Five Successive Away Games Due To A Postponement Is Not A Record

Last updated : 16 February 2014 By Jim Brown

It is a month since the last home game at Sixfields after the postponement of the Walsall game and the Bradford City game and as a result the Sky Blues have now played five successive away games.

Several readers have pointed this out and asked when the club last had such a run. Older fans will remember the bad winter of 1976-77 when the Highfield Road pitch suffered serious drainage problems and the team played eight consecutive away games between 22 January and 2 April. Only one win (at Leeds) and one draw resulted from the eight matches and City spiralled from a comfortable mid-table position into a relegation battle which went to the wire and only resolved in that dramatic 2-2 draw with Bristol City on a Thursday night in May.

 The 1976-77 season was the worst season in the club's history for postponed games with five call-offs with the famous Bristol game postponed twice, on 1 January and 1 March. That season even eclipsed 1947 & 1963, the UK's worst winters since World War 2, for home games called off. In 1947 City had three home games called off & because of government restrictions on midweek games they didn't complete their fixtures until the last week in May and the First Division title wasn't decided until June. In 1963 football was decimated again by snow and ice and City didn't play a game for two months but although there were 21 postponed away games (including 16 FA Cup ties at Lincoln) there were only two home games called off.

The Walsall postponement was the first Coventry City home game to be called off because of weather since January 2002 when the New Years Day fixture with Rotherham and the FA Cup tie with Tottenham four days later were postponed because of snow on the Highfield Road pitch.