For Coventry City fans of a certain age, Mick Kearns is a true legend. Nuneaton-born Mick was the ultimate one-club man, making 385 appearances for City between 1957 and 1967. His career
spanned the whole of the immy Hill era & he had the honour of representing the club in all four
divisions of the Football League plus the old Third Division South. Mick is a great supporter of the
Former Players Association & has won the annual golf competition on at least two occasions.
During the summer he asked me to remind him of the club's overseas tours in which he took part & I was able to supply him with a list of the foreign tours during his time at the club.
1962 West Germany (3 games)
1963 West Germany (4 games)
1964 Spain (1 game)
1965 Iceland (3 games)
1966 European Tour (West Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium. 4 games)
1967 West Indies (5 games)
Mick informed me that he didn't go on the 1962 tour to West Germany as he was doing his National Service.
The full list of games the club played during those tours is as follows:
11-5-1962 Hanau won 3-2
13-5-1962 Hassfurt won 2-0
16-5-1962 Singen won 3-0
26-5-1963 Neumunster won 3-1
28-5-1963 Bad Neuenahr won 6-1
29-5-1963 Kaiserslautern won 2-0
24-5-1964 Onteniente won 5-2
24-5-1965 KR Reykjavik won 4-1
26-5-1965 Keflavik won 4-1
28-5-1965 Iceland XI won 3-0
25-5-1966 Offenbach Kickers drew 0-0
31-5-1966 FC Austria Vienna lost 1-4
3-6-1966 Young Fellows Zurich lost 2-3
6-6-1966 Union St Gilloise won 3-1
2-6-1967 Trinidad & Tobago XI won 5-2
4-6-1967 South Trinidad XI won 4-3
6-6-1967 Barbados XI won 3-2
12-6-1967 Barbados XI won 2-0
18-6-1967 Bermuda Police won 8-0
It is interesting to note that all the tours were post-season, unlike the modern trend to have pre-season tours. In 1964 and 1967 the club took the players away to celebrate winning the Division Three & Division Two championships and the game in Spain in 1964 was apparently organised at very short notice against a Spanish Second Division side near their resort of Gandia. The 1966 tour was an interesting one in that the Rover Car company provided the club with a fleet of Sky Blue Rover 2000 cars in which to travel Europe & the team did various marketing exercises for the company to promote sales of the popular car.
Sunday's victory at Burton was impressive & lifted the Sky Blues to the heady heights of second place in the table. It was a rare away victory on live television. You have to go back to November 2008 and a 1-0 win at St Andrews, courtesy of a Clinton Morrison goal for the last away league victory 'on the box'. Since then the team had been 'live' eight times away from home. The record up till Sunday was dire with six defeats & two draws:
2008-09 Reading lost 1-3
2009-19 Derby lost 1-2
2009-10 Scunthorpe lost 0-1
2009-10 Leicester drew 2-2
2010-11 QPR lost 1-2
2011-12 Ipswich lost 0-3
2011-12 Southampton lost 0-4
2013-14 Bradford C drew 3-3
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