Matchday Memories: On This Day 2016 – See Sky Blues Prevail At Vale With Venusian Managerial Debut

Mark Venus

In a season of three ‘gaffers’, on this day just seven year’s ago (1st October 2016) the Sky Blues were due to face Port Vale at Vale Park in their eleventh League One game of the season under new Management. Assistant ‘gaffer’/Technical Director Mark Venus had stepped up to the plate for his first game in charge following Tony Mowbray parting company with CCFC by mutual consent.

Mogga ousted as Sky Blue Manager

Tony’s season had started poorly and got worse. It began with a 1-0 defeat at Swindon Town followed by two home goalless draws against Shrewsbury Town and Bury and a defeat by the odd goal in three at Bradford City. Additionally, though we had won our opening League Cup tie by the odd goal in five at home to Portsmouth in the second game of the new season, two games previously we became badly unstuck in the second round being slaughtered 6-1 at Carrow Road, home of Norwich City. Later league draws against Northampton Town (h), Millwall (a), Oldham Athletic (h) and, last time out, Wimbledon (h) had been interspersed with defeats at Fleetwood Town and Gillingham. In short, propping up the division, the Sky Blues were badly in need of their first league win and a new manager bounce!

Marvin Sordell, Coventry City

Pleased to say, under Mark Venus today, the Sky Blues managed to take the points in the Potteries as they beat the Vale by two clear goals! There were was a smallish crowd of 5,601 watching the game including a brave 604 members of the Sky Blue Army! Even more pleasingly the Sky Blues defeated a team that had won all of their previous home games this season!

Chris McCann in the Sky Blue

City’s goals came, one in each half, from Marvin Sordell, after 36 minutes, and (City’s loanee from Wigan Athletic) Chris McCann eighteen minutes from the final whistle. Marvin’s firm strike came after he was tee’d up by (now CCFPA member) Gael Bigirimana after some nifty footwork in the box. McCann’s close range finish was made by Dan Agyei soon after he had robbed a Vale defender in the box. The home team’s defence seemed jittery in general and, by and large, City deserved the win!

Thanks to former CCFPA committee member Dean Nelson you can watch the goal highlights by clicking on the link or image below:-

https://youtu.be/un5xjz74Cvo

The Sky Blues lined up against the Vale as follows (CCFPA members underlined):-

Gael in the Sky Blue

Lee Burge, James Sterry, Lewis Page, Jordan Willis (c), Jordan Turnbull, Gael Bigirimana, Chris McCann, Ben Stevenson, Dan Agyei (Rúben Lameiras -73), Marvin Sordell (Marcus Tudgay -83) and Andre Wright.

Unused subs:- Sam Ricketts, Cian Harries, Vladimir Gadzhev, Jodi Jones and Corey Addai (gk)

James was on loan from Newcastle United and both Lewis and Andre were on loan from West Ham United.

Bruno Ribeiro put out the following Vale side:-

Jak Alnwick, Ben Purkiss, Martin Paterson, Remie Street, Jerome Thomas (Anton Forester -46 repl. by Gezim Shalaj (53)), Michael Brown (Quentin Pereira -46), Nathan Smith, Paulo Tavares, Alex Jones, Sam Hart and Sam Foley Unused subs:- Francisco Rosa (‘Kiko’), Miguek Santos, Sebastian Amaros and Calvin Mackintosh Referee: John Busby

Manager Mark

After an initial flurry of better results in October things returned to ‘dire’ in November under Mark Venus who gave up his caretaker role until new Manager Russell Slade arrived just before Christmas. After Slade’s disastrous period as manager previous ‘gaffer’ Mark Robins returned to CCFC to replace him in March. Early into MR‘s reign the Sky Blues did manage to do the double over the Vale winning 2-1 at the Ricoh thanks to goals from Kyel Reid and Kwame Thomas on 23rd March.

However, ultimately Mark was sadly unable to salvage the season and prevent the Sky Blues going down to League Two in penultimate position with only Chesterfield beneath them. Today’s opponents Port Vale were also fellow travellers down to the bottom tier with Swindon Town. At the other end of the table Champions Sheffield United stormed the division with 100 points, fourteen ahead of also promoted runners up Bolton Wanderers and sixth place Millwall, who accompanied the pair via the playoffs. However, Mark’s end of season highlight was proudly leading the Sky Blues out at Wembley as they won the EFL (Checkatrade) Trophy in a 2-1 victory over Oxford United in front of nearly 75,000 fans, over 43,000 from Coventry.