Hammers team owner Stuart Douglas today issued an apology to the fans after the home campaign fizzled out in a disappointing fashion.

"I hold my hands up for the shambles of a farewell last night - the riders did not do themselves justice on track, and we let ourselves down off track, too." said Douglas. "The events of the last few weeks have taken its toll and to say that Jon Cook and I are gutted is a total understatement.

The shock of another home defeat in a Final put our farewell parade plans into some kind of arrest, and in my disappointment I did not show enough leadership to get the riders out to see the fans before the majority had left the stadium. For that I can only apologise. The fans attend week in, week out, and they deserve the opportunity to show the riders how much they appreciate what has been - all things considered - a highly successful season. It's such a shame that the season long hard graft was marked with a final whimper at home."

Going on to analyse the performance, Douglas added: "We knew it was a significantly stronger Coventry team we were facing than the one we would have met had the meeting taken place earlier in the year as stipulated, but sadly not enforced. We were also aware that we looked exposed at reserve with Ricky Kling's dramatic loss of form and yet another injury ruling out new reserve, Krzysztof Jablonski. If you return one point from eight rides at reserve, however, you will probably lose the meeting, and thus it turned out.

I expect nothing less than a total, all out assault of Coventry next Friday for the return leg, where Ricky is capable of riding extremely well, and Jablonski should find their circuit to his liking also. We need each and every Hammer to ride like it’s his last ride in a final effort to wrest some reward for all our work this year".