Coventry City FC

A badge built on a coat of arms, a club born in a bicycle factory, and a history shaped by industry, resilience and symbolism.

So, let’s #GetTheBadgeIn, and see how Coventry ended up with one of the most distinctive crests in English football.

Coventry City began in 1883 when workers at the Singer bicycle factory formed a team. Factory sides were emerging everywhere at the time, and Singer’s workforce—skilled, organised and hard working — felt they had something to offer on the pitch. George Singer, the founder, would become a leading figure in the city: councillor, Mayor, alderman and philanthropist. He died in 1909 at Coundon Court, now a secondary school, leaving behind both civic and industrial legacies. I wonder if he knew then that one of the longest lasting legacies of his factory would be its football team?

Before long the club was competing more widely, changing its name to Coventry City in 1898 and joining the Southern League in 1908. Their greatest moment came with the FA Cup win in 1987, a 3–2 extra-time classic against Tottenham still remembered as one of Wembley’s finest finals. They later captured the EFL Trophy in 2017, spent long spells in the top flight, and developed or showcased notable players such as Cyrille Regis, Dion Dublin, Gary McAllister, Tommy Hutchison, Ian Wallace, Steve Ogrizovic, and Robbie Keane. Their nickname, “The Sky Blues”, arrived in the 1960s under Jimmy Hill, who modernised almost every aspect of the club, including their colour scheme.

Coventry’s importance long predates football. In the medieval era the city thrived through cloth and textile production, becoming one of England’s wealthiest urban centres. By the 18th century it had reinvented itself as a hub of precision watchmaking, with firms like Rotherham & Sons producing high-quality movements for London jewellers and for export across the Empire. When cheap American and Swiss watches arrived, Coventry’s metalworkers simply redirected their skills into bicycles, then motorcycles and finally cars, powering an industrial boom that shaped the modern city.

That reinvention continues today. Coventry remains a major centre of luxury automotive engineering, with Jaguar Land Rover and specialist design houses operating in and around the city. Modern global investment has strengthened that role further. Geely, the Chinese automotive giant and parent company of LEVC, has positioned Coventry as a key site for European electric vehicle development, producing the electric London taxi and investing heavily in EV technologies. The city is also home to the UK’s flagship Battery Industrialisation Centre, alongside a wider cluster of aerospace, transport and engineering research groups. Reinvention has been Coventry’s economic habit for nearly a millennium.

Any who, back to the badge: To understand the badge, you need to look at the city’s coat of arms, granted in 1345 and still one of the most symbolically rich in England. At its centre is the famous elephant carrying a three-towered castle, a symbol representing strength, endurance and—in medieval lore—redemption, thanks to the story that smaller elephants lift fallen ones to their feet. Coventry has embraced the animal so completely that it appears across civic life: the Elephant Building and the badge of Coventry RFC and everywhere in public art, and even in local music, with The Enemy’s Elephant Song.

One of the most striking uses of the elephant motif appeared at sea. HMS Coventry, the Royal Navy destroyer bearing the city’s badge, played a key role in the Falklands War. As a picket ship she was deployed ahead of the fleet to draw enemy aircraft, absorbing attacks meant for more vulnerable vessels like the two aircraft carriers. She shot down numerous Argentine jets before being hit herself and sinking on 25 May 1982. Survivors waiting in life rafts were heard singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. If the elephant stands for resilience, HMS Coventry illustrated it in full.

Alongside the elephant stand two more figures. The eagle comes from the arms of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon noble who ruled the region as its lord in the 11th century. Leofric’s wife, Lady Godiva, has given Coventry one of its most enduring legends. According to the story, she rode naked through the city, with only her long hair covering her modesty, in protest at the harsh taxes Leofric imposed on the townspeople. It would be nice to see some of the people protesting at Kier Starmer’s tax rises adopt the same stance. Actually, scrap that, it absolutely would not be.

The later addition of “Peeping Tom”, struck blind for watching her, only embedded the tale deeper in English folklore. The eagle therefore represents Coventry’s early power, identity and the figures who shaped its medieval past.

The other bird to the right of the badge is the phoenix, added to the arms in 1959. This represents Coventry’s rebirth after the devastating Blitz of 14 November 1940, when German bombing destroyed much of the city centre. The raid was so severe that the Germans coined the verb Coventrieren—to obliterate a city. The phoenix is therefore one of the clearest civic symbols of resilience used by any football club.

Coventry City’s badge brings these elements together: the elephant and castle, the eagle, the phoenix and the club’s name, with the elephant now balancing on a football. Earlier versions borrowed even more directly from the coat of arms, and a 1960s programme design seems to have introduced the elephant-on-ball image that remains today.

Today the club play at the Coventry Building Society Arena—the CBS Arena—a 32,609-seater complex on the site of the old Foleshill gasworks. The wider development includes an exhibition hall, hotel, casino and – most impressively - one of the country’s largest Tesco Extras.

So there we have it. An epic, epic tale in just one badge. From naked princesses, to picket ships giving the Argies hell to soaking up all that Nazi Germany could throw at it and coming out the winner. The elephant, known for its resilience, couldn’t be a finer icon.