Coventry owner Doug King: ‘I had no doubt Lampard would do well … it’s gotten under his skin’

Having overseen a historic return to the Premier League, businessman is now aiming his sights even higher

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oug King is discussing the night Coventry clinched promotion to the Premier League after 25 years away. He had a tear in his eye when the moment arrived at Blackburn and, after eventually exiting the Ewood Park boardroom, the champagne flowing, the straight-talking owner worth hundreds of millions hunkered down at a Travelodge adjacent to a service station on the M65. “It was ... noisy,” he says, taking a second to land on the best adjective, “because all I could hear pretty much all night was: ‘We are Premier League.’”

It has led King to feel like a party planner of late. The biggest one yet was Monday’s open-top bus parade which started on Jimmy Hill Way, named after the manager who in 1967 led the club into the top flight for the first time. After Coventry were crowned champions last month, King guzzled from the trophy. “I didn’t think the lid would come off, so we had to make the most of that,” he says with a smile.

It has been quite the ride since King, a mathematical engineering graduate with a background in trading grains and petroleum, acquired 100% of the club in January 2023. The plan was promotion inside five years and, a few months into his first foray in football, he offered 5,000 supporters the chance to buy a premium five-year “Premier League package”, with the carrot of a free season ticket in the event of promotion for those who continually renewed. “If you did one year and said: ‘Well, they’re never going to get there,’ then you missed out.”