Blast from The Past: On This Day 2012 – Watch As Mark Robins Joins The Sky Blues First Time Round!

Manager Mark

On this day (19th September) in 2012 just eight years before his team celebrated winning their first Championship game of the 2020-21 season against Queens Park Rangers, the Sky Blues current ‘gaffer’ Mark Robins got his first taste of management at CCFC in League One, signing a three year contract. The ambitious signing of the young manager sadly did not, first time round, ‘mark’ a new era for the club as the two parted ways after a period most Sky Blues fans would feel tragically early. After a full playing career in the UK and abroad, most notably with Manchester United, Norwich City, Leicester City and Rotherham United Mark cut his managerial spurs at Rotherham United (2007) and Barnsley (2009) before coming to the Ricoh.

Sky Blue gaffer Mark Robins

Though Mark’s first game in charge saw the Sky Blues defeated 2–1 by Carlisle United he soon became a fans favourite injecting optimism into the Sky Blue camp and promising a departure from perennial relegation battlers to play-off contenders. Under Mark’s ‘first coming’ CCFC got to the Area Final of the Football League Trophy (two steps from Wembley). As all Sky Blues fans know in his ‘second coming’ at the Ricoh from 2017 Mark led the Sky Blues out at Wembley to two wins in two successive seasons, first in the Checkatrade Trophy and then the League Two Playoff finals. In 2019-20 he and his squad capped it by winning promotion to the Championship five points clear at the top  of League One with a game in hand on most rivals. The promotion was confirmed in the COVID19 truncated season by a points per game calculation with the Sky Blues still well ahead! Since then after two seasons of Championship consolidation and improvment the 2022-23 squad seem set to face several challenges to maintain the upward momentum!

Robins’ success first time round at Coventry, though limited compared to his second stint, still attracted interest from elsewhere including Doncaster Rovers but on the 12th February 2013 the club allowed Mark to talk to Huddersfield Town about their vacant managerial position and Mark then joined the Terriers two days later. We shall never know how things might have developed differently in Sky Blue land had he stayed but certainly matters on and off the field have been progressing since he returned in 2017 and the team he has built for this campaign certainly looked like they should more than hold their own despite various dislocations to their season.

Mark Robins shares a joke with CCFPA Chairman Jim Brown and v.ch Billy Bell (right) as they present him with a CCFPA tie

Mark’s initial stint with the Sky Blues gave him a very creditable managerial record of – 33 games in charge, winning 17 (51.5% win ratio). Six games were drawn and ten lost.