From Jim Brown recently In the CT ,not necessarily definitive.
Over the years I have been asked hundreds of times: “Why were Coventry City nicknamed the Bantams before Jimmy Hill turned them into the Sky Blues?”
According to David Brassington’s excellent history of the club, Singers To Sky Blues, published in 1985, the Bantams nickname was first used in 1908 after Nemo in the Midland Daily Telegraph pointed out that City, who had recently been admitted to the Southern League, were one of the only clubs not to have a nickname.
He asked for suggestions and, being the lightweights of the league, the Bantams nickname was adopted and soon afterwards the small fowl was used to depict the club in newspaper cartoons.
However, I recently came across a letter from a Mr Kennell to the Coventry Telegraph from 1967.
He recalled asking his father 40 years earlier why they were the Bantams and his father had explained that the were named after the bantam weathercocks on the spires of the three main churches of the city.
I wonder if anyone has any other theories for the nickname?