SCOTT Nicholls will be able to ride for Coventry at least until next month after the Speedway Control Bureau put back the date of a hearing to decide the transfer fee the Bees must pay Ipswich.

SCOTT Nicholls will be able to ride for Coventry at least until next month after the Speedway Control Bureau put back the date of a hearing to decide the transfer fee the Bees must pay Ipswich.

A decision was due to be made today, but because it is expected to take several hours to come up with a figure it has been agreed to move it to May 3 with a morning start.

Ipswich are still adamant that they will only sell Nicholls, who put in an official written transfer request last November.

They do not intend to loan him out to the Bees - or anybody else come to that.

Coventry originally said that they would pay the £55,000 price Ipswich have put on Nicholls' head, but the Bees management changed their minds and confirmed at the meeting at Foxhall Stadium last Thursday that they now have no intention of buying Nicholls.

Co-promoter Jeremy Heaver stressed that they will not be attending the SBC tribunal to decide Nicholls' fee.

This leaves Nicholls in an awkward position, and Ipswich are likely to offer him for sale to other promoters if Coventry do not want to buy him.

If the SCB come up with a figure and Coventry refuse to agree to it - and no one comes in for the former Witches skipper - Nicholls may have to sit out the rest of the English Elite League season.