For 44 minutes we sat and shook our heads.

It's Saturday 31 March, and a microcosm of a season of struggle and frustration was unfolding before us. We saw a team unable to string more than two passes together, a poor service to the front men with key individuals woefully out of form.

The worst of these was, without question, the captain. Whatever Moustapha Hadji did it seemed destined to embarrass the Moroccan star and cast even further gloom over a struggling team.

To make matters worse, it seemed we had to endure an eternity of a first-half because of a long stoppage for treatment to the Derby County goalkeeper Andy Oakes, injured in a fifty-fifty clash with Hadji. That was to provide more than a touch of irony as referee David Elleray quite properly added four minutes at the end of the first half to compensate for the delay. It was in that extra time that a John Eustace shot was punched into the air by substitute goalkeeper Mark Poom only to be followed goalwards by a charging body in Sky Blue.

The man in question, who put his head to the ball to steer it home, was none other than Moustapha Hadji.

To say that the goal transformed Hadji is an understatement. Suddenly the tricks returned, his passes found their man and the strong, skilful player, who quickly found favour with City fans when he first arrived, was back.

We were already enjoying fine performances by teenage goalkeeper Chris Kirkland, Irish international defender Gary Breen, whose consistency must surely put him high in the reckoning as the City's 'Player of the Season', and Welsh star John Hartson. The striker had obviously benefited from his ten days with Wales and he posed a constant threat to the Derby defence.

In the second-half, buoyed by their one-goal lead and by advice from their manager and his coaching staff, the rest of the City team joined in. We were treated to some of the best football they have played all season and it was no more than they deserved when John Hartson headed Paul Telfer's fine corner past Poom to make it 2-0.

Hadji's now infamous and out of character spitting incident earned him a red card and a three-match suspension, but with our relegation rivals, Middlesbrough and Manchester City, both losing, it was a day for after-match smiles albeit wisely tempered by those who pointed out that we still have a lot to do.

So was this the day Coventry City's season turned?

When I interviewed Gordon Strachan afterwards for ntl's 'Sky Blue Diary' programme, he said he didn't know but pointed out that his players had given themselves a platform from which to save their season and preserve their Premiership status.

Whether or not it proves to be the day we all look back on as the turning point, it will certainly be remembered as the day that John Hartson became a Sky Blue hero, capping a superb personal performance with a goal and the 'Man of the Match' awards from the match sponsors and the Vice-President's club.

It will also surely have been one of the most remarkable in the career of Moustapha Hadji. Dreadful for most of the first-half, involved in the incident that saw the visitors' goalkeeper stretchered off, scorer of the vital first goal just before half-time, purveyor of great skill and tremendous endeavour thereafter and sent off for spitting at an opponent in the heat of battle.

Some day. Some result. Some hope?

The story continues on Saturday at Filbert Street, Leicester…