Points:
Despite avoiding the drop by a single point with 53 points the total was higher than in 2002-03 (50) and 2004-05 (52). City’s records in those two seasons would have seen them relegated.
By Jim Brown
It is not often that Coventry City fans can have ended a season feeling warm and satisfied, but that was the case after 1997-98. To finish eleventh in the Premiership – one year after the club had pulled back from the brink – and reach the FA Cup quarter-finals was more than most fans dared hope for.
City’s success was fitting tribute to the managerial skills of Gordon Strachan, in his first full season of football management. With a little luck City might have sneaked into Europe, and Wembley was tantalisingly within reach at 9.45 pm on 17 March at Bramall Lane.
Strachan’s summer transfer targets were a mix of Scandinavians and lower division strikers. Trond-Egil Soltvedt, a midfielder, cost £500,000 from Rosenborg Trondheim. Swedish goalkeeper Magnus Hedman cost £600,000 from AIK Stockholm and was expected to press hard for Oggy’s place. Danish midfielder Martin Johansen arrived on a free transfer from FC Copenhagen, but alone of these he failed to win a place and left the following summer. City’s buy of the season was Swedish international right-back Roland Nilsson, a snip at £200,000, who looked the part from day one, lending composure and style to the defence.
Kyle Lightbourne and Simon Haworth cost £500,000 apiece from Walsall and Cardiff respectively but both failed to make an impact.
Eoin Jess returned to Aberdeen for a cut-price £650,000, Oggy’s understudy, John Filan, joined Blackburn for £700,000 and Peter Ndlovu, the enigmatic Zimbabwean, signed for Birmingham on a pay per game basis which netted City close to £1.75 million by the end of the season. Shortly after the season started Kevin Richardson, feeling his years, joined Southampton for £200,000.
The season started explosively with a Dion Dublin hat-trick to sink Chelsea after City had twice fallen behind. But – a 1-0 home win over Southampton apart – this was City’s only league win until early November, by which time all the old ghosts were coming back to haunt the fans. What was different this time was that City were conspicuously better than in previous seasons. Of seven draws in the first twelve matches, City had chances to win them all, and had acquired a self-destructive habit of letting opponents off the hook. The main problem was a lack of goals. Huckerby was not fully fit and Dublin’s brain wasn’t connecting with his boots.
Following the departure of assistant manager Alex Miller, who took charge at Aberdeen, City suffered defeat in three successive midlands derbies, as a consequence of which they slid down to sixteenth. But several factors combined to suddenly turn the season around. December alone witnessed five key changes. First, Gary McAllister suffered a bad injury that would end his season. Second, City’s £250,000 signing from Feyenoord, George Boateng, provided welcome bite to the midfield. Third, Romanian striker Viorel Moldovan arrived from Grasshoppers of Zurich for a record £3.25 million and many fans felt that his coming lit the fuse under the other strikers. Fourth, a couple of below-par performances from Ogrizovic opened the door for Hedman in goal. Finally, Noel Whelan made his long awaited return after serious injury.
It is difficult to know which of these was the most significant and which was the least, but the outcome was that champions Manchester United got stung in a classic Christmas match. That sparked a welcome unbeaten run which – other than a blip at ChelÂsea – extended all the way to Easter. City set a club record of seven straight wins in league and cup, part of a longer run of fourteen games without defeat.
The threat of Dublin and Huckerby sent shivers through opposÂing defences. Huckerby had won BBC’s Match of the Day ‘goal of the month’ in December, for his sublime winner against Manchester United, and the following month his goal at Anfield was runner up in the same award. As for Dublin, his six January goals made him Carling’s player of the month, although Huckerby’s virtuoso FA Cup demolition of Liverpool might have pointed the judges his way. An objective measure of Dublin’s form can be seen from the fact that he was called up by England that month, having never previously been in the frame for international honours and won his first cap against Chile.
February was even better than January. City won five matches on the trot, including a momentous victory at Villa Park, the first in 62 years, in the FA Cup. Not surprisingly, City’s manager got his just desserts, Gordon Strachan winning the manager of the month award.
With old scores settled against Villa, Cup fever gripped the city of Coventry, with fans clamouring for tickets for the quarter-final home tie with Division 1 Sheffield United. The rudderless Yorkshire side had lost their manager, Nigel Spackman, just days before the tie but held out for a draw, thereby bringing to an unwelcome end City’s seven-match winning run. But the Sky Blues were still overÂwhelming favourites for the replay, the more so when Paul Telfer gave them an early lead. City spurned chances to add a second goal, and were made to pay through Holdsworth’s late, late equalÂiser. The team staggered through extra-time, only to lose a nerve-racking penalty shoot-out that swung first one way then the other. Even the reliable Dublin – with five penalty goals since Christmas – lost his nerve.
That was the worst moment of City’s otherwise laudable season. They kept their good league run going, and only Villa lowered their colours in the remaining nine games, but the slim hopes of Europe were stymied by returning to an epidemic of draws – no fewer than six of those nine games ended all square.
