Tony Mowbray

3rd March 2015 – 29th September 2016

There weren’t too many ‘Mogga must stay’ banners flying around CV6 when Tony resigned as Sky Blue supremo in 2016. An equaliser deep into injury time the previous evening at home to struggling AFC Wimbledon could not disguise the fact that City were still to win a match 10 games into the season. In half of those games Coventry hadn’t even scored and unsurprisingly found themselves propping up League One when Tony took off, after seeing his side struggle in front of 8,030, the club’s lowest crowd in almost a year and a half.

Let’s be fair here. Some managers walk away with a fortune after being sacked. Mr. Mourinho is reported to have banked £18m in 2018 after being told not to bother turning up anymore by Manchester United. Mowbray didn’t hang around for a pay-off the club couldn’t afford, “By waiting, carrying on and losing your job in a different way then that leaves a financial burden on the club, so I feel it is right to walk away and not do that because the club needs every penny” he commented. Mowbray was adding to his self-assessment where he had admitted, “Ten games, bottom line, the pride in me says that’s unacceptable. Let someone else have a go at it.”

That man was his loyal sidekick Mark Venus who sadly failed to improve results or the league position before he too was replaced by Russell Slade. Brought in four days before Christmas it was more a case of ‘Far Far Away’ than ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ as Slade managed Coventry for fewer weeks than the pop group of the same name spent at number one in the charts. Russell was replaced in early March by Mark Robins.

Under a fortnight before Robins returned to Coventry, Mowbray was appointed as manager of Blackburn Rovers. Like Robins he was unable to prevent his new club going down having been appointed so late in the season, but like Robins he subsequently brought his club straight back up, Rovers returning automatically.  

28 wins and only six defeats contributed to Mowbray’s men from Ewood Park collecting 96 points in League One last season. It was a campaign which brought an early return to the Ricoh, Blackburn knocking City out of the Carabao Cup. Unfortunately, Coventry represents the poorest part of his managerial career although even then a win ratio of over 34% with as many games won as lost was hardly disastrous. 

Succeeding Steven Pressley at the beginning of March in 2015 with the team struggling in 20th place, supporters hoped for a new manager ‘bounce’ only to see City slip to defeat at the hands of Port Vale in Tony’s first home game. It did not augur well but seven points from the next three matches, including back to back away wins, engendered belief. From then on there would be three wins, three draws and three defeats, the final day seeing victory at Crawley preserve City’s League One status.

In his single full season Mowbray went for a cosmopolitan approach, his 15 signings consisting of nine nationalities. These included former England international Joe Cole, Wales international Sam Ricketts and veteran striker Marc-Antoine Fortune who had played for Mowbray at West Brom and Celtic. The manager also utilised the loan market, Adam Armstrong from Newcastle, Jacob Murphy of Norwich and former prodigy James Maddison,  then of Norwich, being amongst his captures. 

There was a fair amount of talent in that squad and perhaps City should have done better than finish eighth, five points away from the Play-offs. The season started brilliantly with maximum points from the opening three games. Progress was good and by the end of November Coventry led the table. 

With promotion the target none of the three cups occupied Tony for more than a single game, albeit elimination in two of the competitions came on penalties. December was a costly month. Despite a Boxing Day win over Port Vale the end of November table toppers ended the year in fourth place.  However, a first half Adam Armstrong hat-trick help kick-off 2016 with a 5-0 win at Crewe.

Six weeks later AA got two in a 6-0 victory over Bury on Valentine’s weekend, but there had been heartbreak for the fans as in between those two big results only two points had been gleaned from five fixtures as City slipped to fifth. There was worse to come as the following four games were lost as the promotion places disappeared over the horizon. By April Mowbray’s team had sunk to the bottom half of the table and while there was a late revival with successive wins to end the campaign it was far too little and far too late.

The summer of 2016 saw Mowbray recruit seven signings supplemented by almost as many loans.  Just as many players left the club and before long the manager would follow suit. Tony’s budget for signings was miniscule and the quality of the signings reflected this. Marvin Sordell, Lewis Page, Chris McCann, Jamie Sterry and Jack McBean are barely remembered by the Sky Blue faithful.

As a player Tony established his reputation as an outstanding centre-half with Middlesbrough. Born at nearby Saltburn, Mowbray earned legendary status as a player on Teesside where even their fanzine ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ owes its name to a quote from manager Bruce Rioch who had remarked, “If I had to fly to the moon I’d take Tony Mowbray, my captain, with me.”

Thrown into the deep end with a derby debut at Newcastle as an 18-year old in September 1982, ‘Mogga’ went on to play 424 games for the club through an immensely difficult era as they collapsed financially.

In 1991 Tony joined Celtic but left Parkhead empty handed and not many do that if they have been there four years as Tony was. Rangers dominated when Mogga was a Bhoy, his only cup final appearance seeing him part of a side that sensationally lost on penalties to Raith Rovers.

Returning to England after his Celtic adventure, Mowbray completed his playing days with Ipswich, playing over 150 games for the Tractor Boys. He climaxed his playing career by retiring after scoring in the millennium year Play off against Barnsley, as promotion to the Premier League was won.

Moving into coaching at Portman Road, Mowbray had four games as caretaker manager after George Burley left the club in 2002. A couple of years later he was interviewed for the top job at Ipswich but declined Ipswich’s approach. 

At the time he was thriving in his first appointment at Hibs where he had been named Scottish Football Writers’ Association Manager of the Year in 2005. Three years later he would win another Manager of the Year award in England after leading an exciting West Brom side to the Premier League and the FA Cup semi-final. Despite the Baggies being relegated under Mowbray in 2009 he managed to maintain the support of the fans but sadly not the board.

He re-emerged on the management scene at Middlesbrough a year later but in three years at the Riverside failed to get anywhere near the play-offs let alone promotion. Then came his spell at Coventry but severely hampered by the lack of investment in the club. His lack of success at ‘Boro was repeated at Blackburn following their promotion back to the Championship in 2018 with four seasons without a sniff at the play-offs. On leaving Ewood Park in 2022 he was appointed boss at Sunderland after the early season departure of Alex Neil to Stoke. After a slow start he led the Black Cats to the Championship play-offs where they lost to Luton over two legs. Four months into the following season he was dismissed but within weeks was employed by Birmingham as a steady hand to try and clear up the mess left by Wayne Rooney. In February 2024 however he had to temporarily step down as he required treatment for cancer. In May, after Blues had been relegated he resigned saying that his health would not allow him to resume his duties.

In January 2025 he was re-appointed manager of West Brom but he was sacked after only three months after a bad run of results.

In over 700 games as a manager he has just one season in the Premier League (with West Brom) to show for it but has a solid but unspectacular record at Championship level.

Speaking to the Blackburn Rovers website in 2018 Mowbray mused, “I’ve kicked a ball about since I was two or three and after leaving school I went straight to Middlesbrough Football Club. Football has been my life. I’ve never really been out of football since then. As a coach you are occasionally out of work but I find myself at 54 to have never really been without football.”

Tony Mowbray is recognised as one of the nice guys of football and his integrity in putting the club before himself at the time of his departure marks him out as a man worthy of respect.

From: 3rd Mach 2015
First game: 7th March 2015 v Port Vale H, League One, lost 2-3

Until: 29th September 2016
Last game: 28th September 2016 v AFC Wimbledon H, League One, drew 2-2

76 games as manager

	Lge	Pl	W	D	L	F	A	Pts	Win %	Pos
2014-15	Lge 1	14	5	4	5	15	16	19	35.7	17th
2015-16	Lge 1	46	19	12	15	67	49	69	41.3	8th
2016-17	Lge 1	10	0	6	4	6	12	6	0	24th
Totals		70	24	22	24	88	77	94	34.2

League Cup: 3 games (1 win, 1 draw – lost on pens, 1 loss)

Football League Trophy: 2 games (1 win, 1 draw – lost on pens)

FA Cup: 1 game (1 loss)