Ron Remembers 1966-67 Div.2 Champions: Where Are They Now?
Ron today
CCFPA member Ronnie Farmer, one of the CCFC stalwarts central to the late Jimmy Hill‘s ‘Sky Blue Revolution’ has been interviewd by ‘the Football League Paper’ about his experiences in with the Sky Blues in the nineteen-sixties. Ron, a long time member and supporter of the Association who is a regular at the team’s home games was one of a number of other players (like Brian Hill, Mick Kearns and George Curtis) who took the ride with City all the way up from the Football League basement in 1958-59 to the top in Division One in 1967-68.
Neil Fissler’s article utilises Ronnie’s reminiscences to focus on the Sky Blues Divison Two championship squad of the previous season (CCFC’s team is pictured above) and the interview part of the article is reproduced below.
Ron in the 1958 Bantams
‘Ronnie Farmer almost missed out on Coventry’s first ever promotion to the First Division after Jimmy Hill tried to sell him. Hill took over as Sky Blues boss when Farmer was out injured in late 1961 – and soon wanted to off-load him to help him regain his fitness. Farmer played for Coventry in all four divisions and was part of the side that just missed out on promotion by a point, just months before England won the World Cup in 1966.And the following season, Hill’s side went on a 25-match unbeaten run from November 19 until the end of the season. It was enough for them to pip Wolves to the Second Division title by a point after goals from Ernie Machin, Johnny Key and John Tudor downed Millwall 3-1.“I injured my ankle in a game against Gillingham and I just couldn’t get it better,”?Farmer recalled. “Jimmy Hill called me into the office one day and said he wanted me to go to Ireland and play for Ards in exchange for Willie Humphries – and he hadn’t even seen me play. In the end, he gave me until the end of the season, they got me fit and I scored four or five goals so Jimmy then signed me on for another two years.”Coventry won the Division Three title in 1963-64 and, after a season of consolidation, launched a bid to win promotion to the top flight. It was Southampton who pipped them to promotion behind champions Manchester City but they would succeed them a season later. But despite being a regular at wing-half, making 37 appearances, Farmer was forced to miss the epic promotion run-in through another injury lay-off. He watched as Ian Gibson, Ronnie Rees and Machin scored in front of 51,452 at Highfield Road to claim promotion with a 3-1 win over fellow title-chasers Wolves before the title was claimed two weeks later with a comprehensive victory over Millwall, again in front of their own fans.
Farmer added: “At the start of the season Jimmy called us all together and said ‘We are going for it this year!’ But then I got injured against Bolton and didn’t play in the last six games. In those days if you got injured you had to wait for someone else to get injured before you could get back into the side. Plus, Jimmy never really liked to change the team much, apart from the forwards. Although he liked to have a team meeting on a Friday before a Saturday game, he always used to read out his son’s line-up – and I was never in it! But thankfully I was in the team that mattered, the one that Jimmy picked!”
The article also asks the question ‘Where Are They Now?’ and includes brief penpics of the full squad’s subsequent careers including what they got up to after hanging up their boots. As well as Ron and the team members named in the photo above, all of whom including the late Ernie Machin are Association members, the article also has information on several other squad members of the era (all Association members) like Dave Clements, Mick Coop, Dudley Roberts and John Tudor plus four former players who sadly have since gone to ‘Sky Blue Heaven’ i.e. John Burckitt, Brian Lewis, Barry Lowes and Pat Morissey.
To read the full article please click on http://www.theleaguepaper.com/features/3543/60s-football-coventry-citys-second-division-champions-196667/
