Middle row (l-r); Garry Thompson, Don Nardiello, Keith Osgood, Mick Ferguson, Jim Holton, Tommy Hutchison
Front row (l-r); Alan Green, Bobby McDonald, Gordon Milne (Manager), Ron Wylie (Coach), Terry Yorath, Ian Wallace, John Beck
By Jim Brown
After the success of the 1977-78 season, expectations were high that City could repeat and even improve upon their seventh place. They consistently failed, however, to recapture their goal touch. This was due in part to a run of injuries – Yorath only played in half the games and his leadership was sorely missed. Ferguson was also out for a long spell, and his replacement, Garry Thompson, having made a promising introduction, had the misfortune to break a leg in training. Ian Wallace was never likely to startle opposing defences second time round. It is to his credit that, though marked even more tightly, he still managed fifteen goals, including a hat-trick against Southampton. What consistency the side possessed was attributable to two players, Bobby McDonald and Tommy Hutchison, both of whom were ever present and earned consisÂtently good reviews.
Two bargain buys were to prove excellent investments in the long term. The first of these was defender Gary Gillespie, who had been snapped up for £75,000 the previous March from Falkirk, where at eighteen he had become the youngest club captain in British football. He was destined to blossom into one of the finest defenders of the era. In the close season Steve Hunt had signed for £40,000 from New York Cosmos. Hunt, a former Villa player, was something of a star in America, where he had partnered Pele in two successive NASL Championships, but he was determined to succeed in the English League. He scored on his debut in a 2-0 win at Derby, as City opened their programme with nine points from five games. This meant that game number six, versus Liverpool, was contested by the country’s top two clubs. But the position was misleading, at least in Coventry’s case. The League Cup defeat at Third Division Chester was ominous enough, but the wheels stayed on until an apocalyptic trip to the Hawthorns in October. Ron Atkinson’s West Brom, brimming with the talents of Regis, Cunningham and co, proved irresistible, breaching City’s defence seven times. Rumours of dressing-room rancour after the game suggested that team-spirit was fast ebbing away; Yorath, noticeably, did not reappear in the first team until February. Away from home, City too often looked likely to capsize, and did so twice – 0-4 at the Dell and 0-5 at Ashton Gate.
At home, a thrilling victory over Derby and a pre-Christmas win to terminate Everton’s long unbeaten run kept spirits up, but the big winter freeze then mothballed Highfield Road for seven weeks. When the snows finally melted, City’s form melted with them. Having been impregnable at home for almost a year, City suffered three reverses in a row before regaining the plot with a thumping win over FA Cup finalists Manchester United. The win sparked a productive run-in, with City losing only one of their last nine games, and achieving commendable draws at Villa, Everton and Manchester United and finishing the season in tenth place. The one blemish was an embarrassing 1-5 setback at Loftus Road, to a home side already condemned to relegation, and who introduced a seventeen-year-old Clive Allen who destroyed City’s defence almost single-handedly and emerged with a hat-trick.
The FA Cup draw was harsh, pitching the Sky Blues against their bogeymen of West Brom. The Baggies had a potent side, had already handed out one seven-goal thumping to the Sky Blues, and were well in contention for the league title. City missed chances in the first cup-tie for which they were severely punished in the Hawthorns replay, their modest consolation being a share of the gate receipts over the two games – that from the 38,000 crowd at Highfield Road constituting a City record.
City’s conveyor belt of gifted youngsters showed no signs of slackening. In Yorath’s absence Andy Blair seized his chance well. Paul Dyson, Gary Bannister, Jim Hagan and Mark Hateley were others who made encouraging debuts at one time or other. But no matter how good they were, a team of kids needed experience to guide them, and if improvement was to be maintained two or three key signings were required, especially in defence.
