Coventry City rarely enjoyed their encounters with Manchester United.
In fact, by the time that the clash between the two sides rolled around on this day in 1997, the Sky Blues had not beaten United since back in 1989 when Gary Bannister scored the only goal of the game. It was a run that dated back 17 matches, from which they had lost 14.
It was anticipated that United would extend that unbeaten sequence of results at Highfield Road, largely because they went into the contest having won their last six matches, while hosting Coventry had lost their last two games.
However, the home side started well and went on to break the deadlock in the 12th minute. A move involving Darren Huckerby, Dion Dublin and Marcus Hall eventually picked out Noel Whelan, who fired beyond the reach of United's stand-in goalkeeper Kevin Pilkington.
Normal service appeared to have been resumed, though, when United drew themselves level with 30 minutes played. Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs linked to free Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and the Norwegian converted his opportunity from inside the penalty area.
Then, two minutes after the restart, United went in front when Scholes capitalised on some poor Coventry defending to send over a cross. From there, Teddy Sheringham stooped to head in from close range.
As the minutes wore on, it seemed that the visitors had done enough to return to Manchester with all three points.
Coventry striker Huckerby had other ideas, though. With four minutes left to play he was brought down inside the box by United defender Henning Berg and Dublin stepped up to score the resultant penalty.
Rather than settle for a share of the spoils, Gordon Strachan's pushed forward again and were rewarded just two minutes later. Huckerby inherited possession just inside the United half and proceeded to weave his way forwards, going beyond Nicky Butt, Gary Neville and Berg in the process. That left him with just Pilkington to beat and the youngster kept his composure to do just that courtesy of a low finish into the bottom corner.
It left United with no time to respond, meaning that Coventry had ended their hoodoo against the champions.
COVENTRY: Hedman; Nilsson, Shaw, Williams, Burrows; Hall, Boateng, Telfer; Whelan, Dublin, Huckerby
MAN UNITED: Pilkington; Neville, Johnsen, Pallister, Berg; Beckham, Scholes, Giggs, Solskjaer; Cole, Sheringham
Liam Apicella
