Cheltenham Town’s extraordinary and miserable run continues as Coventry City news from Coventry Live
Players from Cheltenham Town are upset after giving up the first goal in their loss to Fleetwood Town.(Image: REX/Shutter stock/Paul Greenwood)
We use your sign-up to better understand you and provide information in ways you’ve authorized. As a result of our knowledge of you, this may include advertisements from us and other parties.
Cheltenham Town of League One has tied a Coventry City record that was established more than a century ago.
Following their 2-0 loss to Fleetwood Town on Tuesday night, Cheltenham had gone 11 league games without scoring. That has tied the record-setting longest streak in English Football League history.
In the 1919–20 season, Coventry also went 11 games without scoring. The terrible feat was then duplicated by Hartlepool in 1992–1993. Here, the PA news agency examines the longest scoreless streaks in detail and compares Cheltenham to them.
READ MORE: Coventry City vs Blackburn Rovers TV channel and live stream details
READ MORE: How Coventry City are expected to line up against Blackburn Rovers
Cheltenham not at the races
Fleetwood scored goals from Junior Quitirna and Jack Marriott while Cheltenham had senior defender Curtis Davies sent off as they headed for yet another unfavorable record.
Their nine-game dry spell, which ended with a 3-0 loss to Stevenage on September 23, surpassed Halifax Town’s eight-game dry spell from the start of the 1990–91 Football League season. That continued after last Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Lincoln before Fleetwood triumphed with the same score.
The Robins are in last place in League One with only one point, and their single win came in a goalless draw against Portsmouth. Meanwhile, the opposition has scored 19 goals, which is more than Hartlepool or Coventry have allowed in their respective losing streaks of 15 or 13.
The situation does not get any better when looking at all competitions, as Cheltenham was defeated 2-0 by Birmingham in the Carabao Cup. In the Papa John’s Trophy, the ball did find its way into Bristol Rovers’ goal, but it did so thanks to an own goal from James Gibbons, who also scored at the right end of a 4-1 Rovers victory.
Robert Street, a Town forward, also scored an own goal in the contest. Street’s own goal was one of three this season by Cheltenham players, the others being Liam Smith in the team’s 3-0 loss to Bolton and Will Ferry’s lone strike against Reading. After being reduced to nine men by James Olayinka and Nathan Butler-Oyedeji against Peterborough, Davies’ red card against Fleetwood was their third of the year.
After the 3-0 loss, the eighth in a row, manager Wade Elliott was fired; interim manager Kevin Russell and long-term replacement Darrell Clarke had so far failed to turn the tide.
The first 11-game mark was established more than a century ago during Coventry’s disastrous 1919–20 second-tier campaign.
The Sky Blues lost 1-0 to Fulham, drew 0-0 in the rematch, then fell 1-0 to Bristol City while facing the same opponents on consecutive weekends during their run.
They lost to Huddersfield 2-0 and 5-0. After drawing 0-0 with Leyton Orient, they lost to Blackpool and West Ham both by a score of 2-0, and then on Christmas Day 1919, they defeated Stoke 3-2 thanks to Billy Walker’s first-half goal.
After William Clayton was fired due to a bad start to the season, Harry Harbourne took over as interim manager for the first six scoreless games. In the season-ending doubleheader against Bury, Harry Pollitt, who took over in time for the first Blackpool match and managed the balance of the run, was eventually found guilty of match-fixing offenses and received a lifetime ban from sport.
