Just Like Watching Brazil?

Leyton Orient 3 Coventry City 2

Capital One Cup 1st Round (formerly known as The League Cup)

In 1987 Coventry City won the FA Cup beating Tottenham in the FA Cup Final. This was during a run of 34 years in the top division in English football. They were relegated to the 2nd tier in 2001 and into the 3rd tier in 2012. The relegations were only part of the trauma Coventry City fans have had to face. In 2012-13 season  one of the companies connected with the football club went into administration. This relates in particular to debts run up at their then home the Ricoh Arena.

I’m not going to try to explain the background to or the current financial position relating to the ownership of Coventry, but they started the 2013-14 season on minus 10 points and are playing their home games at Northampton’s ground, a 68 mile round trip from Coventry. As a result of this Coventry have allegedly sold a whole 300 season tickets for the season.

They played their first game of the season at Crawley Town and lost 3-2 after coming back from 2-0 down to 2-2 with only minutes left. On a historic note, when Coventry were winning the FA Cup in 1987, Crawley were finishing 13th out of 22 teams in the Southern Premier League.

So tonight they were the visitors at Brisbane Road (know to Barry Hearn as the Match room Stadium). They brought as many fans as they have season ticket holders. This is a good following given the turmoil around the club and the antipathy felt

by the fans for the clubs current owners. The above photo was taken just before kick off, and a few more Coventry fans arrived in the next few minutes.

The Coventry team turned out in a kit of yellow shirts, blue shorts and white socks as seen below.

Whoops sorry, that appears to be the wrong photo, I appear to have mistaken Coventry for Brazil. Its an easy mistake to make as Coventry play football just like that great Brazilian team of 1970 did.

The game started with Coventry playing at a high tempo and pressing all the time. Orient were given little time on the ball and when Coventry had possession they always looked dangerous. This was a little surprising as Orient had won 5-1 away on Saturday and Coventry had lost at Crawley.

It came as no real surprise that Coventry took the lead after 22 minutes with a well taken goal. This seemed to wake Orient up and 4 minutes later they had equalised.

As the half progressed, Coventry started to show their professionalism with a serious of professional foul, pushes, kick etc all of which the referee seemed to either miss or ignore. The linesman on the West Stand side seemed equally unaware of what was happening. To say he was slow was an understatement, he was regularly 10-15 yards behind the play. This is not helpful when trying to make accurate offside decisions.

After about 35 minutes, Orient scored again, and could have easily had a third before half time.

The second half seemed to be greeted by a less energetic Coventry side and Orient started to get more on top. One of the talking points of the 2nd half came with the dismissal of Coventry’s captain Baker for a 2 footed lunge. It was probably the referee’s easiest decision of the night. Initially Baker refused to walk off the pitch and wanted to argue with the referee. When he eventually left the pitch Baker after being spoken to by the 4th official picked up a bottle of water and kicked it up in the air, it landing some 20 yards or so away from him in the middle of the pitch.  Behaviour of a spoilt petulant brat which if it had been done by a spectator would have resulted in arrest and a certain football banning order.

The referee and officials chose simply to ignore this behaviour. I would doubt if they put it in their match report either. Quite appalling behaviour and more reminiscent of the South American style of Argentina at the 1966 World Cup rather than Brazil in 1970.

Down to 10 men, it should have been game over for Coventry, but they continued to fight and kick their way back into the game and got an equaliser.

They very nearly got a most undeserved winner when the linesman on the West Stand side forget he was supposed to keep up with the play and failed to flag for the most blatant offside of the night, allowing the offside Coventry player to run onto a through ball in a move that resulted in Orient’s Cuthbert bringing down Coventry’s Clarke. Rather than give the offside, the referee gave a penalty. Justice was done when the penalty was saved.

Just as the game was seemingly heading to extra time, Kevin Lisbie popped up to score a late winner for Orient. Two wins from 2 games now for Orient, it took more than a month longer last season to win 2 games for Orient. Top of the league (after 1 game) and into the 2nd round of the league cup represents a major success for Orient fans.

Coventry if they can control their petulance will be challenging for a play off place if tonight’s performance is anything to go by. They can catch up the 10 point deduction IF they keep their discipline and do not have to sell any more players. The lack of home gate receipts may however cost them dearly.

So,  watching Coventry was just like watching Brazil? Well, they at times played football at pace and passed the ball well, but they also feigned injury, kicked, pushed and generally fouled their way through a game and when pulled up for it their captain behaved like a petulant thug.

Well it was like watching Brazil if Brazil decided to be a team of cheating, poor sportsmen. Did someone mention Rivaldo at the World Cup?