CCFPA’s ex Chairman Jim Brown, author of many books on CCFC and the club’s official historian, has for many years offered Sky Blue fans a roughly weekly blog about all things Sky Blue, often featured in the Coventry Telegraph as well as publicised on this site. The latest blog can always be found here.
Jim Brown
Jim’s more recent venture (this time online), in collaboration with long-time Sky Blue fan Claudio Cardellino, now very well established, has kept up with the newer media communication technologies and the pair have been running a podcast launched well over a year ago which can normally be found via Spotify and/or Apple podcasts (sound only) and sometimes YouTube (visual).
Their most recent (close season) Podcast concentrates on a single topic – the history of the kits worn by CCFC teams over their more than a century of existence. The Podcast begins with the pre CCFC years when their pre-cursor club factory side Singer FC wore all black and were nicknamed the ‘Little Blackbirds’. With some discrepancies and uncertainties the pair look at the kit changes as the Birmingham League and Southern League side entered the Football League Division Two in 1919-20.
Simpler times produced long stretches of similar kits across the seasons, a far cry from different away kits (to avoid a clash) and more recently third and fourth kits and others used to mark special occasions. The pair discuss classic kits like the ‘tramlines’, the infamous chocolate brown away kit as well as blue and white stripes in several eras including that worn at Wembley in 1987.
The late Terry Yorath in brown mood
Since Jimmy Hill the home first-team theme has been sky blue rather than shades of the darker ‘Coventry Blue’ of the past sometimes blocked, sometimes broad stripes, sometimes narrow. One aberration was in the early/mid 1920s when civic colours of red and green were adopted for a few seasons. The many subsequent questions covered are the arrival of badges, numbers and sponsors on shirts, the colouring of shorts and socks and the materials/ weights/ finishes of the kits over the decades.
There is plenty for the duo to get their teeth into! To listen just click on the Spotify link below. For those who can access the YouTube version follow the link underneath and you will be able see some of the kits illustrated as the pair discuss the topic:-
Spotify:-
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7uWHT0JGtkddMvk00gOis3?si=6795d0ee6dce49b8
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M1NJwwACJE
The Podcast has received many plaudits from listeners.
Don’t forget Jim’s another project, his latest, a brand new website devoted to CCFC’s history and statistics, ‘The Sky Blue Archive’. You can visit their website at: www.skybluearchive.com which is more or less fully restored now.
Thanks to CCFPA’s Mike Young for sourcing the images.
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