Hear'Say, 'Snake' & Tony Blair: A Coventry win 25 years in the making

Hear'Say topped the charts, the mobile game 'Snake' was all the rage, and Tony Blair served as Prime Minister. Turning the clock back to April 2001, the landscape looked markedly different. It was also the last occasion Coventry City celebrated a victory in English football’s top division. That success arrived courtesy of a 1-0 win over Sunderland – John Hartson heading the winner for Gordon Strachan’s side in front of 20,946 spectators at Highfield Road. Since that moment 9,287 days ago, Coventry’s journey has been a rollercoaster – an understatement perhaps. The club suffered relegation at the close of the 2000‑01 season and then remained in the second tier for the next eleven campaigns before dropping to League One in 2012. What followed was a especially dark and turbulent period in the club’s history, marked by points deductions and a spell in administration. After vacating Highfield Road in 2005, Coventry became locked in a bitter dispute over the Ricoh Arena and its rent in 2013. The lowest point arguably arrived when the team was forced to play its home matches away from Coventry, at Northampton Town, before slipping to the fourth tier for the first time in 59 years in 2017. Undoubtedly many of those packed into the Bridgford Stand at the City Ground on Saturday had endured those years of Sky Blue misery. Consequently, the eruption of emotion when the final whistle sounded – after Jay Dasilva’s goal settled the contest – felt like Sky Blue heaven. "It's been a pugnacious opening for us, truthful those archetypal Premier League points consciousness great," Coventry brag Frank Lampard told BBC Radio 5 Live. "I thought the players were brilliant. The fight, enactment ethic and togetherness but besides the tactical broadside of it. They dug and fought for each different which is what you request to triumph a Premier League game."