Special Arena Opening Report By Kev Monks
Coventry City supporters backed calls tonight to inspect the Arena and help the stadium managers get the go-ahead from the police and other agencies to increase the capacity to 23,000 for Saturday's opening game against Queens Park Rangers.
Whether, the necessary eleven thousand were inside the Arena all at the same time has not at the time of writing been officially released. However, the numbers were certainly good with long queues building up around the turnstile blocks and could well have been around the required figure.
As one enters the stadium,you see the mall which runs round the length of the East and North Stands.
Painted in sky blue,they are bright and airy with the numerous food kiosks and plentiful toilet blocks not perturbing too much into the space under the stand.
For those who get East Stand tickets for their first ever visit to the Arena, the visitors are housed in the stand on your left or directly opposite you if you are in the North Stand.
The Main Stand which is strictly for the corporate market and those brave enough to sit in the JSB area and face abuse from visiting supporters both inside and outside of the stadium, was not open for this event.
It was disappointing to see that there was no sign of any jumbotron screens that had been promised by the City Chairman in one of his "Ask Mike" sessions on the club website or even a scoreboard.
As the players trained on the pitch, Stuart Linnell who was in charge of the mic, was asking those assembled if they thought the Arena was better than grounds such as the Crisp Bowl at Leicester or Pride Park at Derby.
Now,I hate to be the bearer of bad news for the Villa supporting Mr Linnell but the Arena is exactly the same as those two East Midlands playing venues as well as Southampton and Middlesbrough.
The training gave City supporters their first look at latest loanee Wilo Flood from Manchester City as well as a glimpse of summer signings James Scowcroft, Matt Heath, Stephen Bywater and Clayton Ince for those not at any of the first three league games or those in pre-season.
Not helped by their dour coloured grey and black training kit and the rain which was pouring in to the stadium (Leaks were reported in the North Stand roof), some of the efforts on goal were less than impressive and do give an indication as to why we have only scored one goal in our first three games.
Thankfully, all four keepers who trained under the watchful eye of coach Seamus McDonagh were in fine form along with Robert Page who was back from international duty with Wales twenty four hours previously.
There is still a fair bit to do on the ground,but thankfully most of it is now cosmetic rather than anything that might put Saturday's game in jeopardy.