As Christmas draws near, let’s cast a pantomime production of English rugby. Playing Cinderella are Coventry, the upstart leaders of the Championship, with the Rugby Football Union and Premiership Rugby clearly occupying the roles of the ugly sisters determined to thwart her entry to the ball.

Whether or not there is a happy ending to Coventry’s application to join the Premiership, which was announced last week, they nonetheless inject a rare jolt of feel-good into an otherwise largely depressing backdrop of self-interest within the sport. Incidentally, Coventry’s total playing budget is less than the salary (excluding bonuses) of the RFU chief executive.

After their pomp in the Seventies and Eighties, Coventry lost their way when professionalism came along, coming perilously close to extinction in 2009 as well as forgetting their roots. Funded by local businessman Jon Sharp, driven by the boundless energy of chief executive Nick Johnston and coached by another local lad in Alex Rae, the club are determined to return to their former heights – but crucially they want to do it the right way, with the support of the city and by embracing their history.

Take their plans to build a hotel and flats on the site of their redeveloped stadium at the Butts Park Arena. Conventional wisdom would be to allow the developers to extract that maximum possible returns. Instead, the club will ensure that accommodation includes provisions for affordable later living, NHS key workers and ‘step up, step down care’ for those recovering from operations which will prevent bed blocking in hospitals.

‘We’re really proud of our inclusivity’

Built into every player’s contract is a commitment to spending time with a local charity, club or school where many players spend an hour a week reading to children. Johnston is particularly proud of Project 500 where the club provides food and activities to disadvantaged children over the school holidays.

Not all of this is done for purely altruistic purposes. For instance, the cost of the free season tickets provided to former players is offset by the bar takings at two dinners the club put on where everyone, according to Johnston, gets as “p----d as parrots”. The Project 500 children are also given season tickets with the hope that they will become lifelong supporters.

“We’re really proud of our inclusivity,” Johnston said. “Regardless of whether we reach the Premiership, the social value and social impact of our community programmes are massive for us. We will not stop doing that because it does grow your fan base. You engage with them and then they buy a ticket and then they buy hospitality and then they become a sponsor if you take them on that journey.”

‘Momentum like a big wave’

This is in stark contrast with Wasps, who only had the most superficial of relationships with their surroundings during their ill-fated stay at the Ricoh Arena. Johnston said: “Nobody made a fuss when they came and nobody made a fuss when they left.”

That is reflected by the growing attendances with Coventry on course to sell out their top-of-the-table clash against Ealing next week and a Premiership Cup fixture against Leicester. “I think we have added a 1,000 to our average attendance each year I have been here,” Rae said. “You can feel the momentum and energy. It is like a big wave gathering and gathering.”

Two players, Josh Barton and Toby Trinder, also work in the commercial department. “The biggest benefit of that is they see the work that goes on to fill the stadium every week, to generate the money to pay their wages and then they go back into the changing room and can tell the lads ‘don’t be bloody ungrateful’,” says Johnston.

It helps that Rae’s side have won seven from seven so far this season in league, ahead of a tricky trip to Cornish Pirates on Saturday. When Johnston appointed Rae, a former Northampton Saints back row, in 2022 he did so with a mandate to introduce younger, hungrier players. They have picked up a number of Premiership academy discards such as loose forwards Obinna Nkwocha, formerly of Saracens, and Tom Ball, who was on Northampton’s books. Add in home-grown talents such as David Opoku, brother of Sale star Asher, and the odd wise old head like Matt Kvesic and that creates a potent mix.

Johnston has ensured that only half of the rugby department’s £1.4 million budget goes on player wages with the rest going on the performance element encompassing training, psychology, nutrition and mobile cryotherapy chambers.

Success can be a double-edged sword with Will Rigg and Will Wand getting snapped up by Exeter and Leicester respectively while Pat Pellegrini has moved to Moana Pasifika in Super Rugby. “The first question I ask a new player is what’s your goal? Where do you want to be?” Rae said. “If they say I just want to be a Championship player they are probably not for us. I love it when I hear them say I want to be an international. We have had players turn down Premiership opportunities last year because they felt like the right thing to do was to stay and continue their development here.”

In short there is little not to love about Coventry. Enter the ugly sisters – booooooooo! – who claim to have relaxed the minimum standards criteria to allow promotion to clubs with a stadium capacity of 5,000 (which Coventry meet) as long as there is a plan to expand to 10,000 in four years (which Coventry again plan to meet). The rather considerable catch is that they would need planning permission for the expansion by January even before knowing if they could go up – which would require winning a league and a play-off against the Premiership’s bottom placed team.

“That’s business suicide, isn’t it?” Johnston said. “It would be like if you buy a house, you sign the contract, and then the person tells you how much you’re paying for it. Who would ever do that?

“It would have actually been impossible to get planning permission by January 1 when the minimum criteria were released in September because of regulation law. You need to have a set period for public consultation. You also need a fully executed construction contract and if you don’t get a positive planning determination you will get sued by contractors for millions. So you are damned if you do, you damned if you don’t.”

‘People talk b------s about growing the game’

Two weeks ago, the Championship clubs collectively received advice from anti-competition market authority experts that the regulations can be challenged in the courts. Johnston does not want it to come to a legal battle. Instead he hopes the powers that be realise how self-defeating ring-fencing is when they see the vibrancy that Vannes have added to the Top 14 since being promoted.

“A lot of people talk b------s about growing the game, absolute b------s,” Johnston said. “Well come and grow the game. We’re the only professional rugby team in the West Midlands, in an area full of rugby union. If you truly wanted to grow the game give us a chance.

“We will build a sustainable model to be in the Premiership. We will not go up and go bust. We’d rather not go up. But we want to go up and do it our way. That’s been our driver. Why? Why can’t we do this? Why can’t we grow something? We know the system’s against you. That’s fine. But let’s dare to dream.”

Maybe Cinderella shall go to the ball after all.