From Villa Park heartbreak to Premier League return

John Mullaney still remembers the dread in the build-up to Coventry City’s final game of the 2000-01 season. After 34 years in the top flight, relegation loomed at Villa Park. With his friend late to pick him up, the anxious fan scrawled “we’ll be back” on a piece of paper with a blue marker. The note was part resignation, part defiance.

The 3-2 defeat confirmed the drop, and Mullaney held up his homemade poster for the cameras. “It was just a message to the Villa fans because I worked with a lot of them and they had been mickey-taking all week,” Mullaney, now 69, tells The Athletic. “But also, I really believed we would come straight back up again. If you had told me it was going to take 25 years…”

Exile, administration and broken trust

Those 25 years brought three relegations, one administration and two periods of exile from the city. After moving into the Ricoh Arena in 2005, Coventry became tenants paying around £100,000 a month with no access to catering, parking or non-matchday income. The club was bought by hedge fund SISU Capital in 2007 as a supposed rescue.

A rent dispute with Arena Coventry Limited escalated. SISU withheld rent, the club entered administration in March 2013 over an unpaid £1.3m bill, and Coventry were forced to play home games at Northampton’s Sixfields for three seasons. Average league attendance collapsed from 21,302 in the first Ricoh season to 2,348 in Northampton.

“I was one of the ones on the hill,” says Dave Eyles, former chairman of the Sky Blue Trust. “You weren’t even watching the game because you could only see about half the pitch from the hill. You felt you were making a statement because it helped keep the club in the public eye… But it was depressing.”

An uneasy truce brought the club home, but the Ricoh was later sold to Wasps. In 2019 Coventry were forced to relocate again, this time to Birmingham City’s stadium for 18 miles. “At that point, it felt like there wasn’t a way back to playing in Coventry,” Eyles says.

Stability, Robins and a new era

Stability slowly returned under managers Steven Pressley and Tony Mowbray, with particular credit given to Mark Robins, who returned in March 2017. Promotion from League Two came in 2018 after a Wembley play-off final win over Exeter City.

“We took around 40,000 fans to Wembley that day, and the atmosphere was electric,” Eyles says. “That was probably the point where it felt like we could get our club back.”

A new chief executive, Dave Boddy, sought to rebuild bridges with supporters. Promotion back to the Championship was secured in the Covid-curtailed 2020-21 season, and in March 2021 Coventry agreed a 10-year rent deal to return to the Ricoh, renamed the Coventry Building Society Arena. A 20,843 crowd saw Viktor Gyokeres inspire a 2-1 comeback win over Nottingham Forest on opening day.

SISU sold the club later in 2021 to Doug King. Narrow promotion near-misses followed, including a play-off final loss to Luton Town in 2023 and an FA Cup semi-final collapse against Manchester United. Robins was dismissed in November 2024 and replaced by Frank Lampard.

Back home, back in the top flight

Lampard’s appointment initially upset many supporters, but he brought fresh impetus. Last season Coventry played free-flowing, free-scoring football and won promotion with three games to spare.

On the day the trophy was lifted at the CBS Arena, the club printed placards reading “We are back” in Mullaney’s original wording. Mullaney watched from Brisbane, Australia, where he has lived since 2006, getting up at 3am to watch games.

This summer Coventry bought their own stadium in a £25m deal and have spent more than £100m on new players to strengthen Lampard’s squad. The opening game of the new Premier League season is a trip to champions Arsenal.

“It’s unbelievable when you think what we’ve been through,” Eyles says. “We’ve gone from playing in League Two against Accrington Stanley, Fleetwood Town and Forest Green Rovers to being back in the Premier League, playing Liverpool and Manchester United.”

Moz Baker, another former Sky Blue Trust chairman, says the city feels transformed. “It feels like everyone is wearing a Coventry shirt. There’s a feel-good factor everywhere you go. Men, women, young and old, it has united the community again.”

The club’s anthem, The Enemy’s “We’ll Live and Die in These Towns”, now carries added weight for supporters who lived through exile and return.