In a season with three “gaffers,” the Sky Blues were scheduled to play Port Vale at Vale Park on this day, 1 October 2016, in their 11th League One match of the season under new Management. After Tony Mowbray left CCFC by mutual consent, assistant “gaffer”/technical director Mark Venus stepped up to take over for his first game in charge.
Tony’s season had started poorly and got worse. It began with a 1-0 defeat at Swindon Town followed by two home goalless draws against Shrewsbury Town and Bury and a defeat by the odd goal in three at Bradford City. Additionally, though we had won our opening League Cup tie by the odd goal in five at home to Portsmouth in the second game of the new season, two games previously we became badly unstuck in the second round being slaughtered 6-1 at Carrow Road, home of Norwich City. Later league draws against Northampton Town (h), Millwall (a), Oldham Athletic (h) and, last time out, Wimbledon (h) had been interspersed with defeats at Fleetwood Town and Gillingham. In short, propping up the division, the Sky Blues were badly in need of their first league win and a new manager bounce!
I’m happy to report that today, under Mark Venus, the Sky Blues defeated the Vale by a score of two goals to earn a point in the Potteries! Approximately 5,601 people watched the game, including 604 valiant Sky Blue Army soldiers! The Sky Blues’ victory over a team that had won all of its prior home games this season was even more satisfying.
Marvin Sordell scored for City after 36 minutes, and Chris McCann (on loan from Wigan Athletic) scored 18 minutes before the end of regulation. Gael Bigirimana, who is currently a member of the CCFPA, teed up Marvin after some deft dancing in the box, leading to Marvin’s decisive strike. Dan Agyei scored McCann’s close-range goal shortly after robbing a Vale player in the box. Overall, the home team’s defense appeared uneasy, and City largely deserved the victory!
Lee Burge, James Sterry, Lewis Page, Jordan Willis (c), Jordan Turnbull, Gael Bigirimana, Chris McCann, Ben Stevenson, Dan Agyei (Rúben Lameiras -73), Marvin Sordell (Marcus Tudgay -83) and Andre Wright.
Unused subs:- Sam Ricketts, Cian Harries, Vladimir Gadzhev, Jodi Jones and Corey Addai (gk)
Lewis and Andre were both on loan from West Ham United, while James was from Newcastle United.
The Vale side that Bruno Ribeiro announced was as follows:
Jerome Thomas (Anton Forester -46 replaced by Gezim Shalaj (53)), Michael Brown (Quentin Pereira -46), Nathan Smith, Paulo Tavares, Alex Jones, Sam Hart, and Sam Foley are among the players. Jak Alnwick, Ben Purkiss, Martin Paterson, Remie Street, and Sam Foley are also on the team. Francisco Rosa (aka “Kiko”), Miguek Santos, Sebastian Amaros, and Calvin Mackintosh were all inactive substitutes. Judge: John Busby
As a result of Mark Venus’ caretaker duties, things got back to “dire” in November after an early burst of better results in October. Russell Slade took over as manager soon before Christmas. Mark Robins, CCFC’s previous “gaffer,” took over as manager in March after Slade’s catastrophic tenure. Early in MR’s administration, the Sky Blues did manage to defeat the Vale twice, triumphing 2-1 at the Ricoh on March 23rd with to goals from Kyel Reid and Kwame Thomas.
The Sky Blues finally dropped to League Two in penultimate place with just Chesterfield below them, and Mark was regrettably unable to save the season. Along with Swindon Town, Port Vale was a fellow descendant to the bottom division. At the opposite end of the standings, champions Sheffield United dominated the division with 100 points, finishing 14 points ahead of Bolton Wanderers, who finished second and was also promoted, and Millwall, who finished sixth and joined the top two teams in the playoffs.
However, Mark’s season finale highlight was proudly leading the Sky Blues out at Wembley as they won the EFL (Checkatrade) Trophy in front of approximately 75,000 spectators, including more than 43,000 from Coventry, in front of a 2-1 triumph over Oxford United.
