He said: ‘Before I joined the board, I had received a number of invitations to join it from previous regimes. I had turned them down because the plans and funding were unclear, despite the fact that, for someone born down the road from Highfield Road, it would have been a bit of a boyhood dream to do so.
‘[It was] more of an honour in some ways than being invited on to various substantial PLC boards, and alongside the appointments I classify as giving something back, given how lucky I have been and the privileged position I have found myself in.
‘Why did I join the board? Of course because I love the club but mainly because I believed the intent and plans set out in Sisu’s offer document for the club, including funding approach, which was about building a platform, investing in young talent and creating a sustainable model.
‘I met Ray Ranson, who articulated this vision extremely well. I met Onye Igwe, who seemed to have the right intent too.
‘I did not do that much due diligence on Sisu but that which I did checked out despite there not being much public information available.
‘Several things soon became clear. Sisu’s due diligence had been time consuming but poorly undertaken. For example, the significant tax liability had not been properly described and the commercial due diligence on the arrangements with ACL naive.’
He added: ‘Given the financial situation at the club, the best situation would actually have been to go into administration at the time Sisu bought it.
‘What actually happened was they paid money they shouldn’t have paid for the club, their due diligence was terrible and they ended up putting more money in than they thought they would have to.’
But, on the pitch, the first few seasons under Ray Ranson saw Sky Blues supporters treated to some exciting young talent. It was clear Ray Ranson’s aim was to develop promising youngsters and move up the league table as the players improved while playing together.
The first indication of the plan came in early 2008 with the arrivals of Walsall defenders Scott Dann and Danny Fox.
More exciting signings followed at the end of the 2007/08 season as the chairman prepared for his first full season in charge by rubber-stamping moves for classy French midfielder Guillaume Beuzelin, highly rated Icelandic youngster Aron Gunnarsson and one of the best young goalkeepers outside the Premier League, Keiren Westwood.
There was also firepower in the shape of former Crystal Palace hotshot Clinton Morrison and Wolves striker Freddy Eastwood, who many hoped could recapture the form which had made him one of the most exciting prospects in the Football League during his prolific spell at Southend United.
Experience was also drafted in, with ex-Liverpool defender Stephen Wright brought to the club on a free transfer after being released by Sunderland.
From 2008 to 2013, I worked for a PR company which helped to produce the matchday programme for the club and also handled various elements of their public relations.
I can honestly say, in all my years working on PR for the club, there was never an easier time to do the job than during the early Sisu years. There was positivity in the air, the likes of which had been sorely absent in the life of Sky Blues supporters. It was a period to savour.
Reminiscing about the early days of Ray Ranson’s reign, Joe Elliott said: ‘To Sisu’s credit, they bought the football club and Ray and Sisu brought in some exciting and good young players: Keiren Westwood, Scott Dann, Danny Fox, Aron Gunnarsson. It was going well.
‘They were some great years. We may have got some things wrong, but we got a lot of things right – Ray, Gary and I.’
Gary Hoffman said: ‘Early on the strategy, by judgement and luck, went well.
‘Buying young talent and developing it, part cashing in, developing more talent. Create a sustainable platform.
‘The purchases and development of Dann, Fox, Westwood and Gunnarsson exemplified it.
‘We had a debate about the academy. Whether to continue to fund one at a cost of roughly £500,000 a year or use those funds to buy similar players from lower leagues. A fair question.
‘Joe Elliot and I persuaded the board to keep the academy. That has borne fruit. Onye initially wanted to close it.’
Elsewhere behind the scenes, there seemed to be a positive relationship developing between CCFC and ACL as well as its joint stakeholders in Coventry City Council and the Higgs Charity. That relationship obviously had its challenges from time to time, but the consensus seemed to be that Ray Ranson was a driving force for much of the positivity being generated in the early days following Sisu’s takeover of CCFC.
Then council development boss John McGuigan said: ‘Ahead of the takeover, my key advice to Onye was if you are really serious about this, you need to get someone who knows something about football. A few weeks later, I was introduced to Ray Ranson. Ray quickly brought real credibility and confidence.
‘He quickly established himself in his chairman’s office deep within and part of the ACL open office space. I don’t think the public – and particularly CCFC supporters – understood the positive relationships and working together that went on between ACL and predominantly Ray.
‘Fairly quickly, ACL and CCFC brought together their back-of-house and common services, such as marketing, ticketing, financial management, grounds maintenance etc.
‘In due course, we carried out the financial management of the two independent companies under a joint finance director, someone who had been a long-standing CCFC employee.
‘On a personal level, Ray also gained the confidence and trust of the ACL board and ACL’s senior managers. Ray was no fool and his blunt and straightforward way of doing things allowed the same approach to be taken by us.
‘Ray was a difficult guy to deal with sometimes, but everything was going swimmingly.’
But there were still some significant off-the-pitch problems.
It was clear ACL, the Higgs Charity and the council expected the club’s new owners to complete a deal for a half share in the Ricoh Arena relatively quickly after taking over the club.
However, Ray Ranson had made clear his focus was on achieving promotion and that the stadium issue would take a back seat until that objective had been achieved.
John McGuigan and others involved at this time told me they found the approach odd, particularly bearing in mind the signals of intent the authority, ACL and the charity had received from the owners ahead of the deal to secure the football club.
He said: ‘I expected them to be 50 per cent shareholders in the Ricoh Arena straight away, but that didn’t happen. They always said they wanted to apply the money to building the team.
‘The ACL board also invited CCFC to attend our meetings as an observer at that stage, both in anticipation that Sisu would soon buy back the Higgs’ ACL shares and that we could further explore how we could better work together.
‘But, for whatever reason, Sisu declined to take up this offer. But they did come to the ACL board meetings for specific issues as they arose.’
He added: ‘I could never understand why a hedge fund/venture capitalist didn’t make securing an asset as its first priority.
‘I constantly asked Onye when they were going to buy back the Higgs’ ACL shares. We had expected this to happen straight after they’d completed the purchase of CCFC.
‘Onye’s only response was ‘we need to put money into CCFC first.’
‘Sisu had many opportunities to purchase back the original CCFC shares in ACL, especially at the time when their standing was high, but they never did this.
‘Unfortunately, the rest is now history, but history that is still alive.’
The situation over the stadium caused some alarm to one member of the club’s board, even if the chairman and Sisu’s man, Onye Igwe, did not seemed that concerned by the issue. Gary Hoffman echoed John McGuigan’s confusion over the failure to secure a stadium deal, which he indicated had already been all but agreed in principle prior to Sisu’s takeover.
He said: ‘The
intent to buy 50 per cent of the stadium operating company early was more of an empty promise.
‘The stadium and the football club ownership and management needed reuniting and there was plenty of opportunity to do so on advantageous commercial terms.
‘I will never understand why the opportunity was not taken.’
He added: ‘They had many opportunities to buy the stadium. There was a formula and they also had the opportunity to match any other bidder within a certain period.
‘At various stages, they would have been able to buy the stadium for, I would say, £10m or less.
‘It was talked about all the time. But they were always wanting to get it cheaper and cheaper. They hadn’t got the money to do it.’
But ACL director Peter Knatchbull-Hugessen had a slightly different take on the situation.
He said: ‘That’s Gary making an analysis, not the result of any direct discussions. Yes, they had opportunities to buy the stadium.
‘But Ray’s focus was on the Premiership. He always said ‘once we’re there we’ll come and buy you’ and we said ‘that’s fine.’’
He added: ‘At various points, Onye would say things like ‘we want to buy your shares.’ At one point he said ‘we’ll give you half a million’. He was told to go away.
‘He did strange things, like on one occasion he sent us a huge bouquet of flowers. I’m not sure what the purpose of it was meant to be.
‘I don’t think it was that Ray and Onye weren’t on the same page, I just don’t think Onye knew what he was doing.’
At the end of the 2008/09 season, tension began to emerge between Ray Ranson and Sisu over the way the club was run.
The chairman felt his vision for the club had been undermined by the owners when Sisu pushed for the sales of Scott Dann to Birmingham City for £3.5m and Danny Fox to Celtic for £1.5m.
Such was the chairman’s fury at the situation he had to be talked out of resigning by close friend Gary Hoffman and fellow board member Joe Elliott.
There were also issues with players moving in the opposite direction. In 2011, Ray Ranson revealed to the Coventry Telegraph that player purchases he viewed as crucial had been blocked by the owners over a perceived lack of willingness to invest further.
The chairman insisted he had the opportunity to secure Newcastle striker Andy Carroll, Sunderland midfielder Jordan Henderson and Chelsea midfielder Jack Cork for a total of under £2m.
He said Sisu blocked any attempt to sign the players permanently, although Cork and Henderson did join the club on loan.
Carroll and Henderson both went on to become fully capped England internationals, with Carroll eventually moving to Liverpool for £35m in 2011 and Henderson following him to Anfield just months later for a fee thought to be between £16m and £20m.
Cork went on to star for the England under-21s and the Great Britain Olympic football team in 2012 before later establishing himself in the Premier League with Southampton.
Speaking to the Coventry Telegraph in 2011, Ray Ranson said: ‘If they had given me £30m three years ago, we would have been in the Premiership by now or, at the very least, the top of the Championship, and if not I would have held my hands up.
‘If I had been given the tools, I could have got Andy Carroll, Jordan Henderson and Jack Cork for less than £2m.
‘Andy Thorn [then Coventry’s head scout] had been to watch Carroll when he was on loan at Preston before he had got anywhere near Newcastle’s first team and he thought he was a raw talent who would develop.
‘I made an inquiry to buy him and was told they were looking for £700,000 to £800,000 with a sell-on clause.
‘We took Jordan on loan when he was on something like £800 a week and we had an option to buy him and I wanted to buy him, as I did Jack Cork, who we also had an option to buy from Chelsea but, again, they wouldn’t do it.
‘We could have got the three of them for about £2m and we could have had a team with Westwood in goal, England under-21 international Martin Cranie at right-back, Scott Dann, Ben Turner, Danny Fox, Jordan Henderson, Aron Gunnarsson, Sammy Clingan, Jack Cork, Gary McSheffrey and Andy Carroll up front, and you are not telling me we would be still be in this division with that team.
‘The fact is, if they had invested heavily early on when we took over, we could have built a really strong side and acquired our 50 per cent in the Ricoh.
‘But instead, they have drip-fed it.’
Despite his obvious reservations, Ray Ranson and the board continued to steer the Sky Blues through the 2009/10 season. But it was far from a success. The Sky Blues finished in 19th position in the Championship under Chris Coleman, the club’s lowest league finish in more than 45 years. The team ended the campaign with an embarrassing 4-0 defeat at home to Watford.
At the time, reasons for the team’s slump after a promising first season under Coleman were unclear. But subsequent newspaper reports over the bitter divorce process he went through with his now ex-wife might shed some light on why the Welshman might not have been able to focus as much of his energy into the job as he might like.
Coleman was sacked by the chairman days after the end of the season and the hunt for a new manager was on.
Names in the frame included Steve Cotterill, who that season had led Notts County to the League Two title in impressive style, and former player and manager Gary McAllister. Steve Coppell was also touted as a possible successor, along with Gareth Southgate, Alan Curbishley and Tony Mowbray.
But it was former Watford chief Aidy Boothroyd who eventually got the job, with his no-nonsense attitude seemingly a major pull. But not all of the board were convinced.
Gary Hoffman said: ‘We made, what turned out to be, not the best managerial choices.
‘I was involved in the interview process of one of those – Aidy Boothroyd.
‘He was not Ray’s first choice but was definitely Onye’s, I suspect solely because he was cheaper.’
Despite the reservations from some about Boothroyd’s direct style of play, there can be little doubt he made a storming start to the season.
The club put together a fantastic run of form which saw them sitting in fourth position as they played at home in front of 28,184 supporters against Leeds United on 6 November 2010. They lost that game 3-2, but at long last it looked as though Coventry City could finally enjoy a serious promotion challenge.
But the owners were seemingly dissatisfied. The losses being endured by the club were clearly not sustainable and the mood music off the pitch began to change.
Gary Hoffman said: ‘It was clear that the funding and talent strategy outlined in Sisu’s offer document was no longer the intent.
‘Rather, that a very short-term view was being taken to fund players wages from expensive third-party financing. This is where I started to have real differences with Onye.’
It was at this point a number of new faces arrived on the board, much to the surprise of the vice-chairman.
They included former Southampton chairman Ken Dulieu and social media Canadian entrepreneur Leonard Brody.
Sisu seemingly thought the pair could bring fresh ideas to the table as they aimed to stop the club bleeding money at the rate it was.
Gary Hoffman said: ‘We were fourth in the Championship, playing Leeds United in front of 29,000.
‘The hotel was full, the casino was turning people away. That day, and various away matches where our support was magnificent, demonstrated the commercial potential.
‘We had got to that point because Ray Ranson, Joe Elliott and I had stayed with it and worked in the club’s interests. It would have fallen apart earlier if we had not.’
He added: ‘When Ken Dulieu and Leonard Brody joined the board, I said ‘you should not let these people join the board. I have done my research into their backgrounds. One might be good as an internet guru but he is not going to help the business.’
‘That was the famous board meeting where there were various things said. They said they th
ought the club could be breaking even within six months. I said I don’t believe it unless you do these things.
‘Leonard Brody said he had ten ideas, so I said ‘what is your best idea?’
‘That was when he talked about ‘text a substitute’ [an idea which would see supporters text in the substitutions they would want to see made and their choices would be acted on by the manager]. I said even if that were allowed under Football League rules, how do you think that’s going to transform the revenues of Coventry City?
‘They asked if there was any other business at the meeting and Onye said ‘yes, I want to raise the subject of our mascot.’
‘The club was going bust and he said ‘I think Sky Blue Sam is too fat and it’s not setting a good example for children.’ That’s when Ray said ‘Onye, it’s a f****** elephant’.
‘They were just fiddling around the edges. Another idea was making a Sky Blue Rolls Royce available for wedding hire.
‘We spent too much time on things that would not move the dial or were irrelevant.’
In December 2010 there was another dramatic change at the club. Joe Elliott, or ‘Mr Coventry’ as he is affectionately known in some circles, would be stepping down from the board to take up the role of life president.
He was replaced on the board by former club director, and Coventry public relations guru, John Clarke.
At the time, few batted an eyelid at the decision as the public statements around the move were handled with the sort of slick precision sorely lacking at the club in these more recent times.
As far as the general public were concerned, it seemed to make sense. Joe Elliott had been a long and loyal servant to the club and it was understandable that he might now like to take on a less involved role.
But, privately, it is apparent the decision was not one Joe Elliott had pro-actively taken and came after several months of pressure to step down.
Joe Elliott said: ‘The Sisu ownership, through Onye Igwe, were asking me to go in early 2010 to which I said ‘I’m not going.’
‘On 23 December 2010, they came to me again and said ‘we really want you off the board.’ It was a strange decision I didn’t understand at the time and it was never explained.
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