Thetownend.com

 Did they really have 31,054 for a JPT match v Crewe last night? 

Yeah, had an offer of something like £5 a ticket and a guaranteed ticket to Wembley (whoops).

Got to laugh at the presumption.

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Fair play to them then...certainly shows there is potential at the club.  We must have a visit there coming up soon, assuming it's a Saturday, and things haven't gone completed pear shaped, we could take a tidy few.

Absolutely, not bad getting 20k extra fans to watch your team play Crewe on a Tuesday, whatever the incentives.

Didn't they have to delay kick off for the mid-week game during the Prem season at Highfield Road when 4,000 odd turned up?  Caught Coventry and the local police completely by surprise, as I recall.

I think you're right.  We'll have a great following up there next month...so long as the train has not been derailed.

Yep...a classic of its type hundreds of Town fans outside, as the very nice lady in charge explained, they had the seats but not the tickets. Because we hadn't played there in years, they didn't realise we travelled in decent numbers. I suggested to her we could just pay cash on the gate....but no, they had to get the John Bull kit out and print up some tickets, we then had to buy the tickets etc.  The game wasn't delayed, we just waited outside, wondering if it was worth bothering, quite a few went off to watch it on Sky in local pubs.

I think we will take a tidy few up to the new ground as i understand there are no pubs close to the ground

We must have made it in nice & early.  I just remember the stand getting fuller & fuller & fuller.  Cracking atmosphere that night.  Who would forget the equaliser?

I liked Highfield Road, a decent mix of old and new...don't think I've ever met a Coventry fan, so no idea if they miss it.

I worked with a few, none of whom still went to games frequently but followed in much the same way as many of our exiles on here

Looking forward to going up there. I think we could take well over 2k!

We met a some of their London supporters group in the Glue Pot in October.  Based on that small sample, they miss the old place a lot.  The best thing they could say for the Ricoh - and this really did sound like damning with faint praise to me - was that you could drive off the M6 and park your car outside the ground in minutes.

As I think Donkey mentioned a few weeks back, they had all the infrastructure where they were.  Pubs, chip shops, a train station.  And they relocated to the back of beyond where there is none of that.

there is a huuuuuuuge Tesco, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, a Greggs bakery, a Game, a few banks, travel agents, pharmacy, clothes shops...what more do they want?

Pub?

sorry, a what? this isn't football in the 70s

Problem with the Ricoh like many other new grounds is the fact that it's a way out from the city centre therefore the train station. It's one of the better of the newer grounds.  Most Cov fans say they do miss Highfield Road.  I reckon we'll take 1500/2000.

http://www.ccfc.co.uk/news/article/ccfc-statement-200313-728300.aspx

They've just entered administration, will be deducted 10 points so out of the playoff race.

Also shows there are teams worse off.

Season ain't over yet ;)

Have they also found debt dating from the '50s?

Seems its only a  subsidiary part of Coventry that is in admin and its not clear they will lose 10 points at all.

Didn't they close that loophole after the southampton shenanigans?

Guess we'll find out.

It looks like the company in admin is the one which has the lease / tenancy agreement for the ground and hence the debt that is being chased by ACL. It appears there bank accounts are still frozen and they've got a court appointment with ACL asking for the club to be put in to administration. Not sure how they'll avoid a points deduction.

I assume Coventry have also been placed under an embargo by the FL?

Sisu have played the admin card to get the debts beaten down and avoid admin of the club and other holding components. As I understand it.

About an hour ago Sky were claiming Coventry would not be playing any more games at the Ricoh (Walsall instead according to their forumites, franchise fucks!)

http://www.skybluestalk.co.uk/threads/28470-No-more-games-at-the-Ricoh

Its pretty fluid with a lot of rumour mongering and guesswork!

Did you actually see it on Sky? Saw that thread earlier and came to the conclusion it was a wind up, especially as they are claiming the FL have already agreed for them to play games elsewhere which I find very doubtful.

Coventry get FL approval to move within hours

Apparently they found a debt from 1952.

Could be a wind up, I didn't see it and its probably a move designed to put pressure on ACL. The local rag is speculating it though:

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/coventry-city-fc/coventry-city-fc-news/2013/03/21/coventry-city-company-administration-could-move-from-ricoh-this-season-92746-33036925/

Appears Coventry have just an inept board as ourselves.

They put one of the companies into administration, stating it had nothing to do with the football side, only to find out it actually handled player contracts, TV money etc - so they have actually managed to do the one thing they set out to avoid.

No way they are avoiding 10 point deduction now.

I do feel for their fans

They were already under an embargo, from March 1st

And the league "golden share" appears to be registered under the company in admin. They could be gone if it is.

They hired a few big vans today and moved all their stuff out of the Ricoh Arena. Not looking good.

They've got a home game next Friday, what happens if they can't play at the Ricoh? Too late for an alternate venue, can't see the FL seeing the funny side of all this.

That would be a points deduction wouldn't it?  3 from memory of recent times when clubs have threatened to not fulfill a fixture.

Hadn't thought of that. Someone (Blackburn or Boro?) got a 3 point penalty for cancelling a fixture without a good reason, even though the game was replayed. I still don't buy that the FL have agreed to them playing elsewhere, even if they have (or do) it will be too late for next Friday - think the Police require 10 days notice for starters.

Boro I think. And ouch, just saw someone tweet (@AnthonyBartram), the Coventry club shop is 100% emptied of stock. Those moving lorries were no hoax!

Not looking good.

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/2013/03/22/breaking-coventry-city-empty-stock-from-ricoh-arena-92746-33043538/

Someone, and I forget who, has been talking to Northampton or Stevenage recently about ground sharing, may have been  Cov, but cant remember.

Yea it was Boro who called a game off (at Blackburn) in 1997, the year they had Ravenelli and the Brazilian mob and got relegated. Think it was because they couldn't field a team due to injuries and it resulted in a point deduction

I think Cov had been in talks with Nuneaton at some point with regards to playing games there. All a bit different from when we were there a matter of weeks ago. I'm almost glad they've made a stand as a club over the extortionate rates of rent, without the club playing there, the stadium owners will struggle to make money. It's a classic example of how football has become far too much about what money can be made from it, having said that it's a risky tactic and they stupidly agreed to the terms in the first place believing the team would always do the business on the pitch..........short sighted to the extreme

But at the same time ACL built a brand new stadium that Coventry FC could not afford to build themselves. Its not surprising they want some return on that investment.

As we got the old Shrivvy Rd stand second hand, should we put in a bid for the Ricoh

Of course they are and I'm sure the returns from the casino on match day alone are quite healthy. The amount charged in rent surely wasn't due to go down once all initial investment was re-couped?

it was boro, bryan robson was in charge and i think half the team had the flu.

 cov were in talks in december about moving to nene park, formally of kettering and rushden if the situation wasn't resolved.

The funny thing about that story is that they were relegated that season and if they had played the game when they were supposed to, even if they had to put the youth team out and lost 50-0, they would have stayed up. It was the 3 point deduction that got them relegated.


That's mis-representing what happened. Coventry decided to move to a new stadium and then ran out of money before it was completed. So they had to be bailed out by the council and a local charity who took ownership of the stadium with Coventry agreeing to pay the rent that is now in dispute.

It's got nothing to do with someone trying to make money out of football, the bail out was to save the stadium build and give Coventry a home, not to make a profit. The reality is just the same as with every other club that gets in to financial difficulties - thinking they should be bigger than they are and risking everything in pursuit of glory.

It's not mis-representation at all. The point I'm trying to make is bail out or no bail out, the £100,000 monthly rent is not a figure that'll just about cover costs and pay back an outstanding amount slowly, it's extortionate. Just because the council are involved doesn't mean the rental figures are in some way mediated, how many times have we been up in arms about the "astronomical" rent we pay?

And West Ham will be paying £2m per year for the Olympic Park when they move in.

Not much fun for them if they are not in the PL then.

Apparently they only fill Upton Park 4 or 5 times a year (35,000) so why they think they will fill the new 54,000 venue is beyond me

They built the stadium for championship and premiership footy. It hadn't worked out. That's the clubs problem. In this case rent arrears  get less sympathetic ears from me after not paying for over a year.

....and meanwhile I am concerned on what is happening at STFC.

Hope all is well but remain suspicious.

Our history makes us the way we are.

That's farcical too. They'll probably have to give a percentage of match day revenue from hospitality too. If they did get relegated while in that stadium, they'll be one of the next "big names" in trouble

As i understand it,Coventry earn nothing whatsoever from any of the concessions at the stadium and their only income is the revenue from ticket sales.As their attendances have dropped substantially,then so have their income and they have no way of paying the amount of rent that they agreed to.Hardly the fault of the Stadium owners though.

This is correct. All catering profits go to stadium. There is something about the pitch as well. I went corporate a few weeks back and even then they were talking about having to go to B&Q for grass seed for the pitch !! Fantastic stadium that will lie empty every Saturday without football...crazy.

The more I read this the more I think the old regime did the right thing by refurbishing the existing stadium and not rushing into building a new one

Errr...

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/coventry-city-fc/coventry-city-fc-news/2013/03/23/coventry-city-move-out-of-the-ricoh-92746-33046766/

That is one hell of a play of brinkmanship to try and force ACL's hand in renegotiating the contract. I think ACL need them as much as they need ACL, so I think it'll be resolved.

I agree, but I may not be so calm if I was a Cov fan.  Coventry continue to be a warning and a lesson to us fans about how a club can be run.  We must remain vigilant.

I couldn't make it up there the other day but everyone I know that did go said it was nice place.  If it was owned by the club then they could do well out of it as I understand there is a hotel, casino, and the like for non matchday revenue.

I also think this has a whiff of brinkmanship about it, but I wouldn't be at all surprised it it all goes horribly wrong for them.

They should never have moved out of Highfield Road.

Also that ground redevelopment at any cost is not necessarily a good thing.

It needs to be done, but the most important thing is that it's done right

Exactly.

Bang goes Coventry's promotion chances:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21946966

From the same article....


Though it would have to be at least 20 points to drop them in to the relegation battle.

Though SISU are still disputing the claim the golden share is in the company that is in admin.

It seems it is being reported that Coventry are around £60m in debt a lot of it to their owners, who bought the club a few years ago debt free

Twice as much as Oxford?

Phew!

And the understatement of the year award goes to...

A lesson to all those who hope we build a big new stadium out of Swindon then. Personally i'd be happy just to see The Town End and Stratton Bank replaced by more modern stands that some how can incorporate non matchday revenue streams. DRS serves its purpose and im sure The Arkells can survive a few more seasons with a lick of paint.

Don't get why Coventry are arguing the toss over it. The FL have always been pretty clear that putting certain parts of the club in a separate company doesn't prevent the points penalty if that company goes in to admin. It would need to be a separate and unrelated trading entity.