It’s been a rollercoaster ride for Coventry in the last 15-20 years. Talk us through that mad journey…
“Well, we’ve had to move grounds twice. There’s been a lot of politics, but basically our owners then made a deal with Tesco to sell Highfield Road. We moved to the Ricoh and we couldn’t afford to build it at the time, so the council built it. We chugged along in the Championship with managers such as Micky Adams, Chris Coleman, Aidy Boothroyd, Iain Dowie.
“Then, in 2006, we were near bust and this hedge fund called SISU took over. They ploughed quite a bit of money into the club at the start. We were spending a million or a million and a half on players, which for a Championship side was quite a lot in 2006-2007. It just never worked. The club was renting the ground off the council. Then the owners got into a dispute with the council.
“In 2018, Wasps kicked us out and we went to play at Birmingham City. So we went there. In saying that, we got relegated in 2017, and in 2018 we came back up from League Two, winning the play-off against Exeter. Then we had a year at the Ricoh, finished eighth, and that year they said: ‘No, we’re kicking you out.’ So we went to play at Birmingham for the Covid season. The Covid season finished in March, and we’d been at Birmingham for that season, and were top of the league when it finished. They did this points-per-whatever and we were actually crowned champions of League One in June.
“The Covid season we played at Birmingham and then they agreed with Wasps to come back for 2021/22. Lo and behold, a year later, Wasps go bust and the Commonwealth Games were at the CBS Arena, because Coventry Building Society are now the sponsors. We didn’t play a home game last season until we’d played six away games.
“It’s been an absolute nightmare! But now, Mike Ashley’s group, the Fraser Group, owns the ground. We’ve struck a deal with them to play there, the rent’s good, we’re getting gates of 30,000. Things are as good there now as I can ever remember. I’m going back now to the late 60s, when we got promotion in 1967, the Jimmy Hill days, when we got into Europe for a season. This is why I’m always telling United fans to be grateful for what they’ve had, because at Coventry we’ve had one season in Europe and won one FA Cup [in our entire history]!”
