Sometimes I really hate being a Coventry City supporter as I write this after yet another quality player - this time in Calum Davenport has been sold for a pittance to Tottenham.
£1.1M for a player of Calum’s calibre is a joke. You can forget the extra payments, how long have we been waiting for the Kirkland money? These add-ons very rarely come to fruition. We got rid of a centre half, but did we ask Spurs for a player on loan in replacement? Did we hell as like. Dean Richards or Jonnie Jackson I could have lived with but we did not even get them,according to Mike McGinnity this was rejected by Spurs.
Peter Reid has been saying for a while that the squad needs to be strengthened but off loading the better players is not the way to achieve the instant success that the West Brom loving chairman wants. If you want to trim the squad, off load the likes of Adebola and Jorgensen not the Davenport’s
Ok, Davenport, whom I wish all the best to, contract was up at the end of the season (apparently he was not offered a new one) and he could have walked away for nothing. However, had he stayed and City had gone on to get promoted, then it would have been a £1.1m worthwhile gamble that could have netted £30m+.
The real villains are the board. Their policy of getting players only after others have first been sold has landed the club in the sorry state it is today. Although Mr McGinnity, Hover et al trot out the “Blame Richardson” line, they were all at the club when players like Robbie Keane, Kirkland, Gary McAllister, Safri and Konjic were sold or off-loaded and they have not been adequately replaced.
Why the board have not gone out and sort external funding in order to buy players and win back our Premier League place is beyond me. All they have done is publicly slag off anyone even remotely interested in either buying or giving money to the club. Hardly the way to encourage new investors.
The Sky Blue Trust have called for the club to issue some of the 52,000 unissued shares that they own. This is a bold statement and although the setting up costs are prohibitive, it may be a gamble that could pay off and benefit the club. A potential loss of power is probably the reason why the club have not done it so far as the banding of shareholding supporters together would make a powerful force which the board could not ignore.
I was amazed to discover that the plans by the board of asset stripping even include the stadium scoreboard. This has been sold to Z list celebrity and club Vice-President Hamilton Bland who I believe used to commentate on athletics.
Something that worried me is the site of a George Wimpey building on the club car park. Wimpey who have merged with McLeans Homes have a contract to build houses on the Highfield Road site. Before they start getting settled and even think of touching a seat inside our ground, they should check that they legally own the land they want to build on. The land is owned by the people of Coventry who were donated the site by the Lord of Kenilworth and unless some dodgy deal has been done by Coventry City Council to remove the covenance which we don‘t know about, Bryan Richardson and Mike McGinnity, not being people of Coventry had no right to sell it to McLeans in the first place.
Of course, Mike McGinnity could do the decent thing and buy back the ground and use it as a training base for when they do lose Ryton which is another asset they have already sold. But I won’t hold my breath.
Interesting to see that the club are already talking about the tickets for the last ever league home game against Derby and the bringing in of a priority booking system whereby you need ticket stubs from ten home games. You watch them try to cash in by raising the prices. The club are already talking about £5 for the programme.
More next month