Steel and animal bones: sifting through the bones of Coventry ska

I'm already 5-0 up going into the last ten minutes so I won't bore my (ahem) many fans and readers by banging on about this, but ... the utterly cringeworthy news of Coventry City's 2-Tone football kit surely deserves a quick mention. Yes, it's true. In case you missed the news, this third-tier football club has had the third-rate idea of slapping some reworked 2-Tone design stuff on its third-choice football strip. You might almost say the team has reverted to a 3-3-3 formation ... Why is it a third-rate idea? Well, a football team latching onto a once-popular musical scene seems pretty desperate in itself. But given - as I said a few years ago - that Coventry City's self-promotion rests quite heavily on glorifying Jimmy Hill, a manager with distinctly unsavoury views on race and people of colour, I think the crassness of the 2-Tone make-over is obvious.

Still going nowhere: a road sign outside the Ricoh Arena

It should go without saying that Jerry Dammers-era Specials were an important band (not the current cash-in, lacklustre version). And their part in Coventry's history is, I would say, quite an important one. But, like so many tacky heritage-y appropriations, this football kit thing is pure trash (though not cheap trash - £47 for an adult, and a not-at-all-fleecing-the-kids £42 for children). This is a message to you, Mark Robins ... Anyway, who cares what I think? I don't like professional football and won't be watching any of their games, whether first, second or third-team ones. Meanwhile ... the beat goes on. Reggae, ska, rocksteady, Nyabingi, dub - these amazing musics are, if you ask me, what matter. Not tawdry rip-off football shirts.These days Coventry City don't play at their white elephant stadium along the Jimmy Hill Way. Nope, kicked out - a complicated financial deal gone utterly (and very acrimoniously) wrong. But venture down this road today and you'll still see the name of the club's old manager on all the road signs. Get close up to the stadium and you'll see a statue of Hill, famous large chin and all. When I was there yesterday (yes, I'm afraid I was) some bloke was having his photo taken after clambering up onto the dull-looking thing. Go further into the corridors of the stadium/hotel/functions rooms, and you'll see photos of football and rugby players. And not just sportspeople, but also some of the big-name musicians who play at the Ricoh Arena - Rod Stewart, Take That, Bon Jovi. It's where music goes to die ... Finally, if you're tired of all this monumentalism and sheer ugliness, you might explore the neigbourhood nearby - Rowley's Green, an unsung district north of Coventry's city centre. My father grew up around here, just a hefty football kick away from the ground. I used to be taken, aged about seven, on Sunday morning walks around Rowley's Green, often going past a huge industrial recycling plant. This forbidding place recycled cardboard, steel and animal bones, and the stench of rotting animal parts was chokingly awful (yes, such early-70s glamour has made Niluccio on noise the bitter and twisted man that he is ...). I reckon a trace of that bad smell can still be detected when it comes to the CCFC 2-Tone football shirt. So yeah, if Coventry really want to kick racism out of football they should probably take down that Jimmy Hill statue and the council should get rid of those road signs. Meanwhile, here's another bit of recyling. One that smells fresh, not of putrefaction ...