The devaluing of the 'Family Excellence Awards'

[silent majority]

Massive congratulations to DRFC for winning this award again, that makes seven years running! Again one of only seven clubs out of the 72 to achieve that.

But giving the same award to Coventry City has to be a joke right? You play your home games in someone else's stadium at a distance of some 40 miles from the City you represent and that's classed as family excellence!! Beggars belief.

[Jenny]

Surely it is about the whole experience and playing at another towns stadium is part of that?

If they do excellent work with families and provide them with a great experience should that not be recognised just because it is at Sixfields and not the Ricoh?

[silent majority]

Ease of access??

[The Red Baron]

I understand it has gone down like a lead balloon with the majority of Coventry fans. The only award that the clowns who run that club deserve is one for decimating their fanbase.

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/coventry-city-given-football-league-7089156?


Just shows how out of touch the Football League is with reality.

[nice one rovers]

Ease of access??

Depends on where you live.

[DRNaith]

Maybe they more than tick every other box

[BigColSutherland]

Sounds like someone has an agenda

[GazLaz]

Shows these awards are a load of bollox.

[The Red Baron]

Sounds like someone has an agenda

Maybe the Football League, desperately trying to justify their decision to allow Coventry's owners to move the club to Northampton.

[DRNaith]

Sounds like someone has an agenda

Who?

[BigColSutherland]

Sounds like someone has an agenda

Who?

Someone

[DRNaith]

Right, this is a forum, unless I know who you're talking about, be it the FA, the FL, SM or Lee Harvey Oswald, I cannot respond.

[Filo]

Sounds like someone has an agenda

Has this agenda been published?

[BigColSutherland]

The bits between the lines have.

[Filo]

The bits between the lines have.

Can we all see the bits between the lines? To enable us to have an informed opinion, I would n't want to be labelled small minded with out having seen the bits you refer to

[BigColSutherland]

Do you have the sight?

[DRNaith]

So in my quest to find out if you had a point to your post or if it was just a childish dig at someone or some organisation in order to gain attention, I've got nowhere.

[BigColSutherland]

A neat summary of events

[Boomstick]

Put of interest, do Coventry city market themselves to the people of Northampton as well as Coventry? If so, how do Northanpton town feel about this?

[The Red Baron]

Put of interest, do Coventry city market themselves to the people of Northampton as well as Coventry? If so, how do Northanpton town feel about this?

I don't believe they do. It is probably part of their ground-sharing agreement that they don't.

[BobG]

Bloody hell! I've just looked at the stats pages of Football365. It's telling me that Coventry City's average home attendance this season was 2,348. Their highest attendance was 4,905 apparently. Nine attendances of less than 2,000. A lowest of 1,603. 1,603!

If ever there was a warning for us, looking at those stats is it. Venture funds? Waaay too risky for a footy club to ever be allowed to fall into their clutches. We escaped this time - but only through the guts, determination and wisdom of two men. But exploiting footy clubs is clearly a profitable business though.

It may be a long number of years ago now, but I can remember standing behind the goal at Highfield Road, week in, week out, in the 75, 76 and 77 seasons in crowds of 30,000+.  Coventry had one of the longest runs in the last 30 or 40 years in the top division. And now a crowd, on a regular basis, of less than 2 and half thousand. Ye Gods. I don't suppose they care much, but the FA, the FL and the even the PL ought to be more than concerned about Coventry City. That is one big city and one big area where those organisations now have no presence and where the population is going to blame them for it. That is a big club to have been brought down flat on its face - with none of those organisations saying anything much about it.

If Coventry stay outside the city for another couple of seasons, they'll start losing the youngsters and so losing their future.  The whole situation is shameful.

How's Polly standing up to all this John? Please do give her my commiserations, and my best, next time you speak with her?

BobG

[The Red Baron]

How's Polly standing up to all this John? Please do give her my commiserations, and my best, next time you speak with her?

BobG

Bob- her and her family have not been to a game since the club upped sticks to Northampton. They got season tickets at Leamington (Skrill North) and have enjoyed it there. I think they would go back to watch CCFC if they returned to Coventry, but there seems little chance of that happening.

The owners have claimed that they are going to build a new stadium somewhere on the outskirts of the city (i.e. somewhere that doesn't fall under the control of Coventry Council). However, no-one has been able to find any evidence of plans being submitted. No doubt so long as the owners keep making noises about moving back they will keep the muppets at the Football League happy.

All very sad and though it pains me to say so I won't be going to our away game with Coventry next season if they're playing at Sixfields as I refuse to put any money into SISU/ Otium's coffers. I have invited Polly to come up when they play us at the Keepmoat though.

[wilts rover]

TRB you probably know better than I but isn't there a deadline of 'the end of this season' for the club to update the FL and for them to pay £600k back rent? If they dont they could be liquidated?

[silent majority]

I gather this is true. I was told yesterday that a solution is considered imminent. Unfortunately I've been told this before as well.

[The Red Baron]

There's a court case pending involving City's owners and the city council. I suspect nothing will be done pending the outcome of that.

Details below. It is all part of SISU's game to acquire the Ricoh Arena on the cheap. If the court rules that the loan was unlawful state aid then the Arena's operating company will presumably be bankrupted.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-26274784

[BobG]

What would SISU do with the Arena if they got it?

Or is it the land they want?

BobG

[RJHeader]

Bloody hell! I've just looked at the stats pages of Football365. It's telling me that Coventry City's average home attendance this season was 2,348. Their highest attendance was 4,905 apparently. Nine attendances of less than 2,000. A lowest of 1,603. 1,603!

If ever there was a warning for us, looking at those stats is it. Venture funds? Waaay too risky for a footy club to ever be allowed to fall into their clutches. We escaped this time - but only through the guts, determination and wisdom of two men. But exploiting footy clubs is clearly a profitable business though.

It may be a long number of years ago now, but I can remember standing behind the goal at Highfield Road, week in, week out, in the 75, 76 and 77 seasons in crowds of 30,000+.  Coventry had one of the longest runs in the last 30 or 40 years in the top division. And now a crowd, on a regular basis, of less than 2 and half thousand. Ye Gods. I don't suppose they care much, but the FA, the FL and the even the PL ought to be more than concerned about Coventry City. That is one big city and one big area where those organisations now have no presence and where the population is going to blame them for it. That is a big club to have been brought down flat on its face - with none of those organisations saying anything much about it.

If Coventry stay outside the city for another couple of seasons, they'll start losing the youngsters and so losing their future.  The whole situation is shameful.

How's Polly standing up to all this John? Please do give her my commiserations, and my best, next time you speak with her?

BobG

Not got the time to search it to find out. But i think if you look at Coventry's away attendances, they are very high, selling out almost every away? I was under the impression Cov fans refuse to go to home games, and instead only watch their team away from home

[The Red Baron]

They have had some very high away attendances, notably when they played at MK Dons and invariably take up their full away allocation. However, there is some evidence that people are starting to drift away and find other things to do on Saturdays.

They've had some pitiful "home" attendances at Sixfields, especially for midweek games and those against teams with little away support.

[DaveDRFC]

I guess it's similar in a way to what happened with Rotherham, and they seem to have done alright after their few seasons at Don Valley. Admittedly, Sheffield is a lot closer to Rotherham than Northampton is to Coventry, and Millmoor was hardly the standard of the Ricoh to just leave behind, but maybe Coventry fans are hoping for a similar solution?

[The Red Baron]

I guess it's similar in a way to what happened with Rotherham, and they seem to have done alright after their few seasons at Don Valley. Admittedly, Sheffield is a lot closer to Rotherham than Northampton is to Coventry, and Millmoor was hardly the standard of the Ricoh to just leave behind, but maybe Coventry fans are hoping for a similar solution?

Dave- with all due respect, it is nothing like the Rotherham situation. The only similarity was that the stadium (Millmoor) and the club was owned by two different people. In the case of Rotherham, Booth wanted the club out of Millmoor. With Coventry, the club's owners have engineered a dispute with the stadium owners and then claimed that they can't play there any longer- even though the owners of the Ricoh offered to let them play there last season rent-free.

Also, Tony Stewart and his colleagues put in place a plan to build a new stadium in Rotherham so that they could return from exile at the DV. Twelve months on and no-one can find evidence that the Coventry owners have made any more than tentative enquiries about acquiring a new site. Even then, they have said it will be outside the area controlled by Coventry Council as they refuse to do business with them.

I think you'll find that a lot of Rotherham fans did continue to support the club at the Don Valley, although obviously gates have increased since they've moved back to Rotherham (this has also coincided with an upturn in their playing fortunes.) Some may have grumbled about having to play outside Rotherham, but by and large they felt that Stewart was acting in the best interests of the club. You'd be hard pressed to find a Coventry fan who thought that SISU/Otium were acting in City's best interests.