Former Sky Blue Striker (Son Of Another) Hits 63 Today! ‘Happy Birthday’, Mark!!
It was only in May 2021 that we were able to announce that former Sky Blue striker from the 1980s, Mark Hateley had just become the Association’s latest recruit. Now there is another red letter day to mark as the tall and lanky former No.9, born in Derby on 7th November 1961 Mark is celebrating his 63rd birthday today. Congratulations!
Mark became only the second example of a number of CCFC fathers and sons to have both joined this Association! Other notable Coventry City generational pairings of this type that spring to mind are Ted Roberts (1930s) & Dudley Roberts* (1960s), David Phillips* (1980s) & Aaron Phillips (2010s) and Gordon Strachan (1990s)* & Gavin Strachan (2000s)* Those asterisked (*) are now Association members. Mark joined his Dad Tony Hateley as an CCFPA member though, sadly, Tony who played for City during 1968-69 (and joined us in 2012) passed away in February 2014 aged 72.
Mark himself built up a career profile of over 600 games and well over 200 goals – a very creditable total on both counts! A physical striker, very much the target man, Mark’s appearances tally might have been more but for fairly frequent periods of injury.
A striker (like the ‘Roberts‘ father and son) he was groomed by both City ‘gaffers’ Gordon Milne and Dave Sexton to follow in his Sky Blue father’s footsteps through the club’s well oiled youth set up. He became a feared Division One marksman, like his dad particularly good with his head, and eventually achieved a Sky Blue hit rate of scoring on average in just over 30% of his games (all at the top level).
For the record, Mark made his first team debut at centre-forward in the Sky Blues 3-0 home win over Wolverhampton Wanderers right at the end of the 1978-79 season (5th May 1979). He was sent over to the States for summer 1980 to gain experience with Detroit Express having only appeared five times in 1979-80. He started to make his Sky Blue mark in 1980-81 appearing 28 times in all competitions and scoring his first senior goals for CCFC (five in total).
