Coventry City: Is It Time For A New Club?

The decision to move Coventry City to Northampton feels like the final act. For many supporters, the only way to save their club might be to leave it and start again.

A Sixty-Mile Round Trip

Just a few weeks remain before the new season begins, and Coventry City supporters have been told where their club will play its home games: Northampton. The deal to ground-share, a round trip of more than sixty miles, has been struck by the club’s owners, SISU. The Football League now faces a decision on whether to ratify the move. With the implicit threat that the alternative could be the club’s closure on the eve of the campaign, it seems likely that the authorities will acquiesce, however supine the decision may appear.

The precedent being cited is Rotherham United’s temporary move to the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield, but the comparison is flawed. Rotherham moved just four miles and already had planning permission for a new ground. Coventry are proposing to move more than thirty miles away with no such plans in place. Yet with the prospect of a 23-team League One hanging over their heads, the Football League’s hand seems forced. SISU have called everyone’s bluff at every turn. Why would they stop now?

What Is A Football Club?

This leaves Coventry supporters with a series of unpalatable choices. Some will make the fortnightly pilgrimage east, unable to kick the habit. Others may find a new home in non-league, scratching a football itch but never replacing the Sky Blues, a club that might have been in their family for generations. Many more will simply drift away from the game, discovering that the money saved on season tickets and overpriced pies comes in quite handy. None of these options feel right.

A football supporter is not a consumer. If a supermarket provides poor service, you can shop elsewhere. That flexibility doesn’t exist in football. This dilemma forces a more fundamental question: what is a football club? Is it merely the legal entity that holds a place in the league, an entity which in Coventry’s case is already opaque? Or is it something less tangible, a shared, collective experience passed down through families?

A football club is a collection of memories, colours and values. A football club without its fans is just a team, a company. The fans are the club, and that is something no owner or league can take away from them.

This is the point at which a fourth option emerges, one that has been gaining traction in recent weeks: starting a new football club for the city of Coventry.

The Breakaway Precedent

Declaring that enough is enough is a drastic step, but there are precedents. In 2001, supporters of Enfield FC, twice winners of the non-league top flight, broke away after their ground was sold for housing. Twelve years later, the supporter-owned Enfield Town FC has its own home. More high-profile examples followed with the formations of AFC Wimbledon in 2002 and FC United of Manchester in 2005. Further splits have occurred at clubs like Chester and Northwich.

AFC Wimbledon provides the closest parallel in terms of the original club’s size. Anecdotally, many of their supporters speak with fondness of the adventure that saw them return to the Football League in just nine years, rising from the very bottom of the pyramid. The journey itself became a source of pride.

The logistics of starting afresh are clearer than ever. The English league system is well-defined, and the financial realities of the lower divisions mean that a ground-share arrangement far closer to home than Northampton should be achievable. A new Coventry club would have a substantial supporter base, which would fuel a rapid ascent through the divisions. The formula of a winning team combined with supporters controlling their own destiny has been proven to work. A considerable knowledge base also exists, with organisations like Supporters Direct and the fan-run clubs themselves ready to offer guidance. The era of depending on the whims of a single owner is over.

No one wants this situation. But for Coventry City supporters, the future under SISU looks bleak. Any blind faith in the ownership must be measured against the simple fact of where the club is now. If the league does rubber-stamp the move to Northampton, the question becomes what the future of football in the city will be. Supporters can continue to fund an entity that has treated them with contempt, or they can choose another way. It will not be easy, and it will be painful. But could it possibly be more painful than this?