F.A.Cup Winner’s Memories: Graham Rodger’s Big Impact as F.A.Cup Final sub.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Coventry City’s famous FA Cup triumph over Tottenham Hotspur,  Coventry City’s Former Players’ Association has teamed up with the Coventry Observer to re-capture the memories of players, managers and fans from the club’s greatest day on May 16, 1987.

25th Anniversary: Friday Night Celebrations at Nailcote Hall

Pretty well the whole 1987 F.A.Cup Senior Squad and Management as well as most of the committee of CCFPA enjoyed a fantastic reunion in celebration of the Coventry City FC’s enormous achievement in bringing back the F.A.Cup  to Coventry after beating Tottenham Hotspur 3-2 at Wembley in May 1987 in one of the best ever Cup Finals. The event, which had taken months of planning by the Squad’s ‘Sky Blue ’87 Association’  (headed up by CCFPA’s committee men Kevin Heffernan and Dave Bennett – also, of course, one of the Sky Blues’ scorers in the final) took place in the elegant surroundings of 17th century Nailcote Hall, Berkswell on Friday 20th April 2012. 

The players and their families and guests arrived early afternoon and many of them tried out the internationally renowned par 3 Golf course at the venue before preparing for the evening’s Celebration Dinner. Squad members in attendance (spot them in the picture below) included:-

Brian Borrows, Paul Culpin, Greg Downs, Dean Emerson, Jake Findlay, Micky Gynn, Keith Houchen, Lloyd McGrath, Steve Ogrizovic, Trevor Peake, David Phillips, Nick Pickering, Cyrille Regis and Steve Sedgley.  The only notable absentees from the Cup Final Team who could not make it were Brian Kilcline and Graham Rodger (all the squad are Association members).

Before 7.00pm the other Dinner guests (including a good representation from CCFC, local media and from CCFPA) mingled in the Hotel’s bar outside of the large marquee (below) where the Dinner was to take place all eager to reminisce about their memories of the wonderful time the Club’s success brought to Coventry 25 years ago.

Every table in the sumptuously dressed Nailcote marquee were joined by a 1987 squad member and partner.  There were many Association ties in evidence around the room!  At the top table were CCFC’s 1987 management duo John Sillett and George Curtis and guests (including CCFC’s John Clarke) along with the F.A.Cup once more decked out in the Sky Blue colours. CCFPA committee members (Jim Brown, Mike Young, Bob Eales, Bob Bromage, Frank Pritchard and Jim Cox)  were joined by Greg Downs and his wife who entertained us with many stories of Greg’s playing days especially at the Highfield Road club.

CCFPA Vice Chair Billy Bell was co-master of ceremonies with BBC CWR’s Stuart Linnell who has had a long and close association with all things CCFC.  Billy and Stuart kept the evening swinging along interspersing (between the courses of a tasty five course meal) interviews with many of the playing stars of Cup Final Day as they gathering of nearly 500 also watched video excerpts of the team’s 1986-87 F.A.Cup run as well as the magical scenes back in a City bedecked in sky blue when over a quarter of a million people gathered to see the triumphant return of the team atop a sky blue double-decker. 

David Phillips & Stuart

Lloyd McGrath & Billy

Former snooker player Willie Thorne was in attendance and kindly led the auction of Sky Blue F.A.Cup memorabilia (including Benno’s goalscoring boots) which raised a generous sum in aid of CCFPA and the Sky Blue ’87 Association.  After the meal players and quests enjoyed (and some danced to) the music of Rang-a-Tang. The reminiscing and conversation went on long into the night and the next morning in the Nailcote Hotel’s Bar (and, allegedly, three members of the CCFPA committee did not get to bed until after 4pm)!

Lloyd,Oggie,Paul,Dave,Brian & Trevor enjoying themselves

After a hearty breakfast the following day farewells were said and players and guests dispersed, although nine of the players as well as Oggie (who, of course, who had matchday/pitchside duties to perform) made their way to the Ricoh stadium for the club’s final Saturday home fixture against Doncaster where they were the guests of CCFPA and CCFC for lunch, being reunited for the first time in many years with seven members of the City’s victorious F.A Youth Cup Squad of 1987 which gave the Club a unique Cup double that year (see separate report on this site).

Members of CCFPA’s committee are  pictured below with the F.A.Cup on the Ricoh pitch at half-time in this game.  We hope to have more photographs of the Friday and Saturday night 25th Anniversary celebrations from this memorable weekend on the Galleries page of this website in due course.

(left to right) Billy Bell, Kevin Heffernan, Jim Brown, Frank Pritchard,BobEales,BobBromage,Jim Cox and Mike Young

CCFPA hosts ‘Boys of 87’ at CCFC’s Last Championship Game

Overall it was a sad day at the Ricoh last Saturday (21st April 2012) when the Sky Blues suffered not only a 2-0 defeat in the last home game of the season to the team (Doncaster Rovers) just below them at the bottom of the Championship but learnt that the result condemned them to join their opponents in relegation to the third tier of English football, exactly 60 years after they previously suffered the same fate!

1987 Senior & Junior F.A.Cup Squad members Re-united

However, the Association did its best to relieve the gloom at the Arena by ensuring all Sky Blue supporters were reminded of the much happier times of 25 years ago when CCFC were double cup winners.  This was accomplished by hosting a significant proportion of both the victorious F.A. Cup and F.A. Youth Cup Squads of 1987 at the Ricoh.  As part of its role in helping the Club (and City) celebrate the City’s unique cup double a quarter of a century ago the CCFPA had worked hard on two fronts.

First to facilitate and encourage CCFPA committee members Kevin Heffernan and F.A.Cup hero Dave Bennett (as key members of the squad’s ‘Sky Blue ’87 Association) to bring together the senior squad and coordinate their planned events to mark the anniversary. The calendar of these events has been previously reported on this site and as they come-off  are being covered in specific news items.    Secondly, we brought to fruition our plan to achieve the first significant reunion of the junior F.A.Youth Cup squad at last Saturday’s home game against Doncaster.

A good turnout (seven members) of the F.A. Youth Cup squad attended the lunch on Saturday as Association and CCFC guests and were reunited with their colleagues from the senior squad (in many cases for the first time in decades). Unfortunately a few members of the youth squad, notably Tony Dobson and Steve Livingstone (both of whom later graduated to the senior side) had to withdraw from the get-together at the last minute due to circumstances beyond their control.  Nevertheless those that came had a memorable day.

Ten members of the senior 1986-87 squad also made it to the Ricoh on April 21st as guests of CCFPA and the club at lunch (including an excellent representative selection of the actual Cup Final team and management) . This was a brilliant turnout considering this was only the day after the Sky Blue 87 Association’s full scale reunion  with the full squad and management (with only Brian Kilcline and Graham Rodger of the Final team absent). The 25th anniversary celebration ‘Dinner and Dance’ took place at Nailcote Hall Berkswell the previous day and went on until the small hours of Saturday morning (This event will be reported separately on this site). 

The full roll of honour of  cup winners who attended our reunion last Saturday was as follows:-

F.A.Youth Cup Winners

Howard Clark, Mike Cook, Gary Marshall, Craig Middleton, Lee Middleton, Mark Pollard and Paul Shepstone 

F.A.Cup Winning Squad

Dave Bennett, Paul Culpin, Greg Downs, Dean Emerson; Micky Gynn, Trevor Peake, Nick Pickering, Cyrille Regis and John Sillett (and Steve Ogrizovic was, of course, performing his usual matchday duties in the home dug-out.

The Victorious 1987 Senior F.A.Cup Squad members

Apart from attending the celebration dinner in the prestigious ‘1883 restaurant’ before the game and renewing friendship and memories of the mid 1980s at Highfield Road our cup winning guests were applauded by the Ricoh crowd at half time and watched the Club’s ‘player of the season’ awards after the game in the E.ON Lounge at the Arena.  Before the game fans were able to meet and greet some of the players individually in Lady G’s showbar where the Association had laid on a special showing of highlights of the F.A.Cup run and Final (put together by CCFPA Associate member Dean Nelson. Dean also prepared a gift brochure and DVD especially for the F.A.Youth Squad).

After the game (despite the distressing outcome to the game), members of both squads were also present on the stage in a packed and enthusiastic Lady G’s where CCFPA’s Billy Bell put them through their paces in a light-hearted Q&A and led a hearty rendition of the Sky Blue Song and other anthems!  CCFPA also laid on opportunities throughout the day for fans to get themselves photographed with a replica of the F.A.Cup. Although the Day proved to be an inauspicious one for the Club the CCFPA’s contribution to the 25th Anniversary 1987 celebrations undoubtedly provided some essential sparks of light in the gathering gloom for CCFC.  Thanks are due from CCFPA to all those who helped make the reunion such a success.

25th Anniversary Celebrations: Billy gets awarded; CCFPA gets rewarded

Last Saturday’s last home game with Doncaster saw a number of the current CCFC squad win end-of-season awards at the presentation after the game in the E.ON Lounge at the Ricoh including Cyrus Christie, Gael Bigirimana, Garry McSheffrey and most notably Richard Keogh who walked off with an armful of trophies including the fan’s and fellow team member’s ‘Player of the Season’ awards.

Billy sandwiched between Terry (left) and Jim (right)

After the game Richard also came down to the matchday evening  ‘home’ of the Former Players Association, in Lady G’s ShowBar at the G-Casino, to receive his award from the G-Casino/CCFPA as their ‘Player of the Season’ which was presented by Sky Blue Legend and Association members Cyrille Regis.  Warm applause and appreciation is always shown to another ‘Legend’ of Lady G’s, CCFPA vice chairman and jovial m/c Billy Bell, who regularly hosts the special guests and reunion participants of the Association on the stage of Lady G’s, in the process subjecting them to a light -hearted and humorous ‘Irish’ grilling in front of appreciative audiences.

Billy had already ‘brought the house down’ interviewing on stage members from  from both the senior and youth F.A. Cup winning squads from 1987. Later he was exceedingly surprised to get his own personal award from the CCFPA committee recognising his enormous contribution to the success of the Association and its activities throughout the year (including various arrangements to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Club winning the F.A. Cup)!

Billy is pictured above having received the award from Association supporter Terry Butler (retired veteran of 37 years in charge of CCFC’s changing rooms) and Association chairman Jim Brown. Billy was gobsmacked and (temporarily) lost for words!

Last Saturday also saw a half-time pitch parade of over a dozen representatives from both Cup winning squads (reported elsewhere). There was also time to fit in another brief ceremony to the benefit of the Association. CCFC had generously agreed to donate a proportion of the sales of their very popular replica 1987 F.A.Cup winner playing kits to the Association and we were (in turn) ‘gobsmacked’ and extremely grateful to accept a cheque for £5000 from the club as our share from the sales.  CCFC’s Manager (along with George Curtis) of the victorious 1987 side (and CCFPA member) John Sillett is pictured below accepting the cheque on our behalf from CCFC’s Commercial Director Justin Tose.  CCFPA thanks CCFC for this generous contribution which will go a long way to covering the costs of mounting the various 25th Anniversary F.A.Cup celebrations with which we have been involved this year.