‘Got. Got. Need!’ The boyhood autographs that remind me of Coventry’s Premier League heydays

From Dion Dublin to Eric Cantona, the signatures I collected with my dad in the 1990s record a time when the Sky Blues seemed almost invincible John Barnes: got. David Beckham: got. Ruud Gullit: got. Andrei Kanchelskis: got. Matthew Le Tissier: got. Alan Shearer: got. Looking back through the football autographs I collected as a teenager in the early 1990s feels delightful and discomfiting. The Merlin sticker albums, Pro Set cards and Shoot annuals chronicle a youth spent travelling the country with my dad, watching Coventry City take on the great and the good of the top flight at the dawn of the Premier League. We would hunt for the visiting teams at local hotels before each game, aiming…