Fan's View Fan's View - No.29: Coventry away

[Paul B]

Fan's View 23/24 - No.29: Coventry away

 

[Victor1986]

Thanks Paul - a truly depressing (but accurate) overview. Beadle's definitely gone to SW. Let's hope this week brings some good news for a change!

 

[DavidB]

All sad but true I’m afraid. Not unexpected though. We’re playing in a league we can compete in and forget the rest.

 

[SouthOxonOx]

An accurate assessment of the day. I quite like that stadium and the food and drink set up. What was disappointing was the stewarding. Everytime you went to thr concourse you had to show your ticket to go back up the stairs. Why? To be in the concourse you had to have gone through the turnstiles. Some young lad who had gone to the toilet was refused entry back up to the seats because he didn't have his ticket in him. Had to call his dad to come down and show the ticket. Pointless exercise

 

[Lost Marbles]

An accurate assessment of the day. I quite like that stadium and the food and drink set up. What was disappointing was the stewarding. Everytime you went to thr concourse you had to show your ticket to go back up the stairs. Why? To be in the concourse you had to have gone through the turnstiles. Some young lad who had gone to the toilet was refused entry back up to the seats because he didn't have his ticket in him. Had to call his dad to come down and show the ticket. Pointless exercise

It was worse than that - they clearly weren't checking everyone so when we went up to block 10 we then had to come straight down again as it was rammed with all seats taken and standing on the steps. I had a five year old and two pies so needed to sit down for once! Has to be all or nothing if they're going to force people to go in the correct block. What I don't mind is stewards keeping an eye on numbers and informing you when a block is full - that would be a common sense approach.

 

[yellowbow]

What confuses me at the moment is that, after a great start to the season, we are sat 5th in the table and should be heading in to the second half of the season on a wave of optimism. The club should be rinsing every last drop of the feelgood factor out of the situation, if nothing else then to sell a few half-season tickets.

But we are getting zilch. It’s as if they are wanting to pop the party balloons.

There’s a grey cloud hanging over the club when there should be sunshine. Why is that?!

And the air of pessimism seemed to be reflected in the body language of the players on Saturday, in front of 3000 fans. Very lacklustre…

 

[m]

What confuses me at the moment is that, after a great start to the season, we are sat 5th in the table and should be heading in to the second half of the season on a wave of optimism. The club should be rinsing every last drop of the feelgood factor out of the situation, if nothing else then to sell a few half-season tickets.

But we are getting zilch. It’s as if they are wanting to pop the party balloons.

There’s a grey cloud hanging over the club when there should be sunshine. Why is that?!

And the air of pessimism seemed to be reflected in the body language of the players on Saturday, in front of 3000 fans. Very lacklustre…

But how much responsibility for the grey cloud should we, the supporters, take?

(not intended as a leading question, and I don't know the answer)

 

[yellowbow]

But how much responsibility for the grey cloud should we, the supporters, take?

(not intended as a leading question, and I don't know the answer)

A real ‘chicken and egg’ scenario…

This should be a season of high enjoyment and excitement but the last month or so has gone so flat. I do wonder if we can all be guilty of overthinking things and forums can whip things up out of all proportion but something doesn’t feel quite right and it’s hard to put a finger on the root cause

 

[holdsteady]

What confuses me at the moment is that, after a great start to the season, we are sat 5th in the table and should be heading in to the second half of the season on a wave of optimism. The club should be rinsing every last drop of the feelgood factor out of the situation, if nothing else then to sell a few half-season tickets.

But we are getting zilch. It’s as if they are wanting to pop the party balloons.

There’s a grey cloud hanging over the club when there should be sunshine. Why is that?!

And the air of pessimism seemed to be reflected in the body language of the players on Saturday, in front of 3000 fans. Very lacklustre…

To be fair we have lost the management team, 4 out of loan players and have a load still out injured, so with recent results this doesn't feel like the team that started the season so well, we have lost the momentum we gained and (fairly understandably given the lack of playing personal) are struggling to get it back.

 

[NottsYellow]

What a cracking job Mark Robins has done at that club. He took them over when they were rock bottom of League 1, (just before some game at Wembley) relegation was a dead cert, so he has built that team from League 2, playing sometime at Northampton, to a top Championship team playing good entertaining football. I assume he must have received offers to manage at higher bigger clubs but he has also remained loyal.

 

[Ewes]

Kieran Brown?

 

[Steve Gilbert]

Your last line sums up how crazy this season is @Paul B, with an injury hit squad, form all over the shop but still 7 points behind top of the league with a game in hand!

Oh and that game in hand….its against Pompey

 

[Paul B]

Kieran Brown?

Not any more it isn't.
I shouldn't listen to every episode of "The Price of Football"
Thanks.

 

[MiddleBartonYellow]

I thought we would get hammered and take no satisfaction in being proved right. The truth is we need about a dozen players better than anyone that we have. We are miles off it.

 

[MarkG]

I realise Colin's been ill over Christmas, was there ever a financial review of Coventry?
I'd be interested to know just how big the gulf between the two clubs is financially from revenues, as well as squad budget.

Also I am only just catching up on the history of the Ricoh arena. I remember it being partly in the Higgs Trust, which makes it impossible for the Trustees to do anything other than what's best for the Trust. Then somehow got owned by Wasps, and then they went into admin, Mike Ashley's Fraser Group took ownership. CCFC are now on a five year licence, and apparently with a "no other sports teams" clause. Is that much better than our licence was with Kassam?

 

[Colin B]

I realise Colin's been ill over Christmas, was there ever a financial review of Coventry?
I'd be interested to know just how big the gulf between the two clubs is financially from revenues, as well as squad budget.

Also I am only just catching up on the history of the Ricoh arena. I remember it being partly in the Higgs Trust, which makes it impossible for the Trustees to do anything other than what's best for the Trust. Then somehow got owned by Wasps, and then they went into admin, Mike Ashley's Fraser Group took ownership. CCFC are now on a five year licence, and apparently with a "no other sports teams" clause. Is that much better than our licence was with Kassam?

I don't do a financial review for away games Mark, as Paul does his pubs and breweries stuff, so I just do it for the home games. I've previously looked at Coventry's finances, just out of interest, but I haven't got any saved data. From memory their income, and expenditure, had increased quite significantly since promotion (as you'd expect) but this was before Mike Ashley acquiring the stadium.

 

[MarkG]

I don't do a financial review for away games Mark, as Paul does his pubs and breweries stuff, so I just do it for the home games. I've previously looked at Coventry's finances, just out of interest, but I haven't got any saved data. From memory their income, and expenditure, had increased quite significantly since promotion (as you'd expect) but this was before Mike Ashley acquiring the stadium.

Thanks, it's just clicked that doing the review for home games will cover all league opposition over the season.

We've had some pretty good cup runs in seasons where EPL teams weren't at full strength, and even when Man City put out a decent squad we weren't losing by that many goals. Bristol City in the league cup put five past us this season.

The CCFC game we were obviously nowhere near full strength. But looking at teams that have been promoted to the Championship in recent years, Luton, Ipswich, and Coventry (just) are currently in that "top 30 English football teams" on league position.