HAPPY TIMES!

Yes folks! Happy times have arrived — somewhat!

You ask how I am able to write that considering it’s been a wee bit quiet in old Berwick-upon-Tweed lately. Well, although we had the rain off against Glasgow last weekend on what was a pretty grotty and wet Saturday, I did enjoy reading through Facebook pages the hypocrisy coming from some of those in the West. “Oh, it’s off as they’re missing Flint”.

Well aye, but you should still batter us anyways if you’re as good as you think you are! Never mind, a fixture to reschedule… they just have to wait to meet up in the KO Cup.

Sadly, some of the cynical comments also came from Berwick fans too on the British Speedway Forum… now, make a joke but it generally was a shite 36 hours weather wise through Friday night into Saturday. The damage had been done to the track… and even if it had gone ahead, it was the coolest day of the week by far and not really one, or many others I wanted to venture out into.. so to be fair, that was a good decision and a win for me!

And next happy point for me, although not speedway related, was the news of Matt Hancock’s saucy shenanigans within the Department of Health and Social Care buildings. Why that should make me happy you ask? Well, dear old Matthew was part of the motley crew that stopped us seeing friends/ loved ones for so long… stopped hugs… gave hundreds of thousands of pounds of contracts to those closest to him… and all the time he was out flouting rules he was pretty much telling us to abide by! What was it he said… “Hands, Face, Space”. Oh dear…

Anyways, back to the two wheeled sport discussion. Hands up those of us who watched Monday’s Eurosport Ipswich vs Wolves meeting?

Leon made his official rising star Premiership debut and what a meeting he had!

He started slowly but his confidence grew as the meeting went on; his gating became sharper, he rode better lines and generally made a mockery of the fact that he hadn’t been picked up by the big league until now. He will have tough meetings for sure, but he’s got a very smart racing head on his young shoulders.

He’s well aware he will learn more from meetings he scores little in than meetings he has at least 12 points guaranteed! His inclusion in the Premiership for Wolves sadly means that he has had to drop his Bullets position.

Selfishly, I am gutted… he’s been a joy to watch heading the Bullets and was easily on his way to finishing the season as the no.1 rider in the NDL.

But alas, we’ve moved on, and it seems this year that as well as looking to the future (in Mason Watson, etc) we are a team bringing back riders of yesteryear as former Bandit Luke Crang returns to take Leon’s slot. Luke is stepping into big shoes and given the time he has had away from the sport is likely to take a few meetings to get going. BUT, he was a decent rider at 3rd tier, holding an 8+ average at Coventry. He makes his debut this coming Sunday as the Bullets head out on their travels to Mildenhall, a track which Luke himself stated he went well at previously. It would be nice to think we can push them close given how we’ve fared so far but Mildenhall are the one team which I believe could cause us some problems this year; both away and at home!

The Bandits are back in action this week. We head down the road on Friday to Scunthorpe; a place which hasn’t been that generous to us, barring one fantastic away win there back in 2016. The Scorpions have built themselves quite the little home track team; they’ve already spanked Edinburgh and Glasgow to name but two, so unless we are on our A-Game, we could easily be next.

I have learned that we will also be using r/r this weekend with Kasper riding a league meeting in Denmark. Once he has ridden his first meeting in our colours however, there should be no more issues with fixture-clashes as we will take priority!

We have the Diamonds at home this week and Newcastle come to us with the returning Ben Barker at no.1. Ben hasn’t actually ridden a meeting yet as he was injured during the press and practice at Brough.

Whether he can hit the ground running, which Newcastle really do need, remains to be seen.

The club’s 5-1 draw is also to be held this week… I do still sit and pray that my number will come out one day… God knows i could do with the dosh right now (maternity wages really do suck 😣). There are still some numbers available if anyone has the dosh to get them (why I’m publicising and minimising my chances even more god only knows 😂).

And I shall end really happy now as I sit and watch the highlights of my national football team knock out the Jar-mins! A few more tears shed North of the English Border tonight (and that’s just from DB as he burns his German flag and hunts out his Ukrainian one 😂)

Catch you all soon folks…. ��󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿👍��😁
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#UpTheBandits #UpTheBullets