{"id":902665,"date":"2026-04-18T11:08:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T11:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/902665\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T11:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T11:08:20","slug":"no-more-gimmicks-coventrys-perilous-journey-back-to-the-premier-league-is-finally-over-coventry-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/902665\/","title":{"rendered":"No more gimmicks: Coventry\u2019s perilous journey back to the Premier League is finally over | Coventry City"},"content":{"rendered":"

To understand the extraordinarily wild ride that Coventry have been on, culminating in the promotion achieved at Blackburn on Friday night<\/a>, you need only look at the text-a-substitute idea that has become part of football folklore.<\/p>\n

In less than a decade, the club were relegated from the top flight for the first time after 34 years, lost their stadium and came within half an hour of extinction before being bought by a Mayfair-based hedge fund in 2007. The story goes that, as a way to generate extra revenue, fans would be able to text substitution suggestions to a premium-rate number during a match. It is frequently recalled in local and national newspapers. Fans are still asked about it today.<\/p>\n

But Leonard Brody, the Canadian digital guru who joined the board when Sisu took over and is credited with the idea, insists it was never seriously discussed at the club. \u201cThat whole texting conversation was taken out of context of more of a brainstorming conversation that was happening with a reporter, where they pulled out the idea to make it look like a stupid idea,\u201d Brody says in a video call from Canada.<\/p>\n

He says he was discussing how clubs needed to seek revenue streams away from broadcasting. \u201cI think it\u2019s kind of funny,\u201d he adds. \u201cBut it\u2019s not something we were ever going to do or take seriously in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of its veracity, it is yet another footnote in a remarkable story: Coventry\u2019s fall<\/a> from one of the longest-standing clubs at the top of the pyramid to League Two, before rising again and returning to the Premier League for the first time in 25 years.<\/p>\n

Trouble began brewing in the mid-90s, when grand plans to build a new stadium turned into a nightmare. Premier League relegation in 2001 came at the worst possible time for a financially stretched club. They ran out of money and the council took on the Ricoh Arena, as it was initially called. So in 2005, when the club moved out of Highfield Road, their home of 106 years, they no longer owned a stadium and had to pay \u00a31.3m a year in rent.<\/p>\n

The club were \u201chalf an hour away from disappearing\u201d before the hedge fund Sisu stepped in, remembers Claudio Cardellino, a 60-year-old who attended his first match in 1970. \u201cI don\u2019t think they realised how hard it was to run a football club. We were millions in debt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coventry fans stage a \u2018Sisu out\u2019 demonstration before a League One fixture against Rochdale. Photograph: ProSports\/Rex\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Joy Seppala, Sisu\u2019s chief executive, was hands-on and the commodities trader Onye Igwe was installed to run the club. Sisu threw money at attempts to return to the Premier League.<\/p>\n

Brody says: \u201cThey inherited a house on fire and they had to put out the fire. The goal was to put out the fire and give the club solid foundations. And that took a lot of work. There was a lot of conflict and grief and stakeholders that were not seeing eye to eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

If they had planned to flip the club for profit after a quick promotion, it went disastrously. Sisu became embroiled in a series of legal disputes that reached the high court as they tried to wrest control of the stadium \u2013 first from the council, then Wasps, the rugby club who took over in 2014.<\/p>\n

Against the backdrop of administrations, points deductions and transfer embargos, twice Coventry were exiled from their own city, forced to play in Northampton in 2013-14 and Birmingham from 2019 to 2021.<\/p>\n

Mark Robins helped reforge the bond between players and fans as he brought Coventry back to the Championship during his second spell in charge. Photograph: Richard Sellers\/PA<\/p>\n

As they fell through League One and into League Two, supporters protested at games. Tennis balls and whistles were thrown on to the pitch during a game against Sheffield United. Plastic pigs were hurled on to the turf against Charlton.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe year we went down in League One we went down wearing a white home kit \u2013 how on earth do Coventry City<\/a> wear a white home kit?\u201d Myles Cadden, host of Sky Blues Fans TV, asks, not unfairly.<\/p>\n

During a home game against Forest Green in League Two, a supporter ran on to the field and confronted players before being escorted off by the captain, Michael Doyle.<\/p>\n

Players reported that they preferred playing away from home \u2013 damning, considering how few fans travelled. David Boddy was appointed chief executive around that time and \u201creached out to fan groups to say: \u2018Come on, forget the owners, get behind the team\u2019 \u2013 that was the motto,\u201d Cardellino says. \u201cAll of a sudden there was a massive connection between the players and the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was underpinned by the return of Mark Robins, who took over when they were bottom of League One, helped underpin a renewed bond between the fans and players, despite an inevitable relegation<\/a>. His return and a renewed enthusiasm to forget the ownership and get behind the team proved potent.<\/p>\n

They won two promotions in three seasons under Sisu before Doug King completed a takeover in 2023, then bought the stadium from Mike Ashley, who entered Coventry\u2019s story when he bought the companies that owned it the previous year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a real debt owed to Joy because she did an incredible job in a very complicated and difficult scenario,\u201d Brody says of Seppala. \u201cI think it was years of neglect and it took years of work to undo that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robins came within a Championship playoff final against Luton in 2023 of taking Coventry all the way back up and there were mixed feelings when he departed and Frank Lampard<\/a> took over in 2024. \u201cAs a fanbase we all wanted to see Mark finish the job,\u201d Cadden says.<\/p>\n

The arrival of Frank Onyeka (centre) has helped steel Coventry\u2019s midfield after a Christmas wobble. Photograph: Ryan Browne\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Cardellino, also a Sky Blues Fans TV host, adds: \u201cI wasn\u2019t surprised he went. What disappointed me was the way it was done. Getting sacked seemed really harsh after the rise we\u2019d had.\u201d<\/p>\n

But under Lampard, the recruitment team have put together the final pieces of a promotion puzzle. Matt Grimes arrived in January last year and has been fundamental in central midfield. The defensive midfielder Frank Onyeka joined on loan from Brentford in February and they have won eight and drawn one of the 10 games he has played, having struggled over the Christmas period. The goalkeeper Carl Rushworth is on course to win the Championship<\/a> golden glove during a season-long loan from Brighton.<\/p>\n

Lampard\u2019s team sets up with a 4-3-3 but he has drilled into his players the ability to change formations during games to adapt to the opposition. They had a problem with being gung-ho in games they were winning. But after back-to-back defeats by QPR and Norwich in late January \u2013 both after leading \u2013 Lampard spoke to his players about protecting the lead and seeing out games.<\/p>\n

A cardboard cut out of Frank Lampard in the Coventry end at Blackburn on the night promotion was sealed. Photograph: Matt West\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

It has finally got them over the line at Ewood Park \u2013 and he didn\u2019t need any fans to text suggestions on how to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To understand the extraordinarily wild ride that Coventry have been on, culminating in the promotion achieved at Blackburn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":902666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-902665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116425399254770683","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}