In an attempt to further inter-club relationships - RamZone presents the views of a Coventry supporter as Sky-Blue fan Mark Lewington - kindly sent us his thoughts on the day Derby came to town!

A View From Behind Enemy Lines

We turned up eager to see our hot new signing, Cody McDonald, who we actually spent as much on as a bag of chips and a spam fritter. He had managed to score 26 goals last season on loan from Norwich at Gillingham, but on this showing he has cost us a spam fritter too much. Early days though - so willing to give him the benefit.

Coventry started well and maintained some decent possession throughout the game but was badly missing that cutting edge in the final third. We have a good manager, who wants to play with ball at feet and has created a great team work ethic - we can all see the lads giving 110% on the pitch which is all any fan can ask for. We are doing it with a severe lack of quality and our current financial woes will mean Andy Thorn will continue to have to work miracles to avoid relegation.

Fellow strugglers last year I was pleased for Derby after the start they have made this season but they too look light up front, especially with Verne Troyer as your striker.

They seemed happy to let us pass it around as we were not doing much with it. On this showing they did not look like a team capable of sustaining a push for the premiership but I wish them well for the rest of the season - I feel we have both suffered as fans for a long time now and have somewhat of kinship with Derby.

On the football front, I can only apologise profusely for the theatrical dive for the penalty - no-one wants to win that way. We all know it wasn't a penalty, the people watching at home new it wasn't a penalty except the ref.

The resulting spot kick was pretty poor, easily saveable if the keeps had chosen correctly. The Juke has been playing well this season but his finishing is not the best - sort of a pre-req for a striker.

Whether we would have got the second if we had not gone ahead is debatable but it was good flick on from the throw in and a great volleyed strike from Carl Baker, who had a fine game striking from distance when he had the opportunity.

Gael Bigirimana had a confident performance, pinging a few cross-field passes to feet. With numbers dwindling we are resorting to academy players but they are doing us proud at the moment.

A recent article made me smile about Gael, who came to this country at the age of 11 as a refugee from Burundi. He was housed by the Gov in Coventry and he immediately turned up at the Cov training ground, walked up to one of the coaches and said I am better than that lot - so the coach asked him to put his boots on and signed him up straight after and impressive display. Sounds like he would bleed for Cov and is fast becoming a real fan favourite.

Our first win and a feeling amongst the Cov faithful that we might just stay up with sheer grit and determination. We are promised some loan signings but not holding my breath and if it means halting the progress of players like Bigi I would be against it. What we really need are some experienced players on loan not youngsters from Prem teams.

The game was marred by some crowd unrest, first through protests at our owners SISU and the stewards desire to tear down any protest banners and then at the Police trying to remove a Cov fan (not sure for what cause) by throwing him down the stairs only to be met with a storm of fans that managed to comically bowl over about half a dozen cops onto their backsides. It fizzled out after that. Protesting is fine but I do not want it to degrade into violence on the terraces.

Derby, as we know it today, was founded by King Edward the Elder in 921 as a bastion against the resurgence of Vikings in the East Midlands. Today Cov were the Vikings and the bastion fell with few casualties - Derby need to dig deeper to maintain the winning start they have had or I can see mid table obscurity in the tea leaves.

Good luck Derby for the rest of the season - I for one will be looking for you to do well but not at our expense.

Can't finish without a few oldies but goodies at the Derby fan expense -

Did you hear about the politician who was found dead in a Derby shirt?

The police had to dress him up in women's underwear in order to save his family from the embarrassment.

Nigel Clough is apparently sending his whole squad on diving lessons - he has heard that there are 20,000 leagues under the sea and reckons Derby might just win one of them!

A Derby fan says to his mate "What would you do if you won the Lottery?"

"Easy! I'd buy a controlling interest in Derby" says the mate. "Yeah, but what if you got 4 numbers?"

Thanks to Mark Lewington for submitting his views for publishing on RamZone!

Photo: Action Images

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