning an international cap for the country he spent all of his career in, bar his seven years with Coventry at the start of it. Perhaps uniquely for someone who made almost a hundred appearances for a First Division side during this decade, I have no memory whatsoever of him at Coventry, despite him having a very acceptable scoring rate of a league goal every three or so games. His one cap came in a draw against Italy when they were reigning World Champions – he was replaced during the game by someone called Perry Van Der Beck, but who is he?
80s. Summer visitor with just a hundred?
90s. Damage NHS mun? Certainly not (6,6,)
00s. He played for seven league clubs, including Coventry, and won promotion to the Premier League with one of them. He attempted suicide while at the club he played for after the Sky Blues and has spent six months serving a jail sentence. He also won a southern area title in another sport, but failed in his bid to become an English Champion, who am I describing?
10s. There was a meeting between City and Coventry during this decade which had an attendance of just over thirteen hundred, what was the main reason for the low crowd? Also, four players appeared for City who made just twelve league appearances for us between them (two of them were full internationals and the other two didn’t play a league game for us), name the four players.
20s. Which current Coventry player shares a name with a famous figure from history whose early death, according to Wikipedia, was attributed to “exhaustion brought on by unceasing romantic interests”?
Answers
60s. Guernsey born Ron Farmer started his career at Nottingham Forest before moving to Coventry in 1958 and became a regular in their midfield as they rose towards the old First Division. Farmer lost his place before promotion to the top flight was confirmed in 1967 and next signed for Notts County and a season with Grantham Town ensured, just about, that his career spanned a third decade. Farmer spent most of the rest of his working life at the Massey Ferguson tractor manufacturing factory in Coventry.
70s. Worcester born Alan Green played for Coventry from 1972 to 1979 and then spent the next seven years playing for a variety of indoor and outdoor teams in the USA for whom he gained an international cap in 1984.
80s. Martin Singleton.
90s. Magnus Hedman.
00s. Leon McKenzie was a member of Norwich’s Championship winning team in 03/04 and played for Coventry between 2006 and 2009. He left Coventry for Charlton and it was while he was with them that he attempted suicide and he was jailed for six months in 2012 for trying to avoid speeding convictions. McKenzie’s father , Clinton, is a former European boxing Champion and his uncle Duke is a three time World Champion, so it wasn’t a huge shock when Leon became a professional boxer at the end of his football career – he won eight of his eleven fights, with one of his two defeats coming when he fought for the English super-middleweight title.
10s. City played an away First Round League Cup tie against Coventry in 14/15. The game was played at Northampton’s Sixfields Stadium because the home team were unable to play at the Ricoh Arena at the time. We won 2-1, with one of our goals coming from Austrian international Guido Burgstaller, who only played three league games for us. Norwegian international Magnus Wolff Eikrem made nine league appearances for us, while young full back Jazzi Barnum Bobb only played in a couple of League Cup matches for City. Local youngster, Tommy O’Sullivan came off the bench that night, but was another one who never made it into a City league team.
20s. Raphael is a young winger Coventry signed from Australian football in the summer and his namesake is an Italian Renaissance painter and architect from the sixteenth century who died at the age of thirty seven.