Getting to know Mr Sphinx

After twice talking to Neil Long about Coventry Sphinx in the past weeks, it was a pleasure to see the club for myself and meet the man in person last Saturday.

I was kindly corrected as to his role at the club. In culling his telephone number from the FA Competitions Directory, I had assumed that he was the club secretary. He is, in fact, vice-chairman.

“Mr Sphinx, we call him,” Vic Jones, the chairman, said. “Since Neil joined us four years ago, he has taken an enormous burden off my shoulders, particularly in terms of administration.”

That blunder apart I don’t think there was anything too wrong with my assessment of the Sphinx’s achievement in launching a run in the FA Vase that, after they beat Salford City 3-1 on Saturday, has taken them to the last 16. It is truly extraordinary.

Not the least amazing is that the feat has been achieved by a group of players who receive not a penny for their efforts. They are bound to the Sphinx by the direction and enthusiasm of Paul Charnley, the manager, and his assistants, Martin Smith and Lynton Wilkinson, and an equally energetic committee.

It helps that the club have been enjoying unprecedented success, lifting the Midland Combination title last season and winning promotion to the Polymac Midland Alliance. “We have also had a very good record in cup competitions,” Charnley said. “We were the winners of the last Coventry Evening Telegraph Cup final played at Highfield Road and then winners of the first final played at the Ricoh Arena.

“It is a great highlight for the players to be able to play there. This season we are also competing in the league cup, whose final will be held at the Bescot Stadium. And then there is the Vase in which we are three rounds away from playing at Wembley...”

That the social club of which the Sphinx players have use is an impressive facility is also a draw for players. But sharing their ground with a cricket club in a complex that also boasts bowls greens and tennis courts is a problem. At the end of each season the club has to take down three floodlight pylons and the railings that divides the cricket club’s outfield.

The threat posed to the club’s ambitions will, however, be removed when a proposed redevelopment of the site takes place that will give the football club an enclosed ground of the kind demanded farther up the non-League ladder.

Even then much work had to be done to ensure that the club was able to take its place in the Midland Alliance. Jones said: “The support we received from the social club was fantastic. They built the fence we needed and pulled out all the stops for us. The committee worked all winter and summer. We got the PA system rewired, rebricked the changing rooms, put in new showers and installed toilet facilities into the referees’ room.” It was no wonder that Jones said that Saturday’s victory was a reward for  their efforts.

Jones has been at the club for eight years after moving there from the former VS Rugby. His first year at the club was marked by the tragic death in a car accident of Willie Knibbs, who was his first appointment as a joint manager with Carl Davies, and was returning from a match away to Meir KA. Sphinx honour Knibbs’s memory by naming their stand after him.

“His youngest lad, Adam, was playing today,” Jones said. “His elder son, Lee, is the reserve team manager. It’s great that the family remain fully committed to the club.”

Charnley was promoted from the assistant’s job with the departure of Martin Ascroft last summer. He works as a stonemason in the family memorials business and he says that his father and brother’s understanding is invaluable in helping him cope with the demands of football management.

“Not having a budget isn’t easy,” he said. “But then again if you’ve got a big budget, the pressure’s on then isn’t it? The only thing I’d say is that you can’t make the players do what you want in the same way. If they’re late for training, you can’t fine them; if they don’t turn up, you can’t fine them. Mind you, if I did have a budget, I’d probably pay all the players the same.”

The only real blow for the club this season was that a sponsor who promised Sphinx the backing to enable them to cover the players’ expenses disappeared without trace. “Mr Sphinx” was last seen on Saturday striding into the social club with fingers crossed that a supporter who had enjoyed the victory over Salford would come up trumps with an offer to cover the cost of an overnight stay when the club travel down to Essex to play Stanway Rovers in the fifth round.

WALTER GAMMIE