'Keep our feet on the ground' - Lampard

[Getty Images] Hear'Say were top of the pops; a mobile phone game called 'Snake' was all the rage and Tony Blair was Prime Minister. Wind the clock back to April 2001 and things looked rather different. It was also the last time Coventry City tasted victory in English football's top flight. That came courtesy of a 1-0 win over Sunderland - John Hartson heading in the winner for Gordon Strachan's side in front of 20,946 fans at Highfield Road. Much has happened in the life of Coventry since that moment 9,287 days ago. A rollercoaster journey might be understating it. They were relegated at the end of the 2000-01 campaign and would spend the next 11 seasons in the second tier before dropping down to League One in 2012. Then followed a particularly dark and turbulent period in the club's history featuring points deductions and a stint in administration. Having left Highfield Road in 2005 they became embroiled in a bitter dispute over the Ricoh Arena in 2013 and its rent. The nadir, arguably, was when they were forced to play matches away from Coventry, at Northampton Town, before later plummeting down to the fourth tier for the first time in 59 years in 2017. Doubtless there were those packed into the Bridgford Stand at the City Ground on Saturday who were present during those years of Sky Blue hell. So the explosion of emotion at the full-time whistle - after Jay Dasilva's goal settled matters - felt like Sky Blue heaven. Coventry had been stranded on 99 Premier League wins for over a quarter of a century before this victory ticked them over to three figures at long last. Frank Lampard hopes this victory could be a key staging post in a campaign where avoiding relegation will be the main aim. "It's really important for some of the players," he told BBC Match of the Day. "For many of them it is their debut in the Premier League, they haven't been here before and they need to feel like they belong and play like that. "It is easy to point in different directions when you lose but the group's really strong, really together, there'll have a good feeling from this one. But we'll keep our feet on the ground because it is one win, but it was needed for us." Read more here