Gordon the Gaffer
On this day (July 14th) in 1999 the Sky Blues were facing their penultimate season in the top flight after an occupancy of more than thirty years. Under the management of former player Gordon Strachan (now a CCFPA member) for his third full season in charge the Sky Blues had embarked on a four game German pre-season tour to bed the side in for the upcoming Premier League campaign.
Hadji in Action
Youssef in Sky Blue action
WGS had been busy in the transfer market with millions changing hands. Moroccan midfield pair (both now Association members) Youssef Chippo, £1m from FC Porto, and Moustapha Hadji (£4m from Deportivo La La Coruña) arrived to join young Norwegian winger Runnar Normann who cost £1m. City were also to see the immense talents of George Boateng (recently appointed our new Assistant Manager in July 2024) go to local rivals Aston Villa for £4.5m and CCFPA member Darren Huckerby to Leeds United for £5.5m. This was also the season that the precocious young talent named Robbie Keane joined the Sky Blues from Wolverhampton Wanderers for £6m!
The Sky Blues had begun their tour two days earlier with a comprehensive 5-2 victory over F.V.Speyer and today they faced former Bundesliga side Karlsruher SC and the visitors again proved victorious. The Sky Blues took the game by the odd goal in three.
As the match report from the following day’s Coventry Telegraph tells us that City’s first goal after 39 minutes was stabbed home at the second attempt by now CCFPA member John Eustace (from a Gary McAllister corner) and a nippy second half sub Darren Huckerby (also now an Association member) got the winner half an hour later. In between the Karlsruhe striker Marc Arnold had fashioned a headed equaliser on the stroke of half-time. A small crowd of 1,349 was present to watch.
The Sky Blues team lined up as follows (substitutes in brackets and CCFPA members underlined):-
John Eustacein Sky Blue action
Magnus Hedman, Richard Shaw, Paul Williams, Gary Breen (Barry Ferguson -85), Gary McAllister, George Boateng (Gavin Strachan -84), Steve Froggatt,*John Eustace (Barry Quinn -46), Noel Whelan (Trond-Egil Soltvedt-74)*, John Aloisi(Darren Huckerby -46) and Youssef Chippo (Runnar Normann -61).
Whilst the full German side is not yet to hand we know that goalkeeper Simon Jentzch played as well as Manfred Bender, Martin Braun, Michael Molata, Marc Arnold, Rainer Krieg and Christian Fahrmann.
Hucks in the Sky Blue
The final two games on the tour were even more comprehensive victories with City beating SC Idar-Oberstein by five clear goals on July 16th and going even better two days after that destroying SC Weinsheim 8-1.
Back in the UK for the remaining pre-season games Strachan’s men lost 3-1 at their fairly recent landlords Birmingham City before beating Aberdeen by the only goal of the game in Scotland. On the last day of this month of July the Sky Blues demolished midland rivals West Bromwich Albion in a testimonial match at Highfield Road for Sky Blue legend Cyrille Regis (who became a CCFPA member well before his untimely death in 2018) before losing their last pre-season game at Hereford United by the only goal.
CCFC 1999-2000
This pattern of results in England pre-season presaged the Sky Blues league season. Although they became dubbed ‘The Entertainers’ for their attractive style of play and winning a fantastic full dozen of their home League games at Highfield Road they were dismal away and failed to win a single game on their travels in the Premier League! On the strength of their home form City finished a reasonable fourteenth eleven points clear of trouble.
Thanks to CCFPA’s Mike Young for sourcing the images.
Share Post