WHAT THE FORK?

What The Fork happened on Saturday night?

As I stated publicly then and will again do now, I have never -– in over fifty years — seen such a dominating team of visitors at Shielfield Park.

I also said that I didn’t think the Bandits were as bad as Edinburgh were making them look with their all-around, seven-man power on the night. Although I certainly never thought, or said, we were good!

Now Berwick certainly weren’t a bad side eight days previously at Scunthorpe, getting the away point those same Monarchs missed.

Nor were they bad the next night at Shielfield as a stuffy and determined Newcastle were put to the sword – and they most certainly weren’t bad last Friday at Armadale, where they were again close to getting a point from those same Monarchs that ran rampant last Saturday – What The Fork?

It was, as that Eagles’ album suggested, one of those nights……..

It’s happened before.

Our first-ever home league match here, away back on May 25th, 1968, ended up 28-49 — over thirteen heats — with the visiting Belle Vue Babes (for trivia buffs, they became the Colts the following week) making our first official night every bit as one-sided as Saturday’s pasting/thumping/rout.

Had social media existed back then, Danny Taylor’s in-box might have had the odd query regarding his team-building, but the majority of the 4,000+ attendance seemingly accepted the result, and came back for a bit more – and indeed, we didn’t drop another point for over a month, I think. We drew the next one, then started winning a few….. We weren’t going to win the league, but the entertainment factor returned.

So we survived the Belle Vue battering, and came back stronger.

But worse than than that, and worse than last Saturday, much worse I’d recall, was a KO Cup-tie that brought King’s Lynn to town on June 20th, 2009 – remember that night? Our team, on- and off-track were very much a disorganised rabble that awful night…….

The Stars were winning 8-22 after five heats (Sarah C was just 21, but might doubtless have been swigging her pink gin already) when racing was stopped for over an hour after one of the vicious midsummer downpours we saw all over the country just last week.

As we’d looked pretty pathetic up to that point, I remember (a) hoping that it might be rained off and (b) if not, that the track would have been changed so much by the rain that we might, if not actually getting a win, be able to at least put on a better show in the remaining races.

But no – if anything, we were worse when racing resumed! We were tracking two guys we saw in action on Saturday past (Willie Lawson and Greg Blair) and neither of our Scots had much of a night, getting just one point between them – and that was in a three-man re-run! Our squad had a dozen last places (the two no-scores recorded by the Stars were non-finishers, including a spectacular Kozza Smith spill) plus a plethora of two-minute exclusions and other evidence of disorganisation……

Had I known her better then, I’d have been desperately seeking Sarah, to ask if there was any pink gin left!

Thankfully, the for-once-welcome curfew intervened to end the slaughter after only fourteen heats, but the scoreline at that point of 26-57, and the overall performance that night, still make me shudder.

To my eyes, King’s Lynn weren’t really that good – not as good as Edinburgh were on Saturday — but they didn’t have to be. That night – a dozen years ago – was probably the worst Bandits’ performance I’ve witnessed at Shielfield.

But we survived and we’re still going. We came back stronger. We drew the next match, and then started winning a few. We weren’t going to win the league, but the entertainment factor returned.

The next Championship match at Shielfield isn’t for a full month (Poole Pirates, on August 7th) and with changed averages – NBJ will be back as #1 – and the memory of the flagellation from the WFT Monarchs in our team’s minds, I for one am looking forward to a much – much – better night at the Shielfield skids. (I use my phrase for a speedway show there, as it seems to annoy the odd pitchfork-brandisher – and some of them are pretty odd).

Before then, the Bullets take on Mildenhall on Saturday week (24th) and the Tigs are in town on KO Cup business on the last night of July.

When we might even be taking turnstile cash, as well as the surprisingly-effective e-ticket process – watch this space…….

In short, let’s look forward, not back.

Looking back reminds us of Belle Vue, King’s Lynn and – most certainly – Edinburgh all having, just on one single night, caught lightning in a bottle and scythed our boys down like non-gating ninepins.

Looking forward gives us hope and endeavour.

Which way are you looking?
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Let’s go racing!.
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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