Three wins, nine points
and Coventry City are top of the table. What a great start to a
season that sees the club celebrate the eightieth anniversary of the
1935-36 Third Division championship side. I have been inundated with
questions about the great start, Armstrong's scoring feats, etc.
The three-win run
equals the start made in 1992-93, the inaugural season of the Premier
League, under Bobby Gould. In August 1992, City followed up a 2-1
home win over Middlesbrough with two away wins in the capital at
Tottenham (2-0) & Wimbledon (2-1) to become the first-ever
leaders of the new 'Super League'.
The club's best ever
start of victories was in 1964-65 when Jimmy Hill's newly promoted
side took the Second Division by storm with five straight victories.
A 2-0 home victory over Plymouth was followed by away wins at Ipswich
& Bolton (both 3-1) and further home successes over Ipswich (5-3
in front of over 37,000) and Middlesbrough (3-0).
In City's last Third
Division promotion season, 1963-64, the team started with three
straight wins, followed by a draw & three more victories to make
it six wins out of seven. There was an identical start in 1954-55
with Eddie Brown notching eight goals in seven games. Another good
start came in 1934-35, with four consecutive wins with nine goals
scored and four clean sheets. The team finished third that season.
One statistic that went
largely unnoticed this week was that the club notched its fourth
consecutive league victory, following the win at Crawley on the final
day last season. You have to go back to December 2002 to find the
last four straight league wins by City. Under Gary McAllister the
team won at Stoke and Wolves on consecutive Saturdays, and then beat
Derby 3-0 and Reading 2-0 on Boxing Day. Sadly they won only one more
game until the end of the season!
You have to go back 17
years to the last run of five league victories. That was in February
1998 under Gordon Strachan when City were buzzing and if you include
FA Cup games including the famous win at Villa Park it was seven wins
in a row.
Adam Armstrong has
taken League One by storm with five goals in three games, the best
start ever by a City striker. In 1992 Mick Quinn arrived from
Newcastle & netted four in his first three games but Adam will
have a battle on his hands to match Quinn's haul of ten goals in his
first six starts.
Armstrong emulated Reda
Johnson's feat on the opening day last season by scoring two goals on
his debut & became the 93rd player to score on his
City debut and only the eighth
to score more than one goal on his first Football League appearance
for the club. The previous seven are:-
1928 Tommy Bowen v
Norwich (h) 2
1954. Jack Lee v
Crystal Palace (h) 2
1963. George
Hudson v Halifax (h) 3
1992. Mick Quinn
v Man City. (h) 2
1999. Robbie
Keane v Derby County (h) 2
2013. Chris
Maguire v MK Dons (a) 2
2014. Reda Johnson v
Bradford City (a) 2
That makes Adam the
first to score a debut brace at home since Robbie Keane's arrival in
1999 & the first ever at the Ricoh. He has some way to create a
record for successive scoring games. That record is held by the
legendary Clarrie Bourton who scored in nine consecutive league games
in 1931-32 on his way to a record 49 goals for the season. The
afore-mentioned Quinn netted in six consecutive league games in
1992-93 and Terry Gibson managed seven in a row in 1985-86 but that
included League Cup & Full Members Cup ties. The most recent run
of successive scoring came two seasons ago when Callum Wilson scored
in five games in a row & narrowly failed to equalling Quinn's
total by missing a penalty in the sixth game.
Posts
I thought Melrose scored on debut.
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