Coventry City may be doing badly but there is no crowing from high-riding Nuneaton Borough manager Brendan Phillips.

Phillips was born in Foleshill, half a mile from the site of Coventry City’s new stadium, and he admits to being a Sky Blues fan.

"It’s quite depressing," he says. "I am Coventry born and I am a keen fan of the Sky Blues so while I am pleased the Borough are doing very well, I can feel for Gordon Strachan at the moment."

Ironically Nuneaton have applied for planning permission to build their new stadium within two miles of Coventry’s and Phillips says:

"It would be great to be so close to the new Arena 2000.

"We want to gain promotion to the Nationwide Third Division and that would put us only three divisions below Coventry. To have two professional clubs so close together would be great and would help us to achieve even greater things."

Phillips is one of the brightest young managers in the country and was awarded the Non-League Directory Manager of the Year award when Nuneaton romped away with the Dr Marten’s League Premier Division championship last season.

Now Borough are in third place in the Football Conference, which is the equivalent to the Fourth Division of the Nationwide Football League, promotion from which would take them into the Third Division.

"It’s early days," said Phillips cautiously. "But we are pleased with the way things are going. We revamped the whole system in the summer and brought in a lot of new players, some with league experience.

"For instance young Andy Ducros, who was released by Coventry City, is doing particularly well and we have a lot of players of Conference standard and above."