A real blockbuster

Looking back to what’s ahead

May 17 in Lincolnshire will decide whether the class of 24 remain on-course to emulate the achievements of arguably the club’s best-ever team.

Blockbuster movies have been made about lesser sporting triumphs – perhaps it is not too late to call in Stephen Spielberg to bring the story of the 1989 Berwick Bandits and their Knockout Cup Final victory.

But where would he start?

Probably exactly nine years to the day previously at Brough Park as the, then homeless, Bandits beat Middlesbrough to lift the Knockout Cup for the first time, at the fifth attempt.

Exiled to Barrow and Blantyre before the evil empire of Mike Parker had them thrown out of the league in 1981; leasing a farmer’s field and with a mixture of blood, sweat, tears and innovation turning it into one of speedway’s quirkiest venues. They built it; they came.

Or perhaps the first scene would have been in Borders’ General Hospital’s Accident and Emergency where number one Mark Courtney lay, seriously injured just days before the first leg of the final after crashing along with team-mate David Walsh and Wimbledon’s Neville Tatum.

Perhaps Stevie S would stick with the tried and tested shot of fans celebrating in the stadium many of them had helped to build just years earlier, fireworks splitting the night sky as Dick Barrie – played by Quinten Crisp – urges them to “raise a cheer for the 1989 Knockout Cup winners, your very own Berwick Bandits.”

Or maybe he’d go split screen.

On the left a room filled with Poole Pirates – previously one of the country’s glamour clubs, home of the world’s best riders, but only still in business because Weymouth’s stadium had been sold and the Wildcats moved up the south coast and took over Poole, dropping a division in the process. They exude the air of a club “slumming it” in the, then, National League. Victory a birth right. On the table was a win bonus in wads of crisp tenners. Over the years it’s claimed to have been anywhere between £2,500 and £10,000, but, regardless, a substantial win bonus for the time.

In the other room a Berwick side assembled by and very much in the mould of combative promoter and owner Davie Fairbairn. Their motivation was honouring the memory of Ian Graham – one of the men who had refused to let the Bandits sink into oblivion after their eviction from Shielfield but who had succumbed to cancer just weeks before the final.

Berwick’s road there had been tough, starting against Newcastle in the first round, seeing off Long Eaton, Exeter – after a quarter-final replay – and Peterborough. Poole got a first round bye and eased past Hackney, Eastbourne and Wimbledon.

When they met in the first leg at Wimborne Road the sides stood first and second in the league table and the Bandits had already won the league fixture on the south coast.

Bandits fans travelled in large numbers but with some trepidation. In the days long before mobile phones, the internet or message boards, they had to rely on rumour and whispers and many were  convinced that Courtney would either be forced to miss the meeting or be a pale shadow of himself after the huge off just five days earlier.

But he had discharged himself from hospital and was not just there to make up the numbers, streaking from the gate to win heat one. It had an amazing effect on proceedings as, in the pits, you could see the Pirates riders’ heads droop while the Bandits gained just a fraction more self-belief.

And he took a sixth ride too, ending an unforgettable evening with 14+1 while David Blackburn – who had finished third behind Mark Loram and Kenny McKinna in the National League Riders’ Championship at Coventry – pitched in with 14 while David Walsh and Andy Campbell chipped in to keep the first leg deficit to four points.

Chickens were not exactly being counted but there was much excited clucking as Berrington Lough was packed to bursting point for the second leg.

From the moment that Leigh Adams touched the tapes and was excluded from his opening ride the Bandits’ name could be engraved on the famous trophy for a second time.

Blackburn was imperious with a five ride maximum – each of his races bringing a Bandits’ 5-1, Courtney dropped just one point, reserves Rob Grant and Scott Robson managed paid 18 points on the night – Robson’s victories over Alun Rossiter in heats 8 and 11 proving vital.

Bandits’ lowest scorer on the night was Sean Courtney with four points, more than all-bar Craig Boyce, six, Rossiter, nine, and Adams, 12, for the visitors.

Victory bumps followed Blackburn and Campbell’s heat 13 maximum which sealed victory – two Pirates’ 5-1s in the closing heats giving the 109-83 aggregate scoreline a slightly flattering look.

So for the second time in the 1980s Grant stepped forward to receive the cup, the party began.

… and cut.

An Oscar-nominated blockbuster for sure, one that has yet to be repeated but, perhaps after last Saturday, we can finally start dreaming of a sequel.

In the end Poole could claim to have had the last laugh, lifting the league title, five points clear of Wimbledon with the Bandits two points further adrift.

No play-offs in those days of course but the road to the 2024 Cab Direct Championship begins when the Pirates visit Shielfield on Saturday, 7pm. Buy tickets

Pictures courtesy John Somerville Collection