BAD NICOLA

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I blame Scotland’s First Minister.

She might be doing a great job of leading my nation through the pandemic, but her insistence that folk like me in Central Scotland shouldn’t travel outside our local health board area fairly buggered up my hopes of being in Berwick on our U-21 night.

I had my cherry-picker booked and planned to position it in the car-park, just to the right of the turnstiles, to let me and my bubble peep over the boundary wall while obeying all the “behind closed doors” protocol and watching “our Leon” doing a quite marvellous job of mixing it with the best of young British talent.

Bad Nicola!

Leon’s only seventeen, and his riding on the night against Messrs Kemp and Rowe (18), Tom Brennan at 19 and the new track record holder (for our new track measurement) in 21-year-old Dan Bewley, bodes well for his future exploits among this encouragingly-talented cream of Young GB talent, as well as in the rough-and-tumble of Championship racing.

Hopefully, that will be the order of the day next spring, but – looking at things in the cold light of each new day — I’m thinking we might not just be straight back into the old routine as early as April, whatever others may believe……

However, Wednesday showed our promotion are able to surmount all sorts of unforeseen hiccups in presenting speedway under the most-difficult of circumstances, and I’m optimistic that, whatever shape British speedway comes packed in by springtime, the Berwick boys will be leading the charge!

This despite The Idiot Boris telling us that we could all be enjoying a “normal Christmas” if we obeyed his ever-fluctuating instructions.

I certainly can’t see that happening.

I also got word this week that Australia’s speedway authorities have already cancelled their annual Championship Series in January – and their coronavirus experience has been considerably milder than ours!

Not good news. While originally planning to be in Australia after New Year to cover their Title Series for ‘Speedway Star’, I’d begun to have more than a few doubts – about actually being able to travel, let alone see speedway – and have already resigned myself to spending the next six months back here, in our bleak midwinter weather……..

The thing about this coronapox is, it’s affecting everywhere. I love to travel, and in another time if I found nothing to attract me to Australia I might have checked out Argentina again, or even done the ice-racing circuits I haven’t toured for close on forty years.

But nope, we can’t travel anywhere but from the chair to the fridge and back again……..

It is what it is.

So meanwhile, back at the ranch, what can we look forward to as we await our vaccine and long for a return to a bit of old-time normality?

Well, for those of us who have put our money where our mouths are, there’s a monthly opportunity to hope for getting it back in spades with a nice little earner……

I think it was in August last year that our promotion announced the creation of the 5-1 draw, recruiting the Supporters Club to administer the process (which they have done admirably) on their behalf.

As a result, as we approach this month’s draw (later in the week) the total funding achieved is nearing an amazing £10k – every penny of which has been or will be invested in keeping speedway thriving in Berwick.

Each months sees hundreds of pounds paid out in prizes and a matching amount going into the club’s STARS (that’s Stadium, Track And Rent Support, geddit?) to keep the show on the road.

Y’see, it’s all-the-more-important our promotion can continue to stockpile rainy-day funds for the future good of our sport.

We all want the Banditos to prosper – and if we can get ourselves into a draw with 650 quid coming back in prizes each month, why not take a monthly punt?

If you aren’t a 5-1 punter yet, why not? These next six speedway-less months will mean six months of other distractions – why not set up a monthly number in the club hat right now, and give yourself a sporting chance of a handy win, before the bikes are back in town?

Contact club@berwickspeedway.com or phone Norman on 07751-985702 for more details, and get yourself in with a chance of the £650 monthly prize fund.

You know it makes sense.
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Disagree with Dick – as so many do? He is always be happy to hear from interesting people at dick@crystalfm.co.uk