Lower League Summer – League One

Coventry’s Commute ‘Home’

Odds are that you’re familiar with this story, so I won’t dwell on it.

In brief, the terms of Coventry’s rent were overbalanced to the ground owners’ side, with ACL getting more money than similar clubs were playing, and keeping money from food and drink sold at the ground. SISU, Coventry’s owners, decided to stop paying rent altogether, effectively squatting at the Ricoh Arena for 14 months and ACL, running the club on behalf of it’s 50% co-owners, the local council and a local children’s charity, responded by offering a less unfair rate.

Rather than accept they had their backs to the wall and make the best of a bad situation, SISU (or Otium, a different branch of the same company who are Coventry’s new owners after a bout of administration) decided to move the club to Northampton for the next three years while they build a new stadium in Coventry. Which will presumably involve applying for planning permission to Coventry Council, who have first-hand knowledge of the club’s willingness to disregard contract law when it’s inconvenient to them.

As if all that wasn’t shambolic enough, City have, according to a report in the Coventry Telegraph on Friday, sold just 300 season tickets for the new season. It’s hardly surprising of course. Using Google Maps’ definition of ‘Coventry’, Northampton Town’s Sixfields is 31.4 miles away. Even if it wasn’t for the possibly unprecedented bad atmosphere created by the club, many fans would find it impractical to make that kind of journey regularly for a ‘home’ game on a Sunday, never mind a Wednesday night. (Coventry’s matches will be the ones to move when they clash with Northampton’s.)

Resource-wise, it would appear that Coventry should be in with a chance of making the League One playoffs this season. But, with a combination of the negativity around the club and the possibility that they’ll be blocked from making January additions because of their status within the financial fair play rules being affected by low turnover, a relegation battle is entirely possible.