After each matchday programme this season, we publish the regular column from the Coventry City board on our website. You can read Coventry City Chief Executive Dave Boddy's column from Saturday's game against Rotherham United below:
Good afternoon and welcome to today’s game as Coventry City face Rotherham United here at St Andrew’s in the Sky Bet Championship, at a game when we are showing our support for the Rainbow Laces campaign. Football and society should be an inclusive environment for all people and we are proud to support the campaign.
I would like to welcome the players, staff and officials who join us today from Rotherham.
The Millers joined us in the Championship, being promoted with us when last season was curtailed by COVID-19. I am sure fans of both clubs will remember the 1-1 draw here back in February, which was our penultimate home game of a memorable season.
Since my last programme notes against Cardiff City, having teased football supporters that there would be a return of fans from 2nd December, the Prime Minister and his Government then announced the return of the tier structure, which effectively meant that the majority of EFL clubs could not have spectators back in their stadiums.
As you will be aware, both Birmingham and Coventry were placed in Tier 3 which precludes us from having supporters at games, with the tiering being reviewed on 15th December. Because of logistics this effectively rules out the return of supporters for our home game on 16th December against Huddersfield Town, so the first possible opportunity, should Birmingham be placed in Tier 2, would be for supporters to return for our game on Boxing Day against Stoke City.
Should we be in a position to have spectators on Boxing Day, our 3,500 Championship Club Season Ticket holders will go into a ballot to receive admission to the game if they do wish to attend. Those who are not successful in the ballot will then have first priority to attend our next scheduled home league game against Sheffield Wednesday on 16th January, assuming supporters are still allowed to attend.
Tickets will be distributed on a digital basis and will not be transferable to any other supporters due to COVID regulations and for ‘Track and Trace’ purposes.
Most supporters will have seen that on ‘Black Friday’ we launched our new third kit for the season. The shirt was designed to support the City of Coventry being the UK City of Culture in 2021, and has been produced in association with the City of Culture team. The Club has supported the City of Culture bid since its inception and we are delighted with the design of the shirt, which represents the City of Culture logo with the jet engine, the bicycle wheel and the 5G symbol all built into the design of the shirt, and the city skyline on the reverse – alongside football sticker type images of Coventry City legends in the neck piece.
Once again the shirt has been well received by Sky Blues fans, selling over 2000 in the first weekend, and we intend to give the shirt its first outing away at Wycombe Wanderers next Saturday.
Thank you for your support, enjoy the game.
Dave