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'An intelligent influence on us all': Cyrille Regis' impact on West Brom and Coventry
Regis' impact is rare. Very few players are considered a legend at one club, never mind two clubs that are local rivals
theathletic.com
“You’d know he was never going to let you down. Some people will hide, and you know they’re going to. With Cyrille, you knew he would always be there, and he’d expect that from you. That made me believe in myself, honestly.” — Keith Houchen
Very few players are considered a legend at one club. With more than 100 years of club history, in most cases, being part of the select group that fans speak about decades after retirement is a privilege afforded to only the finest few to grace the shirt.
With that in mind, owning legend status at two clubs is almost unthinkable, especially after playing for both clubs’ biggest rivals. Imagine, if instead of heading to LA Galaxy after leaving Liverpool, Steven Gerrard left Anfield in his prime to join Manchester City, where he made more than 200 league appearances and won trophies, then Everton for a couple of seasons before finishing his career at the top with Manchester United. Would he still be recognised among Liverpool’s greatest players 40 years down the road?
Perhaps it reflects how football has moved on when being a one-club man seems a pre-requisite for legendary status. Alternatively, it may reflect Cyrille Regis’ indelible impact on West Bromwich Albion and Coventry City, who both adore him.
Regis joined Coventry for £250,000 following seven years at The Hawthorns. At West Brom, he played European football and won his first international cap, becoming the third black player to play for England after Viv Anderson and club team-mate Laurie Cunningham. Regis’ exploits, along with Cunningham and 2, Albion’s “Three Degrees“, put him on the radar of Dave Bennett — who he’d later partner in attack during Coventry’s 1987 FA Cup triumph.
“I knew Cyrille for a long time; we’d come across each other playing when I was at Manchester City, and he was at West Brom,” Bennett tells The Athletic. “Being two black guys in the league just trying to make it meant we were always drawn together.”
Being a black player then was not what it was like today. Everton defender Ben Godfrey became the 100th black or minority ethnic player to play for England in 2021, and since the turn of the century, debuts have been handed to 57 black players by six different managers. But when Bennett made his league debut for Manchester City in April of 1979, it was seven months away from Anderson becoming the first. Back then, he says, it was not enough for black players to be good. They had to be excellent.
“I was delighted when Cyrille arrived. He came as a big player with a big reputation from his time at West Brom,” Bennett says. “We got on so well and did everything together — we spoke patois, ate West Indian food and listened to lovers’ rock. We talked about family, kids, and relationships. Being West Indian, we could associate with each other as we shared the same culture. We were not only playing football, but we were also young black footballers learning how to live.”
Regis’ first two seasons at Highfield Road were a struggle, individually and collectively. In 69 appearances across all competitions, the striker scored 15 goals as Coventry finished 18th and 17th in a 22-team league.
“Cyrille wasn’t firing, and the club wasn’t great to be at before 1987,” Keith Houchen, Coventry’s top goalscorer through the cup run, tells The Athletic. “But the managers George Curtis and John Sillett believed in him so much and later understood his qualities. After they realised he was more of a power athlete, a player that needed to conserve his energy and release it in bursts, it all came together for him.”
Coventry began their cup run with a third round 3-0 win over Bolton Wanderers, with goals from Greg Downs, Bennett and Regis. The fourth found took them to Old Trafford, where they beat Manchester United 1-0, and then they ground out another 1-0 win over Stoke City in the fifth. After that came a trip to Sheffield Wednesday, who had won their last 23 FA Cup matches at Hillsborough.
“The FA Cup was everything. Playing at the old Wembley was breathtaking… looking at the Twin Towers and thinking about the history and talking about it on the bus – it would send tingles up your spine,” says Houchen. “I can picture his goal against Sheffield Wednesday — it was just typical Cyrille. Bearing down on goal before breaking the net. The image of him with his hand in the air, that’s just him to a tee.”
Regis’ opener and Houchen’s double led Coventry to an unlikely semi-final meeting with Leeds United. With the rarity of a potential trip to Wembley, losing the semi-final was unthinkable for Regis and his team-mates. “You’d see people collapse to the floor heartbroken after losing in the semis,” says Houchen. “It’s not like now when teams go there all the time. It was the FA Cup final, play for England, or you’d never have the privilege. I can picture Cyrille talking about how it meant everything to him.”
“Leeds scored early from a corner through David Rennie,” says Bennett. “Cyrille was hurt because Rennie was his man. We went into the dressing room at half-time, and he sat in the corner and said, ‘Sorry, lads’. He was like a mouse. Imagine a man like Cyrille as quiet as a mouse in the corner. We, as a team, got around him, and the boys started singing in the changing rooms to lift his spirits. I don’t know what the Leeds players must have been thinking at half-time, but we helped him through that. Then he came out in the second half, won a header in the lead-up to my goal and helped us to a 3-2 win.”
Tottenham Hotspur would be their opponents in the final and Coventry were given little chance. Still, the players were confident owing to a decent record against Spurs in the league. “From the outside, we’d always be framed as underdogs, but Cyrille and the rest of the players knew that we weren’t,” David Phillips, another member of the cup-winning side, tells The Athletic. “We always had great belief. We played Spurs a couple of times that season and won and lost one. We didn’t fear them at all.”
It took an extra-time own goal from Gary Mabbutt to win Regis’ only silverware throughout his 19-year professional career. With the understanding moments like that come few and far between, Regis ensured his team-mates did not underplay the occasion.
“By the time we did all the interviews after the match, the stadium was empty — even our families had gone,” says Houchen. “Papers were blowing on the grass, and you could hear a pin drop. It was hard to imagine we’d just played and won a cup final. So we got on the bus and started to leave when Cyrille said, ‘Lads, turn around now, have a look at the stadium and imprint it on your memory’, so we did. They’d left the big scoreboard on, which said ‘Tottenham 2, Coventry 3’, and then we drove out. I always remember that image when I think of Cyrille.”
