Coventry City have a new majority shareholder. It has been confirmed that local businessman Doug King’s deal to buy the club and clear the debts had been signed off by the EFL and it brings an end to Sisu’s ownership.
It’s been quite the journey that has seen two ground-shares, two relegations, two promotions and one fat ‘f*cking’ elephant.
In December 2007, Sisu Capital stopped Coventry City from going into administration by buying the club with just 20 minutes to spare. It was a day of celebration and relief for Coventry fans, as the club’s very existence was under threat.
The incoming chairman Ray Ranson made big promises to the Coventry Telegraph. "I want to see us promoted as soon as possible. This is a Premiership club – that is why I am here. I am in it for the long haul."
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He was half right. The Sky Blues may have spent more time in League Two than the Premier League during Sisu’s tenure, but boy have they stuck around. Last month marked 15 years of ownership, a decade and a half that has seen Coventry City go through the ringer, before rising back up to the Championship against the odds.
By 2011, all hope and positivity had evaporated. Ranson had resigned after players such as Scott Dann and Danny Fox were sold on the cheap and the £30m Sisu claimed to have invested didn’t improve the club’s position at all. Their most expensive signing came in the form of £1.2m man Freddy Eastwood, who scored 17 goals over four years for the Sky Blues. No wonder they decided to pull all forms of investment in the team.
2011/12 looked like being an all-time low point for the club. They had a pack of jokers on the board, headed at one point by Sisu’s Onye Igwe who claimed mascot Sky Blue Sam set a bad example to kids, because he was too fat. With the club sat in the Championship relegation zone, this was his primary concern and Ranson was forced to point this out to him, replying: “Onye, it’s a f*cking elephant."
Canadian Director Leonard Brody also came up with the money-making idea that fans would be able to decide which players were substituted by sending a text to a club number. The manager would then have to act upon those results. This one, given those in charge, surprisingly didn’t get off the ground but calling the club a circus would have been generous.
The following season saw Andy Thorn sacked after three league games, Mark Robins came and went in his first spell and ultimately a 15th place finish in League One after a ten point deduction for entering administration. The problems that were mounting off the pitch far exceeded those on it.
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Sisu tried to negotiate a reduced rent deal to continue playing at the Ricoh Arena, but owners of the stadium ACL were given a £14.4m bail-out from Coventry City Council which effectively stopped the owners purchasing some of the stadium on the cheap. It all ended with the unthinkable, a dispute so bad that the owners of the club decided to take CCFC out of Coventry.
For the 2013/14 season, the Sky Blues would play in Northampton, with another ten-point deduction to boot. At Sixfields, there were protests on the hill as fans refused to go inside to watch, and a City side that included young hotshot Callum Wilson were forced to play in front of almost no home fans at all.
They’d return to the Ricoh in August 2014, but the posturing that Sisu wanted to build their own stadium continued. By 2016, after Tony Mowbray’s talented squad fell away from the play-off places in League One, it all imploded.
The Sky Blues fans continued to protest against their owners and chairman Tim Fisher and joined forces with Charlton fans to throw plastic pigs on the pitch at the Valley. That season, having completely annihilated the squad that should have got promoted the season before and appointed Russell Slade for three disastrous months, the club were relegated to the fourth tier - a division they hadn’t played in since 1959.
Local paper the Coventry Telegraph began a 20,000 strong petition to get the owners out of the club, and were subsequently banned from press conferences. Fans continued to vent their frustration, some by protesting in the stadiums, others by not putting a single penny into Sisu’s hands, even if it meant starving themselves of live football.
But at their lowest ebb, one man had returned to the club. Mark Robins, who left in 2013 to take charge of Huddersfield Town, decided he had unfinished business with the Sky Blues. It’s difficult to think of one man who has made such a dramatic impact on not just a struggling football club, but one that’s future looked so bleak.
Sisu had taken the club from the Championship to League Two and out of the very city of which it is named after. But before the Sky Blues were officially relegated to League Two, they had one moment in the sun, at Wembley. It’s a moment Robins always refers back to as the starting point.
They’d reached the EFL Trophy final at Wembley and 45,000 Coventry fans turned up to cheer their side on to a 2-1 win over Oxford United. It may not seem like an important trophy, but it was the first bit of joy the Sky Blues could celebrate for over a decade.
From there, key changes were made. Sisu and Fisher in particular took a step back and let Robins and the likes of newly appointed CEO Dave Boddy steer the ship. Things had been going wrong for far too long, and now it was time to let the sensible footballing heads lead the way.
A tough battle in League Two ended with another Wembley win, as Coventry finished in the top six of a division for the first time in 46 years and won the play-offs. The highlight was not the final itself, but a dramatic 4-1 away win in the semi-final at Kevin Nolan’s Notts County who had let slip that they had shirts printed to celebrate reaching Wembley.
City attacked League One in the same sort of manner, but their progress was seemingly brought to a half when once again, they were forced to leave the Ricoh Arena. This time though, things felt slightly different. Not only were they heading for St Andrew’s rather than Sixfields, but new owners of the Ricoh Arena - Wasps - had firmly established themselves as the villains of this story, along with Coventry City Council who were being as unhelpful as ever.
Fans this time thought the move was for the good of the club financially, and this time they travelled in their thousands to support the team. Robins described it as ‘moving house’ and put together a team that was spectacular, and sat top of the league by the time the season was suspended due to Covid-19.
Against all the odds, Robins had turned the club around and Sisu had somehow got the club back to where they picked it up 15 years ago. The stadium issues still linger, Wasps have gone bust and Mike Ashley is the new owner of the newly-named CBS Arena, but the football club feels like it can now kick on.
After their initial losses, Sisu could never invest heavily. Now the club is on an even keel in the second-tier, perhaps King is the man to fulfil those Premier League ambitions. First order of business under his ownership could be to build Mark Robins that statue he so richly deserves.
