Coventry City: From non-league to Premier League – Sky Blues’ ‘unreal’ pair

For Mason-Clark, 26, things got under way in the seventh tier in 2016 with a brief loan spell in the Isthmian League Premier Division at Metropolitan Police, one month after making his Barnet debut in League Two.

He would go on to play for the Bees for six years, predominantly in the National League, before joining Peterborough United in League One in 2022 and then Coventry in 2024.

“We’ve got a running joke,” Thomas-Asante said. “We say we’ve got our jumpers at home – anyone who’s played National League will know as everyone wears the same jacket before a game.

“So I kept that because I never want to forget the tough times. But I also don’t want to downplay the National League because as we saw with York and Rochdale, the standard is unreal.

“It gets downplayed and it’s not a joke, so to see that, see League Two, League One, the Championship and, god-willing, soon the Premier League is special.”

Given the similar path both Thomas-Asante and Mason-Clark have trodden, it was perhaps somewhat poetic that they both found the net in the final home game of the campaign for Coventry.

They also combined for the opener on that day of celebration with Mason-Clark setting up Thomas-Asante, who was waxing lyrical about his team-mate afterwards.

“I’m a fan of football before I’m a player and the player he has become, he is just unreal,” Thomas-Asante said.

“Even to watch from the other side of the pitch, I had to remember to get in at the back stick.

“He always adds to his game, he’s just becoming inevitable. No one can really stop him.”