Throwback Thursday: Mark’s Men Are Officially Confirmed As League One Champions On This Day In 2020!
It seems like longer, but just four years ago today (on 9th June 2020) The Football League confirmed that the Sky Blues would become official Champions of League One for 2019-20! It took the second of two FL meetings which took place on this day, involving participation by all the member clubs, to finally confirm that CCFC would be promoted to the Championship alongside runners up Rotherham United despite the season being curtailed by the coronavirus lockdown with ten games to go. Subsequently, after the play-offs between Oxford United, Portsmouth, Fleetwood Town and Wycombe Wanderers the Chairboys also joined them. Interestingly, the Sky Blues were the only one of the three to retain their Championship status for 2021-22 the other two going down with Sheffield Wednesday.
CCFC 2019-20 League One Champs
Their second promotion in three seasons was some achievement for the Sky Blues under Mark Robins especially given the Sky Blues were in exile at Birmingham City‘s St Andrews for their ‘home’ matches and the end of the season had been profoundly disrupted by the COVID19 health emergency. This also meant that Sky Blues fans could not celebrate the honour en masse as they would have normally done. In truth, the League’s decision merely ratified a dominant Sky Blue performance up to the season ending prematurely. Our pole position was virtually unassailable in any event as we finished five points clear off all comers at the top with a game in hand of rivals with ten games remaining to play.
CCFPA’s Banner Signed By The 2019-20 Squad which we auctioned the year before last
CCFPA along with all Sky Blue fans had to necessarily make do with the club’s excellent virtual celebration of their achievement – only the fourth time CCFC have been crowned Champions of a division (joining 1935-36 with holding the Division Three South title; 1963-64 Division Three and 1966-67 Division Two) and their sixth promotion in a century in the Football League (plus 1958-59 second place in Division Four & 2017-18 League Two promotion via playoffs). Progress has been made every season since this promotion under MR (many see him as the new Sky Blue Messiah).
In many respects the cruel, VAR assisted, manner of the Wembley Semi Final defeat to Manchester United contributed to a ninth place finish last season. Though gutted at the cruel manner of defeat to Luton Town at Wembley in the previous (2022-23) Championship play-off Final a fifth place finish following on from the previous season’s season twelfth spot and the sixteenth place in our first season back to the second tier the Sky Blues show great year-on-year progress. The club must be proud at their achievements as they must look forward in confidence to the 2024-25 Championship season from next August.
