IT was one of my favourite FA Cup memories — not as a player but as a fan.
I was in the away end at what was then called the Ricoh Arena to watch Coventry City suffer a first-round giant-killing at the hands of non-league Worcester City in 2014.
GettyMark Robins netted a vital goal early in Sir Alex Ferguson’s Man United career[/caption]
APFergie had been under pressure[/caption]
AlamyRobins now faces United as the manager of Coventry[/caption]
GettyErik ten Hag takes on Coventry in the FA Cup[/caption]
My brother Ellis, a loose-cannon of a central midfielder, was playing for Worcester and I had a thoroughly good day out, shouting myself hoarse, watching his team cause a proper upset.
Fast forward a decade and Championship Coventry will face Manchester United at Wembley tomorrow in an FA Cup semi-final.
It says a lot about the Cup’s special place in the English football calendar that Coventry can experience such extreme fortunes in the competition.
Indeed, back in the 1980s, the Sky Blues won the Cup in a classic final against Tottenham and then lost to non-league Sutton United a couple of years later.
Coventry and their supporters have been to hell and back in the last decade or so.
They have had to play home matches at Birmingham’s St Andrew’s and Northampton because of a dispute between their former owners and the arena operators.
I was at Birmingham when they were sharing St Andrew’s and I managed to snap my Achilles playing against them in an ‘away’ fixture at our ground.
Coventry fell into the fourth tier at one point. For a club which was a fixture in the top flight for three decades that was a hell of a fall.
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They are back under local ownership, after years of being run by a hedge fund — although the only cloud might be Mike Ashley owns their ground, now known as the Coventry Building Society Arena.
Mark Robins, whose seven years in charge make him the fourth-longest serving manager in English football, has done a tremendous job, taking Coventry to within a penalty shoot-out of the Premier League last season.
Mark is a terrific bloke, who knows football inside out. He is such a decent and generous man.
He has this aura about him which makes him a big personality without having to shout and scream.
He has consistently had to sell Coventry’s best players — especially Viktor Gyokeres and Gustavo Hamer last summer — but still manages to rebuild impressively.
He famously scored the FA Cup third-round winner for Manchester United against Nottingham Forest to save Sir Alex Ferguson’s job in 1990.
And if Cov pull off a win at Wembley, he could do the opposite for Erik ten Hag, whose job as United boss is hanging by a thread.
I genuinely think Coventry have a chance, mainly because you never have a clue which United are going to turn up on any given day.
Also, Coventry have two forwards who can really cause problems.
Ellis Simms, who has scored five goals in their last two Cup ties, and the American, Haji Wright, both have the ability to make runs behind United’s defence and that is exactly what the Premier League side don’t want to encounter.
Simms, signed from Everton last summer, is one of many players whose careers have been revived by Robins at Coventry. He might not be absolutely top-drawer but he has a real eye for goal.
He scored twice in a dramatic 3-2 win at Wolves in the quarter-finals and a hat-trick against Maidstone in the previous round.
Like some of their team-mates, Simms and Wright will be thinking ‘one big game here and I could earn myself a Premier League move’.
This is a free hit for Coventry’s players. They have already earned a massive day out for their supporters — a Wembley trip for the second successive season after the Championship play-off final against Luton.
Nobody is expecting them to win but they have a real chance. Anything is possible in the Cup, as I remember from my day out with Worcester City.
My main memory of that match was that Sean Geddes, who I’d played with at Walsall, scored both of Worcester’s goals.
All I can remember of my brother’s performance is that he got booked for a heavy challenge!
But there will be plenty of Coventry fans at Wembley tomorrow who will have seen their team lose at home to Worcester.
And when you have experienced bitter moments like that — especially with people like me goading them from the away end — then the good times taste all the more sweet.
Why FA Cup changes are GOOD NEWS
By Martin Lipton
THE FA and Premier League should have done the deal to scrap FA Cup replays years ago.
No doubt traditionalists will moan but it is right that the competition has finally been brought into the 21st century.
Ending replays will bring extra sharpness and excitement to the ties, with the knowledge that there will be a winner, whether in 90 minutes, extra-time or penalties.
If big guns have a bad day, they are more likely to pay the price. Replays after draws give them a fall-back they do not deserve.
Giving the FA Cup total and absolute priority over four weekends – and ensuring there is no competing match on the day of the Final – will enhance the profile of a competition that was in danger of falling out of the spotlight.
And as long as the FA ensures a better split of the prize money fund, weighting it more towards the earlier rounds, and potentially a similar move with TV match money, there should be few losers.
Read more on the FA Cup by clicking here.