'I was worried we wouldn’t have a football club - now Coventry City are Premier League'

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Coventry City are a Premier League football team again. And they return as champions.

It feels very surreal writing those words, words I never thought I’d write. Not when suffering relegation to League One and League Two. Not when playing home games at Sixfields, St Andrews or Burton Albion. And definitely not when the club shop was being emptied into the back of a lorry 13 years ago!

To say it’s been a brutally long journey back to the Premier League would be an understatement. It is a journey built on years of suffering, anguish and heartbreak. A club rebuilt and risen from the flames - just like the phoenix in our crest.

The club crest that makes me so incredibly proud to be from Coventry and to support this football club.

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We all know how close we’ve come to the top flight in the last three years. Penalty shootout failure at Wembley and play-off semi-final heartbreak in the final minute last year against Sunderland - agonisingly close.

But last Friday night, in Blackburn, all that pain became worth it. Would promotion feel this good if the agony hadn't been so? I wouldn’t wish it on any club, but it somehow makes the taste of promotion all the more sweeter.

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I can thank my dad for taking me to my first game, just like his dad took him to his all those years ago. In the old Coventry Telegraph stand, right behind the goal, my introduction to Coventry City were the days of Michael Doyle, Gary McSheffrey, Isaac Osbourne, Elliott Ward, Ben Turner, Claus Jørgensen and Marcus Hall.

The years that followed were full of heartbreak and worry. From worry that we’d keep nosediving down the leagues, to questioning whether there would even be a football club anymore! I was scared that the club which had brought so much joy into my life was going to be non-existent.

Heading down the M1 to Northampton with my dad for our home games was bizarre to say the least, a confusing and difficult time as fans boycotted the games and others watched from Sixfields hill. In the stands, overriding feelings of guilt for being there while still wanting to get behind the boys as others stayed away. A fan base split, a time where it was difficult for both those who went and those who stayed away to support their local team, purely because of how much it had been broken and destroyed.

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It just seemed to be a never ending spiral of sending Coventry further down the pyramid and the depths of the football league. On a wintry day in 2013, when the club shop was being emptied into the back of a lorry as we went into administration, that was one of the points I thought it was really over. That we wouldn’t have a football club to support anymore. One moment. A moment that left me devastated and just incredibly sad.

Sometimes all it takes is one moment though. One huge, significant moment to seal the defining point in a season - and Bobby Thomas produced exactly that on Friday night at Ewood Park.

I thought I’d felt euphoria before. Wolves away in the FA Cup quarter final, then again at Wembley against Manchester United in the semi-final before the heartbreaking VAR decision went against us - but this meant much more.

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Will Frank Lampard keep Coventry City up next season? Give us your prediction in the comments section .

I celebrated our League One promotion as champions in our back garden with our Covid-bubble, and looking back it is bonkers to think the team were celebrating on top of the Ramada with a DJ set broadcast on YouTube.

This time it’s different. This time we get to celebrate this one properly, a thumping victory over Portsmouth ensuring we get to celebrate together.

Coventry City. Champions. A Premier League club once again.