Middle row (l-r);
Front row (l-r);
By Jim Brown
Despite Harry Storer’s triumphal return the previous season, the manager’s tricks did not work on the pitchin the autumn of 1949. The side won only once in the first twelve games and languished at the foot of the table. Drastic action was required and Storer persuaded the board to dig deep in their pockets and strengthen the team in the transfer market. Veteran skipper George Mason was showing signs of age and Storer spent £12,000 on Martin McDonnell, his former centre-half from Birmingham and talented Welsh inside-forward, Bryn Allen.
The signings plus the return from injury of Harry Barratt and a change of tactics suggested by Barratt which involved wing half Noel Simpson going more upfield, saw City’s form improve and gradually they pulled away from the foot of the table. At the end of March however they were still too close to the foot of the table for comfort but a run of eight games with six wins and two draws saw the team end the season in a comfortable final placing of twelfth. This spell saw the best win of the season (5-1), at home to West Ham with Peter Murphy netting a hat-trick and was followed by a hard won 1-1 draw at Hillsborough against soon to be promoted Sheffield Wednesday. As well as Murphy, Bryn Allen was in scintillating form with seven goals in the last five games of the season as City displayed promotion form
Despite the team’s mediocre form the attendances held up well, the average increasing by several hundred to 22,822. Large crowds were seen at Highfield Road for the visits of Leicester at Christmas (36,981) and First Division bound Tottenham (36,320), but both games were lost. In the FA Cup Bolton Wanderers were the first top flight visitors to Highfield Road since West Brom in 1937. Although struggling in the league Wanderers, with the England centre-forward Nat Lofthouse in their team, were too good for City and won 2-1 in front of 29,350.
Alf Wood was a permanent fixture in the City goal throughout those early post war years. The Staffordshire-born keeper had adopted the City of Coventry and after being understudy to the great Bill Morgan before the war and despite contracting meningitis and being told by doctors that he would never play again. he made the green jersey his as soon as war ended. From August 1945 until April 1951 he did not miss a single game and was considered by Bob Dennison, Coventry’s chief scout in the 1970s and Wood’s manager at Northampton in the 1950s, to be the best uncapped English goalkeeper in his heyday.
Peter Murphy topped the club’s scoring chart with fifteen goals and in the summer when the board needed to balance the books it was the Birmingham-born Murphy who was sold to Tottenham for £20,000.
The decade therefore ended with the club further away from Division One than they had been on the eve of the Second World War but the first season of the 1950s would rekindle the dreams of the Bantams playing top flight football.
