By CovSid67
July 4 2005

A small crowd (Estimated at around 250 by the auctioneer) made their way to Highfield Road, with the chance to bid for years and years of Coventry City history. Under the hammer went just about anything that wasn't nailed down, that hadn't already been "borrowed"!
I myself went along not to bid, but just an excuse to go into Highfield Road one last time, though had the home team dug-out, complete with eleven seats (Which I was informed had already been sold to Coventry Rugby Club!), sold for slightly less than £1,000+, I might have had one of the few items I was actually interested in to my name. For some reason the Coventry City soup bowls appealed too, but I left without them....

Despite not bidding/buying, I still managed to waste over five hours of my Sunday, before the auctioneers voice finally wore me down, and I left Highfield Road for one last time. Probably. Bizarrely, the pitch looked in fine condition, despite the fact Coventry City are never going to play on it again .... or are they?! It justs looks to good to be bull-dozed....

The auction catalogue rather obviously had "lot numbers" alongside each item (Not to mention a fair few mistakes!), and also included, in a lot of cases, a "removal fee" - and the cost of the removal of certain items left the people I sat with fairly gob-smacked! (Including £10 for the removal of draw and net curtains! Can anybody see how this fee is justified?!).

The expensive removal fee was more than likely the reason behind the failure to sell the majority of the "dinosaur" turnstiles too, despite a lowly starting bid price of £5 in most cases. Said removal fee was £106 - Yes! £106! - to remove them.

A fair few items were removed from the catalogue, having gone "missing", or having been damaged as supporters attempted to help them go "missing"! Included on that list was the club crest, once situated to the left of the "Welcome To Coventry City FC" sign, situated in King Richard Street (Also amongst the unsold items was lot 501, defender Steve Staunton. Apparently this item recently went "missing" too....). While I don't agree with crime, managing to take that without being noticed is some achievement - worthy of the great "Raffles"!!

Pegs from the changing rooms were included in the sale, which came as some surprise, as I was fairly sure most of them had been "liberated" at the recent "Bring Your Boots" matches (None by me, I hasten to add). Rather bizarrely, it cost a mere £3 "removal fee" for pegs from the home dressing room, while pegs from the away dressing room cost £10 to remove....

As far as I'm aware, there was only one day for people to view the items (Saturday 2nd July), so for those people that couldn't go along yesterday (Or who simply forgot), they would have been bidding/buying without knowing exactly what they were paying for in a lot of cases (For example, there were plenty of "Large Framed Photographs", but no actual description as to what of!!).

Parading some of the items before the bidding started, which I was informed was supposed to be happening, would have been a good idea. The auctioneer looking to his right might have helped too. And we might have got to go home slightly earlier had the auctioneer not insisted on NOT banging his hammer down when it was clear nobody else was interested in bidding anymore! "Going once, going twice, going .... oh go on, somebody must want to bid more?"!

That said, a fair few pound was still raised, with the club crests on the East Stand fetching almost £2,000 in total (Around £700 for the one situated at the top of the hill, and around £1,000 for the crest nearer the Main Stand entrance/exit - plus removal fees!). Other items also reached the four-figure mark, with those willing to pay such fees receiving a round of applause for their generosity - and probably a night or two sleeping in the shed when they got home!

Lot 209, the "Elephant And Castle" from the Main Stand side of the ground, also made a £1,000+, and was another item I might have been interested in, had it been a couple of noughts less then the final bid! A proper piece of CCFC history, from the days when the football on the pitch mattered as much as - if not more than! - the money making side of the game. If you don't know what I'm on about, go ask your parents....

Had I realised just what some people were willing to pay, I might just have taken my entire tool-box to the Derby game, and a ladder! If it's got the club crest on, it seems it's worth a lot of money....

With my current work situation reading "unemployed" (Hopefully only until Monday 4th July!), the job of TV reporter is an option I would like to consider, as it seems to consist of sitting around doing not a lot for 58 minutes of every hour, then interviewing for two minutes. Nice work if you can get it! I managed to avoid being interviewed, being from the Jim Morrisson school that believes being photographed takes your sole away .... or maybe they just didn't ask me!

Speaking of "nice work if you can get it", quite how far todays auction at Highfield Road will go to paying off Tim Sherwood is anybody's guess, but I doubt Coventry City even got close. The club will need to sell quite a few more blocks of concrete mounted on a plinth to cover that particular debt....

[For those of you interested in Coventry City memorobilia, click the link below!!]