Recently, on some Coventry website or
other, in response to the FA Cup draw, a Coventry fan unburdened himself of his acute
feelings of dislike for the Clarets. As though determined to prove once and for all that
the internet is indeed an irony-free zone, this hapless chap revealed that he disliked our
fine club because of our habit of cheating relegation at the last and ensuring survival at
the expense of teams from more attractive places. Mr Pot, have you been introduced to Mr
Kettle before? This, we must remind ourselves, is a club whose continued and improbably
successful annual dogfight against the drop is one of football’s dullest stories. One
year, please let them go down, just because they’ve bored us rigid by hanging on too
long. And is it too much to hope that one day their usual tactic of delaying the kick off
until they find out how everyone else is doing might backfire and the goal that consigns
them to oblivion comes at the death?
Anyway, apart from providing semi-gainful employment to a small and irate
Scotsman, Coventry City’s main function on god’s good earth is, it seems, to
provide an endless source of at best mediocre players to the lower divisions. Many an
embattled manager or tired hack is grateful to hang their coat on the smooth worn cliché
that this or that ex-Sky Blue possesses ‘premier league experience’. We know
now, have been around this particular block too many times, to register even a flicker of
excitement, but there have been times when this one has caught us all out. You pass a
newspaper billboard, the advert reads, ‘Clarets to sign Premier League striker’,
you eagerly part with your hard earned and then find out we’ve signed John Gayle on
loan? Premier league, you sigh. I thought they meant someone good. It’s only
Coventry. For Coventry are a rare institution. They allow footballers who would never dare
to dream of the premier league to have a crack at it, fail and then pass through. It
matters not that the rest of their careers are then eked out in the lower divisions.
Forever, they can claim on their CVs that they were ‘premier league players’ and
be technically correct.
Given the above preamble, it would be rather surprising if one or two of
them hadn’t graced our own fair club, and indeed so it has proved. I restrict myself
to the last ten years, as this is my era, although a high speed flick through the ever
faithful Clarets Collection did yield a couple of notables from earlier times. Clarets
hero and blond bombshell Ray Pointer passed
through Coventry, briefly, playing 26 games for 13 goals before seeing out his career at
Portsmouth. In the reverse direction, Tommy Hutchison
spent eight years at Highfield Road, before playing for everyone else and
eventually us, as part of John Bond’s ill-fated experiment, expertly dividing opinion
among the faithful. We argue to this day. Somewhere in between the story of those two
players you can read a tale of the change in the relative fortunes of the two clubs. Since
then, the direction has been entirely one way. Their rejects have ended up with us,
sometimes gracing, sometimes disgracing our proud club.
One current connection comes in the form of Coventry's Football in the
Community Officer Barry Powell, who shadowed
Hutchison to Hong Kong and John Bond's Burnley. According to the Clarets Collection he was
Bond's last Burnley signing, and did nowt in nine league games, although he did notch two
in our 9-0 tonking of Penrith. As for the others:
Mike Conroy
Bit of a cheat, this one, as although Conroy began his career as an
apprentice at Coventry, he never actually played for them. Returned to Scotland to seek
his fame and fortune, and I suppose he found it to some degree. Subsequently rescued from
Reading while imprisoned at right back to become the spearhead of a potent Clarets
attacking side that finally swept us out of the Fourth Division. He could do no wrong that
season, but there was no happy ending and he finally left amid some acrimony after a
disappointing following year. Rattled around most other North West clubs and won the
Fourth Division again with Fulham, before heading for the sun in Australia. For those
goals that season, the many fences he climbed in celebration and his part in creating the
goal that took us up, he richly deserves his place in the sun
Verdict: a palpable hit.
John Gayle
He was the ‘Premier League striker’ of that infamous headline.
Burnley were then at the beginning of making a bad fist of the First Division, and with
our microscopic Heath-Robinson combination up front, we desperately needed some punch and
height in attack. I suppose it looked like Gayle might fit the bill. He was briefly a
Coventry player, and only then by the accident that was Bobby Gould. Gould more than
anyone was the man responsible for ensuring that the lower division would eventually be
populated with Coventry rejects. He always could convince himself that a cheap lower
division player would be good enough. He signed Gayle for £100,000 shortly before being
shown the door. Gayle played three games for Coventry, not scoring, and almost a year
later we took him off their hands for £75,000. His first home game as a Burnley player
was marked by the Longside spending most of the match trying to find a plausible chant for
him, discarding several still born songs before settling on the eventual ‘Big Bad
Johnny Gayle’. After buying him because we wanted to play him in the league cup,
Jimmy Mullen was never quite sure what to do with him. He was often sub, and for a while
when we had our unbeaten run he would come on as sub for Wayne Dowell and sometimes score.
He at least provided us with more interesting moments than most. His best goal was a
delicate lob – honestly – at Cambridge in the cup, but it’s fair to say he
was, err, a robust player too. His assault on a Bolton defender is still remembered.
Perhaps the most interesting story was the one said to be behind his departure. It was
claimed that Mullen had announced his team for a game at Notts County. It looked good.
Only one problem: it had twelve players. Gayle was the one hastily dropped, flounced out
and was shortly after sold. All this allegedly. Earlier, Swindon’s Lou Macari had
lusted after the man’s physical presence on a live tv game, and he promptly dived in,
bought him, and then like every club before, couldn’t work out what to do with him.
Such was the pattern. He had started nine games for Burnley and come on as sub the same
number of times, scoring five goals. He now struts his stuff at struggling Shrewsbury.
Said to have been Burnley’s tallest ever player, although knowing Bobby Gould’s
track record, probably not Coventry’s.
Verdict: a memorable minor flop.
Nick Pickering
What more can be said about this joker that hasn’t been already? Won
the FA Cup with Coventry, so assume that at some stage he might have actually been any
good. Current titan Mitchell Thomas was in opposition. They bought him for £120k from
Su'lan', sold on to Derby for £250k two and a half years later, which suggests they got
the best out of him. Comically bad in a Burnley shirt. What made it worse was that we had
actually seen him on loan before we paid actual money to an astonished lower division
Darlington for his services. They must have checked it didn’t say April 1st
on the cheque. Played only four times, according to the Clarets Collection bible. It just
seemed like more.
Verdict: a hilarious flop.
Steve Alfonso Morgan
"Showed great early promise, good on the attack." Those are not
my words, but the opinion of one Coventry website so out of date as to carry squad
information from the mid 90s. Can’t see it myself. The only Burnley game he showed
early promise in was away at Dawlish, who to be fair did constitute a fair test of his
talents, as they were the national pub cup champions. After that, it was all downhill for
him. The best thing he ever did was get sent off at Bournemouth. Even then, we still lost.
Easily the worst of Ternent’s clutch of Bury faithfuls, his performances in a Burnley
shirt prompted many remarks along the lines of ‘how they hell did he ever play in the
first division?’, never mind the premier league. Now signed up to Warren Joyce’s
crackpot scheme to assemble every ex Burnley player ever at Hull, where presumably his
infrequent first team appearances are met by murmurs of ‘how the hell did he ever
play in the second division?’ We always include his middle name because it is by far
the best thing about him.
Verdict: what do you think? An utter flop.
Albert Pickering
The same Coventry website referred to above describes our Albert as
having, "Good potential, needs more confidence on the ball." I’m not sure
how much potential he had, or whether it was ever realised. He came to Burnley from Stoke
and quickly settled into steady anonymity. If ever there was a player who deserved the
epithet ‘unspectacular’, it was he. Hard to recollect anything about him - and
he only left in the summer. Struck me as a competent defender, if short on pace. That
people were surprised when he was released probably says something. He once brilliantly
transcended his ordinariness, though. At Stoke, playing the first game after his father
had died and being given the bird by the local airheads, he curled a brilliant goal from
nowhere. He was miles out and it was the start of the game. It was the sweetest of moments
and will long be remembered. Probably still suffering from the shock that, after going on
trial at Hull, not only is he the first ex-Burnley player Warren Joyce could have signed
and didn’t, but Morgan’s trial at the same time was successful! Since release
has rattled through any number of non-league clubs, seldom stopping longer than a week, so
probably Ternent got it right. But then, is Dean West actually any better? Always called
himself Ally, but we all thought Albert Pickering sounded like a proper footballer’s
name.
Verdict: a short term hit.
Paul Cook
Apparently played 37 games for Coventry in 1994-95 alongside Gordon
Strachan, according to the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, whose feature came as a relief,
since obviously Coventry related reference material is not something that takes up too
much shelf space in my house, and I was unprepared to spend the two days poring through
the internet that it would have taken to find this out otherwise. He looks like he’s
got all the right kind of experience, and indeed helps out with coaching at Accy Stanley
and takes charge of our own pre-match warm up. A future manager in the making, obviously.
I have to say I rate Cook. He isn’t the all action midfielder we need, but then no
one has been since John Deary, so let’s not blame him for that. He controls the game,
pulls the strings and at least his shots on goal get near goal, which is more than you can
say for most of the thirty something middlemen we’ve endured. Doubtless after this
praise will be dismissed for a two-footed lunge at Highfield Road.
Verdict: currently a hit.
The above should give us sufficient cause for trepidation the next time
one of their rejects winds his way to us. Just think, there could be one out there now,
lurking, lying in wait. On the other hand, who knows – we might end up getting Robbie
Keane in another twenty years time!
