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 our game against Plymouth Argyle below:
Good evening and welcome to today’s game as we host Plymouth Argyle in the Sky Bet Championship.
I’d also like to welcome all of the players, staff, officials and supporters from Plymouth who join us at the Coventry Building Society Arena for the match tonight. This will be Plymouth’s first visit to the Arena since the 2018/19 season, which was our first season back in League One, and we appreciate them making this long midweek trip.
We announced last Friday that the Club would be supporting the White Ribbon campaign, which includes 16 days of activism against gender based violence and runs from 25th November until 10th December. During this period, we will be posting various stories and videos of support, culminating in us wearing the White Ribbon emblem on our matchday shirts for the local derby against Birmingham City on Friday 8th December, live on Sky Sports. We are supporting the campaign in conjunction with Coventry City Council and Coventry Haven, and fans will see more about the campaign and the issues we are highlighting over this period across our website and social media.
For supporters who visit the Club Shop regularly, you will have seen that we have a large number of new ranges in stock, with further new lines being added regularly in the coming days and weeks before Christmas – as well as in the New Year too. The new shop, which is situated near the South Pavilion entrance of the Coventry Building Society Arena and which opened at the end of August, is proving to be a great a success, and the extra floor space has allowed us to continue to extend our product range and improve the quality of the shopping experience too.
This, alongside our City Centre shop and our online retail platform, continues to see great growth and further cements our success with the Hummel brand, and now also in our work in expanding our own retail operation too.
Work to upgrade our training base and facilities at Ryton continues, and the first phase is nearing completion. The well-documented two new hybrid playing surfaces, installed by Hewitts and identical to the surface here at the Arena, are now well bedded in and fully in use by the Sky Blues squad. The interior fencing around the pitches has been replaced and a new exterior fence along the Leamington Road and the perimeter has been installed, along with renovations to the Sky Blue Lodge itself. Ryton is now starting to look a fit for purpose facility for a Championship club, as Doug King continues with his development plans for the site.
Our Under 18s have been drawn to face Preston North End away in their first tie of this season’s FA Youth Cup. It’s a good test for them and will be a great experience for them to play at Deepdale, and everyone at the Club wishes them a successful run in this year’s competition.
Thank you as always for your continued support – enjoy the game. PUSB
Dave Boddy
Chief Executive
Coventry City Football Club