Middle row (l-r);
Front row (l-r);
By Jim Brown
If the form shown at the end of the 1981-82 season was meant to carry over into the new one, it was a forlorn hope. Sexton was given no money to enlarge what had become the smallest squad in the First Division. Jim Blyth moved to Birmingham, while fringe players like Bodak, Hagan, Kaiser, Barnes and Gooding carried on their careers elsewhere for little or no fee. Early in the season, with goals scarce, Sexton was given licence to buy, snapping up Leicester’s Scottish striker Jim Melrose, though he had to sacrifice Tom English in exchange. English thereby rejoined his former manager Gordon Milne, who after one season had tired of his position as City’s general manager and been lured into the hot seat at Filbert Street.
The opening day fixture against unglamorous Southampton attracted only 10,000 spectators to Highfield Road, and neither the performance nor the result, a 1-0 win, encouraged stay-away fans to return to the fold. Gates quickly dropped to 8,000, and the entertainment on offer at some games could best be described as pitiful. Following the 2-0 home win over Norwich in October, the Coventry Evening Telegraph was stung into printing an editorial entitled ‘a vision blurred’, which described Highfield Road as a ‘dreary and depressing place to be, with spiritless players failing to lift the crowd, and the crowd finding no encouragement to cheer on the players’. According to the editorial,the policies of the board were a clear demonstration that chairman Jimmy Hill was ‘out of touch with the people who like to watch football’.
Matters got worse with a humiliating Milk Cup exit at home to lowly Second Division side Burnley. But then the storm clouds lifted. Eleven games with only two defeats hoisted the team to a heady fifth place in the table. The defence – with Paul Dyson and Gary Gillespie maturing, and Danny Thomas (now a full England squad member) bristling with confidence – was more than solid. Steve Hunt was also being touted as an England possible, while up front the goals flowed from Hateley, Whitton and Melrose.
But another, altogether larger storm was brewing. Following the FA Cup exit at Norwich, the board decided to sell Garry Thompson to West Brom for £225,000. Sexton did not want to lose the player, arguing that the motives were purely financial. Jimmy Hill argued that Hateley and Thompson were ill-matched. Sexton was left with only fourteen senior players. As for Gerry Daly, he and Sexton were chalk and cheese and the Irishman was loaned out to Leicester. For the fans, and no doubt for many of the players too, the loss of such players spoke volumes about the club’s lack of ambition.
Another problem was that the contracts of almost half the squad were due to expire at the end of the season. Not surprisingly, in the final gloomy weeks of the season, several players made their feelings plain – they had no intention of putting pen to paper. The whole sorry situation was one which guaranteed disaster. From the end of February team spirit evaporated and the side fell apart. In a thirteen-game run City failed to win at all, picked up only three points. From being good outside bets for Europe, the team were on a helter-skelter slide that looked sure to end in relegation.
In the boardroom it was clear that harmony was in short supply. By early May the rest of the directors had joined ranks and – though the circumstances are unclear – Hill either volunteered, or was forced, to step down. Ian Jamieson took over as chairman. Hill’s demise was largely unlamented among supporters at large, who felt that the man who had rebuilt the club as a manager was burying it as chairman. He had brought success to the city in the 1960’s, but though the club was crying out for more of the same spirit, it appeared to have deserted him.
The players, meanwhile, had more pressing concerns. The team put Hill’s departure out of their minds and ended their horrific run with a 3-0 win at Stoke, which ensured their survival. The board responded on the last day of the season by sacking Sexton and appointing Bobby Gould. For the disaffected players, the departure of their mentor proved to be the final straw, and within days a trickle had turned into a flood. Mark Hateley signed for Second Division Portsmouth, who had the effrontery to offer just £50,000 for the player. The figure set by tribunal was little better, at £190,000. Danny Thomas went off on an England tour of Australia, becoming the first City player to be capped by England since Reg Matthews in 1956. Within days of his return he signed for Tottenham for £300,000. Whitton joined West Ham for £175,000 and Gerry Francis left to manage Exeter. With Sealey joining Luton for £80,000, Dyson moving to Stoke for £150,000, and Melrose transferred to Celtic for £100,000, the club’s overdraft was slashed.
The saddest departure of all was that of Gary Gillespie, who appeared to be backing Gould’s new regime, but when Liverpool came knocking the temptation was irresistible. Arguably City’s best defender of the decade, he was sold for £325,000. As the Evening Telegraph pointed out: ‘The determination of those players to go is emphasised by the status of the clubs some of them have joined. It is arguable whether their careers will blossom as freely.’ Of the old team, only ‘Harry’ Roberts, Steve Hunt, and Steve Jacobs remained. One way or another, things would never be quite the same again.
