RUTHLESS PEOPLE
In the experience of Football Daily, hearing Mark Robins speak is an interaction with an entirely normal, grounded human being, an intelligent, plausible, honest man. In a world of bluster and buzzwords, Robins speaks sensibly, realistically. For Coventry City he was the shy Messiah, leading the club out of its darkest hours, taking them within minutes – inches even – of the promised land. Visit the Coventry City Building Society Stadium and encounter a kind of faded grandeur. The glory days were at Highfield Road. Its replacement, the Ricoh, as it was first known at the start of a torrid history that continues with Mike Ashley as landlord, is modern, glassy, a cashless society with a statue of Jimmy Hill at its entrance. Perhaps one day Robins will be afforded a bronze tribute as the man who took the floodlit dreams of a city trying to revive itself on his shoulders. Without him, the stadium’s sun-bleached sky-blue seats might now be entirely disused.
