Dad and son's 7,000-mile round-trip to Wembley from Dubai to back Coventry City - The Coventry Observer

Dad and son's 7,000-mile round-trip to Wembley from Dubai to back Coventry City

Coventry Editorial 24th Mar, 2017   0

A FATHER and son pair of Sky Blues nuts are making a 7000-mile trip to Wembley to support their beloved Coventry City.

The Pittams – dad Steve and son Scott – will be making their own metaphorical march to the arch, all the way from Dubai.

For Scott, it’s the dream he kept alive through dark times and devoted trips to Rochdale and Grimsby. He vowed not to go to the New Wembley until if and when Coventry City played there.

Steve, who went to Wembley twice with the Sky Blues in 1987, said: “We are going because it feels like the last chance ever.




“It will not be a day to dwell on all the negatives but we only see more tunnel at the end of the tunnel. I reckon that many of the 50,000 or thereabouts that are going are similarly minded.

“I was fortunate to go twice in 1987 but Scott was too young. He hasn’t been to Wembley and has been waiting for this opportunity.


“We travel overnight, arriving Friday morning. We’ll take the train to London on Sunday morning, the hotel at Heathrow is booked for Sunday evening, and we’ll be back to Dubai on Monday morning.

“The flights, train and and hotel were all booked by 5am UK time on the morning after the semi final win; before most of UK had even woken up to our victory!

“We are members of SBI (Sky Blues International) and CCLSC (Coventry City London Supporters Club) so hopefully on Sunday before the match we can catch-up with CCLSC members.

“I was born in Coventry. My first match was in the 4th division in March 1959 when we beat Workington 4-0. My grandparents used to live in Tennyson Road about 10 doors from a City club house where Ray Straw lived. He scored two goals in my first match.

“I would often walk up and down the road in the hope of seeing him.

“I went to the match against Kings Lynn and the next match against Northampton, that is immediately pre and post Jimmy Hill. I was lucky growing up when Jim was doing his magic.

“Apart from the cup and the Keano/ Mcallister year its been pretty average but massively downhill in the last 15 years. Scott not seen any success just desperation.”

In criticism of the club’s ‘owners’ Sisu, including the year the club played home games in Northampton, he added: “The last time I went to Northampton was the 1966-7 season and Scott has never been there.”

Scott. married and working in Dubai, said: “This one trip to Wembley makes up for all the horrible trips suffered, like Rochdale away in the League Cup last season, Grimsby away on Boxing day and Rotherham away on a cold Tuesday night in November.

“This is the reason you support a team in the hope that one day they will reward you with a trip to Wembley.

“I’ll do a full day at work on Thursday March 30 then home to pack and a flight at 22:30pm and land into Birmingham at 7am.

His first game was in 1988 and he recalls “standing on a box to be able to see due to the fencing” at Highfield Road, in days of 1980s measures against ‘hooliganism’.

The family moved in 1996 to Dubai, where Steve has worked for two UK engineering consultancies on many major development projects not only in Dubai but elsewhere in the Middle East.

Scott and step-daughter Naomi returned later to the UK for education purposes, but returned to live in Dubai in 2005. Steve added: “So all the family is here; married: housed: mortgaged and not likely to leave. In fact there are a lot of CCFC supporters here including the Allsopps.”

Naomi, with Newcastle heritage, is also married and working in Dubai and is mother to young Amelia Miles – who has both a black and white Magpies shirt, and Coventry City kit, “much to her Geordie relatives’ disgust,” adds Steve!

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