No more gimmicks: Coventry’s perilous journey back to the Premier League is finally over

Coventry fans stage a ‘Sisu out’ demonstration before a League One fixture against Rochdale. Photograph: ProSports/Rex/Shutterstock

The club were “half an hour away from disappearing” before the hedge fund Sisu stepped in, remembers Claudio Cardellino, a 60-year-old who attended his first match in 1970. “I don’t think they realised how hard it was to run a football club. We were millions in debt.”

Joy Seppala, Sisu’s 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.

Brody says: “They 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.”

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 – first from the council, then Wasps, the rugby club who took over in 2014.

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.

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

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.

“The year we went down in League One we went down wearing a white home kit – how on earth do Coventry City wear a white home kit?” Myles Cadden, host of Sky Blues Fans TV, asks, not unfairly.

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.

Players reported that they preferred playing away from home – damning, considering how few fans travelled. David Boddy was appointed chief executive around that time and “reached out to fan groups to say: ‘Come on, forget the owners, get behind the team’ – that was the motto,” Cardellino says. “All of a sudden there was a massive connection between the players and the fans.”

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. His return and a renewed enthusiasm to forget the ownership and get behind the team proved potent.

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’s story when he bought the companies that owned it the previous year.

“There is a real debt owed to Joy because she did an incredible job in a very complicated and difficult scenario,” Brody says of Seppala. “I think it was years of neglect and it took years of work to undo that.”

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 took over in 2024. “As a fanbase we all wanted to see Mark finish the job,” Cadden says.

The arrival of Frank Onyeka (centre) has helped steel Coventry’s midfield after a Christmas wobble. Photograph: Ryan Browne/Shutterstock

Cardellino, also a Sky Blues Fans TV host, adds: “I wasn’t surprised he went. What disappointed me was the way it was done. Getting sacked seemed really harsh after the rise we’d had.”

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 golden glove during a season-long loan from Brighton.

Lampard’s 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 – both after leading – Lampard spoke to his players about protecting the lead and seeing out games.

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

It has finally got them over the line at Ewood Park – and he didn’t need any fans to text suggestions on how to do it.