Frank Lampard and Premier League newcomers Coventry City have turned 25 years of turmoil into triumph

If the best remedy for a hangover is hair of the dog, winning promotion to the Premier League on a Friday night after a quarter of a century away calls for a Saturday morning mouthful of the coat of Cerberus.

The day after Coventry City’s night before, FourFourTwo ambled through the suburban streets, bobbing and weaving between the delirious living dead, a spill for every thrill and sandwich shop queues tumbling out onto pavements.

Even a long-awaited promotion can spin the brain and turn the stomach but for Frank Lampard, Coventry and the Sky Blues faithful, more was the cure. They were promoted to the Premier League in Blackburn but they wanted to win the Championship in the still partying atmosphere of home.

Coventry complete the job on home soil and the Premier League beckons

Tuesday’s early evening feels different. The chill is imminent but the sun shines over the Coventry Building Society Arena and the weekend cobwebs have been brushed away by a cheerful but businesslike focus on the last job that’s left.

“There is still more to do,” says Lampard in his programme notes for Coventry’s penultimate home fixture of the season against Portsmouth. “Our focus now turns to our remaining three games and the opportunity to win the Championship title.”

The nature of automatic promotion means that there’s often an interregnum. As the first club to drop from the Premier League to League Two and bounce back – and that barely begins to tell the story – it’s even more pronounced in Coventry’s case.

“That moment was about more than just one season,” says Lampard of the goal that secured promotion, ruthlessly headed in by central defender Bobby Thomas. “It reflects years of loyalty, resilience and belief. This football club and its supporters have been through so much.”

When the Sky Blues were relegated into the fourth tier in 2017, nobody knew how much unrolling was left in their bungee cord.

The visit of Portsmouth was a landmark night in Lampard’s first season in charge and it has the potential to be defining again in 2025-26.

Nine years into their extraordinary recoil, the difference between first and second on the Championship doesn’t make a whole lot of difference on paper but Coventry City live in the real, cruel, hard, wonderful world. They want the trophy. They want the title.

Before the match, every name on the teamsheet is cheered to the rafters and saluted by an individual belch of boxed fire.

Striker Haji Wright puts Coventry ahead early in a comfortable first half but Portsmouth are competitive until goalkeeper Nicolas Schmid donates the easiest goal of Ephron Mason-Clark’s career and Regan Poole beats Schmid without the need for a Coventry player to get involved at all.

Pompey get a goal back but the atmosphere is crackling and the Sky Blues have started their victory lap with two and a half games to go.

First Mason-Clark and then Kaine Kesler-Hayden, praised by Lampard along with fellow substitute Jake Bidwell for his professionalism in a season of few minutes, add the gloss.

A night that began with supporters greeting one another at their seats in acknowledgement of what was achieved at Ewood Park ends with fireworks fizzing from the top of a stadium that was a millstone but is now a home.

There’s a reason why manager Lampard and chairman Doug King paid tribute to previous boss Mark Robins. There’s a reason why Coventry’s promotion seems to have permeated every avenue and alleyway.

Raising this football club took a city. 25 years is a long time when you pour every Saturday afternoon and Tuesday night into something that doesn’t love you back.

As the Sky Blues reach the conclusion of one tale and set about the writing of another, there is an acute sense not only of the work that went into reviving the club and the people whose commitment prevailed.