Sunderland, Coventry, Bristol City: Half a century on a peculiar grudge lingers

Last Saturday, shortly before the 12.30pm kick-offs in the Championship, the discussion at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light concerned Middlesbrough’s chances of winning at Coventry City, as they needed to if they were to reach the play-offs.

The pros, and mainly cons, of Middlesbrough’s hopes were debated.

Then someone said: “I suppose it depends on what time Coventry kick off.”

And immediately, it was not May 2025; it was May 1977. Football folk have memories that would impress elephants and a mafioso’s capacity for holding grudges.

And as some recall — bitterly — on Wearside, in May 1977, three of the current campaign’s Championship play-off clubs — Sunderland, Coventry and Bristol City — went into the last game of the 1976-77 season in the old First Division, tied on 34 points, with one certain to be relegated.

Sunderland were best-placed of the trio on goal difference and were to meet Everton. Coventry and Bristol City were facing each other in a winner-takes-all, loser-loses-everything scenario. At least that was the theory.

Matches were moved to a Thursday night due to a fixture backlog. Sunderland were at Goodison Park; the other game was at Coventry’s Highfield Road. In such a situation, it was essential for sporting integrity that both games kicked off at the same time.

But they didn’t. And, 48 years on, to some that still matters.

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In December 1976, Sunderland, bottom of the old First Division, appointed Jimmy Adamson as their new manager. Adamson, a former Footballer of the Year, brought in Dave Merrington as his assistant.

Sunderland, however, kept on losing even with the new men in charge and by February 1977, with just two victories in their first 25 league games, Merrington was suggesting some youth-team players might be worth trying.

Adamson agreed. Future Sunderland heroes such as Gary Rowell and Shaun Elliott were to be given a chance and, on February 11, Sunderland defeated Bristol City 1-0. It was a re-start. On February 19, they beat Middlesbrough 4-0; on February 22, West Bromwich Albion were demolished 6-1; and on March 5, West Ham got stuffed 6-0.

Suddenly, Sunderland were no longer bottom and being laughed at. They were one of the tales of the season.

The winning run could not continue, but Sunderland won enough games to reach the last match with the best chance of the three clubs to stay up.

Bristol City were in their first top-division season for 65 years — they had been promoted with Sunderland in 1975-76. Alan Dicks was the manager and his team overcame Liverpool, already confirmed as champions, in their penultimate game to leave them one place above the relegation zone.

Coventry had been in the First Division for a decade and were 12th in the 22-team table when February 1977 began with a 2-1 victory at Leeds United. But their form flopped and they won only two of the 20 games after that. They were third-bottom as the final 90 minutes loomed.

Gordon Milne was Coventry’s manager but the most prominent figure at the club was managing director Jimmy Hill.

Hill was a national figure, a former Fulham stalwart who had been Coventry manager in the 1960s, when his assistant was Dicks. But Hill’s fame derived mainly from television punditry. Hill was the Gary Lineker or Roy Keane of his day. Hill had lots of opinions and was always ready to share them.

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Sunderland, needing a point against Everton or a winner in the match at Highfield Road, took 10,000 fans across northern England to Goodison Park, while Coventry’s Evening Telegraph was reporting on an anticipated 10,000 travelling the 100 miles north from Bristol. The same newspaper also said extra police were being brought in from Birmingham’s Special Patrol Group.

Among those leaving Bristol were jurors in a court case who had requested — and received — an early adjournment to the day’s proceedings. Justice could wait, and some think it still does.

Two 7.30pm kick-offs were scheduled, and there were no other First Division fixtures that night.

Coventry’s captain Terry Yorath, vastly experienced with Leeds and Wales, previewed Bristol City’s visit saying: “No game I have played in matches the importance of this one.”

Bristol City’s captain was Norman Hunter, Yorath’s former Leeds team-mate. Hunter was to call it “the strangest game I ever played in”. He and his colleagues were on £1,500 a man to stay up. Given Hunter had revealed in his autobiography that his annual salary was £12,500, this was enormous money.

At Goodison, Everton and Sunderland kicked off at 7.30pm sharp. Sunderland were concentrating on a clean sheet, but that target was gone quickly when Everton’s prolific Bob Latchford scored his 25th goal of the season.

Had there been the communications of today, Sunderland’s management would have been concerned about more than that — 120 miles south, the kick-off in Coventry had been delayed by five minutes.

Ultimately, the decision was taken by the ‘M1 Division’ — the transport police. Its deputy, John Abberley, later cited “safety“ and said there were “hundreds” of fans outside as 7.30pm approached and it was feared “they might charge the gates”.

Referee Ron Challis was quoted the next day in the Daily Express saying: “I agreed to the delayed start at the request of the police.”

But even as this was happening, there were suspicions about the necessity of the decision — it was hundreds of supporters outside, not thousands — and the same Express report used the word “apparently” about the delay being due to “late-coming fans”.

Everyone at Highfield Road understood the difference a delayed kick-off could mean, although when Tommy Hutchison scored twice for Coventry, there was no conspiracy to have a theory about. And the game had been feisty — 50 fouls were counted before the 85th minute. If they had an ‘As It Stands’ table in those days, it would have shown Bristol City going down and that was that.

It was when, as Sunderland missed chances at Everton, Bristol City’s Gerry Gow made it 2-1 and then, with 11 minutes remaining, Don Gillies equalised, that perspectives changed.

At Goodison, there was a rumour that Coventry were winning 3-1. But when that was discovered to be untrue, Sunderland pushed up for an equaliser that would, as it stood, relegate Coventry. But they failed and in stoppage time, Everton’s Bruce Rioch broke away and scored a second.

But it was not yet added time in Coventry. At Highfield Road, there were five minutes, plus stoppages, left and when Hill heard the final 2-0 scoreline from Goodison, he wanted the players on the field to know. Then, effectively, they could stop playing, in the knowledge that a 2-2 draw would keep both sides in the First Division.

Had they not known, Coventry’s players would have thought correctly that 2-2 could relegate them. They could have chased a winner and maybe got one, thereby relegating Bristol City, or perhaps lost to a side who had come back from two down and had momentum.

But all of this potential drama was neutered.

The sports editor of the Bristol Post, David Solomons, was there and delivered a lyrical account of the evening, writing of “the immaculate, suave Jimmy Hill, managing director of Coventry and football pundit extraordinary, rushing like a demented bison to the public address box behind where I was sitting yelling, ‘Sunderland have lost. Announce it, you bloody fools’.”

On Highfield Road’s giant scoreboard, the Sunderland result appeared and suddenly both Coventry and Bristol City engaged in “non-football”, as Solomons put it.

“I am not kidding,” Hunter recalled, “Coventry had the ball in their half, then it was passed down to our half and we knocked it around a bit.”

Like Hunter and everyone else, Solomons could not believe his eyes. His report included referee Challis, who, he said, “gave up, blowing his whistle with still at least a minute to go”.

Solomons also referred sarcastically to Bristol City fans on the motorway as the reason for the kick-off being put back — “at least that’s what they said”.

He wrote of “this hilarious, tragic, farcical, heroic, bizarre, dirty, exhilarating football match” and asked: “How do you describe instant football history? There were these two teams kicking lumps out of each other… and just when they have reached the stage that Bristol wanted and Coventry didn’t, with the score at 2-2 and all hell let loose, suddenly peace, perfect peace descends.

“The teams learn through a huge illustrated scoreboard that Sunderland have lost to Everton. That means the carnage can end.”

The game did end, Coventry and Bristol City survived and Sunderland were down. But doubts about sportsmanship were already in the air. The Express was keen to note in its live match report that Hill was “first into the Bristol City dressing room to congratulate his former assistant Dicks”. Hill was quoted as saying it would have been “tragic” if Coventry had been relegated.

Up at Goodison, Sunderland fans stood in silence awaiting news from afar. When the tannoy announced it was 2-2 at Highfield Road, their silence continued. Veteran north-east reporter Len Hetherington wrote: “As if the announcer had suddenly realised what it really meant to the thousands who had cheered their team all the way, he added apologetically: ‘We are very, very sorry about that, of course’.”

Adamson and Merrington were consoling their tearful young players when Coventry’s delayed kick-off was then mentioned.

Now 80, Merrington, later to be Southampton manager in the Premier League, tells The Athletic: “I think we were in the dressing room when the news came through there’d been a late kick-off. Jimmy Adamson says, ‘What do you mean, late kick-off?’

“Both sides should have kicked off together but we were told Jimmy Hill had made a complaint to the police to kick off late because of the size of the crowd.”

The attendance was given as 36,903. According to that season’s Rothmans Football Yearbook, Highfield Road’s capacity was 48,000.

After playing for Burnley, Merrington had moved to Bristol City in the early 1970s and adds: “A thing that bothered me was, because I had worked at Bristol City, I knew the manager Alan Dicks was a big friend of Jimmy Hill.”

As Sunderland learned more about what had happened, Merrington says: “We were furious, absolutely furious; the board, Jimmy Adamson and myself were absolutely livid. They said it was because of the crowd. I think that was extremely naughty.

“It’s a part of my career that I look back on and think we were cheated. The fans knew.”

By the next day, a storm was gathering. The Coventry Evening Telegraph headline read: “Late Kick-off Not Our Decision — City”. Club chairman Jack Scamp said Coventry had “nothing to do with” the decision to delay.

Sunderland made a formal complaint to the Football League and its secretary, Alan Hardaker, began an investigation. Hardaker was unimpressed by Hill and while the league did not deduct points nor order a replay — which Merrington says should have happened — Coventry were “severely reprimanded” publicly.

Hill responded saying the club would “fight to remove the stigma, if necessary in the courts”.

In April the following year it was still rumbling, but at a Football League meeting “the matter was buried”, as Hill put it. He said Coventry’s board felt no guilt “either legal or moral”. He pointed out that if Sunderland had secured a draw at Everton, they would have stayed up.

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Sunderland did not quite see it that way.

They spent the next three seasons in the Second Division before winning promotion. Bristol City stayed up until 1980 but have not been back to the top tier since.

Coventry, though, stabilised, won the FA Cup final in 1987 and stayed in the First Division as it became the Premier League until relegation in 2001. They too have never returned to the domestic elite.

Sunderland have played at Coventry 18 times in the decades since, first at Highfield Road, then at their new stadium, where Frank Lampard’s side won 3-0 in March.

Hill’s name has cropped up regularly and there was a direct confrontation with him when Sunderland played at Fulham in 2008. Police officers ushered Hill away as travelling supporters shouted “cheat” at him. They shout the same at the statue of Hill, who died 10 years ago at age 87, outside the new Coventry stadium when they visit — as they do again tonight in the first leg of the Championship play-off semi-final.

These are not traditional derby rivals — Coventry’s are Aston Villa and Leicester City, Sunderland’s are Newcastle United — but it is there just beneath the surface, lurking for an occasion such as a play-off tie with potential top-flight status at stake.

It is why, 48 years on, Sunderland’s 49-year-old French head coach, Regis Le Bris, was asked about it on Wednesday, and why Lampard, 46, was also asked if he knew about the rivalry in the aftermath of Coventry’s 2-0 win at Middlesbrough last Saturday lunchtime — kick-off, 12.30pm.

“It’s not my rivalry,” Lampard smiled, “but I am Coventry, so it is now. That’s what football is about.”

(Photos: PA Images via Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

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