Things were so much simpler in the eighties | OneFootball

So as the relief of the end of season starts to abate, we move into the Phoney War that is the summer transfer window. Mbeumo, Guehi, anyone?

No Summer football tournament to distract us, so the sitzkrieg will take on a new meaning in the coming weeks.

How about some regular contributors fill the vacuum?

How about some tales of daring do, or Wor Lass with a medical related analysis of some aspect of our team?

I’ll kick the ball off with my Coventry tall story.

Back in the eighties, living in Nottingham, my then girlfriend was from Rugby. Lifelong Coventry City fan and Warwickshire cricket lass.

Just so happens that her older sister is married to one of the Cov self-styled “top boys.”

So, the Friday before our game, it is off to Rugby.

In the Sky Blue boozer playing cheese skittles with the Cov lads, autographed shirts and photos of Highfield Road bedeck the pub, the toilets are covered with anti-Forest, Villa and Leicester graffiti.

The Cov lads tell me they are the biggest club in the Midlands after winning the FA Cup and not surprisingly they are also impressed by the Newcastle following and recall games past.

The next day we are off to Coventry and a few beers before heading to Highfield Road.

We pay in, to go on the open terracing which is the Spion Kop.

I am with the Cov lads from Rugby and my girlfriend’s brother in law who is a man mountain and drank me under the table the night before, decides to announce there is a Geordie with him and not to mess. Fair dos.

Turns out all the Cov lads are sound and even when Mirandinha scores the winner from the penalty spot there is no animosity shown towards me.

A pleasant evening back in the Sky Blue bar in Rugby and a few more games of cheese skittles with the locals.

Paying in at a turnstile on a Saturday afternoon at 3pm, standing on open terracing with a crowd of less than twenty thousand (a 2-1 away win in front of 16,577, 11 February 1989).