The 2001-02 season will go down as one of the more tempestuous campaigns in Coventry City’s chequered history. Two managers, both playing legends in their own countries, were sacked, the chairman Bryan Richardson left after eight years in the position and the club’s first season outside the top flight for 34 years was a roller-coaster ride that ultimately ended in massive disappointment.
The playing staff went through more massive changes with 38 players being used in league and cup games, the highest number since City’s first ever league campaign in 1919 when the club fielded anyone who could kick a ball!
Admittedly several of those made only a handful of appearances under the Strachan regime before departing. Chris Kirkland (1 game) and Paul Williams (4 games plus 1 sub) said their goodbyes as did Paul Telfer who didn’t appear for the first team before his transfer to the Dell.
Total points:
66 points is the club’s highest total of points since 3 points for a win was introduced in 1982. Translated to the old system of two points for a win would make it the best points total since the high scoring 1977-78 season under Gordon Milne.
Total goals:
The goals total of 59 was the best total since 1977-78 when 75 goals were scored as City missed out on a European place by a single point. However there were 46 games and it was a lower level of football.
Total wins:
The Sky Blues won 20 games this season, a total bettered only four times since the war, three of which were promotion seasons.
Away wins:
The total of eight away wins was the best since 1969-70 when City’s ten away wins earned them a European Fairs Cup place.
Final position:
The final position of 11th in Division 1 was the lowest finishing position since 1963-64 when the club won promotion from the old Third Division.
Biggest win:
6-1 away to Crewe. This was also the biggest away win since 1959 when City won by the same score at Carlisle.
Biggest defeat:
0-4 away to Preston.
Leading scorers:
Lee Hughes with 14 league goals topped the scoring charts. His total was the best by a City player since Dion Dublin scored 18 in 1997-98 and only bettered by two men in the last sixteen years, Dublin and Mick Quinn, 17 in 1992-93.
Doubles:
City did the double over five teams – Crewe, Crystal Palace, Sheffield United, Walsall and Wimbledon – the best haul since six in 1969-70. However five clubs did the double over the Sky Blues – Burnley, Millwall, Watford, West Brom and Wolves. Ironically four of these teams finished above City in the final table.
Appearances:
No Coventry player was an ever present, Mo Konjic made the most league appearances with 38.
Substitute appearances:
Gary McSheffrey finally made his first league start in the final game at Burnley after eleven substitute appearances, a new club record.
Average attendance:
Home 16,137 (2000-01 20,535). Away 15,169 (2000-01 33,463). The home average fell by 21.4% as was the lowest home average since 1994-95 (15,980) and the biggest single season drop since 1960. The away average plummeted 54% reflecting the different quality of the opposition in the lower division.
Highest home attendance:
22,406 v Wolves, August 19
Lowest home attendance:
12,441 v Stockport, January 19.
Highest away attendance:
33,335 v Manchester City, March 3.
Lowest away attendance:
5,883 v Wimbledon, October 24.
Won from behind:
(1) Norwich (h). The first time City have come from behind since March 1999.
Lost from in front:
(3) Millwall (a), Nott’m Forest (a), Sheffield Wed (a).
Player of the year:
David Thompson.
Hat-tricks:
(1) Lee Hughes v Crewe Alex (a) February 9.
Opposing hat-tricks:
(0)
Own goals: For City:
(1) Stuart Pearce (Man City h).
Own goals: By City:
(2) Marcus Hall (Man City h), Mo Konjic (Norwich a).
Penalties: For City:
(4) Lee Hughes (Crewe h, Sheff Wed h, Bradford h, Norwich h). One missed penalty – Hughes at Grimsby; the first miss by a City player since 1995.
Penalties: Against City:
(1) Stern John (Nott’m Forest a). Nathan Blake (Wolves a) missed a penalty.
Fastest Goal:
Chippo 14 seconds v Barnsley (h). City’s second fastest goal ever at Highfield Road.
Man of the match awards:
Thompson 8, Carsley 6, Konjic 5, Chippo 4, Hughes 4, Safri 4, Hedman 3, Healy 3, Fowler 2, Nilsson, Bothroyd, Goram, Breen, Mills, Delorge, Edworthy, Hall, Eustace, Flowers all 1.
Red cards: Coventry:
(7) Hughes (2) (Bradford a & Grimsby a), Thompson (2) (Millwall a & Wolves a), Safri (Gillingham a), Edworthy (WBA a), Bothroyd (Crystal Palace a). This was the club’s highest number of red cards in a season beating the previous high of six in 1996-97.
Red cards: Opponents:
(5) John (Nott’m Forest h), Louis-Jean (Nott’m Forest h), Summerbee (Nott’m Forest a), Granville (Crystal Palace a), Benjamin (WBA h). The two Forest red cards was only the second time City have ended a match against nine-men. The first was at Chelsea in 1991-92 when Clive Allen and Andy Townsend received their marching orders.
Yellow cards:
(83) Thompson 12, Safri 12, Breen 9, Konjic 7, Carsley 6, Shaw 5, Healy 5, O’Neill 4, Hughes 4, Mills 3, Edworthy 3, Trollope 2, Bothroyd 2, Fowler 2, Davenport 1, Joachim 1, Nilsson 1, Chippo 1, Hedman 1, Hall 1, Eustace 1.
Cup form:
The club’s poor Cup form continued with exits at the first hurdle in the FA Cup at the hands of Tottenham and at the second hurdle in the Worthington Cup to Chelsea. Neither Premiership side were given a particularly hard game and the highlight of the season cup-wise was the penalty shoot-out victory in Roland’s first game at Peterborough!
High Spots:
The 11-game unbeaten run after Nilsson took over as manager.
The comeback hoodoo broken against Norwich.
The record-breaking 6-1 win at Crewe.
Low spots:
The woeful form from mid-March which cost the club a play-off place.
The Stockport and Gillingham home results.The poor disciplinary record.
The inability to beat the top sides in the division.
By Jim Brown
The 2001-02 season will go down as one of the more tempestuous campaigns in Coventry City’s chequered history. Two managers, both playing legends in their own countries, were sacked, the chairman Bryan Richardson left after eight years in the position and the season was a roller-coaster ride that ultimately ended in massive disappointment.
Following relegation the vultures were circling ready to pick off the best players and Moustapha Hadji was the first to leave joining Aston Villa in exchange for Julian Joachim plus a cash adjustment in Coventry’s favour.
Few City fans shed tears as Craig Bellamy went to Newcastle for £6.5 million. Australian John Aloisi also left, for Spanish club Osasuna for £1.5 million. Gordon Strachan appeared to have secured John Hartson’s future at Highfield Road when he announced he would be captain. Then at the end of July City reluctantly had to accept Celtic’s £6.5 million bid.
Three other major signings were made and two of them looked highly risky. West Brom were paid £5 million (a record fee for a non-premiership club) for their prolific striker Lee Hughes. Middlesbrough received £750,000 for left-sided midfielder Keith O’Neill, a player with a record of injuries. The third and perhaps least risky was Moroccan Youssef Safri, a defensive midfielder with a languid style.
The other addition to the squad was Roland Nilsson who was appointed to the coaching staff but had trained hard all summer and pronounced himself fit to play. When the season kicked off with a 2-0 victory at Stockport he was captain in the absence of John Eustace.
That win was a false dawn; three defeats (two of them at home) from the next four games sealed Gordon Strachan’s fate as manager. The sale of the exciting home-grown goalkeeper Chris Kirkland to Liverpool for £6 million plus was the last straw for many supporters.
Off the field a ‘Save Our City’ campaign to force both chairman and manager out was growing and at the next home game against Grimsby thousands of ‘Out’ placards were raised suggesting that Strachan, Richardson and major shareholder Geoffrey Robinson MP should all leave. The morning after another defeat Richardson told Strachan he had to go. Richardson was spared, but for how long?
Nilsson was given the manager’s job on a caretaker basis, supported by Academy Head Richard Money and chief scout Ray Clarke. They made a stunning impact as a management team winning eight and drawing two of their first ten league games as the team rose 17 places to top the division on the night of 27 October.
The secret of the successful run was hard to fathom. Very few team changes were made but Nilsson’s cool approach was perhaps a pleasant change from Strachan’s in-your-face style. By mid-October Roland had done enough to convince the board that he should be given the job on a full-time basis.
The honeymoon came to end just days after Roland was named manager of the month and three successive games were lost. Through November, December and January the team’s performances were inconsistent, but the team stayed in the leading bunch.
Off the field more trouble was brewing for Bryan Richardson. The release of the club’s accounts in December revealed that as at 31 May 2001 City had debts of almost £60 million. In the same document it was also revealed that the chairman’s remuneration had more than doubled to £588,000, mainly as a result of a large bonus for selling the land next to the proposed new stadium to Tesco. The media and the fans had a field day and although Richardson gave an explanation of the debts, and other matters to the Coventry Telegraph, the damage was done. In reality the £60 million debt figure had already been dramatically reduced as a result of the summer sales which had netted the club around £17 million, they were owed £9 million by other parties and £13 million of the debt had been ploughed into the new stadium. The debts were therefore more like £30-40 million. Reliable sources believed that the club were losing around £1.25 million per month.
At the end of January Richardson was fired and replaced as chairman by Mike McGinnity with long-serving secretary Graham Hover becoming Chief Executive.
The promotion push was stuttering and the arrival of former Derby manager Jim Smith as Roland Nilsson’s number two in early January initially did little to reverse the fortunes. Smith’s influence was seen in the shape of loan signings with Colin Healy arriving from Celtic and his ex-Derby players Horacio Carbonari and Paul Trollope coming in March. Healy had a number of good games but the ex-Derby men were disappointing. City fan Tim Flowers also came on loan and looked a very capable goalkeeper but too expensive to sign. Lee Carsley finally left in February, joining Everton for £2 million.
In February the team hit a good vein of form winning six games out of eight including a 6-1 win at Crewe with Hughes finally coming good with a hat-trick. All three pre-season big signings had been very disappointing, Joachim had started only four games because of recurring injuries and the injury-prone Keith O’Neill would earn the tag of the worst City player of all time.
A late Hughes goal sealed a win over Norwich and lifted City to fourth place and with seven games remaining the play-offs looked a strong possibility. That would be the last victory of the season as the team lost six out of the last seven. After the final home game Nilsson and Smith were sacked by an angry and ruthless McGinnity with Steve Ogrizovic and Trevor Peake given charge for the final game.
