After each matchday programme this season, we publish the regular column from the Coventry City board on our website. Read Coventry City Chief Executive Dave Boddy's column from Saturday's game against Blackburn Rovers below:
Good afternoon and welcome to this afternoon’s Sky Bet Championship game against Blackburn Rovers, and our first ‘home’ Saturday fixture of the season.
It’s our pleasure to welcome the players, officials and travelling party from Blackburn, and in particular the ‘Coventry Connection’ Tony Mowbray, Mark Venus, Steve Waggott and former loanee Adam Armstrong, all of whom made big contributions during their time with the Sky Blues.
It was Mark that was instrumental in initially bringing me to the Club as Commercial Director then, I will always be grateful to him for giving me the opportunity.
As mentioned in my column previously, the Club is delighted with the success of the Championship Club Membership scheme, which sold out of its 3,500 capacity well ahead of the off-sale date.
One of the major benefits of the Championship Club Membership is the unique, one-off shirt that we have launched and will be playing one game in. Each Members will receive the shirt for free as a thank you from the Club to them for their support, with the shirt featuring the names of all 3,500 Members on the back of it.
Once again a lot of work has gone into the design, both internally and working with Hummel. I am sure that supporters will agree with me that it is a stunning looking shirt, with the City skyline resplendent on the front.
The skyline design shows varying levels of Sky Blue to represent the different shades that have been used on Home kits during Coventry City's existence - each of the lines represents a soundwave to refer back to the fans that the jersey is celebrating, tying together the fans/City and the Club into one movement.
A lot of hard work has taken place to co-ordinate and confirm the names of individual Members, and I am delighted to say that the order has now been placed with Hummel’s factory and we expect delivery into the UK at the end of January. This exclusive shirt will not be available for retail purchase by non-Members and I am sure the exclusivity of the shirt will make it a collectors item.
Once again, we thank all of those who have been able to support the Club in this way.
This joins a fantastic range of shirts that we have for this season already. The home shirt, a design inspired by the famous kit of the early 90s, and the away shirt, replicating the shirt worn by Singers FC in the 1890s, have both proved extremely popular.
Last year’s shirt sales were record-breaking, and this year we are surpassing even those records week-by-week, which is a remarkable achievement, especially in the current climate.
This is further vindication, if it was needed, of the decision to move away from template-based designs and work with Hummel, and we look forward to more exciting designs between us.
With that in mind, I am delighted to exclusively reveal that another stunning and topical third shirt will be unveiled towards the end of November.
Enjoy the game this afternoon – PUSB
Dave