Coventry City have Gordon Strachan to thank for record-breaker still loved by Sky Blues | OneFootball

Mo Konjic's path to becoming a Coventry cult hero is truly remarkable.

Gordon Strachan may not have endured the most successful reign as Coventry City manager, but he is to thank for signing a true Sky Blues cult hero.

Having initially been appointed as a player-manager in 1996, Strachan's first few years as Coventry boss were solid enough.

The Scottish footballing icon and his side found just enough results to avoid relegation from the Premier League in 1996/97, before registering an 11th-placed finish in the top flight the following year, as well as making the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.

However, a decline would soon follow, with their relegation to the second tier confirmed at the conclusion of the 2000/01 season. Strachan was sacked as Coventry boss just five games into the 2001/02 campaign.

The turn of the millennium wasn't a cheerful time for Sky Blues supporters, but the arrival of a maverick defender from Bosnia would provide them with a Highfield Road hero for many years to come.

Mo Konjic's story before becoming Coventry City cult hero is a remarkable one

Brought to Coventry by Strachan in the winter of 1999 for a fee of around £2m, few City fans will have known much about their new signing from Monaco, Mo Konjic. However, his story was a remarkable one even at the time of his arrival in English football, and it wouldn't take long for him to win the affection of the Sky Blues faithful.

Just a few years into his senior career, Konjic was playing for Bosnian side Sloboda Tuzla when war broke out in his homeland. Putting his football career on pause, he would take up arms and spend the first eight months of the Bosnian War (1992-1995) serving in the Bosnian military.

After being discharged from the army, he was offered the chance to continue his football career as he was offered a trial with Croatian side NK Belisce, having spent time training on war-torn streets. Just days before he made his debut for the club, however, he was in a vehicle that fell 60 feet into a ditch on a bomb crater-ridden road, leaving him with two broken arms, but crucially, his life.

Being the warrior that Coventry fans would come to love him for, "Big Mo" played through the unbearable pain, screaming in agony with every challenge he made, much to the confusion of supporters inside the ground who were unaware of those events at the time.

This fighting spirit was enough to win him a permanent contract with Belisce, which the cash-strapped Croat club paid for through food parcels for residents of his hometown of Tuzla.

He would go on to spend a further three seasons in Croatian football with NK Zagreb, before signing for Swiss outfit FC Zurich in 1996. Incidentally, it was in that same year that Strachan first spotted him playing for Bosnia's national team vs Croatia, with Konjic's battling spirit and ability to mark an elite striker in Juventus' Alen Boksic catching his eye.

He would enquire about his availability there and then, but was left disappointed upon learning a transfer had already been arranged to AS Monaco. But, Strachan never forgot about that big Bosnian defender he'd seen that night.

Mo Konjic becomes Coventry City hero for his battling and passionate performances in a Sky Blues shirt

His patience would pay off in the winter window of 1999, as Strachan signed Konjic as Coventry City's new central defender, and in turn, making him the first Bosnian player to ever play in the Premier League.

After making his debut in a 0-0 draw with Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane, Konjic would go on to make just 15 more Premier League appearances for the Sky Blues between the 1998/99-2000/01 season, largely due to injuries.

However, come Coventry's relegation to the Championship (then known as the First Division), he would become a mainstay in the starting XI, with his tendency to take attacking matters into his own hands by carrying the ball up the pitch and going on marauding runs, making him a real hit with the Highfield Road crowd.

Konjic would make 154 appearances for Coventry before Peter Reid sold him to Derby County in the summer of 2004. The Sky Blues said goodbye to their historic Highfield Road ground the following year, with the final game at the venue being against Konjic's Rams.

The former Coventry hero would concede a penalty that day, after barging through the side of Gary McSheffrey, leaving the referee with the simplest of tasks to point to the penalty spot. That penalty kick would be converted by McSheffrey, on an afternoon that saw the Sky Blues demolish Derby 6-2.

He may not have been the silkiest central defender Coventry fans have ever seen wear their colours, but few have worn it with as much passion and fight before, or indeed since Konjic.

City fans loved him, and he so evidently loved them. A warrior in every sense of the word, and a real cult hero that will always hold a place in the hearts of every Coventry supporter.