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 