|
|
|
|
|
THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS, Part 1
Tuesday October 22, 2013
Another season has drawn to a close and with the prospect of 6 months of Saturday night TV on the horizon there’s nothing for it but to fire up the Apple Mac and get writing.
Back in March the jury was out on the Rockets septet, some people were full of enthusiasm others weren’t. To be homest I was sitting on the fence, plenty of potential, a proper number one but still some spare points to play with. Really we will never know how well that team would have faired after the opening catastrophe against the Witches. To lose one rider is unlucky to lose two well that’s just not on. Even Steve Webb’s trousers couldn’t lift the early sense of gloom surrounding Hoddesdon as Somerset grabbed a couple of league cup points and the size of the task ahead started to become obvious.
Thankfully Glasgow arrived just at the right time and so did Young Norman, the lad lit up the afternoon with a sparkling 15 pointer that almost certainly guaranteed a place in the next round of the cup. It wasn’t only injuries getting in the way the weather also decided it didn’t like us much with the home League Cup meeting with Plymouth rained off twice, forcing her indoors to exclaim “I thought I was getting rid of you until October?†When the Devils did finally arrive our chances of progression had already been taken out of our own hands which was a pretty good job as a run of six defeats in a row started including a thumping at the Oak Tree Arena which was to come back to haunt us in September.
The KO Cup provided the only respite well until May 16th anyway. Having got rave reviews from Kelvin (Wooooah!) Tatum and Nigel (I’m about to explode) Pearson for his performance at the British Final the stage was truly set for young Jason G to step out of that Norman Wisdom cap and take the speedway world by storm, but then came Owlerton and a broken left leg. Back in the 80’s I can remember Jens Rasmussen suffering a major leg injury when he’d been sent out in a meaningless Heat 13 of a meeting we had already won against Long Eaton. As we all debated why, the inevitable happened a sickening accident by the pit gate and our number one man out for months. The Sheffield meeting had a lot of that about it a 14 point lead against a poor team should have been enough and as it proved on the night we had more than enough to cope despite being able to fit our tiny home onto the centre green at Owlerton. Young Norman out season over, well so it seemed at the time anyway....... (to be continued)
|
|
|
|
|
