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Apparently Coventry City only had to win their five remaining home games to save themselves from relegation to League One, but that proved to be easier said than done, writes Ed Wilson

Forget fancy notions of skill and tactics. Relegation battles, the professionals tell us, are all about belief. Nobody – not the manager, players or supporters – believes Coventry can stay up more than the psychotically optimistic radio presenter I am listening to on the way to today’s game. For him, survival is almost guaranteed. “All we have to do,” he insists, “is win our remaining five home games.” He is not deflated by the knowledge they have managed only seven victories all season. They are due a change of fortune. You begin to wonder what it would take to undermine his chirpiness. His wife could ask for a divorce during Donna and Althea’s Uptown Top Ranking and he would be back on air seconds later, joshing his way through the traffic and travel.

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Dear WSC
Although I thoroughly enjoyed the article on footballing statues (Striking a pose, WSC 294) it did miss out one rather infamous example – the Ted Bates horror show of a few years back. This short-lived “tribute” to the former Saints player, manager, director and president was astonishingly inept, with legs roughly half the length they should have been. To add to the indignity, more than once a resemblance to dignity-phobic Portsmouth owner/asset-stripper Milan Mandaric was pointed out. The overall effect was of a top-heavy, inebriated and besuited dwarf waving at passers-by. Not really the ideal summing up a lifetime’s service to a club.
Keith Wright, Cheltenham

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Simon Goodley looks back on a successful but deeply uncomfortable season

I have an awful admission to make. I am a Notts County fan (that’s not it) and a strange thing has happened to me during our farcical season. Having had nothing much to celebrate since we won the old Third Division championship in 1998, I spent the majority of my team’s League Two title-winning season hoping that our challenge crumbled.

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Tom Davies examines the financial crises at Chester City and Southend United

It’s already been a season of high-profile financial crises and ownership murkiness, as recent developments at Portsmouth, Notts County and Leeds demonstrate. It’s no brighter further down the scale either. Chester City continue to dangle tortuously over the precipice, a threat of expulsion from the Conference delayed until November 16.

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Accrington Stanley are struggling to stave off the possibility of going bust for a third time. Neil Billingham looks at how the generosity of the Lancashire people is helping them through their latest crisis

To go bust once is unfortunate. To go bust twice is careless. But to go bust three times? In August when Accrington Stanley were given eight weeks to pay an outstanding tax bill of £308,000 or face being wound up the other north-west clubs came together to help. Neighbours Burnley hosted a friendly match against Accrington which saw more than 5,000 fans turn up at Turf Moor, raising £50,000 for the club. Three days later, fans from across the region turned up at Stanley’s League Two match against Darlington to swell the attendance to 3,228, more than doubling the season’s average.

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