Members News: Barry Powell Is A Diamond Geezer!
Sky Blue Barry
Longstanding Association member and former Sky Blue Barry Powell was one of the headline speaking guests at last Thursday’s CCFC Diamond Club general meeting of the Sky Blues’ veteran supporters (a number of whom are also CCFPA Associate and Committee members) at the CBS Arena.
Barry and his wife Tina were guests of honour of the Diamond Club along with Mark Hornby of CCFC and Jenny Poole whe was at the club for over forty years working with a succession of CCFC Managers (many of whom are now CCFPA members) too. Barry has also attended a number of Association functions including Legends Days in the past.
Barry in Sky Blue action
“As life returns to something resembling normality in the post Covid pandemic, the Coventry City Diamond Club held its autumn lunch in October instead of the usual September, but that didn’t stop around 170 members attending to hear stories from former Sky Blues midfielder Barry Powell and former club manager’s secretary and now Diamond Club stalwart Jenny Poole.
Joe Elliott spoke to Jenny Poole, who started life working for Coventry City FC as a temp working as a stadium manager. She was invited back to become a full time employee as the club manager’s secretary and has served the club for 42 years and worked for 20 different managers, from Noel Cantwell in 1967 and ending with Chris Coleman. 
Jenny said she enjoyed working with all of the managers and declined to say, when asked by Joe, who her favourite manager was, saying she got on well with all of them. She said she always knew when Ron Atkinson had arrived at the office because she could hear him singing long before he made an appearance. Big Ron had a driver named ‘Bobbo’, who was a sort of fixer as well as Ron’s’ driver and personal assistant, he called Jenny Mrs Frog because she had a large collection of ornamental frogs dotted around her office. ‘Bobbo’ was asked to supply the club with some mobile phones, one of which was for Jenny and when she was asked to sign the contract, ‘Bobbo’ had the users name as Mrs Frog!
Barry entertains the DC audience
After lunch, Joe spoke to Kenilworth born, former City midfielder Barry Powell. Barry had a trial with Coventry City when he was just 12 years old but he was asked to play as a full back or centre half and as he was barely 5’ tall, he didn’t make an impression and was not offered a place at the club. He eventually went to Wolves where he made his home debut in 1972 in the local derby against WBA in which he received a cut lip, which required off field treatment. He was signed by Coventry in 1975 for £75,000.
Barry played for Coventry City from 1975 until 1979 alongside such players as Terry Yorath, Mick Quinn, Ian Wallace but his partnership with Tommy Hutchinson that made the biggest impact. Barry remarked that in one of his first games with Tommy, he saw Tommy was being closely marked on the left wing, so he passed the ball across to the right. It was a pass disapproved of by Tommy who demanded to know why he wasted a pass, Barry said you were marked but Tommy said never mind that just give me the ball, so that’s what Barry did, collected the ball pass to Tommy. It was a productive partnership and one that benefitted both players so much so that, with the exception of Manchester City, he played with Tommy at Bulova (Hong Kong), Burnley and Swansea. Barry often roomed with Tommy, who was a golf fanatic and the pair played golf in the hotel corridor late into the night, they were usually given a room two or three floors above the rest of the squad because of the noise they made.
After retiring from his playing career, he returned to Coventry to set up and manage their football in the community scheme alongside his wife Tina. Barry admitted he had no administration skills so he left those chores to Tina and pair successfully developed the scheme taking football-coaching courses to schools in the Coventry and Warwickshire area.Barry admitted he made a couple of mistakes in his footballing career, one was moving to Derby County, it was the muddy Baseball Ground that just didn’t suit Barry’s style of play. The other regret was going into club management. Although he was reasonably successful in the lower leagues, managing the Welsh Premier League club Aberystwyth Town and English non-league sides Moor Green, Stafford Rangers and two spells at Hednesford Town who he led to the final of the FA Trophy which they duly won, in 2004, but he did not enjoy football club management.
