1940s

10th November 1945 Coventry City 1-4 Nottingham Forest (attendance 10920)

City wartime programmes are extremely scarce until this 1945-46 campaign when the Bantams under manager Dick Bayliss came mid table in the Football League South. Crowds flocked back to the game especially with the League and Cup tussles with local rivals Aston Villa. Admission ranged from 1/6d (ground) to 4/6d (main stand seats) with half price for juveniles and servicemen. This heavy home defeat (following a scoreless draw at Forest the previous week) saw local miner Harvey Prichard get our only goal. In line with wartime austerity and paper rationing this season’s programme was a modest 6 page affair with single colour (blue), a small amount of commentary (interestingly referring to an upcoming players’ strike and George Lowrie’s forthcoming Welsh Cap); 1st team and ‘A’ team (Birmingham Combination) stats and tables but no pictures and still priced at two pence. City used 41 players (including two Spanish Basque refugees Jose Bilbao and Emilio Aldecoa) during the season 14 of which were guests from other clubs. City stalwart Harry Barrett led the goalscoring chart with 27 out of City’s 72 League & Cup goals.

Season 1945-46 P42, W15, D10, L17, F70-69A, Pts 40, Pos 13th/22