A weekly newspaper has called on the city it serves to “protect its sporting tradition” and save a football academy from being closed.
The Coventry Observer’s ‘Save Our City’ appeal aims to keep Coventry City FC’s academy open after Wasps, a professional rugby union club which moved to the city from London two years ago, submitted a planning application to move into the purpose built facility when its lease expires next year.
City, who play in the third tier of English football, relocated to Northampton in 2013 after a rent row left them unable to play at their previous Ricoh Arena home, which has since been sold to Wasps by the council.
The club returned to the Arena in 2014 following a campaign by city daily the Coventry Telegraph, but their tenancy is due to end in 2018.
The campaign, launched on Thursday’s front page, pictured above, calls on Coventry City Council, City’s owners and “all relevant institutions” to keep the academy in Coventry, and to support keeping the club in the city at a stadium which makes the club more “financially viable”.
The campaign is being led by Observer deputy editor Les Reid and sports editor Steve Carpenter.
Said Les: “Many Coventry City fans and others have felt very angry and ignored since Coventry City Council’s sale behind closed doors of the club’s Ricoh Arena home ground to an out-of-town rugby club London Wasps in 2014. Now there are plans submitted to the council for Wasps to oust the football club from the purpose-built home of its crucial youth academy.
“It appears the football club is being squeezed out of Coventry. The club has 133-years of history in the city which bears its name and it must remain in the city, despite what appears to be an ongoing grudge between some at the top of the council, the club’s owners, and other parties. Enough is enough.”
Steve added: “The slow decline of our beloved football club both on and off the field has been painful to watch. What is just as painful is that key figures in the city seem to have turned their back our this historic club.
“The fans are fed up and this latest decision to seemingly block any attempt to keep the club’s hugely productive academy alive seems to be the final straw.”
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
Aren’t the Sky Blue Trust the ones who are actually running a campaign to keep the Academy open? If you read the aims of the Observer campaign they seem to be more about opposing Wasps than helping the football club. Very strange.
You have to ask how many people will pay attention to such a minor publication too. It’s really not very well read in the city, most people haven’t even heard of it.
Anyway, I thought they were running another campaign about saving a visitor centre nobody ever used? Hopefully this one will be more successful…
Report this comment
Coventry has a weekly newspaper?
Report this comment
I thought the Sky Blue Trust had already launched a campaign to save the Academy? I thought the Coventry Telegraph had already backed that one?
Wouldn’t it make sense for the Observer to join that rather than try and achieve self-publicity by launching their own unclear side project?
Report this comment