Minutes before the start of the Frank Lampard era at Coventry City, Nina Simone's I'm Feeling Good was ringing around the ground.
For this was a new dawn, a new day and a new life for Coventry's supporters, after owner Doug King called time on Mark Robins' largely successful seven years at the helm.
After 18 months out of the game, Coventry's frenetic 2-2 draw at home to struggling Cardiff City was a reminder of the blood and thunder of the Championship for Lampard — in what was his first game back in the second tier of English football since tasting defeat in its Wembley play-off final as manager of Derby County, against Aston Villa in May 2019.
Trailing for much of the contest to a Cardiff side who have yet to win away this season, a late Victor Torp penalty salvaged a draw to spare any early blushes.
"We wanted more than a draw, but they (the fans) were very supportive," Lampard said after the game. "That relationship is all about us now. It's about what momentum we can build. I don't want to be bordering on the side of negative, because I'm pleased we got a point."
For Lampard, this feels like a big moment in his managerial career, with parallels to his former England team-mate Wayne Rooney in this same division at Plymouth Arg yle — somewhere he needs to impress after a mixed time on the touchline to date.
After that promising first season powered by talented young loanees at Derby, he landed his dream job at Chelsea, the club where he is the record goalscorer — a position that arguably arrived too soon but was impossible to turn down. It started well, despite Lampard working under a transfer ban, as they got to that season's FA Cup final and qualified for the Champions League. However the tide started to turn in year two, and he was replaced with Thomas Tuchel in the January.
It was a similar tale at Everton, where his January 2022 arrival helped galvanise the fanbase and ensured survival after a miserable period under predecessor Rafa Benitez. Yet a blunt attack and leaky defence saw him dismissed halfway through the next season with Everton 19th before a disastrous caretaker spell back at Chelsea that spring where he lost eight of 11 matches — a period he had described at Thursday's Coventry unveiling as a 'holding the baby' role.
Lampard returned to the Championship for the first time in over five years (Barrington Coombs/Getty Images)While he inherited some tricky situations in his previous jobs, at Coventry, Lampard has walked into a club with a stable structure, a supportive fanbase and a talented squad.
Much of that is down to Robins, who secured promotions from the fourth and third tiers (and almost a third, to the Premier League, with Coventry losing to Luton Town on penalties in the 2022-23 play-off final), won the EFL Trophy and came within a toenail of beating M anchester United in last season's FA Cup semi-finals, all while dealing with plenty of chaos off the pitch and seasons where Coventry were without a home ground to play in.
However, the supporters' patience started to wear thin after another sluggish start to this season, after Robins' long-time assistant Adi Viveash departed in the summer.
"The fall-off after the FA Cup semi-final was obvious," King told a fans' forum last week. "I told Mark to take time out at the end of the season and have a rest. But I then had a phone call from him saying that he could no longer work with Adi Viveash. That annoyed me."
King, who completed his 100 per cent purchase of the Midlands club in January last year, added: "Sometimes a tough decision has to be made. I like Mark Robins. And we've had good times together — but it had to be made."
Despite their underwhelming run of results, Robins' dismissal still came as a shock. He had been the Champio nship's longest-serving manager and departed with Coventry 17th in the 24-team table.
Three weeks on, though, and with Lampard in as the new head coach, many are looking forward and eager to get behind the former England midfielder.
On taking the job, Lampard, who signed a two-and-a-half-year contract, told Coventry's in-house media: "I want to bring an exciting attacking team for (fans) to see, a possession-based team that also wants to attack quickly at times. But of course, we want to be an aggressive team as well that wants to win the ball high up the pitch."
He also paid tribute to Robins after the Cardiff match.
"I'm not here to fight that, I'm here to say, 'Fantastic,' and to try and do my job," he told reporters.
Lampard's face was unsurprisingly on the front of the matchday programme (Barrington Coombs/Getty Images)"He's going to take time, it's now for us to get behind him," Coventry fan Craig Palmer, 42, told The Athletic on the way to the game. "If you'd asked me three weeks ago, I would have been like, 'What the hell are we doing?' I'm in a WhatsApp group and there's about 300 of us and it's been, 'Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god'. It's the same as a relationship. You get that shock, don't you? But they, like me, are coming around to the idea. Now I'm feeling a bit more optimistic."
Fellow supporter Rachel Treanor agreed. "It was a shock when Robins went but things had to change," she told The Athletic. "I'm actually quite hopeful now."
"I was sad to see Robins go, but I can understand why as it was getting a bit stale," fan Duncan Roberts added. "We'll give Lampard a chance. It's a bold appointment by King and time will tell whether it was the right one."
That quiet optimism in the lead-up to the game was carried onto the pitch as Lampard was given a rousing reception when he was introduced to the fans for the first time.
There was a brief wave and clap from a business-like Lampard before he retreated to the dugout, alongside trusted assistants Joe Edwards and Chris Jones, who were part of his setup at both Everton and Chelsea.
As the game kicked off, a chant of "Super Frankie Lampard" then went up around all corners of the home crowd, with Coventry set up in a 4-2-3-1 formation — a change from the 3-4-1-2 Robins had deployed towards the end of his time.
However, the buoyant atmosphere quickly turned flat as Cardiff landed the first blow, Lampard's side conceding from a corner. But it only took three minutes for Coventry to respond as Ephron Mason-Clark — recalled to the side by the new manager for his first start since early October — volleyed home from a clever Tatsuhiro Sakamoto through ball.
The rest of the half was end-to-end, with plenty of chances and sloppy errors, as Lampard — in a long coat and what can only be described as pundit shoes — prowled the edge of his technical area.
The second half began much like the first, as Cardiff scored early, a fizzing 25-yard drive into the bottom corner from Alex Robertson. This time, Coventry failed to hit back straight away and there were audible groans from the crowd as the game wore on.
Midway through the half, the Cardiff f ans, delighting in the novelty of leading in a match away from home, serenaded Lampard with a gleeful rendition of "You're getting sacked in the morning."
Victor Torp celebrates scoring the penalty that earned Coventry a point (Jan Kruger/Getty Images)Coventry's equaliser, in the 88th minute, arrived in controversial circumstances.
The referee awarded a penalty, despite initially seeming to have played on. After two Cardiff bookings for their protests, Torp sent goalkeeper Jak Alnwick the wrong way.
There was no further drama and so Lampard had to settle for a point on his return to the dugout.
After the game, he attempted to turn the spotlight away from himself.
"I'm a low-key person, that's how I am," Lampard said. "I'm here as a head coach, I'm not here as a celebrity.
"I've coached teams in the Champions League, but that's not how I am. My enjoyment out of this comes out of trying to make a team better. I shy away from those moments sometimes, even if people might not think that. I appreciated it, certainly, (but) didn't want to make it about me.
"It's not my moment, it's the start of 90 minutes… I'm here to work and do well for the club."
(Top photo: Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
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