dongonzalos
Well-Known Member
There are many people to blame for the mess Coventry City is in. Your beloved club has been badly run for years, long before Sisu rescued it from administration and pumped in millions of pounds to keep it afloat.
But in the end it is the owners who have decided to take the club out of Coventry and away from its fans.
Many fans have long called for Sisu to go. Not the Telegraph. We have acknowledged it is their investors’ cash that has kept the club alive – no matter how badly it has been wasted in taking the club from the Championship to League One.
But now it is different. Sisu’s plan to take your club 35 miles away to Northampton for at least three years while they build a new stadium near but outside Coventry is utter madness and will tear the heart out of this city. As a newspaper we cannot support an owner who is willing to do this.
It will leave the club – already a shadow of its proud former self – as a sham, a sick joke playing in front of the minority of fans who haven’t been alienated by this shameful soap opera. Coventry City have a home. It is in Coventry, not Northampton. It is called the Ricoh Arena. You may wish they were still at Highfield Road but that is long gone.
ACL have repeated their offer for the club to play at the Ricoh rent free – but paying matchday costs – while they are in administration, so there is another option to Sixfields. There must surely still be a chance to find a compromise.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Ricoh row – and let’s be clear that neither side are faultless – the argument is almost irrelevant. Coventry City must play in Coventry.
Manager Steven Pressley said in yesterday’s Telegraph that he wants City to stay in Coventry and that he hoped a solution could be found. We share that view and hope that his bosses can give their bright young manager the fanbase he needs to push his team up the table towards promotion.
The current owners and custodians have told us that they have to move to safeguard the club’s future, that staying at the Ricoh doesn’t make financial sense. Fair enough but more than 14,000 of you have signed our City Must Stay petition and the overwhelming majority of supporters at Sky Blues chief executive Tim Fisher’s forums told him they wouldn’t follow the club outside of Coventry. So what is the club without the fans?
Under Sisu, City’s average crowd in 2008/09 was 17,420. They lost millions of pounds. Gates have fallen every year but the losses have continued to pile up. Last season’s average gate was 10,973, next season we’d guess it will 2-3,000. Can anyone see the financial sense in that?
Fans have already started a Not One Penny More campaign, vowing not to spend any money with the club until they agree to play home games at the Ricoh Arena.
Is Northampton still making financial sense?
Of course, the club knew all of this before yesterday’s news about quitting Coventry for Northampton came out. But still they plough on. Mr Fisher has repeatedly said this is not a game of brinkmanship, that they have left the Ricoh for good.
Well, if Sisu won’t keep City in Coventry they should stand aside and let someone else do what is best for the club and its long-suffering supporters.
Administration has had one benefit for Sky Blues fans. It has shown that there are investors interested in buying the club. If these people are worthy owners of your club then they must have figured out that they were never likely to be able to pick it up on the cheap from the administrator. They were always going to have to talk to Sisu.
If you want to buy the Sky Blues, do it now before it’s too late. Buy them now before the club is torn away from a generation of fans.
Pick up the phone and make Joy Seppala an offer. And Joy, thanks for the £45million, the fans should be grateful for that. But if Sisu’s plan is truly to take it from the city that bears its name then the time has come to pass on the baton to new owners committed to keeping the Sky Blues where they belong.
But in the end it is the owners who have decided to take the club out of Coventry and away from its fans.
Many fans have long called for Sisu to go. Not the Telegraph. We have acknowledged it is their investors’ cash that has kept the club alive – no matter how badly it has been wasted in taking the club from the Championship to League One.
But now it is different. Sisu’s plan to take your club 35 miles away to Northampton for at least three years while they build a new stadium near but outside Coventry is utter madness and will tear the heart out of this city. As a newspaper we cannot support an owner who is willing to do this.
It will leave the club – already a shadow of its proud former self – as a sham, a sick joke playing in front of the minority of fans who haven’t been alienated by this shameful soap opera. Coventry City have a home. It is in Coventry, not Northampton. It is called the Ricoh Arena. You may wish they were still at Highfield Road but that is long gone.
ACL have repeated their offer for the club to play at the Ricoh rent free – but paying matchday costs – while they are in administration, so there is another option to Sixfields. There must surely still be a chance to find a compromise.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Ricoh row – and let’s be clear that neither side are faultless – the argument is almost irrelevant. Coventry City must play in Coventry.
Manager Steven Pressley said in yesterday’s Telegraph that he wants City to stay in Coventry and that he hoped a solution could be found. We share that view and hope that his bosses can give their bright young manager the fanbase he needs to push his team up the table towards promotion.
The current owners and custodians have told us that they have to move to safeguard the club’s future, that staying at the Ricoh doesn’t make financial sense. Fair enough but more than 14,000 of you have signed our City Must Stay petition and the overwhelming majority of supporters at Sky Blues chief executive Tim Fisher’s forums told him they wouldn’t follow the club outside of Coventry. So what is the club without the fans?
Under Sisu, City’s average crowd in 2008/09 was 17,420. They lost millions of pounds. Gates have fallen every year but the losses have continued to pile up. Last season’s average gate was 10,973, next season we’d guess it will 2-3,000. Can anyone see the financial sense in that?
Fans have already started a Not One Penny More campaign, vowing not to spend any money with the club until they agree to play home games at the Ricoh Arena.
Is Northampton still making financial sense?
Of course, the club knew all of this before yesterday’s news about quitting Coventry for Northampton came out. But still they plough on. Mr Fisher has repeatedly said this is not a game of brinkmanship, that they have left the Ricoh for good.
Well, if Sisu won’t keep City in Coventry they should stand aside and let someone else do what is best for the club and its long-suffering supporters.
Administration has had one benefit for Sky Blues fans. It has shown that there are investors interested in buying the club. If these people are worthy owners of your club then they must have figured out that they were never likely to be able to pick it up on the cheap from the administrator. They were always going to have to talk to Sisu.
If you want to buy the Sky Blues, do it now before it’s too late. Buy them now before the club is torn away from a generation of fans.
Pick up the phone and make Joy Seppala an offer. And Joy, thanks for the £45million, the fans should be grateful for that. But if Sisu’s plan is truly to take it from the city that bears its name then the time has come to pass on the baton to new owners committed to keeping the Sky Blues where they belong.
