On the return march to Wembley with Robin’s Sky Blue Army

The sea of sky blue fans trudging back to their cars and coaches, proud in glorious defeat, with the sun setting orange over Luton’s celebrating supporters and team at Wembley, is a tableau that plays out in my head on a daily basis. With the team coming so close – so close – to glory at the Championship Playoff Final 2023, it had seemed for a while that day that anything was possible.

And then Fankaty Dabo missed the penalty kick that would have returned us to the Premier League for the first time in twenty years. With City consigned to another year in the tough world of the Championship, our stand out players of the season Gyokeres and Hamer were off to pastures new, and Dabo – well, poor Dabo’s fate lay in League 2 at Forest Green Rovers, where for a brief and undeserved spell, he became the public whipping boy of Troy Deeney. How the fates cast us all apart.

After a slow start to this season – rebuilding an entire team isn’t done overnight – the Sky Blue Army is celebrating another year filled with hope. While the promotion challenge might be slipping away like one of Ellis Simms’ pre-Christmas wayward goal efforts, tomorrow we return to Wembley, an unexpected and slightly surreal event. This time we’re contesting the FA Cup Semi-Final against Manchester United, no less. The tickets have been flying out to fans, the scarves are flying from windows, and the excitement that was lost for so long is building once more.

If you had walked into St Andrew’s with me at the start of the COVID-shortened season of 2019-20 that would ultimately lead to promotion from League 1, you would have seen a very different club. Season ticket holders tried to make a home away from home, to figure out which corner of the crumbling stand lent to us by Birmingham City would become ‘Singer’s Corner’, to adapt to life thirty miles from the ground that had expelled us. The club shop, when it was open, was a portacabin in the car park, and when away fans taunted us with chants of ‘You’re supposed to be at home!’, we’d sing those words right back. ‘We’re supposed to be at home!’ indeed.

And then we were allowed to go home. Wresting the club from its toxic ownership took a little longer. Indeed, Coventry City’s 21^st century history is as chequered as the 2-Tone pattern of our city’s famous musical heritage. It’s been a long and obstacle-strewn path. But now, with a new owner and a new spirit, we’re back.

There have been two constants throughout this turbulent time. One is the architect of our current success, Mark Robins. The most understated and underrated manager in English football, his steady leadership since 2017, his building and rebuilding of our squad, has allowed us to dream big dreams once more. 

The other is the Sky Blue Army, the fans who are coming out once more, a city united in pride and hope. On Sunday we’ll be singing the Sky Blue Song that Jimmy Hill wrote for us: ‘Tottenham or Chelsea, United or anyone, they shan’t defeat us, we’ll fight till the game is won.’ We’ve always tailed off during those lines, because ‘Walsall or Plymouth, Doncaster or anyone’ seemed more appropriate for too many years. But this weekend, when we actually do play United, we’ll sing it loud and proud once more. Defeat the volatile Red Devils and Chelsea or Manchester City await in the final. Yes, we’re daring to dream once more.

Play up, Sky Blues.