Put your trust in BBC

Barrie, Black and Charalambous.

One BBC you can put your trust in. Although for some – especially those reliant on the services of Corporal Incognito – BBC has vastly different connotations.

Anyway my trio of bloggeagues will, I am sure, over the coming days dissect the 2022 Bandits’ chances in the Championship, the Bullets in the National Development League and the Academy in the Northern Junior League.

Three teams, one club … big love.

They have a speedway pedigree second to none, knowledge of who’s who, what’s what and where’s where that is astonishing. They live, eat, breathe speedway.

Wins are glorious, defeats personal.

And not just Berwick but speedway in general, Premiership, Grand Prix, Speedway of Nations, Swedish, Danish, Polish leagues – they can give you chapter and verse.

They – like so many – love their sport with a passion.

They are terrace versions of Wayne Brown, Michal Makovsky, Steve McDermott, Rob Grant, Mark Courtney – legends of Berwick speedway.

Which must make me the Bengt Mudegarde.

Because you see I’m rather more insular than them.

And just like Luke Crang, Greg Blair, James Wright and Lee Complin my speedway “career” was revived after a long break when all seemed to be lost.

For nigh-on 30 years it was speedway first but then Manchester happened, the unholy confluence of burgeoning Grand Prix series, Polish and Swedish riches prompting Belle Vue to switch race nights from Friday to first Wednesday and then Monday.

At the time I worked until 10pm Sunday to Thursday so no Belle Vue. Alternative was Bradford. Saturday night. Worked Saturday until 9pm. No go.

Suddenly the decades’-old habit was broken. No fall out, no bitterness. I never grew to hate speedway in a way that so many on the message boards seem to, never missing an opportunity to put the boot in even if they must resort to weirdly invented “facts” to do so.

Simply the sport was not staged in a place and at a time I could attend. So I didn’t.

I became one of the thousands who would often find themselves in conversation with what seemed like an ever-dwindling band of those still attending. “Speedway, yes, I used to go. All over the country, up to five meetings a week, World Finals at Wembley, Poland, Sweden, everywhere”.

Happy memories but seemingly destined to grow ever more distant. Good days gone.

Long Eaton briefly raised hopes before disappearing under a housing estate, a couple of meetings in Leicester’s re-opening season, the first Cardiff GP and a never-ending double header at Rye House which would have tested the humour of a much saintlier person than I were the slim pickings of more than a decade.

Then I returned to my roots.

Back in Tweedmouth. This time not a pre-teen off the estates but an ageing relic from a bygone era with failing faculties and creaking joints.

While many, including some within my family never have, I argue that to truly appreciate the jewel in north Northumberland’s crown it does you good to leave … and return of course.

Politically we are ignored. The fact that reaching the nearest A&E involves a round-trip of over 100 miles and the lack of investment in public transport and general paucity of public services while still being scalped by the same eye-watering Council Tax as the urbanites is a disgrace.

The smugness of those with their snouts in the trough pontificating that the reason people earn so little in the real north is because we don’t work hard enough rather than the consequences of unchecked capitalism will rankle until my final breath.

No matter how hard you graft it’s still always going to be easier to be a millionaire when you are given millions by your father, mother, mate who’s a despotic president/relative handing out government PPE contracts.

We’re too far north for the bosses to want to visit, the A1 in this area is more in keeping with a country lane than a vital vehicular artery, big business steers clear. Never mind. London needs another railway line, another airport, a murderously expensive renovation of the Houses of Parliamentski, subsidised travel, fifth opera house, jellied eel museum.

No matter how much you rage they are too far away to even pretend to be listening even – especially? – our elected representatives.

But, in a town of – at the 2011 census – 12,043 they still, after 54 years stage speedway at the end of my road.

My road may be a little bit posher these days and, like me, Berwick speedway left town for a bit –  24 years at Berrington Lough to be precise – but we’re both back where we belong again and counting the days to the new season.

Beginning at Saturday’s behind-closed-doors practice session, running through Friday night’s meet the riders in the Black and Gold, Saturday’s P&P and then the livestreamed opener against a Birmingham side which has been transformed from “unlikely to open” to “tough to beat” in the blink of an eye, seven days later.

All within strolling distance of home.

Not just for me but the club’s driving forces Courtney S and Flint G, leading young talent, Flint L and an Aussie-born but naturalised Twempie, Etheridge J. Courtney J cannot keep away either although he has some interests close to his adopted Oxfordshire stately pile too. Watson M is a lethal Bullet and the first to graduate from Duns into league racing.

Throw a 25-mile net from Shielfield and you reel in Douglas K, Blair G, not to mention Duns’ training track.

On Saturday there was the first steps of the next generation with Owen Courtney lapping Shielfield with dad and uncle bouncing with pride on the centre green and great uncle Sean watching from the pits.

That’s some racing DNA to sit atop a speedway bike.

And that’s some list of local talent from a catchment area of around 35,000.

Now even a wonder-town needs a little assistance from time to time and the good news is that the 2022 hired guns in both leagues seem to have been recruited from elite special forces.

Bickley K and Pijper T are pretty much family anyway while the addition of Harris C, Wells R and Proctor T means that for the Bandits the play-offs are expected rather than hoped for.

And the Bullets? Along with the aforementioned Crang L there’s the obvious but as yet untapped talent of Rathbone B, that man Bickley and the compulsory Pijper – the Ace in our pack.

Well they finished second last time, they all can add big points to their starting averages as they visit tricky tracks for a second time but probably face a slightly tougher task as the NDL looks to be ultra-competitive with some hugely entertaining meetings in prospect.

Again reaching the play-offs is a minimum expectation.

After that it’s a couple of two-legged shootouts.

Better minds will give you the facts and considered opinion.

Me I’m going for double glory. Two play-off finals at the end of the street where I live.

Now that would be something.