ON THIS DAY

After a 503 day exile Coventry City finally returned to their home ground, the Ricoh Arena. A row with their landlords had seen them move home to Northampton Town's Sixfields ground but a 68-mile round trip had seen their attendances nose-dive. The 27,306 Friday night crowd for their homecoming against Gillingham was more than ten times the average for their League matches at Sixfields. Coventry beat Gillingham 1-0 in their first match at the Ricoh since 20th April 2013. Sadly in 2019 another fall-out with the Ricoh landlords saw them in exile again - this time at Birmingham City's St Andrews ground where they remained until 2021. 6 th September

Gillingham made the sort of start to the new season all fans hope for - unbeaten after the first four Division 3 matches without a goal being conceded. Then they visited the Priestfield Stadium for their fifth League match against Gillingham......and lost 10-0. Amazingly in their previous home match Gillingham had beaten Southend 8-1 and in their programme notes for the Chesterfield match they had said ' you begin to wonder if the club has exhausted its quota of thrills for the season' - seemingly not!

The curious incident of Walter Pontin and the the deflated football. Chesterfield beat Burnley 4-1 in a Second Division match at Saltergate – but it really should have been 5-1. A shot from Chesterfield’s Walter Pontin had beaten the opposition goalkeeper and was about to enter the net when it burst and failed to cross the line (newspaper report below). Such is life!