Coventry City FC (The Bantams, Sky Blues)

The current situation regarding CCFC is extremely serious. The club is slowly dying under SISU's tenure and we must fight to save it. Support the march/demonstration on Saturday before the Rochdale match. Procession leaves Holbrook Park at 2pm. SISU OUT.

Less than 30 years after winning the FA Cup at Wembley . . . . Coventry City's FA Cup first round replay with Morecambe, set a new record for the lowest attendance at the Ricoh Arena, in a league or FA Cup game. 2,175 people crammed into the stadium for a cup tie with the Shrimps, including 126 visitors from Lancashire. Courtesy: Coventry Telegraph When will it all end?

I like the use of the "crammed". Peter.

One must never give up hope MR

Whilst there seems little hope for Bees' future at the moment, what is there to look forward to for Sky Blues when one reads this?

I decided after Thursday I will never be supporting the club again regardless of ownership. Why the supporters think they can try to behave badly just because of cameras at the game. Also because the supporters don't like the ownership of the club, does not mean they can invade the pitch with the aim to abandon the game. I listened to talktalk next day, the self proclaimed ringleader said he did it because the club was moved to Northampton. Get over that as that is now history. If he said the saving the Academy, selling the training ground for profit etc. then that would be better. Also heard Fisher, who stated making £1m profit, how to wind up the supporters even more, on same programme. Now Fisher is stating the obvious, the club budget depends on the income, smaller attendance means smaller player budget, this can only spiral downwards. The other way is to invest in players which would produce a winning team and the gates will rise. But the warning here is that we been here before and ended up with huge debts trying to stay in the Premier League, so I agree that we need a sustainable club i.e. live within your means, but it does not need to be given as a threat to the supporters. The previous rent agreement of £1m plus had to be broken, how it was done by moving to Northampton etc. and taking the club into administration was deplorable. I do personally blame Fisher for the current strained relationship, why state prematurely we do not want to stay at the Higgs Centre, which ended up with the Academy being booted out, so that the Council can build a swimming pool and the Higgs Centre owners sought a new tenant in Wasps, who were willing to invest. So the upshot, there is little hope as long as Fisher is still around, also don't mess with Joy, she is one of the wealthiest owners in this league and very stubborn. There will be no winners in this battle, just a football club being dragged even lower. Anyway that's end of football for me and have now been watching the rugby in the city, far better atmosphere at the Ricoh (with Wasps) and the Butts.

I fully understand your feelings on the matter. At the time I was very unhappy that supporters had invaded the pitch, partly because I felt the disruption would have a greater effect on our young, confidence lacking, out of form players than Sheffield Utd and also because I feared it might end up as more than a peaceful demonstration. For that the restrained attitude of the stewards and police must be praised in helping the incident pass off in a good-natured manner. We've certainly seen in the past the heavy-handed nature of officials escalate minor incidents into near riots. But on further reflection, although I certainly don't support it, I can understand it. For far too long the plight of this club has largely been ignored, and the chanting/whistles etc would have got almost no media attention whatsoever. The fact is the invasion got a LOT more media attention than anything else would've, and that is largely the point. Even if we assume that Sheffield's winner was down to the stoppage, given the situation is it better to lose a single battle but win a 'war'. This club is going nowhere but oblivion with the current owners so arguably there is nothing to lose

As for the interview with Tim Fisher, all this went on to show is that the man is not business-savvy, not PR savvy and has total and utter disdain for the supporters (and therefore customers) of the business he supposedly manages. As you stated, his business plan appears to be no more than a race to the bottom. He may state we made a £1m profit, but if that leads to your business becoming less competitive and losing market share and customers then it is a worthless profit unless your only intention is to milk the business of cash before closing it down. As for his threat to just continue cutting the squad if fans don't turn up is just both terrible customer relations and business strategy. For a business analogy, it's difficult to get a similar level of brand loyalty that you get in sport, and one of the closest I can think of is Apple - there are people who just swear by everything they do and will buy anything they produce purely because it is an Apple product. So let's say Apple are creating phones that are massively over-priced, have poor battery life, poor reception and WiFi connectivity, can be hacked easily and are just generally not very good. The CEO then comes out and says "well you'd better all buy this phone because if you don't we'll just create an even worse phone next time because you won't have given us the money we want". Utter madness. Especially when the customers point out that they have been giving them plenty of money over the years and the company chose to make inferior phones anyway by selling all their best technology to rivals to make a quick buck. Yes, they were paying over the odds for their production facilities but rather than try and settle it amicably they thought they'd try and steal it instead through a constant changing of terms, not paying and threats to move. As for being wealthiest owners, I doubt it. Joy's personal wealth has no bearing - she does not financially support the club from her own wealth and it's arguable whether her business interests (be it SISU, Otium or one of the myriad of umbrella companies) do either. And even if they do, by many accounts the reputation of SISU in investment circles is now mud. They find it nearly impossible to attract new investors and the ones they had got are fast losing faith and cashing in their investments. SISU have moved office three or four times in the last few years, apparently due to downsizing and cost cutting. I honestly believe the end is nigh for them.

I have to agree with you. All means of communication are studiously ignored by the club's owners as they run it into the ground. We are at our lowest point for nearly 60 years, likely to sink even lower, and crowds are dropping rapidly. Somebody had to show the world that there are people who care about Coventry City. I watched the protest on Thursday. It was peaceful and threatened nobody, which was clearly recognised by the police and stewards. The point was that it took advantage of the presence of the live cameras. Following the game it was the top story on Sky Sports News and attracted plenty of sympathetic publicity the following day. Fisher's indignation on CWR on Friday night was the act of a man with no shame. I agree that there is nothing to lose. Even if the late goal was down to the protest, it was one point lost. Insignificant in an era of 10-point deductions and other damage done by SISU. However, I've never seen a crowd concede a goal, it was down to players not up to the job. What worries me is that there will soon be very few people left who actually care enough to try and make a difference. So let's acknowledge that the events of Thursday night might do far more good than harm in the long run.

Not that long ago Fisher was quoting that SISU had invested around £40m in the club. I was staggered to hear during the interview on BBC-CW a figure of £70 MILLION mentioned! Where the heck did THAT come from?

The 2015 and previous years accounts for Otium Entertainment Group Ltd (the football club) are available free from the Companies House web site. The football club has made a cumulative loss over the years of £78M. £65M of the associated debt was converted to preference shares (who have first call on the Assets) by Avro Master Fund Limited [the "investment"]. The "Golden Share" to play in the league is not shown in the accounts and is assumed to have no financial value. The 2015 accounts show a loss of £2.4M for the year. They also show a shareholder DEFICIT of £12.8M, so the company has a negative value (If you brought the company for a pound, you would owe £12.8M). In addition the Avro Preference shares have first call on most of the assets of the company so in practice you would owe even more. The only way the football club could realistically be sold is for Avro/SISU to write off their preference shares, and probably some of the other debt. That would be a big pill for them to swallow. It doesn't look good. Peter.

The thing that would be laughable if it wasn't for the damage being done to the club is that it is the same accounting understanding that led SISU to describe the Ricoh as 'worthless' and that they would take over the £14.4m bank loan if they were given the arena for nothing. One that led to them laughably suing the council for 'state-aid' and that the loan was not one that a corporate business would make, even though they had made a very similar offer themselves. Now, if you were to go to them with a similar offer for the club (ie to be given the entire shareholding, including preference shares, in exchange for taking on the £12m debt) what do you think their answer would be?

Russell Slade appointed Sky Blues latest manager

Decent short term appointment IMO. Experienced, especially at this level, and has worked with terrible owners in the past. Although it kind of makes you question his sanity - after managing Cardiff and Charlton why on earth would he want to take this on, even if just for six months? Trouble is, I can't see him getting funds to improve the squad and I don't think you can get much more from the youngsters at this stage in their career. I think the whole thing will depend solely on the loans he gets in to replace Agyei, Wright, McBean and McCann. We saw last season you can be pretty decent if you get the right ones in, but it's too hit and miss to be a long term strategy - eventually you're going to pick a dud. A bit like we did when we were in the Prem and we eventually got one wrong when we bought Bellamy and look where it led us.

Apparently, Tim Fisher today said: "No, I wouldn't say it was a dying club. But I would say that it's at real risk of having a downward spiral." In relation to the owners, he said: "Of course they care about the fans and they care about football. "But I wouldn't confuse caring for the football fans with wanting a break-even business." At risk of a downward spiral? How much further can it (be allowed to) go? They want to break-even, not win football matches!