Coventry City

by Simon Gilbert

  He said: ‘Never, never, never – and we had to endure some remarkable situations.

  ‘But what we did try to do was keep a degree of normality about playing there.

  ‘We didn’t turn up on a bus for home games. Probably firstly because finances wouldn’t have allowed it, but secondly we felt that if the players reported in their own cars there would be a degree of it feeling a little bit like a home game.

  ‘Small things like that we tried to keep in place, and the staff at Northampton were fantastic with us. They were very welcoming.

  ‘The small things we could influence were positive, but it was never ideal. You couldn’t really train with real intensity around the stadium because there was never a big enough support there to do so.’

  Asked if the move from the Ricoh Arena had impacted the ability to attract players to the club, or retain them, Pressley said: ‘Without doubt the Leon Clarke situation, had we been playing at the Ricoh, had our finances been in a better position, they’re the types of players we possibly could have retained.

  ‘But when you have a club like Wolves come knocking, and they’re paying the money they were, playing in front of 20,000 supporters, then it’s difficult to convince these types of players to stay.

  ‘In my first season, I wasn’t really in a position where I could really attract anybody anyway because we were under a transfer embargo.

  ‘In terms of attracting them to play at Northampton in my first season, it didn’t have a great effect.

  ‘The players we could sign in my first season, the reality was, were players not attached to football clubs after the transfer window had closed.

  ‘The second season, without doubt, the attraction to bring in certain players was affected.

  ‘I’m not going to name any players, I think that would be wrong. But what I will say is that there were a number of important players that we did try and bring in and there was no doubt that was an issue to them.

  ‘And not just an issue to them. The other issue was financially we couldn’t compete with many of the bigger clubs in the league.

  ‘Coventry are regarded as a big club, but financially we weren’t against some of the other clubs you would consider to be top clubs in that league. We couldn’t compete financially because the Northampton budget dictated that.’

  Pressley has been quoted in the press since his departure suggesting that the club would not exist if he hadn’t taken some of the actions he took during the club’s time in Northampton.

  Asked to elaborate on that issue, he said: ‘I had to reduce the budget. They talk now about for the first time the club is able to work within its means.

  ‘Well, it’s no coincidence that I reduced the budget by 60 per cent during my time in charge. I blooded all the young players.

  ‘When I look at the situation, one of my frustrations is my remit was a certain remit and I look from afar now and the remit has completely changed.

  ‘That’s the difficulty within football. When you’re asked to do a certain thing, you do it for the longevity of the football club.

  ‘The football club can’t deviate when a manager leaves from what it’s set out to do.

  ‘The plan was a five-year plan. That was for me to go in, transform the academy, bring through and develop our young players, reduce the playing budget by a considerable margin to get us to become a sustainable business, and at the same time get results on a Saturday.

  ‘Now if you put all those things together, it’s a big task. For a big percentage of the time, we managed to do that.

  ‘But the reality was we needed to sell certain players at certain moments.

  ‘We needed to sell Callum Wilson, there’s no doubt about that. The club survived that season on the sale of Callum Wilson. A brief thing, but hugely important to the club moving forward.

  ‘We made enormous sacrifices and these are the types of things that can be overlooked.

  ‘My decisions at times were not always long-term, we also had to make short-term decisions like the Callum Wilson one to see the club survive over a turbulent period.’

  With bitter court battles, vociferous protests and continued talk of possible new stadiums or a return the Ricoh Arena, there were plenty of distractions off the field during the Sixfields saga.

  Asked if this ever affected the players or management, Pressley said: ‘The one thing is we’re not blind to it. We’re aware of the whole situation.

  ‘The fact of the matter is, as a manager, you want to manage the team. You want to concentrate, focus on the team and it does become tiresome.

  ‘You become a politician. You become constantly talking about side issues rather than issues you want to talk about.

  ‘I had to work hard to keep an equilibrium about the place. The way things were, it was tough. But that’s my job.

  ‘During my time there, there was so many side issues we had to deal with that at times the football came second.

  ‘We were so close to not making a certain deadline prior to the first game of the season at Crawley. We had to register all our players for the first game of the season and there were so many non-certainties about the situation.

  ‘There were a lot of issues.’

  Asked if the situation ever affected his relationship with the club’s board, he said: ‘It’s not something I really want to discuss. But within the club, I felt I was the one who had to make all the big decisions.

  ‘I don’t want to go into my relationship with the others.

  ‘I carried out many aspects of the job in what I would consider to be remarkable circumstances.

  ‘Not just the moving of the stadium, the two ten-point deductions, but when you consider at the same time as that I’m having to drastically reduce wage levels, play young players – it’s a mammoth task.

  ‘I loved my time there, so many challenges, but I loved it. I think it’s a club with such great potential.’

  It was, of course, impossible for the players to be completely shielded from the situation.

  Fans’ favourite Carl Baker was the club captain during this dark time, and he said uncertainty circled the dressing room long before the move to Northampton was finally announced.

  The midfielder told me: ‘It was obviously a really difficult time.

  ‘When they were having trouble financially, there were rumours we were going to have to leave and that they couldn’t afford to pay the wages.

  ‘It wasn’t just about moving out of the Ricoh, there were loads of things that were going on at the time.

  ‘Players didn’t know if they were going to be getting their wages or what stadium they were going to be playing football at.

  ‘From the players’ point of view, it was very worrying times – one, you don’t know if you’re going to get paid, and two, you don’t know if you’re going to have a contract or where you are going to be playing your football.

  ‘We were often finding out a lot of stuff through the paper and media. Nobody ever sat us down to tell us we were going to be moving away or any of the difficulties that the club were involved in.

  ‘As a player, it was quite frightening because we didn’t actually know what was going on.’

  He added: ‘Unfortunately, the talk in the dressing room, that was what the majority of it was all about, which is the way it is going to be when lads are worried about contracts and where they’re going to be playing their football.

  ‘The majority of the senior lads, and the younger lads, were talking about the situation off the field more than the situation on the field.

  ‘As club captain and one of the senior players there at the time, the lads were always asking me did I have any extra information.

  ‘But as club captain, nobody ever pulled me aside and told me anything the others didn’t know.

  ‘I had no extra information so we were all a left a bit out of the loop about what was going to happen with ourselves and the club. It was difficult.’

  Asked if he t
hought the off-the-field shenanigans ever affected the players’ on-field performances, he said: ‘I think it definitely did affect the lads mentally.

  ‘I don’t know if it necessarily affected the performances because, as professional football players, when you put that shirt on, whether you go and play at the Ricoh, Wembley or on a Sunday league pitch, it doesn’t matter where you play your football.

  ‘I don’t think the lads had any excuse for how they performed. I still think every single player will have performed to the maximum and give their all for the shirt and themselves.

  ‘I don’t think it affected performances, but it definitely affected the team spirit and bond.

  ‘You look at the Leicester City team that won the Premier League and I think the main reason they won that league is the closeness amongst the lads and the togetherness of the squad.

  ‘We didn’t really have that because some of the lads didn’t want to be there because they didn’t know the future of the club, the direction the club was going in and their heads were turned elsewhere.

  ‘They still performed to the maximum ability going on the pitch but certainly in the dressing room, it wasn’t as close as what you would have liked.

  ‘It did upset the lads in that sense.’

  Baker also subscribed to the theory that the time at Northampton had a positive impact on some of the younger players in terms of allowing them to develop in a lower-pressure environment.

  He said: ‘It probably did help some of the players playing at Sixfields. If you actually look at the performances and some of the results in the games we played there, I think during my time at the club it was the best we played.

  ‘Results-wise, we were doing well when we first went there.

  ‘The Ricoh with the Coventry fans is a really tough place to play. As well as the expectation and the demands they put on the players, with the club having been successful in the past they want it to be back there and rightly so.

  ‘The demands they put on the players is massive. They’re playing for a club where the fans demand so much from the players.

  ‘When things aren’t going their way, it can be a really difficult crowd to play in front of and a really difficult stadium to play in.

  ‘On the flip side of that, it can also be the best stadium and the best fans to play in front of. If you are winning and performing well, they will back you to the hilt and you feel that when you’re on the pitch.

  ‘But on the other side, if you’re not performing well and results aren’t going your way – and we did have a young squad at the time – then the Ricoh is a really difficult place to play.

  ‘I certainly agree that playing at Sixfields will have helped the younger lads. Maybe it took a lot of pressure off them. There weren’t as many fans there, and it would have helped them perform, and they would have felt a bit more confident playing there.’

  But Baker said any positives for the younger players were far outweighed by the negatives of playing at Sixfields.

  He said: ‘One hundred per cent, the situation made players want to leave and put people off joining.

  ‘For myself personally, I never, ever wanted to leave Coventry. But one of the reasons I signed at Coventry was because of the Ricoh.

  ‘I remember going to speak to a couple of clubs, including Coventry, when I was leaving Stockport and one of the main factors of me wanting to sign for Coventry was the stadium and the training facilities.

  ‘If that affected my decision, then I’m sure for players who are coming to the club the stadium is a big attraction for getting players into the club.

  ‘We didn’t have that attraction because we wasn’t playing there. It’s not as glamorous signing for Coventry playing at Sixfields as signing for Coventry playing at the Ricoh, unfortunately.

  ‘There would have been a lot of players who wanted to leave at the time and maybe players the club were trying to get in who wouldn’t have fancied it as much as if we were playing at the Ricoh.’

  Asked if playing at Sixfields was a factor in top scorer Leon Clarke leaving the club during the 2013/14 season, he said: ‘Possibly, you would have to ask Leon. He was obviously enjoying his football and scoring goals and performing well.

  ‘It can’t have been anything to do with on the pitch that he was upset with.

  ‘The fact is there would have been a financial attraction and fees and the chance to play in front of a big crowd.

  ‘Every player wants to play in front of big crowds in big stadiums and at the highest level they can.

  ‘I don’t know if Coventry were still at the Ricoh and getting good attendances, maybe it would have been easier to keep Leon.

  ‘But saying that, if you look at Leon’s record and how many clubs he’s had, he’s not the type of lad who stays at one club and he moves about quite a lot.

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if Sixfields would have meant keeping hold of players was more difficult.

  ‘Players want to play in front of big crowds, and it wasn’t like that at Sixfields really.’

  Baker said he found it hard to contain his own feelings about the move.

  He said: ‘I was gutted, absolutely gutted. At first, I didn’t believe it when the rumours were going about.

  ‘I thought it was a load of dancing, that it was never going to happen.

  ‘The first time I was actually driving there for a home game was the first time I actually thought “oh my god, this has gone through” and it was going to happen.

  ‘As a player, I was gutted. I loved playing at the Ricoh and in front of the Coventry fans.

  ‘Going to a stadium that was empty, with fans having to sit up on a hill to watch the game, and the facilities and the playing surface we had at the Ricoh wasn’t there at Sixfields.

  ‘Travelling-wise, people move to the area to be closer to home games.

  ‘Sitting in your car and having to drive almost an hour to get to a home game is not ideal.

  ‘It’s one of those things that is out of the players’ hands. You don’t have a choice, you just do what you’re told basically and try and perform your best, no matter where you are playing.

  ‘Deep down inside it was really difficult, from a player’s point of view, to accept.’

  He added: ‘The players paid a lot of attention to what was going on. It was all we talked about in the dressing room.

  ‘For me personally, I was doing a lot of interviews at the time as the club captain. I remember saying to a reporter “I hope this interview is going to be about football” because I must have done ten or 15 interviews and I didn’t get asked a single question about football.

  ‘It was all to do with the Ricoh and Sixfields and all the problems off the field.

  ‘I can’t remember being asked about the opposition team or any of our players or the league or anything like that.

  ‘It did become a bit tiresome speaking about that all the time.

  ‘From the players’ point of view you tried to turn a blind eye to it, but it was almost impossible to do that.

  ‘Every newspaper article written, every time we put Sky Sports News on or went on the BBC website or whatever, it was always there.

  ‘We did try to get our heads down and concentrate on football, but it was really difficult to do that because it was always in your face.

  Asked how much the match day experience changed for the players, he said: ‘There was nothing major that changed but the travelling, and that wasn’t ideal. The food preparation had to change and stuff.

  ‘For me, I have got OCD about preparation on a match day and the day before a match day. I like to do everything like clockwork – I eat the same food at the same time and travel the same way to the stadium.

  ‘For me personally, it was difficult because I couldn’t be eating my beans on toast while driving to Sixfields.

  ‘So I’d have to eat earlier or take food with me to go. Sometimes we’d go into the training ground and eat pre-match there before travell
ing on to Sixfields.

  ‘It felt like it was an away game every week. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, because you still prepare properly for an away game, but it would have been nice to have some home games in front of your home fans.

  ‘There were times as Sixfields where the away fans outnumbered our home fans. It’s difficult enough playing away at the best of times, so to have all your home games feeling like they’re away from home, you can imagine what that was like.

  ‘Just the fact you’re playing at home probably gets you ten to 12 points a season. When the fans get behind you and make it a difficult place to go and teams have to travel to you, it gets you points throughout the season.

  ‘We didn’t have that.’

  At times, the supporters on the hill and those who boycotted the games probably felt as if they were fighting a losing battle. But Baker said the players always respected what they were doing and felt for them.

  He said: ‘We did notice the fans on the hill because at times there were more fans up there than there were in the stadium.

  ‘Obviously it was the first thing you could see. You could see the hill clearly from the stadium, you could see all the banners and hear all the songs whilst you were playing.

  ‘It was impossible to avoid it. All that was in the media all the time, so it was always in your face.

  ‘We understood why the fans didn’t go. Obviously we appreciated the fans who did go and supported us and the team and went into the stadium.

  ‘I know it was a really difficult decision.

  ‘I know one family, a married couple who are good friends of mine; they’ve been Coventry fans their whole life for 30-odd years and they were divided over it.

  ‘The husband was going into the stadium and the wife was going up on the hill. For me, that was crazy and it just shows how passionate some people were.

  ‘This was a husband and wife who had been going to games together for over 30 years and they didn’t sit together while they were at Sixfields.

  ‘So that, for me, showed how much it hurt the fans and how much it meant to them.