Matchday Memories: On This Pre Season Day 2019 – Robins’ Men Rile The Robins!

Manager Mark

With just a week to go before the start of the Sky Blues 2019-20 League One season Mark Robins’ men took on and defeated League Two Swindon Town on their own patch. The pre-season preparations so far had been patchy at best despite an opening 4-0 away mauling of local non league side Leamington FC. Subsequently they had managed a 1-1 draw with Northampton Town at their Spanish Training camp at Pinatar, been beaten 4-1 in a behind-closed-doors game at Huddersfield Town and had failed to find the net in a goalless draw with Liverpool’s U23 side in a game played at Rugby Town‘s Butlin Road.

‘Baka’ in the Sky Blue

Today’s heartening win came courtesy of striker (and fairly CCFPA recruit) Amadou Bakayoko who finally broke the deadlock on 57 minutes and the Robins were finished off by a last minute cracker from (another CCFPA member now) Max Biamou.  The 2-0 victory helped to ease growing worries about the Sky Blues’ lack of goals but the game added to the club’s injury worries as City’s ‘skipper’ Liam Kelly was forced off with a muscle strain late in the first half and fellow midfielder Jamie Allen failed to appear after the break as the frustrating first 45 minutes saw neither side impose themselves on the other.

Sky Blue Max in typical pose after scoring

The modest crowd in the County ground watched a poor first half of few chances and though there were more scoring opportunities in the second period profligacy from both sets of forwards continued exemplified by the Robins’ striker Jerry Yates shot wide when played clean through. ‘Baka’, however, made amends for some earlier misses just before the hour when he snaffled a misplaced pass between Swindon’s defenders and, raced through to beat the Robins’ Coventry-born ‘keeper’ Luke McCormick. Max came on as a substitute and settled the matter emphatically after being played through by CCFPA’s recent recruit Jordy Hiwula with a superb left footer into the top corner of the net!

Though a copy of the Swindon teamsheet below gives most match details, the referee was Andy Woolmer :-

For the Sky Blues only two of the squad Jamie and ‘keeper Ben) are still with the Sky Blues as we await our 2024-25 Championship opener. On the day Tom Bayliss replaced the injured Liam Kelly on 42 minutes, (now CCFPA member) Zain Westbrooke came on for Jamie Allen for the second half. There was a double substitution with five minutes of full time left and Max Biamou and Will Bapaga came on to replace Amadou Bakayoko and Wesley Jobello. Swindon used all their subs bar Curran and Romanski.

Marko, Michael, Kyle, ‘Baka’, Jordy, Jordan, Max, ‘Fanky’, Zain and Sam from the players named on the team sheet subsequently joined this Association!

CCFC 2019-20 League One Champs

This season, of course, saw the Sky Blues ‘in exile’ at Birmingham City‘s St Andrews and they were pleased to win their League One opener there a week later by the only goal of the game scored by Zain Westbrooke. There were many more ups than downs as the season developed only to be damaged by the COVID19 health emergency. When the season was abandoned with ten games to go the Sky Blues were sitting pretty five points clear at the top of League One with games in hand on rivals. Correctly they were subsequently awarded the title and promotion, just desserts for Mark Robins‘ men!

Thanks to CCFPA’s Mike Young for sourcing the images.