Despite the good night's sleep we knew that Coventry City Football Stadium, Venue 4, was back North of the city, it was a fairly depressing thought.
Philip's bike had acquired a very disturbing clunk after all the mud going into Manchester and the clunk was getting worse. We headed north dreading getting across Coventry as we really hadn't seen much in the way of helpful cycle lanes.
There, in front of us was a sign to Halfords - hooray! Steve, bless him, listened intently to Philip's bike, which right on cue seemed to make much less noise, and then gave us directions to the stadium. His directions had involved going behind armco barriers along a major A-road on grass - he wasn't kidding! What seemed like an eternity of pushing the bikes along narrow strips of grass and cycling on dodgy bits of tarmac was apparently the safest way of traversing Coventry and getting to a cycle lane along the canal - hmmm?
One positive is that Coventry appear to be embracing the Olympic vibe with the torch due in the next 10 days and 12 matches to be hosted there were banners and rather splendid figures on roundabouts.
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| An appropriate colour for Coventry |
The stadium is surrounded by workmen and it seemed difficult to get into - residents at the hotel attached were probably quite surprised to see us wheel 3 very dirty bikes through the smart, clean foyer and into the stadium. Stacey, our hostess, was brilliant. After catching up with our morning caffeine break with the slightly more strident than normal hotel mood music, an alarm siren - we had a great tour.
It's a great little stadium that has seating so close to the pitch that it must be a great atmosphere. We know Coventry are struggling at the moment but let's hope they're soon filling the stands on the back of lots of success.
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| Venue 4 for our mascot Destination London 2012 taxi |
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| The team, pitch-side with Jake's change of shirt |
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| Our hostess, Stacey. Thanks for a great tour. |
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| Jimmy Hill |
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