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The season brought about a number of casualties at Highfield Road including the Chairman and a couple of managers. The first to go was manager Gordon Strachan who was sacked early last season after a less than encouraging start. He was replaced by his assistant Roland Nilsson as player-manager and the Swede brought in Jim Smith to assist him.
Next to go was Chairman Bryan Richardson who was ousted by his fellow directors having managed to get the club into massive debt. His departure certainly wasn’t mourned by the fans.
The season was all to end in tears though after a nightmare end. With seven games to go they were in 4th place but only one point was picked up from the last twenty-one and just days before the last game of the season at Burnley both Nilsson and Smith were sacked.
Trevor Peake and Steve Ogrizovic were in charge for the Turf Moor game but it was to be a one off and former player Gary McAllister returned in the summer from Liverpool to take over as the new player-manager.
With finances tight, as is the case at most clubs, McAllister has had no money to spend and has had to do some wheeling and dealing with more than a little help from the loan market.
He has raised money too with a number of departures. Players such as Gary Breen, Marcus Hall and Marc Edworthy left and although they didn’t bring in any transfer fees their salaries were removed from the wage bill.
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Apart from McAllister there have only been two new permanent arrivals. Dean Gordon signed from Middlesbrough and keeper Fabien Debec from Rennes in his native France.
Added to them though are four players who are currently with the club on loan, two of them long term. They are Newcastle’s Gary Caldwell and Brian Kerr, Ritchie Partridge from Liverpool and most recently Craig Hignett who signed from Blackburn in time to make his debut last Saturday.
The season has got off to a reasonably good start and they are currently just one place from the play-off area and only one point behind Sheffield United, that is seven places and five points above the Clarets.
They suffered a heavy 3-0 defeat in the Worthington Cup in midweek at Crystal Palace but in their last league game they came from behind to beat Rotherham 2-1 at Highfield Road. In a fairly even game it took a late own goal from Rotherham’s Nick Daws to secure the points. Player-boss McAllister had equalised a Daws goal at the other end within a minute during the first half.
The Coventry team was: Morten Hyldgaard, Dean Gordon, Mo Konjic, John Eustace (Craig Hignett 58), Ritchie Partridge, Gary McAllister, Lee Mills, Youssef Safri, Brian Kerr (Julian Joachim 58), Gary Caldwell, Callum Davenport. Subs not used: Fabien Debec, Richard Shaw, Youssef Chippo.
They have scored a total of 22 goals in their 17 league games and leading the scoring list is Jay Bothroyd with five. Behind him come Gary McSheffrey and McAllister with three each.
The Clarets will be hoping to repeat last season’s form against them when we took maximum points.
Click HERE to see all Coventry’s results this season.
He played for both
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Hutchison’s career was over and he had gone off to play his football in Hong Kong. He had been a good player over the years and had even scored for both teams in the 1981 FA Cup Final but that was all in the past.
Tommy Hutch did arrive at Burnley but the fans struggled to accept him. This though had much to do with the fact that Bond had stripped Martin Dobson of the captaincy and awarded it to his blue eyed boy.
Over the next two seasons Hutchison was to prove us all wrong and he proved to be one of the outstanding players in a team that was eventually relegated to the 4th Division for the first and only time in the club’s history.
In those two seasons he didn’t miss a single game and linked up superbly with Kevin Reeves during the short time the England striker was fit and in the side. He was a master of wing play, deceptive pace, brilliant control and a superb crosser of the ball.
He went on to win over the fans and in his second and last season was voted by some distance the Supporters’ Club’s Player of the Season. It was then that he looked all set to become manager after first Bond and then Benson found themselves leaving Turf Moor. He confided that he had been told by the new Chairman Frank Teasdale that the job was his but one Saturday morning, much to Tommy’s surprise, Martin Buchan was appointed.
In no time Hutchison was away and re-joined John Bond at Swansea where he played on until he was in his forties, also taking the role of acting manager for a short time.
He had first come to prominence in England when playing down the left wing for Blackpool as the 1970s got underway and eventually moved to Coventry for a big money fee. The hero at Highfield Road for many years he turned in countless match winning performances before signing for John Bond for the first time at Manchester City.
It was there that he scored both goals in the 1981 FA Cup Final, it ended 1-1, before City lost out in the replay. He left City before moving to Hong Kong and that appeared to be it until he arrived at the Turf in 1983.
League results in the last 20 years
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
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2001/02 | 1 | H | 1-0 | 18,751 | Taylor |
2001/02 | 1 | a | 2-0 | 16,849 | Taylor Little |
Click HERE to see details of all previous games between Burnley and Coventry since our first meeting at Easter 1937.
Last Time in the League
Burnley 1 (Taylor 68) Coventry City 0 – Nationwide League Division 1, Saturday 21st April 2002
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We went into the game knowing that to get into the play-offs we had to get a better result than either Birmingham or Millwall or alternatively match Norwich’s result with the same goal margin.
As it turned out all four won so that put us out of the reach of Birmingham and Millwall but level on points with Norwich. They had only Stockport to play and the visitors made it easier for them by getting their keeper sent off in the first minute.
In the end they won 2-0 to claim the last play-off place and our 1-0 victory left us one goal away from a place in the top six. It was the end of a poor second half to the season that had seen us slip from top, out of the automatic promotion positions, and then for the first time since November out of the top six.
It was only when Gareth Taylor came on as a sub that we even really threatened the Coventry goal and his second touch saw us into the lead. However we couldn’t add to it despite having strikers galore on the pitch at the end.
The closest we came was through Paul Gascoigne. Making his last Burnley appearance, as were Mitchell Thomas, Kevin Ball and David Johnson, he twice in stoppage time brought out magnificent saves from Magnus Hedman with free kicks from just outside the box.
But it was all to end in failure and the sight of a tearful Stan applauding the fans. Whatever the result this time around it cannot be as devastating as last April.
The teams were,
Burnley: Nik Michopoulos, Dean West (Andy Payton 78), Steve Davis, Arthur Gnohere, Mitchell Thomas (Gareth Taylor 65), Glen Little, Paul Weller, Kevin Ball, Lee Briscoe, Ian Moore (Paul Gascoigne 82), David Johnson. Subs not used: Gordon Armstrong, Paul Cook.
Coventry City: Magnus Hedman, Marc Edworthy, Richard Shaw, Youssef Chippo, Lee Mills, John Eustace (Paul Trollope 50), Mo Konjic, Gary McSheffrey, Robert Betts, Craig Pead (Lee Hughes 83), Colin Healy. Subs not used: Barry Quinn, Morten Hyldgaard, Calum Davenport.
Referee: Steve Dunn (Bristol).