I never thought I would say this, but I am slowly giving up with Coventry City. What I heard earlier could possibly be the final straw.
On the radio on the way home from work, I was informed that a match between West Brom U21’s and Wolverhampton U21’s was taking place at the Ricoh Arena.
What a joke.
If being dragged to Northampton was not enough of a kick in the teeth for Sky Blues fans, the Ricoh Arena now hosts what seems to be any Midlands club but Coventry City.
I understand ACL have to make the money back that they have lost from hosting the City, but hosting kids games from local rivals that will make little to no money makes little to no sense at all. I am no great lover of ACL and the latest couple of stunts they have pulled seems to be kicking City fans while they are down.
Our fortunes on the pitch have taken a turn for the worse, just the two wins in nine in the league since the turn of the year has seen us all of a sudden looking down instead of up.
However, I do not take the view of the strange minority on the radio phone in who seem to be blaming Steven Pressley.
It does not help when your top scorer turns around towards the end of January and says he no longer wants to play for you anymore. The frustration clear to see in Elvis’ post match after Leyton Orient, which sums up the state of the club in just over three minutes: a lack of depth and difficulty bringing in new faces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKvSLeHV_PY
We did bring in loans, but this is against Pressley’s way of doing things. And you can see why.
Rory Donnelly of Swansea was brought in, had one training session and returned in bizarre fashion, while Chuba Akpom of Arsenal got recalled for a couple of youth games despite us having no recognised strikers to play in the next game.
To round off the circus that has been the last couple of months, it was deemed newsworthy on the club website that Coventry City had filed their accounts on time, something that is just run of the mill on an annual basis for the vast majority of every other football league club.
There have been some highlights since the New Year: the late shows at Rotherham and Barnsley were just class. The protests at Arsenal gave us a global platform to show the plight of the club, even if my own day out was ruined by running into Tim Fisher on the tube in which my question “When are we returning to Coventry, Mr Fisher?” was just blissfully ignored as he continued his journey on a presumably expenses paid trip to the Emirates.
It is a shame because things are just not the same, even listening to the Shrewsbury game you sense that even the CWR team have had enough of trudging to Sixfields on cold Sunday nights.
The one hope is that the judicial review brings something that brings us closer to a return to the Ricoh. I dislike both SISU and ACL, and despite being just three points off the bottom three, Pressley has done a fantastic job with the resources available to him.
Saturday afternoon is just not the same anymore. Even though most of the times I left the Ricoh resulted in misery and despair, I miss it. It’s a chance to meet up with your mates, mates you only see when you go to the footy. It’s a shame that younger fans are being deprived of memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
The broken record of talking about the politics of the football club needs to be replaced before too many people lose the faith.
It’s hard to sum it all up in words; however Bobby Robson pretty much has it nailed on.
“What is a club in any case?
Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it.
It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing departments or executive boxes.
It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city.
It’s a small boy, clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him, and, without being able to do anything about it, falling in love”
Keep the faith, and PUSB.
skybluepilks 
The club we love is now laughed at wherever we go, an absolute joke. There is a growing majority of Cov fans who simply don’t care any more. Can you blame them? The only certainty is that the downward spiral will continue. Repeating the same mistakes will guarantee that we will soon be non-league. Isn’t it a defnition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
Very well put…………
Do not blame ACL.,Sisu bought the club with its debts and commitments including a rental agreement which they reneged on in typical hedge fund manner.They are supposedly run by a devout christian.Maybe not.
Martin O’Connor
we need a local team placed in the ricoh to play in sky blue and give us frustrated fans something to do on a saturday afternoon,i think its the only way forward
Skybluepilks,
I agree with much of your sentiment and romanticism, but, but without income there is scarcely a Football Club at all. Football today is big business and the Club has been starved of the money it needs to compete with other Clubs by a greedy, stubborn and short-sighted Labour Council. The Club has been forced out of the City by a Labour Council that surely should have been supporting its Football Club!
The Club has been in decline for about 20 years and the idea of building the Ricoh in order to increase revenues from non-football related matters to compete with Manchester United and Arsenal etc., was a good one. Unfortunately as we know the Club was badly mismanaged and sold HIghfield Road and had to go cap in hand to the Council to finish off the project of Arena 2000. The Labour Council made a tragic mistake when having the Club over a barrel, it thought that it could use the city’s own Football Club as a “cash cow”.
It is easy with hindsight, but I wish the Club’s main backer, Geoffrey Robinson had refused to accept the deal with the Labour Council and threatened then, to ground share and build its own stadium, elsewhere. I think Robinson was worried that he and the board would have been blamed for taking the Club out of the City. But I think it would have been the Labour Council that would have shouldered the blame!
People forget that SISU was the Labour Council’s choice, to takeover the Football Club and avoid administration in December 2007. I wonder why, was it because it thought that it would be able to resist any calls to sell the Ricoh to the Club when those “wicked” Venture Capitalists owned our Club? Coventry like most Northern and Midland cities is a Labour fiefdom and even a monkey in a red shirt would get elected most years. In fact there might be some monkeys on the Council now! It was easy for Labour Party supporters to takeover the Sky Blue Trust and campaign against our Football Club and hang the blame on those wicked capitalists. Be honest there was suspicion and bigotry even before SISU got its feet under the table. SISU hasn’t helped itself in the middle 3 years of its ownership when it sold off our best players and the Club got relegated. The Club’s PR too has been pretty poor.
SISU took over the Club when the stock market was at its peak, the house market and the economy was booming, its investors probably were flushed with money. SISU declared it had £20 million to invest in the Club and the team, but rather worryingly said the Club needed gates of 23,000 just to break even. This was surely a tall order for a failing “2nd division” Club unless the Club could get promoted immediately.
The owners started off well, buying quality players like Scot Dann and Dan Fox. But, promotion eluded the Club and then in the autumn of 2007 there was the stock market, banking, housing and economy crash. This of course happened on the Labour Party’s watch, which had promised us, no more boom and bust, but had encouraged one of the biggest booms in history based on debt and an inflated housing market.
We all thought that Ray Ranson was in control as Managing Director of the Club, but it turned out that a little known man on the board called Onye Igwe was calling the shots, on behalf of the owner. With the deepest and longest recession for 80 years the owners clearly had to retrench on its spending plans and Mr Igwe must have had orders to save as much money as he could. As we all know the Club then started selling players to reduce the outgoings as the team’s fortunes faded and the gates went into a downward spiral.
We also had the embarrassing Ken Dulieu fiasco as the Club’s fortunes continued to decline.
In season 2010/11, new manager, Aidy Boothroyd brought Marlon King to the Club on trial, with the intention to sign him on permanently. However Ann Lucas, then a Labour Councillor, but now Labour Council Leader started a campaign against signing Marlon King and said that she would not attend the Ricoh matches and would not renew her season ticket, if the Club signed Marlon King, because of his conviction for hitting a woman. Her campaign gave her publicity and burnished her left-wing credentials, but meant that our Club were intimidated into only signing King until the end of the season, rather than perhaps 3 seasons. Even though King only really got going halfway through the season, he still easily finished top scorer. And Thorn offered King a good contract to stay at the Club, but with him being out of contract, he was offered a better deal by Birmingham City. I am convinced, that but for Ann Lucas’ campaign against signing Marlon King, in 2010 he would have signed a longer contract and the Club would not have been relegated in season 2011/12 and may well have still been in the Championship!
When our Club first moved into the Ricoh Arena, the Club was paying the highest rent in Football at £1.3 million, even though our Club was only in the 2nd tier of Football. The Club was being charged a massive mark-up, by its landlord the Labour Council of up to 300% for utilities like; telephone, gas, electricity, water and cleaning etc.. The Club was being over-charged full occupancy business rates even though the Club obviously only played in the stadium for 23 games per year. After an appeal to the valuation office the Labour Council has been forced to repay £400,000 to the Club. Our Club was the only Club in Football not receiving any revenues from the stadium it played in!
The Club have spent over 6 years trying to persuade the Labour Council to either sell the Ricoh to the Club or at least broker a better deal whereby the Club paid less rent and received some revenues from the Football Ground, but the Labour Council refused. This, ultimately given the dire financial situation at the Club and relegation to the 3rd tier forced the Club to go on a rent strike in order to bring the Labour Council to the table. The Club had a deal with the Labour Council in August 2012 to buy out ACL and take over ACL’s debts with Yorkshire Bank. The Council/ACL went back on this deal and in January 2013 used public funds to lend £14.4 million to the failing ACL, a supposed private company. Then the Labour Council served 3rd party debt orders on our Football Club, thinking that that would stop the Club trading, and force SISU either to get out or pay up. At the same time both Peter Knatchbull Huguesson, of the Higgs Charity and the then Labour Council Leader, John Mutton both told SISU to get out of town. When that didn’t work the Labour Council forced our Football Club into administration and the first 10 point reduction and so scuppering any chance of a play-off place in season 2012/13. I believe the difference between what the Labour Council and the Football Club owed each other was c.£200,000, so our Football Club was put into administration for a paltry sum at this level. The intention of course was to wrest control of the Club from its rightful owner and hand it over to someone of the Labour Council’s choice, i.e., Preston Haskell IV. How an American property developer was going to be a better prospective owner than the present lot, I can’t imagine. Love them or hate them, at least SISU were a known quantity and had shown support and commitment to our Club to the tune of over £60 million! Over that period, our manager Mark Robins who had done so well, decided he’d had enough and left for Huddersfield Town, citing his reason as the lack of support for the Football Club by the Labour Council!
In August 2013, the Labour Council/ACL refused to accept the CVA agreed by other parties except the HMRC, which apparently always refuses anything less than a 100% return, and so forcing another 10 point deduction on the Football Club for the current season. This was more spite and meant the Club was almost certain not to get promoted this season and might very well get relegated.
We are told that the owner of the Sky Blues are treating the Club as a franchise by taking the Club out of the City and ground sharing with Northampton. But surely, it is the Labour Council that has treated the Club like a franchise, by trying to steal the Club from its rightful owner and hand it over to another owner of its choice? We are told that the owner SISU wanted to distress ACL and force down the value of the Ricoh and pick it up for nothing. But surely, it is the Labour Council/ACL that has tried to distress our Football Club and its owner by first taking it to Court to freeze its bank account then forcing it into administration and a 10 point deduction, then refusing to accept the CVA and another 10 point deduction. Now the Higgs Charity is suing the Club in April. All this is surely calculated to damage the Club and I wonder if the Sky Blue Trust acts as a proxy for the Labour Council, and it too, along with its offshoot the KCIC campaign is trying to smear and damage the Football Club.
We are told that wicked SISU, only want to distress ACL, pick up the Ricoh for nothing and make a profit. Well I have no problem with that, all I care about is my Football Club, but I might point out that the only organisations that have made a profit are the Labour Council/ACL although not enough to finance their debts. The owner SISU have lost over £70 million over the last 6 1/4 years! The roles seem to be reversed here, in that the Higgs Charity has been making profits while the wicked Venture Capitalists have been acting like a charity, in that it has supported our Club by over £70 million. Do the Coventry public expect the Football Club to be run like a charity and the owners act like a philanthropist? I have no problem with the owner of our Football Club making a profit. If it ever does, it will mean the Sky Blues are back in the Premier League and owning its own ground again. Surely if any organisation should be philanthropic here, it should be the Council, supporting its Football Club? Other Council’s around the country have built a stadium for its Football Club and only charged the Club a peppercorn rent while letting the Club keep the revenues! Why won’t our Labour Council support its own Football Club? It would be money well spent because nothing promotes a town/city like a successful team in the Premier League. Its name is mentioned mostly in a good light every day on TV, radio and on the various Web sites. But now business, industry and commerce will look at our city and decide that the local Council is anti business and not locate in Coventry and they would be right!
Best wishes,
Peter Chamber.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the feedback and your opinions!
I agree in terms of if you were pointing fingers, you have to go beyond the SISU and ACL and go further back, neither would be in this mess had in not been the way the Ricoh was initially acquired.
And I agree with your views on Lucas, was very annoyed when she called the Ricoh a ‘distraction’ earlier this year, if it was that much of a distraction then why get involved in the first place?
Cheers
Pilks
I think Chamber is a Sisu stooge.Why else does he harp on about Labout Coucil ‘decision’ when the Conservative leader published a letter in October 2023 telling the world that ALL council decisions made about the Ricoh were unanimous.
Never let truth deflect you from your prejudice
Martin O’Connor, I am certainly not a SISU stooge. I joined a Trade Union as soon as I could at 18 years of age and even though I am retired, I have continued my membership of UNITE. I am of the left and I believe in social justice and supporting the disadvantaged. I can see the manipulations and machinations of the left, and I don’t support the principle of “my little Johnny right or wrong”!
Politics is a dirty game and I can see the dirty fingers of the local Labour Party all over this fiasco! As for the Conservative Party, they are cowardly, they must have looked at this, and perceived public opinion is against SISU. Their calculation is surely that they will lose more votes than they will gain, if they support the sale of the Ricoh to the Football Club. I am afraid that the people of Coventry and in particular the Sky Blue fans have been abandoned by the politicians of Coventry. I think the cowed policy of the Conservative Party is to keep quiet and let the Labour Party swing in the wind and wait and see what happens. It’s a pity that the Conservatives couldn’t at least give the people of Coventry a lead and a choice on this matter.
The Judicial Review was originally anticipated to be held in February, but the Labour Party has managed to delay it until June and after the Council Elections in May. If the Labour Party believe it has done nothing wrong and has a good story to tell, why did it not say “bring it on”, let’s have the JR before the May elections and boost our support?
Sisu are owned by a devout christian who is a member of the City Takeover Panel .She is also an estate agent.How come she accepted the ground rental agreement when she bought th club and then reneged.See Mr Justice Males comments last August.
When is she to accept her resposibilities-Caveat emptor?.The answer of course not until she loses the final court case and then she will discover her shock and awe tactics will find the same result as US shock and awe tactics acheived in Vietnam,Iraq and Afghanistan-Defeat She needs our hearts and minds and she will not succeed playing hardball with our feelings
We know you can see the machinations cos we all accept that ACL have been the good Samaritan whilst Sisu have ALWAYS hidden obfuscation and secrecy.They are a hedge fund.I know from experience they are in favour of wealth creation for themselves and shareholders and cause Poverty for everyone else.Look at the American middle class and its condition now.Sisu get not a penny from me until they show some Christian values and the greatest of these is Charity
Martin O’Connor