THIS WAS THE SEASON….

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This was the season…..

This was to be the season we were going to welcome the mighty Poole Pirates back to a pwoper speedway league, and who knows, we maybe still will?

I’ve always really liked Poole – when I was a nipper I exchanged Glasgow programmes with a pen-pal (remember them?) who lived down thataway.  The Pirates were in Division III when I first learned about them, so their programmes carried some strange opposing team names…. .

Yarmouth Bloaters, Tamworth Hounds, Hastings Saxons, Cardiff Dragons and Liverpool Chads – they all raced at Poole.   They all got beat up pretty badly, too.

The programmes would arrive all marked up, with scores like 63-21, 67-17 and the like.

It must have been like watching hyenas tearing open a gazelle, every single week.

Still, the locals seemed to like it.       Some years later, I visited my pen-pal – Neville – and his family while down there.   They lived in a lovely spot called Studland, a tiny village, or hamlet, across the harbour from Poole and Bournemouth.

Factoid #1:   The difference between a village and a hamlet?    One is a place where people live, the other is a play by Shakespeare.

Factoid #2:  The shoreline at Studland is where Michael Palin floundered out of the sea, crawled up the beach and hoarsely whispered “It’s…..” at the very beginning of the first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Factoid #3:   The Studland peninsula is reputed to be the only place in the UK where you might find all seven British reptiles (grass snake, smooth snake, adder, slow worm, common lizard, sand lizard and Michael Gove) slithering about.

But I digress.

The last year Poole’s Pirates and our own Bonny Bouncers were in the same league, we whupped ‘em, home and away!    True story……

It was 1991.  We won 50-40 at Berrington Lough in May, and – after a rain-off later in the year – went down to Wimborne Road in the second half of October and did the deed by 47-43, helmed by a six-ride paid maximum from Kelvin Tatum.   Rob Grant, hugely enjoying an Indian summer to his career at big-league level, chipped in with five very big  points from a reserve berth.

I recall the night with great pleasure.  Poole were still looked up as being formidable opponents, and I know their management was a bit shocked – not for the first time – by the way the boys in black-and-gold got around their track.

Were you there?      As it was a rearranged meeting on a Thursday night in October, I don’t recall there being much of a travelling support, but it was a good away win, and I can boast, like Max Boyce (remember him?) used to say, that “I was there!”.

I was all booked up to go back, to our fixtured match there at the end of April this year – indeed, I’m still arguing with British Airways over my refund – and will aim to be there again, whenever we are able to return.

As I said at the top of this page, I’ve always really liked Poole.

And I’ve always really liked beating them, too!

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Want to disagree with Dick (as so many do?).   He is always happy to hear from interesting people on dick@crystalfm.co.uk