SAD NEWS: A important player for Coventry sustains a career-ending injury…

In seven years in the job, many of those in trying circumstances, Mark Robins has guided Coventry to two promotions, the Football League Trophy and, last season, to within a Wembley penalty shootout of the Premier League. This, however, was arguably his greatest feat yet, leading Coventry into the FA Cup semi-finals for the first time since the club won the competition in 1987. No wonder some supporters consider his work worthy of a statue. Now they are heading back to the national stadium, after defeating Wolves in a tantalising tie, decided in the 100th minute by a magnificent, unerring finish by Haji Wright.

But then Robins, so often serenity personified in the eye of a storm, allowed the occasion to get the better of him, running to celebrate wildly in the face of a 13-year-old Wolves ballboy to the left of the away dugout. Gary O’Neil, the Wolves manager, waited to confront Robins about his “disgusting” behaviour, an unedifying episode that tarnished the most joyous moment. Robins had been irked when the teenager smirked after dropping the ball to delay a restart moments before Wright’s intuitive brilliance clinched a spot in the final four.

Robins brought up the incident, which happened out of view of the television cameras, in his press conference and issued a public apology. “It really annoyed me, but he’s a kid and at the end of the day I’ve reacted,” the Coventry manager said. “We’ve scored the goal and I’ve gone and celebrated in front of him. I do not show emotion very often but I did today – that’s what the FA Cup does to you. I apologise unreservedly to him.”

Two goals in the final seven minutes of normal time flipped this game on its head, Wolves starting the minimum of nine minutes of stoppage time with an unlikely lead courtesy of strikes from Rayan Aït-Nouri and Hugo Bueno. Ellis Simms, who scored Coventry’s first goal, equalised in the 97th minute then helped tee up Wright’s superb, curled winner. Wright used the Wolves captain, Max Kilman, as a mannequin and caressed a first-time shot into the bottom corner after the substitute Callum O’Hare dug out a cross from the left flank for Simms to lay off. Coventry’s players could not mob Wright quickly enough. Kasey Palmer, replaced by O’Hare, sprinted 40 yards from the bench, knee-sliding on the turf before joining the party. Wolves were floored.

Robins has transformed a dysfunctional club, rebuilding them from the bottom up and restoring Coventry’s proud name, and few could begrudge the celebrations at the final whistle. He has steered them through incessantly choppy waters, making light of ground shares, skeleton staff and unplayable pitches, and here he was able to drink in the reality of it all. “It has come from a really dark place across a 10-year period, to a point where it is being taken seriously again,” he said. “The fact we’re in the semi‑final of the Cup, you need to pinch me a little bit.”