Though unfamiliar to anyone not of a sky blue persuasion, Keith Houchen ranks second only to Lady Godiva among Coventry legends. While one paraded round the city naked, the other toured the centre on an open-topped bus bearing the 1987 FA Cup.
Coventry's cup-winning team was a squad of unfancied journeymen who twice came from behind against the stars of Tottenham Hotspur; and Nick Walker's play is the story of a city pulling itself back from the brink. In the 80s, Coventry was the archetypal ghost town. If anything might be said to have turned a corner, it was Houchen's flying header hitting the back of the net.
The football play seems to be undergoing a resurgence: Northern Broadsides have resurrected Harold Brighouse's The Game, and Les Smith and Martin Thomasson's tale of Bolton Wanderer's triumph in the 1923 final, And Did Those Feet, was such a success that the Bolton Octagon brought it back for a replay.
Coventry's show shares characteristics with Bolton's: tales of empty streets, epic journeys to Wembley and weddings clashing with the big day. But it also presents a snapshot of Britain in the Thatcher years, with an affecting subplot of three unemployed lads of different races enduring taunts from a goon with a ridiculous blue elephant on his head.
Paul Warwick's pacy production occurs in real time as the match unfolds, with choreographic sequences by Vanessa Cook that seem genuinely on the ball. The Belgrade had a hit two years ago with One Night in November, the story of the Coventry Blitz. Putting the city's cup heroes centre stage seems a further example of sky blue thinking.
