Features

Survival of the Fittest

Ever since graduating to the top flight of English football in 1967, Coventry City have been up against it.

Making it to the turn of the Millennium without ever having finished higher than sixth place, but without ever having been relegated either was an achievement of consistency, if nothing else. Other clubs have come and gone, winning promotion, doing better than we've ever managed, and getting relegated again all in the space of a few years.

The biggest achievement - along with the FA Cup victory in 1987 of course - has been a series of escapes from relegation; Some dramatic, some subdued. Some down to outstanding skill, some simply fortunate. It's easy to look back retrospectively and see how we triumphed on each and every occasion, but rest assured that, at the time, fingernails were being bitten down to the marrow, and travel plans for the proverbial Wet Wednesday Nights at Gresty Road were being drawn up...

1977

With Gordon Milne as manager, and Jimmy Hill in the Managing Directors's seat, the '76-77 season started brightly, with City among the early pacesetters in the old Division One. A grim run of 13 games without a win in the second half of the campaign put paid to any ambititions of success, but we didn't look like going down. It was two points for a win in those days, with three clubs going down from 22, and when an Ian Wallace hat-trick helped us beat relegation rivals Stoke City 5-2 in a proverbial 'four-pointer' we looked safe with six games to go.

Our next game was another relegation battle at West Ham, who gained some ground on us with a 2-0 win. Still we remained two places above them, with 32 points, but two days later they notched up a win and moved above us. It was early May and our fate was still in our own hands, but we had to rely on an 89th minute equaliser from Tommy Hutchison to rescue a point at Everton. The games were coming thick and fast, and a 0-0 draw with Champions-elect Liverpool at Highfield Road was another creditable result.

Our penultimate game of the season saw Manchester City - runners up in the league this season - come to Highfield Road. Three places clear of the relegation zone at the start of play, we needed a win, with rivals Bristol City and Sunderland both heading for victories of their own. Man City were fortunate to beat us 1-0, but with other results going against us, we were in the bottom three for the first time this season with one game to play. Spurs and Stoke had already completed their fixture programmes and were both relegated already with 33 and 34 points respectively. We had 34 as well. So did Bristol City, and so did Sunderland, but both sides had a superior goal-difference to us.

Fortunately our final game was against... Bristol City! A win would definitely save us and relegate them. But things are rarely so simple.

The story is perhaps best told in the form of this extract from 'A Drop of the Good Stuff' - a feature I wrote while working for BBC Sport Online:



Indeed, many Sunderland fans have harboured a long-running grudge against Coventry and Bristol City because of their relegation in 1977, as if we did something wrong!?! Personally I think that it was a beautiful moment in the history of football. For once differences were cast aside, and instead of rivalry there was a sense of working together. It was certainly one of the most bizarre endings ever to a season.

1985

Nowadays the FA insist that every teams final league fixture be played at the same time on the same day, in order to bring the season to a fair and proper finale. However, until the 1990's this was not always the case, and many postponed games wouldn't actually take place until after the season had officially ended. City found themselves in this situation in the 1984-5 season, and - surprise surprise - it co-incided with a relegation battle.

The season in which Bobby Gould's first stint in charge at Highfield Road came to an end and John Sillett's successful reign began was one of transition. At the season's official end we were in 20th place, the last relegation place. Beneath us Sunderland and Stoke (who had set a record low number of points) were relegated, but we had three games in which to save ourselves. The only trouble was that Norwich - who had finished their fixture programme on the regulation date - were eight points ahead of us. We had to win all of our three games in hand to catch them and therefore stay up, but with no other results to go against us, it was in our own hands.

The first game was a trip to the hapless Stoke City. When you consider that we had 41 points at this stage, and they were to finish rock-bottom with a meagre 17, it should've been a walkover. As it was, we had to wait until the 66th minute before the deadlock was broken, through a Stuart Pearce penalty. But with six minutes to go, a penalty was awarded to the home side - and had Stoke converted it, we would've been heading for relegation. Ian Painter - who would go on to join Coventry a couple of years later - hit the crossbar, and we held out for the final whistle. 44 points, five behind Norwich with two games still to play.

Six days later Luton Town were the visitors to Highfield Road. Again, the game looked to be heading for a 0-0 which would've relegated us, and Luton looked as though they were battling away on Norwich's behalf. But, in the 84th minute the irrepressable Brian Kilcline volleyed home what was to be the winner, and keep us in the hunt by the skin of our teeth. 47 points, and an escape route was in sight. The only possible stumbling block was that we had to entertain Everton, who had recently been crowned champions! Could we beat the best team in the division?

Of course we could! In the event, the Champions rested several key players, and Cyrille Regis gave us the lead inside four minutes. For once, the Toffees legendary goalkeeper Neville Southall was looking weary and out-of-sorts, and when Mickey Adams doubled our lead on 17, it looked as though our latest impossible escape act was back on course. Everton pulled a goal back just before the interval, but immediately after the break Regis grabbed his second to put us 3-1 ahead. Terry Gibson was comfortably our top scorer this season, but had been going through a lean spell of late, so when he broke his duck by knocking in our fourth with twelve minutes of our season remaining, we knew it was our day.

From eight points behind, City had put together a remarkable three-game winning run, and managed to overtake Norwich against the odds. As it was, we had done enough to also finish above QPR on goal-difference, and anyone looking at the final league table for 1984-5 will have no clues as to what a massive achievement our very survival was on this occasion.

1996

Ron Atkinson's only full season in charge of CCFC promised much but delivered little. After a sluggish start, the fans were confident that things would pick up and we would eventually finish in mid-table at worst. The long wait for improved results lasted until March.

The team had been in a constant state of change as new signings arrived and others departed on an almost weekly basis. Splashing the cash had done little to improve results though and we were still struggling to score while shipping plenty of goals at the other end. With six games to play and just 27 points on the board things looked desperate. We had amassed just five league wins all season and our only hope was that there were plenty of other teams doing almost as badly as ourselves.

QPR and Bolton were beneath us at the bottom of the table, but both had recently improved while we had dropped like a stone. Above us were Man City and Southampton. With fixtures against Liverpool and Man Utd over the Easter Weekend, our woefully out-of-sorts side was already being written off. However, on this occasion the plethora of new signings finally came together as a unit. We took the lead at home to Liverpool through Noel Whelan, and then turned in a brave defensive performance to hold on to three precious points. Every one of our fellow strugglers were beaten, and all of a sudden survival looked to be very much on.

Two days later we travelled to Old Trafford. We were beaten - but by no means humbled - 1-0 in a game that was marked by the career-ending injury to gifted young defender David Busst early in the match. Results were mixed for our relegation rivals, but crucially we had a game in hand on most of them and our next game was against QPR who were level with us on 30 points having played a game more. Man City and Southampton were one point above us, just above the line that severs the survivors from the relegated.

A fantastic and fascinating six-pointer at Highfield Road looked as though it was going to end Coventry 0 QPR 0 which would've helped neither side. But with 21 minutes to go, this nervewracking game of brinkmanship was finally settled by Eoin Jess. The Scottish midfielder didn't score too many goals for us, but this strike will prove to be his most important as it finished 1-0 and we moved three points ahead of QPR and still had a game in hand. Unfortunately the teams above us both won as well, with Man City beating Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton memorably notching a 3-1 win over Manchester Utd.

After Saturday's vital win had given us hope we then had a game in hand during the week, but so did Southampton. However, our goal-difference meant that just a point at Forest would move us above Man City on goal-difference, and therefore out of the bottom three for the first time in several weeks. Forest at this time were safely in mid-table and by a strange quirk of mathematics could not finish higher or lower than ninth place. We battled hard at the City Ground, and while we didn't show much in the attacking department, a solid defensive display saw us come away with a 0-0 draw and edge out of the bottom three. Southampton's own game in hand ended in a defeat at Newcastle, and so they now also had 34 points, the same as Man City and ourselves.

There was a ten day wait until the penultimate round of fixtures and everything was still in the balance. With 29 points, Bolton looked doomed, and with just one point more (but a relatively healthy goal-difference) QPR needed two wins from their final two games to have any chance of staying up. We travelled to Selhurst Park, taking a mighty army of some 7'000 travelling fans to see the game against Wimbledon. Man City were also playing away from home - at Aston Villa - while Southampton looked to have the easiest task in the form of a trip to Bolton.

After a goalless first half nothing was any clearer. Southampton were winning at Bolton, but it was also goalless at Villa Park. Early in the second half Peter Ndlovu sent the Sky Blue Army wild with an excellent solo goal, and with a minute to go we caught Wimbledon on the counter-attack and the Zimbabwean forward repeated the magic to guarantee us three points. Unfortunately Man City had somehow managed to win 1-0 at Villa, and Southampton had won at Bolton by the same scoreline. Every set of fans must've thought their club was staying up by rights, until they heard that their rivals had done just as well. Bolton had been relegated with Southampton's win at Burnden Park, and even a 3-0 win over West Ham couldn't save QPR as the sides above them all moved up to 37 points going into the final day.

With two relegation places decided, it looked like one place to be decided among three clubs, although interestingly a fourth club had now become a possible candidate. Sheffield Wednesday had been on a poor run, and the fact that Cov, Saints and Man City had all picked up recently meant that they, on 39 points, could conceivably be relegated if they failed to win and the three sides below them all won. Coventry had the advantage of only needing to match one other side's result as we went into the game above Man City on goal-difference, and above Southampton on goals scored. Cov vs Leeds, Southampton vs Wimbledon, Man City vs Liverpool. Surely we were favourites to stay up now.

Coventry (and indeed Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday) nerves were calmed when Liverpool took a two goal lead at Maine Road (including the last ever Liverpool goal from Ian Rush!) which they held at half-time. Cov-Leeds was goalless as was Southampton-Wimbledon so we looked to be cruising to a 16th place finish, albeit only by a point. It was an afternoon with potential for drama, and yet the status quo looked to be maintained, with Man City finishing third-from-bottom, just failing to overtake Southampton and ourselves when it mattered.

There were rumours at the time that some 'rogue' Coventry fans had gone to the Man City and Soutampton games, and were feeding misinformation to the players that we were in fact losing heavily to Leeds, and so they only needed a draw! Of course, this sneaky behaviour would be entirely unacceptable, were it not for the "all's fair in love and relegation battles" philosophy that Everton had imprinted on the game's collective conscience two years previously!

Man City were fighting back against Liverpool. an Uwe Rosler penalty was quickly followed by a goal from Kit Symons and suddenly it was 2-2 at Maine Road. Alarm bells ringing at The Dell and Highfield Road then, as uncertainty took over. Should we be attacking, looking for a goal, or should we sit back and defend? Is a draw enough? No doubt the situation in Manchester was the same, and compounded with misinformation from the crowd, could've been even worse for their fans than it was for us. Having pulled it back to 2-2 Man City players were seen to be timewasting in the final ten minutes, as if they believed that a draw was indeed enough to save them. The hilarious sight of Steve Lomas keeping the ball by the corner flag, trying to run the clock down and seal his side's fate will remain one of the defining moments.

Of course it wouldn't be, and indeed it wasn't. Fortunately the full-time whistles sounded at roughly the same time, and once fans made sense of the confusion, it was pretty straightforward. 2-2 and two 0-0's. Every club had drawn therefore the final table at the end of the season had not changed from the previous week. Our 0-0 with Leeds had been a fairly dull and defensive affair, made slightly easier by the fact that at no point in the afternoon would a draw have not been enough. We finished ahead of Southampton and Man City, but a few weeks earlier we would've been grateful for any sort of escape.

Make no mistake, this one was close.

1997

A good Christmas had lifted City into mid-table, and we were confident that there would be no fight against the drop. However, the appalling form of January through March, particularly the tendancy to draw, rather than win, home games saw us fall back into trouble. With six games to go, we had 30 points and were bottom of the table. Above us, the likes of Forest, Southampton, Sunderland and Middlesbrough were all battling away. One could sense then that even though one of the teams (Boro) had been handicapped by three points, the regulation point-per-game benchmark for safety would not hold true this time. There was a realistic possibilty that we could easily go down with 40 or 41 points, and so survival looked difficult, if not impossible.

Then over a single three-day spell, we gave ourselves a fighting chance. On a Sunday afternoon at Anfield we fell a goal behind early in the second half, and were, as one might expect, totally outplayed by Liverpool. However, Gary McAllister's ability from the corner flag was to prove decisive. On 65 minutes, he found Noel Whelan's head and we were level. In injury time from an identical set piece Dion Dublin poked the winner over the line as the visiting City fans sang 'You'll never walk alone' in celebration of our fourth away win of the season.

On the following Wednesday night we entertained Chelsea at home, and again fell behind to a side wearing our (then) away kit of red and navy check at the request of the referee. Fighting spirit won the day again though, as Mark Hughes' effort was rendered irrelevent by goals from Dublin, Williams and Whelan during an intense nine-minute spell in the second half. Gordon Strachan even emerged from semi-retirement to take to the pitch for the first time since becoming manager five months earlier while the veteran Steve Ogrizovic grew stronger in goal with every save he made. It was only our fourth home win of the season, and would transpire to be our last, but we surged above Forest and Sunderland in the table, and now had 36 points with four games to play.

Our next game saw us travel to The Dell where we hadn't traditionally fared well. Southampton themselves were fashioning an escape route in earnest, but from two goals down we fought back to claim a 2-2 draw. Our relegation rivals Sunderland won - but the victory came at Middlesbrough, so the other North-Eastern side were pulled right back into the relegation battle, albeit with games in hand on the rest of us. Two days later we were at home to Arsenal, and Dion Dublin's very early strike was controversially negated by Ian Wright's penalty after an accidental foul from Oggy.

Our penultimate game of the season was at home against a Derby side with little to play for. A win would've given us 41 points, and would surely have meant that we could travel to Spurs on the final day only needing a point. Unfortunately we failed to convert any chances in a goalless first half and although McAllister equalised from the spot after Rowett had given the visitors the lead early in the second, a Dean Sturridge goal gave them all three points. The real sickeners came with the other results though. Forest were now mathematically down by this point, but Sunderland and Southampton had both won, while Aston Villa - perhaps deliberately, who knows? - conceded a 90th minute penalty at Middlesbrough, converted by Ravinelli.

Things looked bleak going into that final week. The New Labour Government had just swept to power in the general election, and this historical landmark looked set to coincide with our relegation from the Premiership for the first time. Boro played their two games in hand during the week and could've relegated us had they won both. But a thrilling 3-3 at Old Trafford and a dull 0-0 at Blackburn was all they could muster. Going into the final round of games on what Coventry fans were calling 'Black Sunday', they had 38 points, the same as us, but a very superior goal difference. Sunderland were two points above us, in the coveted fourth-from-the-foot position, while Southampton were all but mathematically safe. And so we entered endgame.

We travelled to White Hart Lane - a profitable hunting ground for us - while Sunderland were at Wimbledon and Boro at Leeds who hadn't conceded a goal at home since we won there 3-1 on Boxing Day. We were 10 to 1 to stay up with some bookmakers, and even the most optimistic fan must've been nervous. Even if we won, we would most likely remain below Middlesbrough if they also won, because of their goal-difference. If Sunderland won at Selhurst Park, it would all be academic for us and Boro anyway. Our game kicked off 15 minutes late due to crowd congestion, but it was the first game of the afternoon to see a goal. Dion Dublin, one of the heroes of this particular relegation battle, gave us the lead on 13 minutes. It was half-time everywhere else when Paul Williams' long-range effort made it 2-0 to us on 39.

And then, just before our half-time, Spurs youngster Paul McVeigh threw the cat amongst the pigeons by pulling a goal back.

The rest of the afternoon will have been, for many fans, a blur. Lots of alcohol had wisely been consumed before the game, to soften the blow if the worst should happen. Visits to the 'facilities' were frequent - everyone was nervous and it also helped to 'use up' the remaining time as we held on throughout the second half. Many of us listened on radios to the news from the other games. Others couldn't bear to do so. If only we could've scored another goal, and maybe heard that both Sunderland and Boro were losing heavily. That would've done it.

Midway through the second half, we heard the Boro had fallen behind at Leeds. Great! A minute later they had equalised. Not so great. However, there could only be ten minutes remaining in the games that kicked off at the regulation time. Right now we would stay up with 41 points, seperated from Sunderland by goal-difference alone (the Mackems still drawing 0-0 at Wimbledon). Middlesbrough would have 39. Then some more good news. Sunderland had fallen behind at Wimbledon! Jason Euell became a massive hero in the away section at White Hart Lane without even realising it.

The full-time scores from Selhurst Park and Elland Road eventually came through. Wimbledon 1 Sunderland 0. Leeds 1 Middlesbrough 1. Boro were definitely down, and immediately announced that they would be appealing their three-point deduction. Sunderland would join them, with us a point clear in 17th place, provided we could hold on. The news that things had gone well elsewhere soon filtered through to the players. We began to play keepball, knowing that we could stay up if only we didn't allow Spurs to score. Unfortunately they didn't seem to be able to accept that, and threw shot after shot at Oggy. One particular save, from a young guy called Fenn, from point blank range will live long in the memory of everyone who was there. Had the ball gone into the back of the net, we would've needed to score again to have any chance.

Everyone dug in. Strachan, naming himself on the subs bench, had started warming up, ranting at everyone on the pitch as he ran up and down the touchline. No words could describe the relief and delight at the final whistle when it eventually sounded. Players, management and fans were one. Tears of joy were shed. The players greeted the supporters and thanked us for our unstinting support and confidence that they could do it, yet again. It was an happy happy day. The party went on long into the night. 10 to 1? Pah!