Frank Bags A Big CCFPA Signing: Guess Who?

Friday the 30th January dawned, the weather was kind, the rendezvous worked and CCFPA committee man Frank Pritchard ‘got his man’ and CCFPA has another new member!

Frank did not have too far to travel from his Leicestershire home across a couple of counties to find the house of our newest recruit and was welcomed in by this footballing headliner and his wife to their lovely home. Our latest member had met Frank before many years ago when both were in different professions and renewing acquaintance was made easy by the friendly couple.

After a convivial time Frank concluded the visit by getting him to put pen to paper and sign up (right) and then presented our latest capture with his membership badge, his official membership tie* and a copy of the just published membership CCFPA newsletter, Legend.

For the time being we can reveal that our new man is a FM rather than an FP who has looked after the Sky Blues interests within the last two decades; he has made his mark at the top levels of English and continental football during a long and colourful career in the game. Can you guess his name?

All will be revealed in the next day or two on this site, along with Frank’s report of his extensive interview with our newest Association member and pictures of the presentation. We have high hopes we can entice him to one of our CCFPA events back in Coventry in the not too distant future including our Legends Day on March 21st! He is a big golf fan and we particularly hope to persuade  him to share our upcoming Golf Day 2015 in June.

* if you would like an Association tie just like the one presented to our new member you can get one for £10 plus p&p from our vice chairman Billy Bell (see contacts page). There is £2 discount for our Associate Members.

CCFPA’s Ken Brown & Dietmar Bruck at Coventry Charity Cup Presentation

Ken (left) makes the presentation

Coventry City Former Players Association members were well represented at a charity cheque presentation last night (Friday 30th January 2015).

Fifties Bantam’s defender Ken Brown and sixties Sky Blues star Dietmar Bruck (both CCFPA members) were on hand at the Coventry Charity Football Cup Cheque Presentation Ceremony yesterday evening . Ken (pictured left) was asked to present a cheque to the Warwickshire Counselling Service who are based in Nuneaton and Dietmar (who also helped to provide the food) presented one to Steve Massey of the Football Welfare Fund. In addition, Association Associate member Rachel King presented a cheque to Acorn’s Hospice and CCFPA committee member Sarah-Jane Morris received a cheque on behalf of the Mercia Therapy Centre.

The Coventry Charity Cup committee presented cheques totalling over £15,000 with twenty charities benefiting.This year the Cup committee have been supporting the following charities:- The RAFA Club, The Coventry & District Amateur Footballers Welfare Fund, Warwicks & Northants Air Ambulance, The Life Path Trust, Bermuda & Stockingford Intensive Care Support, the Mary Ann Evans Hospice, Community Broadcasting Services(Coventry), Coventry Deaf Sports and Social Club, Sycamore Counselling Services, The Acorn’s Children’s Hospice, The Island Project School, Coventry Resource Centre For The Blind, Zoe’s Place, Mercia Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Centre and the RSPCA.

The Charity Cup competition which started life in 1907 as the Coventry Nursing Cup and has gone from strength to strength in recent years and holds its Final every year at the Ricoh. The Cup is thought to be the largest presented in the Coventry area standing 41 inches high on its plinth. It holds 4.5 gallons of any suitable liquid refreshments the winners choose! A newspaper report of the inaugural final is shown below

Thanks to CCFPA Associate Member Kev Monks who is a good friend of both CCFPA and the Coventry Charity Cup (and is the latter’s Press Officer) for the photo of the 2015 presentation.

‘Cully’ Here For the Dale Tomorrow

Just to remind our readers that former Sky Blue striker Paul Culpin is at the Ricoh tomorrow as our ‘special guest’ for the Rochdale home game.

He will be ‘around the lounges’ before the game, doing punditry for the BBC CWR Matchday commentary team as the game unfolds and we hope will join CCFPA’s Billy Bell on the stage of Lady Gs in the G-Casino after the game for some friendly banter!

Initially an apprentice with Leicester City and also an England semi-professional international, ‘Cully’ signed for CCFC from local non-league side Nuneaton Borough (where he had been a prolific scorer) in summer 1985. Paul netted twice in twelve first team appearances for the Sky Blues. Though he didn’t play at Wembley (being cover for Keith Houchen and Cyrille Regis) one of the highlights of his career was being part of that squad and walking on to the hallowed turf with the Cup Final team to the acclaim of the Sky Blue hordes.  Paul moved on to Northampton Town in 1987 where he was a regular scorer over two seasons. After spells with Peterborough United, Barnet, Hereford United and Christchurch United (New Zealand), Paul returned to his non league roots with Nuneaton and still lives locally.

Help us welcome Paul tomorrow and lets hope he sees the Sky Blues gain a valuable three points from the men from the Dale!

New Signing(s) For CCFPA Planned: Guess Who is Joining Us?

Warning to Sky Blues’ FPs – ‘Watch out Frank’s About’!

Intrepid CCFPA committee member Frank Pritchard informs us that he has strapped on his snow shoes and is on the trail of a number of former Sky Blues who have not yet signed up as members of the Association. In particular, he has high hopes of ‘bagging’ a ‘big’ signing in the next couple of days (should weather conditions not worsen in the part of England he needs to travel to).

There are some clues sprinkled in this teaser to help you guess who Frank has been talking to on the phone (having met professionally several years ago when both somewhat younger men). Because he is keen to join the CCFPA family, all that remains to do is for Frank to rendezvous with a man who is much more familiar with Highfield Road than the Ricoh and who stopped off at CCFC in the mid nineties as part of a career involving a number of high profile football clubs in Britain (particularly the Midlands) and abroad. When they finally meet, Frank aims to present our new recruit with his membership badge, official tie and a copy of the just published CCFPA magazine, Legend.

Frank has a great record in recruiting new members over the last few months – Callum Wilson, Richard Keogh, Ben Turner, Aron Gunnarsson and Blair Adams are recent captures and we have high hopes, if Frank is succesful, that we will have another very recognisable new face at our Legends Day 2015 reunion on March 21st at the Ricoh.

Keep checking back on this website (www.ccfpa.co.uk) for further news from the energetic Mr Pritchard’s expedition as well as news of  those former players who have confirmed their attendance at Legends Day as their acceptances start to come in………