OLIVER HOLT: Ordinary heroes who stood in front of the bulldozers to save a cathedral of sport

In sport, not all heroes wear football boots. Not all heroes take seven wickets in the second innings of their Test debut or come from two sets down to win the Australian Open men's final or date Taylor Swift and break one of Jerry Rice's most famous NFL records on the way to another appearance in the Super Bowl.

Sometimes, heroes live near Coventry. Sometimes, as the sad light of a January afternoon in the Midlands fades to dusk, they find themselves standing in the shadow of the derelict stadium they have spent much of the last seven years of their lives fighting to save against all the odds.

The Coventry Stadium, just outside the village of Brandon, was once home to the Coventry Bees speedway team. The greats of the sport, men like Ole Olsen, called it their home track and it attracted 30,000 spectators for its biggest meetings. Opened in 1928, it was one of the favoured venues for British stock car racing, too.

That all ended on November 5, 2016, when the stadium staged its last stock car meeting and its new owners, property developers Brandon Estates, closed the stadium and released plans for 137 homes to be constructed on the site even though it is land designated for sporting use.

All sorts of indignities have been visited upon it since. Vandals have set fires in the grandstand. Some buildings are charred beyond recognition. Sections of the roof are blackened by the flames that threatened to engulf it. Every wall, interior and exterior, is defaced by graffiti.

Signs outside say 'Dangerous Buildings: No Entry'. Not that anyone has taken any notice. They have been defaced by graffiti, too.

Travellers have set up camp here seven times in the last six years. They, and others, have stripped the grandstand of anything they