deanr1

At reserve! :-) We might have won it that year if Kennett had left his drill alone!

Quite sad to watch the video that follows this one, Coventry vs Poole in 2011. We had Emil, Larsen, & Pawlicki in that line up, a young Nick Morris at reserve and Rosco as team manager... back in the days when we were a well run club with a desire to win! Also some start line girls and if you listen carefully I think some musical presentation going on in the background, Chris Simpson perhaps? Doesn't look a bad crowd for a Sky meeting either... Those were the days! And only 5 years ago, seems a lot longer!

I'll tell you how, it's because they are bloody clueless! They built a dreadful team in 2013, that lead to us having first pick of the draft reserves in 2014 and being able to choose Garrity. Garrity at reserve has then been the reason why we've been competitive in the last couple of seasons, now that lucky break has gone the management are being found out again. I've said it before but anyone with a reasonable amount of speedway knowledge could tell that this side looked bad, Woryna is a lad with potential but nowhere near the rider we need right now, Jamrog was an absolute joke of a signing. They signed a good rider in MJJ then sacked him just before the play offs and replaced him with Ben Barker! We had an NL rider as a guest reserve recently, all they are interested in is doing everything on the cheap. No pride in the club or desire to win whatsoever. Now we have a chance to make changes and they are doing nothing. The worst thing about tonight was Swindon weren't even very good, but they still managed to batter us on our home track!

Horton has pretty much confirmed in tonight's program notes that we're sticking with things as they are and won't be signing anybody. Kacper is almost ready to come back and might even make next weeks meeting against Wolves.

And why was only one half of the gate open coming into the car park making it more difficult to get in? And even more bizarrely why was the exit gate shut at the end causing traffic chaos?

Thanks for that, it gets more complicated every year! Fingers crossed for a big signing then, and hope that we can at least pick up some points before then!

That would be a good change if we can do it, I must admit I'm not fully clued up on this years rules. Wouldn't we then have 4 riders off the heat leader list though?

It's alright Mick coming out and saying he's disappointed with the riders under-performing, but are they really? Kasprzak had engine problems but has generally been very good. He's doing as expected. Garrity had a slow start but did well last night, he's doing as expected. King is not a heat leader, he's had good and bad rides as he always does in that position. Doing as expected. Woryna has been far better than expected, you can't put a 4 point newcomer in and expect them to score what Andersen/ Lindgren do. Harris has performed as expected. Sarjeant was poor last season as a tier 2 rider, the tier 1 riders have improved this year so he was always going to struggle. Bates is doing his job, arguably he's done better than expected. Martin Knuckey as a guest was never going to score any points at this level so no one can blame him. So really Mick the only people who expected this team to perform better than it has are yourself and Neil Watson, it was obvious to anyone with an ounce of speedway knowledge that when compared with everyone bar Leicester and Lakeside away from home that this team is weak. Look at the teams who have done well in recent years and they all have in common a big hitting reserve, ourselves included! You've built a team with a number 6 who will struggle to score points, a 3rd heat leader who's more of a second string, and no senior second string. The riders are not under performing, they are performing at the level they are, it's you putting them in the wrong roles that has made us so weak.

But who do you replace them with? It's not a easy as before where you have x amount of points, you can only have 2 riders over a certain average can't you? So we couldn't use the points to bring a top rider in. We won't be able to put a heat leader in at number 4 either to use the points that way. We can only replace Sarjeant with another draft rider and there is no one better out there. Not having Garrity starting at reserve has snookered us really. I really don't see what moves we can make to make us compete with the top teams, we've stitched ourselves right up!

I've gone back to paying at the turnstiles this season as there's a couple of meetings I might not be able to make due to work. Maybe I'll buy one next year if we're back for one more season... You never know we might be! I agree with all of that, Thorsell normally scores well at Brandon too and Sam Masters looks a good rider, I think Wolves look like a decent team this year as they will always have 1 very strong reserve. They will be a tough test for sure.

Really? I never knew this? I had a season ticket the last couple of seasons and never got a free programme! Looks like I've been paying an extra £3 as well then so don't worry OAP's you're not alone :-) I don't know why anyone is that bothered about paying an extra £3, it's not going to break the bank and the promotion have to do what's right for the club. Getting a younger crowd through the gates is crucial for the future of not just Coventry but speedway in general.

Thanks, speedway crowds aren't big and neither is the Brandon car park, you can bet I will be looking for this guy next time I am there and I'm pretty confident of tracking him down. There can't be too many cars like that at Brandon, and my wife will spot him a mile off if he's in the stadium. He's a guy in his 40's who goes to speedway with an old couple and judging by the way the lady was shouting at him to calm down and get back in the car I'd say it's a good chance it was his mum. Obviously likes to get pissed up while he's there so i'll start with the bar. I would add that the driver and lady passenger were apologetic and the lady got out to make sure my wife was ok, it's not them I'm after its their lunatic passenger / son. Can't believe the stadium has no cameras and the security staff didn't even get part of the reg plate although fair play to them for looking after her.

Non speedway related incident I could do with some help with: My wife got run over by the pits gate after just after heat 15 tonight, to make matters worse a guy in a Bees top got out of the car stinking of drink and tried to hit her. She was pushing a pushchair and had my 6 year old with her, but this didn't phase him. The car actually hit the push chair but thankfully our baby son was with me and not in it. This guy had to be pulled off my wife by the stadium security and he then started having a pop at them. They were so concerned that he was going to come back round and attack her again that they walked her to the car and stayed with her. This person is clearly a complete lunatic who likes picking on a lone woman and child, as you can imagine I'm keen to get hold of him . They were in a brand new looking Jag, an elderly chap was driving and he had an elderly lady with him. We think the attacker might be their son? They had left before Heat 15 had finished and seemed in a mad hurry to get away quick. I'm really eager to find this c**t so does anyone know any Bees fans fitting the description?

Newman will be in the top 5, but you will most likely have Brady Kurtz at reserve who is a fantastic rider and will score a bucketload from that position and soon move back up. Poole know how to build a team, you need to have 2 riders who can interchange at reserve /No.2 so you can always have a strong number 6, and the same again at 3&4 so you always have a high scoring number 4. Coventry just don't seem to get that despite having a good season last year on the back of having Garrity at 6 and either Joonas/King/Andersen at 4. Coventry's top 3 looks good, but it all goes wrong after that with riders in the wrong positions. Bates is a decent number 7, but Sarj isn't good enough to be a first reserve or ride in the top 5. Garrity & Woryna are good riders but neither of them are yet at that point where they can score a load of points from number 4 and interchange with King as 3rd heat leader. If Garrity was reserve instead of Sarj, then replace Garrity with a decent second string the whole team would have a lot more balance because we'd always have Garrity or Woryna at reserve. So yeah I would have to agree that Garrity starting in the top 5 has unbalanced the team and given it a very long tail.

I like Newman, he's a smooth and reliable rider who never lets Poole down, I would be happy to have him on my team. I think a lot of the reason people think he has the edge over Garrity in the EL is that the only tracks they ever really go head to head on are Poole & Coventry. You would expect Newman to be better round his home track and he is, but he's also very good round Coventry and arguably has the edge there too. However I think if you put them head to head on all of the other EL tracks Garrity would win most of the time. I don't think Newman will get much better than he is now, Garrity has more potential to do so but needs to calm down. Riding at 2 will be a big test for him as he will have to ride even harder to score points now, he won't do that by getting excluded all the time. Overall though both decent riders who I enjoy watching.

Apologies mate I thought you were referring to Woryna. I think Garrity will average in the 5's, he's certainly got the ability to do better than that but I think he will be so keen to do well in the top 5 he will be picking up a lot of exclusions. I do think he's a future heat leader though when he settles down, but that will come with age and experience. He should be great to watch in 2016!

I think KK will do well, I hope so anyway! We will really have problems if not!

I will be supporting them as I have been nearly all my life going back to the mid 80's and believe me no one will be more upset than me when the Bees are no more. Just because you support the team doesn't mean you can't have an opinion on the signings good or bad. Fans of football and rugby teams make their opinions heard, why should we just be happy to praise whatever the promotion serves up because we are speedway fans? I will be supporting them all 100% when the tapes go up as I would any rider representing the Bees.

I would love him to get a 6pt average.. that would be an incredible achievement. Fingers crossed!

I'm definitely not slagging him off, I'm just stating that we've signed a rider who is realistically at this time a 4 pointer to do the job of a 6.5 - 7 pointer. Its not like the old days where an overseas rider could come over and surprise everyone, now a quick search of the Internet will show you a riders level of performance in any league in the world so you can get a very good idea of what standard they are without needing to see them ride. I'm sure he's got plenty of potential and will go on to be a very good rider, but he was a poor choice for this season given the points we had to play with and compared to how the likes of Kings Lynn and Swindon have filled those positions with proven EL points scorers. If he averages 6.50 upwards then I'll happily admit I'm wrong and that we were right to sign him but that won't happen! :-)

The Bees team would have been one of the best in the league had we signed a strong number 4, but the promotion have thrown it away with the bizarre signing of Woryna. We needed someone capable of scoring 6-8 points a meeting as a second string, and then able to score a few as a heat leader if they swap with King throughout the season. (Think Dak North, Mads K etc). With the best will in the world Woryna is not yet of that standard, it's not his fault as he shouldn't be expected to score at that level at this point in his career. I don't think he'll struggle as much as Jamrog but I if he averages more than 4 he will have done well. I also think too much is being expected of Garrity, I don't expect him to average much above 5 in the main team as it will be a year of progression for him. Hopefully the inevitable home and away hiding we get from Poole to start the season off will give our promotion a wake up call.

For this team to work it needed a strong number 4. Kacper Woryna may well turn out to be a very good rider one day but he's not what we need right now.

What a disappointing signing. Long old tail on this team...

This secret heat leader list is a joke... They should just weight the averages according to how many meetings as a second string / heat leader. This could make some riders practically unemployable, and even worse it is so open to abuse.

Has Dakota North signed anywhere yet?