Coventry kid and Carlisle United manager Greg Abbott has said what is happening to his home town club is a sad situation.
Abbott, himself a former City Academy player, told the Coventry Telegraph's Alan Poole: “It’s a very sad situation. “I was back in Cov twice in the summer and my mates there obviously keep me in touch, and I can’t believe what’s been happening to the club I grew up supporting.
“I’m so sorry for the players, particularly the younger lads that Steven is getting into his team, because they’ve grown up dreaming of playing for Coventry, just like I did when I was a kid.
“It must take a little bit of the shine off it to be playing at Northampton rather than the Ricoh which is one of the best stadiums in the country with fantastic facilities – although to my mind they should still be at Highfield Road!
“And even more I feel for the fans, because players and managers just pass through but they’re there from when they’re six to when they go over to the other side.
"They’ve been pushed from pillar to post in the last few years and I think that’s very unfair on them.
“We had a debate among my staff and they were saying ‘the fans should still back them wherever they play. “I said ‘they are backing them – they’re backing them by not going because they’re not happy that they are being taken out of their own city.’
“But I was brought up to believe that a true fan supports the club through thick and thin and although I would definitely have missed the first game to make the point I think I would probably have started going after that.
“They’ll dig down deep into their soul – they won’t like it, they’ll never agree with it, but if the players are giving their all for that Coventry City shirt I think that bit by bit the fans will return. They’ve made a stand but they will want to watch a side playing with the enthusiasm and energy that they’ve got now.
“When I was a supporter at Highfield Road, City were in the Division One – the Premier League now – but they never won anything. We were fighting relegation more often that not but the Coventry people have been unbelievably loyal.
“I remember the last game of the 76/77 season when they had 37,000 against Bristol City – the infamous occasion when Jimmy Hill had the result from the Everton-Sunderland match put up on the scoreboard and they played out a draw to make sure they both stayed up.
“When Coventry won the FA Cup everybody in the city celebrated – even people who never go to a game. That put Coventry on the map but they haven’t gone on from that and now they’re in danger of doing a Portsmouth which would be really scary. The fans certainly don’t deserve that.
“Football plays a major part in people’s lives. The local club is a massive thing in every city – it borders on the religious – and having lost our first two league games I know that definitely affects the mood in the city; it brings everybody down.”