COVENTRY BOSS TONY Mowbray has revealed how ex-Ireland international Stephen Hunt earned a short-term deal with the club.
Hunt picked up the phone and rang Mowbray, and after the 34-year-old impressed while training with the Sky Blues, he was offered a short-term deal until the end of the season.
“I was sitting at home watching a match on the telly about 10 days ago when my phone rang — it wasn’t his agent or a third party trying to open a deal, it was the boy himself who asked if he could come and train,” Mowbray told reporters.
“He just wanted to get his boots on and feel like a player again. I told him there won’t be a deal there because we are pretty overloaded with attacking players and he understood that.
“But he lives relatively locally and because he phoned me himself I agreed he could come in.
“He’s gone with the U21s to Crewe just to get himself going and hopefully over the next few weeks he gives himself the chance of getting around our 18.
“Knowing his career he is what you see which is a bundle of energy — a very likeable lad who has always got a smile on his face and he’s very talented with the ball.
“He can pick passes that some of our younger players don’t even think about, let alone see, and it just made sense to me to give him a contract.”
Mowbray added that a deal has been agreed that suits both parties.
“I had a chat with him after training the other day and talked to his advisors and we’ve come up with a package that suits us and him.
“It’s a very open-ended arrangement; if something better comes in for him we won’t stand in his way — we’ll shake him by the hand and let him move on — but if he does well for us we might be offering him something more permanent.”
Hunt, who made over 100 Premier League appearances over the course of his career, also earned 39 Ireland caps and his former clubs include Reading, Hull and Wolves.
The winger most recently spent two seasons in the Championship with Mick McCarthy’s Ipswich side, before being released after the club failed to win promotion at the end of last season.
Coventry are in the middle of an encouraging campaign, in which they are currently fourth in League One.
