Mark Robins’ CV as a manager makes for impressive reading.
There’s a couple of promotions, plus a Wembley triumph in the EFL Trophy. There’s also a League One manager of the year gong, plus umpteen manager of the month awards, to show for a career in the dugout that now numbers almost 700 games.
What this resume doesn’t truly reveal, however, is the remarkable job Robins continues to do at Coventry City amid circumstances so trying many other managers would surely have buckled long ago.
His five-and-a-half years at the helm have included two seasons spent in exile, almost constant uncertainty surrounding the club’s future and, this season, an opening month when the pitch at the Coventry Building Society Arena was deemed unplayable.
Through all this upheaval, Robins has not only been a reassuring constant for both supporters and players alike but he’s also kept the results coming. Tuesday’s 2-0 triumph over Wigan Athletic was City’s sixth win in eight games and enough to ease into the top half of the table.
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Win those two home games in hand, a hangover from August and that damage inflicted on the pitch by the Commonwealth Games rugby sevens competition being staged at the Arena, and the West Midlands club will be in the play-offs.
“Mark Robins is unparalleled in the work he has done,” says Coventry fan Joey Crone of the Nii Lamptey Show podcast. “He has worked miracles. Probably to those on the outside, it might not seem too spectacular.
“But he took over when we were going into League Two. He started things off by winning the JPT (Johnstone Paint Trophy in 2017) and it would be hard to argue against us having done anything but move upwards since then.
“We still have something like the third lowest budget in the Championship. But what seems clear from listening to the players is Robins makes clear the standards he expects from everyone.
“I’m not saying he is a genius, in fact I’d say he has plenty of flaws. But this squad is modelled in his image. I don’t think anyone else could have done the job he has done under these circumstances.”
Coventry have one final game, against Queens Park Rangers, before the Championship goes into World Cup hibernation.
Taking three points off another promotion contender to go with the recent victories over Sheffield United, Watford and Blackburn Rovers will be the perfect fillip heading into a month-long break that really needs to bring some clarity for a club and manager who continue to do things the hard way.
The surrounding streets, including Highfield Road itself, have barely changed.
Walk up King Richard Street, for instance, towards what used to be the main entrance to Coventry’s home ground and the mind starts playing tricks, wandering back to a time when this area was the very sporting heartbeat of the city.
A time when Coventry, thanks to an aptitude for survival that even adventurer Bear Grylls would admire, felt to be a permanent fixture in the top flight. A time when Jimmy Hill made the club a byword for innovation in football.
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Times, however, have changed. The Binley Oak pub, once packed to the rafters with thirsty supporters on a matchday, now houses a company selling fireplaces. And a ground that once hosted a record 51,455 crowd for a second division title decider is long gone, demolished to make way for a housing estate that was built soon after City’s move to the Ricoh Arena in 2005.
Standing where the centre spot used to be on a bright autumnal afternoon is a strange sensation. There’s precious little here to indicate the site’s previous use, other than those tightly-packed terraced streets that for so long funnelled generations of supporters towards Highfield Road.
Even the blue plaque commemorating the club’s 106-year residency has been nicked. But, still, the shape of the plot does offer hints, with the rectangular grassed area I’m standing on surrounded by three and four-storey townhouses, covering roughly the land where the stands could be found.
The plaque is not the only thing missing. The street sign at the bottom of Highfield Road has also been swiped, maybe by some souvenir hunter wanting a tangible link with happier days for Coventry’s football club.
Such an act cannot be condoned, of course. But it is perhaps understandable considering the problems City have endured since moving three-and-a-half miles up Jimmy Hill Way to become tenants in their current 32,000 capacity home.
Well, we say ‘home’. Twice in the last nine years, Coventry have been forced to decamp elsewhere. First in 2013 to Northampton Town and then again, six years later, to Birmingham City. Both times, attendances understandably plunged.
Throw in the early season problems with the pitch, which led to the Carabao Cup first-round tie against Bristol City having to be staged at Burton Albion, and it is no wonder many supporters still bemoan the day City left Highfield Road.
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That move, or perhaps more specifically the decision six years earlier to sell the site to a property developer for around £5 million, is regarded as when the seeds were sown for the multitude of problems that have since befallen the club.
These include those two stints in extended exile, a rent strike, League Two football, protracted legal rows and even a bizarre night when supporters halted a match live on TV to protest against how the London-based hedge fund Sisu Capital Limited, City’s owners since 2007, were running the club.
A site that used to house the Foleshill Gasworks has seen it all these past 17 or so years. And that’s without mentioning Wasps rugby union club, City’s landlords for the best part of a decade until sliding into administration last month to bring yet more uncertainty for the Championship club and their supporters.
Wasps’ financial collapse meant Arena Coventry Limited (ACL), the company that manages the complex and until then wholly owned by the rugby club, was always likely to follow suit.
This, in turn, sparked fears Robins and his players may have to hit the road again, the threat considered so serious that Walsall’s Bescot Stadium was scouted out as a possible alternative venue.
Supporters were eventually spared having to watch their team outside Coventry at a fourth venue in nine years by the administrator pledging “the doors will remain open” as the search for someone to take over the 231-year lease got underway – the local City Council having retained the freehold since the £116 million facility to the north of the city was built.
That meant the Blackburn, Wigan and QPR games could go ahead as planned. It was, though, a close run thing with Coventry chief executive, Dave Boddy, revealing in his programme notes for Tuesday’s win over Wigan just how grave the situation had become.
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“There were times during the last few weeks where it appeared likely that ACL could have gone into liquidation instead of administration, and that would have been catastrophic for the company and its employees – and would have resulted in ACL being wound up and the doors being locked at the Arena,” he wrote.
Just what the future holds remains to be seen. Mike Ashley, the former Newcastle United owner, emerged as the preferred bidder for a complex that also includes a hotel, casino and exhibition centre.
Talks are understood to have taken place between Ashley’s company, Frasers, and the administrators over the purchase of the lease for an eight-figure sum.
Where the football club features in the grand plan is, as yet, unclear. Those close to the retail magnate insist his interest is solely in the CBS Arena. But conflicting reports have emerged that Ashley, who attempted to buy Derby County out of administration in the summer, could launch a takeover of City.
Further muddying the waters is a suggestion City’s owner Sisu was one of several parties to initially express an interest in buying the Arena once it became clear Wasps were in financial trouble.
What isn’t in doubt is Coventry signed a ten-year lease to play at the stadium in 2021, with a break clause inserted at seven years. Andy Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands, helped broker that agreement, which paved the way for the club to return to their home city after two years playing at St Andrews, Birmingham.
“People ask what a Mayor’s job is all about,” Street tells The Athletic from India, where he is part of a trade delegation. “Such as presiding over public transport, bringing in investment, which is why I am here (in India).
“But this was something that really mattered to everyone. Through the grim time of the pandemic I was determined we would do this, because I sensed there was an agreement to be had.
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“This facility is iconic for Coventry now. It is the home of the city’s football club, a point of identity — just as Highfield Road was for all those years. We got back to where we needed to be (in 2021).
“The critical thing now is whatever happens next, we have got to maintain the Sky Blues playing there and fulfilling all of their fixtures.”
A sense of harmony and stability surrounding Coventry’s Arena is long overdue. As recently as February, Sisu was locked in a legal battle to seek damages from the City Council over Wasps’ purchase of the lease in 2014.
City’s owners argued that the Arena Coventry Limited had been undervalued when the local authority sold its 50 per cent stake to Wasps. The authority argued otherwise and several courts agreed.
Those proceedings were only halted after Sisu had been denied the opportunity to appeal those earlier rulings by a European Union commission.
It was during this legal row that Coventry unveiled plans to build a new stadium of their own on land owned by Warwick University in the south west of the city.
Updates since that grand unveiling in July, 2020, have been sporadic, though chief executive Boddy did reiterate amid last year’s return to the Ricoh that the break clause after seven years “accounts for the club and our owners aim of developing a stadium of our own with the University of Warwick”.
To keep the players focused on the football amid all these off-field distractions, as Robins has done, is no mean feat. Nor is lasting five-and-a-half years in an industry where the shelf-life of managers, and particularly those in the Championship, is growing shorter and shorter.
Since the end of last season, 16 clubs have changed manager or head coach in the second tier. In fact, only Wycombe Wanderers’ Gareth Ainsworth and John Coleman at Accrington Stanley among Robins’ EFL peers have been in their respective posts longer, along with Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp at Premier League level.
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At Coventry, Robins’ achievements go beyond those two promotions. There’s been the establishment of a successful recruitment department, for a start. Plus blooding several youngsters from the club’s academy.
It is, though, surely the galvanising effect he has had on the club during their many troubles, particularly those years in exile 22 miles away at St Andrews, that makes the job done by the 52-year-old so impressive.
Past experience has probably helped. Coventry are not the first club managed by Robins to have endured a nomadic existence. When in charge of Rotherham United, he had to oversee the enforced move from Millmoor to the Don Valley athletics stadium in Sheffield during the summer of 2008.
Making the job that bit harder was the south Yorkshire club having to start the new League Two season on minus 17 points after going into administration for the second time in 18 months.
Tony Stewart bought Rotherham that same year so well remembers the difficulties faced by Robins in a 2008-09 season that would eventually see the club finish 14th. But for the points deduction, United would have qualified for the play-offs in fifth place.
“We go to this running track in Sheffield called Don Valley,” recalls Rotherham chairman Stewart, who four years later oversaw the club’s triumphant return to the town and the brand new £20 million New York Stadium.
“The fans had to watch down one side and we had all the jibes about needing a telescope to see the pitch. Not only did we have to move but we also had 17 points deducted. We were on a wing and a prayer, with a rookie chairman in myself, who I’ll admit, was a bit naive at the time as to how football works.
“But Mark just got on with it. I inherited him, so he’d been through all the adversity, including Rotherham United going bust twice. Given what had gone before, Mark’s attitude was, ‘At least I’ve got a job, let’s get up and running again’.
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“He did a fantastic job. We stayed in League Two and had some fantastic nights, beating Leeds, Leicester and Wolves at the Don Valley. So, I’m not surprised by how well he’s done at Coventry.
“It’s not been easy but Mark has shown great resilience and skill to get the team performing to a good level under often trying circumstances.”
As the Championship prepares to shut down for a month, all City and their supporters can do is wait. Wait and hope that a long overdue period of stability lays just around the corner.
“Northampton was absolutely vile,” adds supporter Crone from the Nii Lamptey Show podcast about the 2013 move to Sixfields Stadium, 34 miles from Coventry.
“Later we moved to Birmingham, which was slightly different because we were successful there. We got promoted from League One at St Andrews, albeit with no-one there due to COVID.
“Now, with these rumblings going on over the company running the ground going into administration, my attitude is, ‘Okay, let’s see where we end up’. Probably not a good thing but you have to try and take things in your stride. We are not the only club with problems.
“What I do believe is we have reached is the point where the owners should sell up. This is a chance for them to get out. They will never get over the opprobrium that is still heaped on them by some in the fanbase.
“They could walk out now with their heads held high, in terms of what they have done to turn us round these last few years. I’ve met with Joy Seppala, who was the face of Sisu. She was saying, ‘We won’t walk out of here until we’ve repaired this’. I’d argue they have done that. That means they can sell up.
“We do, though, have to be careful as to what happens next.”
Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands, is also looking to the future. Legally, the sale of the Arena’s lease is solely between the administrator and any would-be purchaser, meaning no other party, not even the local authority, can get involved.
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“It is not for me to suggest what should happen in the formal process,” adds Street. “I wouldn’t dream of that. But it is for me to say that, whatever happens, the interests of the fans and the city have to be put first.
“I see the pleasure and pride it has brought back to not just Sky Blues fans but all Coventrians. They have something that is a symbol of the city’s success and it should be there. And it has to be maintained, whatever happens in the legal process.
“All players in this current situation need to remember the ascendant point — and that is how the city must have its football club at home.”
(Top photo: Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)