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Sky Blues set to get Freedom of Coventry

Alec Blackmanin Coventry
PA/ Jacob King Coventry City captain Matt Grimes holds the Championship Trophy aloft during the on-pitch celebrations, after winning the title.PA/ Jacob King
Coventry City won the Championship Trophy and promotion to the Premier League, 25 years after they were relegated

Coventry City Football Club is set be granted the Freedom of the City, after winning the Championship title and promotion to the Premier League.

An extraordinary general meeting of the city council on 23 June will consider a motion to give the club, players, management, backroom staff and owner Doug King the honorary title, recognising their achievements.

The club was nominated by the authority's leader, councillor George Duggins.

"This is an extraordinary achievement which deserves an extraordinary honour. That is why I am asking councillors to come together to award Coventry City Football Club the Honorary Freedom of the City – the highest honour this council can bestow," he said.

Coventry City secured promotion to the Premier League in April, almost exactly 25 years after the club, a founder member of the Premier League, was relegated in a 3-2 loss against Aston Villa.

BBC/ Lisa Pitchford An open-topped bus with a banner reading 'We Are Back' is flanked b police officers in hi-viz jackets as it makes its way through a residential street on Coventry. Players on the bus are holding the Championship Trophy alfot at the front of the bus, which is surrounded by smoke from pyrotechnics set off in the crowd.BBC/ Lisa Pitchford
Thousands of people followed an open-topped bus tour of the city on the May Day Bank Holiday

The title also saw one of the largest celebrations in Coventry since the team won the FA Cup in 1987, with an estimated 200,000 people following an open-topped bus parade from the Coventry Building Society Arena through the city on the May Day Bank Holiday.

That ended with the We Are Back concert and party at the War Memorial Park in front of 50,000, with musical performances from the likes of Punjabi MC and Sky Blues fan Tom Grennan.

"Coventry is immensely proud of our football club, and the Sky Blues' return to the Premier League is a moment of huge significance for our city," added Duggins.

"This achievement belongs not only to the team and everyone at the club, but to the generations of supporters and communities who have always stood behind them."

The title can only be awarded if councillors approve the motion, due to be put to them at the meeting on 23 June.

If granted, the club would follow in the footsteps of the staff at the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, who were given the some honour for their work during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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