[Lord Snooty]

Coventry City v Huddersfield Town
The Sky Bet Championship
Monday September 25th - 20:00 ko
at the Coventry Building Society Arena

Huddersfield Town travel to Coventry to the Coventry Building Society Arena on Monday evening for what Sky Sports are unashamedly announcing as The Greatest Show On Earth!

We are on the brink of a new era, if only.......

Well at least it's not Nathan Jones, which is what the Secret Squirrels who let loose that nutty rumour last Friday night were hoping we'd all think. Yes, I'm happy we've got Darren Moore in, I just think the way the club have gone about it all is a bit cack handed.

Neil Warnock is a legend of the game, never mind a hero in Huddersfield. I think he, and Ronnie Jepson, deserved better than a quick thanks and goodbye. We all knew he was leaving sooner or later, but in my opinion, he should've been retained as General Manager or some made up title of his own choosing.

Maybe he didn't want that. We'll probably never know. I just hope it doesn't come out that we did the dirty on him, like apparently we did when he left in 1995.

As already stated before, the only reason I'm saying all this is totally selfish on my part because I'd spent many a long hour researching the Head to Head record of Warnock vs Mark Robins as managers, for this match thread. For the record, Neil is well on top on that one, but the most important game between the two was the one where Town's Robins beat Warnock of Leeds Urinals 2-1 at Bellend Road in 2013.

The first game in the series, a 1-1 draw at Selhurst Park between Warnock's Crystal Palace and Robins' Barnsley, had a certain Jamaican international called Moore playing in the Tykes' defence. Aye, the new Town manager. So it'll be a meeting of old friends after all. Darren played one season under Robins at Oakwell before being released. He ended up at Burton Albion after that, so maybe there's a bit of revenge to be had. Probably all water under the bridge though by now.

I've not had time to research their managerial Head to Head, so won't bore you with that. I will bore you with the Warnock/Robins Head to Head though when Neil returns at another Championship club later in the season and plays against Coventry. I've kept it as a draft. I reckon by the things he said in his press conferences, he fancies having a go at Bristol City.

So, what team do we all think that Darren will put out on Monday night? We've been told he likes attacking football. Don't we all? I'm glad the rumours that Jon Worthington would be leading the team at the Coventry Building Society Arena turned out to be a load of old balderdash and the new bloke will be in charge from the start.

Same starting XI as the Stoke game? Danny Ward straight back in, if fit? Or has Wardy played his last game seeing as his "dad" has left? Does "Big Dave", as the Baggies call him, like a big lad up top? Is it time at last to see Kyle Hudlin in the starting XI?

Anyway, welcome to the club Darren. And thanks for not being Nathan Jones.




Tickets:
Adults - £24
Seniors (65+) - £19
Young adults (18-21s) - £19
NUS & Forces - £19
Under 18s - £15

Official coach travel will also be available for this fixture.

Travel to Coventry City will cost £20 per person, with departure at 4pm on match day from our St Andrew’s Road car park.

Car Parking can be purchased at https://www.cbsarenaparking.co.uk/event available to book for as little as £14.00. ('Ow much!?)






Tuesday night's line up at Cardiff:

13 Ben Wilson - 31 year old, ex Bradford City keeper.
22 Joel Latibeaudiere - Doncaster born centre back and Jamaica international.
5 Kyle McFadzean - 36 year old centre back with over 600 apps.
2 Luis Binks - 22 year old defender on loan from Bologna.
27 Milan van Ewijk - Dutch right back, cost £3.5m from Den Haag.
28 Josh Eccles - 23 year old defender, been with the club since he was 7.
6 Liam Kelly - Midfielder with one Scottish international cap.
3 Jay Dasilva - Defender signed from Bristol City this summer.
45 Kasey Palmer - Town legend, now 26 years old.
24 Matt Godden - Ex Ebbsfleet, Stevenage and Peterborough striker.
11 Haji Wright - 25 year old striker, all the way from the US of A.

Subs:
4 Bobby Thomas - 22 year old defender signed from Burnley in the summer.
7 Tatsuhiro Sakamoto - One of Yuta's Japanese mates, signed in the summer.
8 Jamie Allen - Shortarse ex Rochdale and Burton midfielder.
9 Ellis Simms - Kid from Everton, played for Sunderland last season.
15 Liam Kitching - Defender signed from Barnsley in the summer.
21 Jake Bidwell - Ex Brentford, QPR and Swansea.
26 Yasin Ayari - Swedish kid on loan from Brighton.
40 Bradley Collins - Goalkeeper signed from Barnsley in the summer.
49 Justin Obikwu - 19 year old centre forward.





Coventry in popular culture: Since I last did a Coventry match thread, one of their greatest sons passed away. That was Terry Hall, who died in December last year. It was pancreatic cancer that finished him off, at the age of 63.

He was born and raised in Coventry, with German/Jewish heritage on his grandfather's side. It wasn't the best starts in life for young Terence. He was abducted by paedophiles on a trip to France when he was 12 years old and suffered from depression afterwards. His schooling suffered and so left at the age of 15, taking on short-term jobs, such as a bricklayer, quantity surveyor, and apprentice hairdresser.

Playing in a local punk band in the late 70s eventually led him to join another band that became The Specials. And the rest is documented in these videos. Enjoy.....





After Ghost Town, Terry, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple left the band and formed the Fun Boy Three, having hits collaborating with the then unknown Bananarama. While they were on tour with the American girl group, the Go-Go's, Terry started a love affair with their guitarist, Jane Wiedlin. But not just a love affair, they wrote this banger together, which by the time of the Fun Boy's release, had already been a hit in the US for the Go-Go's........



In 1984, Terry formed the Colourfield and had another hit record on his hands with Thinking Of You. It peaked at number 12 in the UK charts and featured Katrina Phillips on vocals alongside Terry, in what would be his final top 20 hit single.

After a few other collaborations with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds and also Damon Albarn of Blur, Terry eventually reunited with The Specials in 2008.

Despite being a Coventry lad, Terry was actually a celebrity Man Utd fan. Ah well. Nobody's perfect, eh?





September the 25th down the ages: How did we get on in previous matches played on this date?

Having had a reasonably successful season in 1970/71 back in Division One after 14 years in Div 2, Huddersfield Town had a slow start to the new season. We were in 21st place when on this date in 1971, our neighbours from down the road, Leeds Urinals came to visit.

They had finished the previous season as runners up to Arsenal and were managed by the odious Don Revie. They were a team loathed throughout the country, known as Dirty Leeds for their style of play. Dirty, but within the rules of the game at the time. They wouldn't last two minutes in the modern game.

Not just on the field either. They had already played twice at our ground this season, as they were forced to play four league matches away from Bellend Road following trouble in the last season when West Brom went to Beeston and beat them 2-1 with a highly controversial winner from Jeff Astle, that cost them the title.

They'd played Wolves and Crystal Palace at ours as well as Spurs at Boothferry Park in Hull and Newcastle at Hillsborough and would've come here expecting to win. Our brave boys had other ideas.

A crowd of 26,340 came out to see this one, with Jack Charlton scoring for Leeds after Jimmy Lawson had given Town the lead. It was an unlikely hero who got the winner as Roy Ellam, who went on to play for the BellEnders next season, popped up to bag the winner from a corner. The win moved us up to 16th with the hope of kicking on again, but sadly, we only won two more matches in the season and sleepwalked into relegation.

One of the teams we did beat in that season was Derby County, managed by Brian Clough, who went on to pip Revie's rabble to the title. The team that came down with us at the end of the season was Nottingham Forest. Unlike us, they came back strongly, having taken on Clough after he'd been rejected by Derby and Leeds.

But the Florist left the Premier League in 1999 and never got back again until recently, so when we met each other on this date in 2020, they were a pale shadow of the all conquering club they used to be. Such was the apathy towards them, no supporters turned up to watch this one, everybody instead deciding to stay at home and watch the match on i-player.

It was the season that started late, following the late finish of the previous season, due to government failures in preparing for and preventing the spread of a pandemic. So although this was the back end of September, it was only game 3 of the new season.

Town won it 1-0 for the first win under the new leadership of Carlos Corberán and it was a stunner that won it. A smart move involving a one two with Harry Toffolo and Josh Koroma saw Toffs deliver a perfect cross for Fraizer Campbell to volley the ball past Brice Samba in the TreeStumps' goal.

It was a crap game though, played with no crowd and a dead atmosphere. Who would believe that these two terrible teams would meet at Wembley in the Play Offs at the end of the next season?

Recent form - last 6 matches:

Town 2-2 Stoke
Town 2-0 Rotherham
WBA 1-2 Town
Town 0-4 Norwich
Boro 1-1 Town
Town 0-1 Leicester

Cardiff 3-2 Coventry
Hull 1-1 Coventry
Coventry 3-3 Watford
Coventry 0-0 Sunderland
Swansea 1-1 Coventry
Coventry 3-0 Boro

Town are 16th in the Championship table with 8 points. Coventry dropped to 18th with 7, after Friday night's pont for QPR.

Leading scorers:

Terriers:
Jack Rudoni (2)
7 players on 1 goal

Sky Blues:
Matt Godden (6)
4 players on 1 goal

[Lord Snooty]

Mark Robins on Coventry City website......

Mark Robins looks ahead to Huddersfield and provides squad fitness update:

Mark Robins provided an update on the latest fitness to several members of his squad ahead of Monday’s clash with Huddersfield Town.

Robins confirmed that Milan van Ewijk has suffered a significant tear, whilst also reacted to Jamie Allen’s return to the side on Tuesday night against Cardiff and how Callum O’Hare is fairing in his recovery.

There was also a look back at the start to the season and Monday night’s opponents, Huddersfield Town and the arrival of their manager, Darren Moore.


Start to the season…

“We’ve got to be better with conceding goals because that's seven goals in the last few games.

“So that's the disappointment because you score two goals away from home anywhere and you expect to do something, you expect to get something from that game.

“But, listen the challenge is there and that hasn't changed and we’ve just got to be clear. They’re good players we just need to have have clarity and that’s what we always do and will always work through.

“It is always going to be like this, unfortunately and you say unfortunately, because, on the back of that last season, people decide that, okay, so the next step is to go one further, but it's not always the case, it takes time.

“The time that it takes depends on how quickly we can all function and the players need to bond, they've still got to bond in the right way and they’re a quiet group.

“I think that's generally across the board now, not just here. But that's the work that goes on over time.

“Never make excuses. I'm always giving you reasons for the performances or maybe the manner of the performance or, how things are functioning why things are working in a certain way.”


Darren Moore arriving at Huddersfield…

“It makes things slightly different. I think they had a good performance actually on Wednesday evening, and took the lead, then came back from behind, scored pretty quickly after they conceded the goals.

“It was sort of an open game. I think Stoke had the ball in the net four times over the night, with a couple of disallowed goals.

“It's another game where that you've got a side that will fight and they've got some power in the side as has every team at this level now.

“We've just got to go into that and try and get that next win, which will obviously give them some confidence and a little bit of a left, but there's no reason to feel anything other than an optimism because they’re good players, really good players, it's just that little bit of time we need.”


Milan van Ewijk update…

"It's not looking good. He has a significant tear in his quad.

"We don't know how long he is going to be out for and he is not showing many symptoms, but the scan suggests he has a significant tear in his quad.

"We are still waiting for that report to be read by the radiologist but it does not look good."


Luis Binks and his reaction to Liam Kitching’s arrival…

Some players will maybe sit and dwell on the luck or lack of it. And Luis wasn't one of those.

“We obviously brought Liam in and Luis hadn't played to that point but his response was positive really positive.

“He came in I thought he did really well against Hull and then obviously the other night there were just elements to the to the game, not just from Luis but from the rest of the team, that weren't quite right, which we'll look to address today and obviously moving forward.”


Jamie Allen returning against Cardiff…

“It was important that he gets some game time and obviously it's really difficult to give him any at the moment, just because of the way that the games are structured and the timing of things but he's got those minutes now.

“He's only trained a few days and he'll train for the next few days. So that will give him a more robust level of fitness but like I say, he will be pushing to make the starting lineup as soon as he possibly can.”



Update on Callum O’Hare…

“Callum’s recovery is a different kettle of fish.

“You'll just have to bear with us on it. I'm not going to put a timeframe on him. He has to come back when he's comfortable. There's a lot of elements that needs to come together with Callum.

“Once he's ticked all the boxes then it is about just his confidence sort of in games and he's getting hit and getting whacked in training.

“I think the first training session he's got a dead leg and he's been training with a dead leg ever since but that can only be a good thing in terms of his psychological side of it.

“He’s a brilliant lad. And you can see and hear that he's getting close. He's getting louder, which is great. So great to hear.”

[theo_luddite]

Um, for the quiz

Jimmy Hill (maybe Jimmy Hill Way)
Highfield Road
Mark Robins
John Sillett
Ron Atkinson
Chris Coleman
Willie Carr
Steve Ogrizovicz
Ernie Hunt
Ska

In no particular order.

What do you mean there's no quiz?

Excellent music break Snoots!!

---

PS - are you saying he was knock, knock, knocking on Jane Wiedlin's door?

[Lord Snooty]

Haha.

Thought I'd give you all an easy time this week. Antigrams will return for Saturday though.

[theo_luddite]

I'm doing nowt on this weeks Prediction League, I need some points from somewhere Snoots.

[Lord Snooty]

---

[theo_luddite]

Gimme Shelter being played in the background at Coventry? Not often you hear that before a match

[Amelia Chaffinch]

The commentator on Darren Moore; "it's like being handed the mic by Sinatra".

[theo_luddite]

Strange how they announce a new "third kit" just before they wear it. No "acid lime" points for AmChaff tonight.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

Shame. Black wasn't good for us last year. Hope this one's better.