AGM stunner

British speedway’s AGMs are rather more sedate affairs these days with much of the spadework done throughout the summer before the three-day meeting formally adopts the nuts and bolts of the following season.

Not quite dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s but far less likely to throw the sort of curve ball that emerged from the 1990 gathering of the sport’s money men.

From the moment it was announced the previous winter that Poole, Ipswich and Wimbledon had been enticed to return to speedway’s struggling top tier and that they would be joined by little Berwick it was obvious that it was going to be a season like no other.

And, just to add extra spice to the proceedings, there would be promotion and relegation at the end of the campaign.

Rumour has it that if you look in certain dictionaries then under t for tumultuous you will be advised to: “see Berwick Bandits 1991”.

Traditionally expansion of speedway’s top league leaves those making the step up unable to put together competitive teams as the established elite refuse to release assets to make the league competitive.

But Berwick owner Terry Lindon was having none of that. The entrepreneur who has ostensibly made his money in the fledgling computer  technology market, along with co-promoter Dick Barrie, was not afraid of letting a public still coming to terms with the fact that the world’s best riders would be racing at Berrington Lough every week, know which big fish he planned to fry.

As a Manchester-based sports’ reporter I watched in fascination as my home town was linked with all and sundry in the trade and national press. Other hacks took great pleasure in ringing me up. “You’ll never guess who Berwick are chasing now,” they teased. Years later they would try to tell me that Alan Shearer was joining Newcastle and not Manchester United. Then, as in 1991, I was a sceptic who needed convincing.

They told me that Neil Collins wouldn’t be coming, Kelly Moran had contacted the club and was keen, brother Shawn, keen to be reaquainted with Barrie and his monkey,  had also been in touch. Billy Hamill was not out of the question, neither was Jan O Pederson or Jeremy Doncaster, Joe Screen a distinct possibility.

Then Richard Knight was bought from King’s Lynn. A good, solid signing and probably OK as a passable low key number one the cynic in me thought.

But it actually turned out that Jimmy Nilsen would be racing for Getingarna, Zieloni Gora and Berwick Bandits in 1991 – although who was responsible for flying him to and from his other clubs would become a bone of contention as the season wore on.

That was good but then the news broke that he would be joined by British Champion Kelvin Tatum, signed for £30,000 from Coventry. David Walsh, Scott Robson, Kevin Little, Michal Blixt followed, David Blackburn was already there. Chris Morton was recruited to manage the side.

That was quite a team on paper and it was impressive on shale too, winning the Gold Cup despite horrific injuries to Blixt and topping the league at one point.

Perhaps we should have foreseen problems from the moment that the official press and practice was fogged off, the riders retiring to the Berrington clubhouse for the traditional team and mug shots.

But while Wimbledon hit financial problems and had to see out the season at Eastbourne, the Bandits were beating mighty Cradley, hammering Oxford, running Belle Vue close at Kirkmanshulme Lane, ripping it up at Odsal and generally covering themselves in glory up and down the country.

Ah Berwick, the proud little Scottish town making a big noise among speedway’s big hitters the Mancunian sporting press wittered … before being given a sharp and pointed combined geography and history lesson by a north Northumbrian-born sports’ sub-editor.

Crowds of 1200 plus were packing into Ancroft and rewarded with some of the best racing ever seen in the area. It was a dream come true for the fans … unfortunately it turned out too good to be true.

Late summer brought the first signs that the wheels were not rolling smoothly with rumours that David Blackburn, whose mid-season departure was ostensibly due to a lack of riding opportunities, was owed money.

Probably just jealousy from the top table, unhappy that the upstart Bandits were putting them to shame we thought.

Lindon claimed that he’d had to inject £22,000 to cover a cash flow problem and Tatum withheld his services having, probably wisely, chosen not to accept a cheque from his promoter in a dispute over unpaid bonuses.

In his absence the Bandits suffered a couple of heavy home defeats, notably by Oxford on a night when I – and everyone else in the crowd – discovered that we did not have the winning ticket in a raffle for Lindon’s £20,000 Mazda sports car … but we knew a man with the microphone who did!

Presumably paid-up, Tatum returned in style with three maximums in as many nights, including 15 against Ipswich at Berrington, but adamant that he would not be back the following year.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse Belle Vue – annoyed that their scheduled visit in September had been controversially called off – simply failed to show for the rearranged fixture and Berwick raced around unopposed for 13 farcical heats. We couldn’t even make the record books with the perfect 65, a couple of engine failures leaving the final score at 60-0.

Lindon was still bullish and planning for a second season in the top flight, still name-dropping with Shane Bowes and Fredde Schott among those supposedly consulting their AA Road Atlas for the whereabouts B6525 turn off from the A1.

But Nilsen, Knight and Tatum all went public about unpaid money and the BSPA insisted that Lindon liquidate his assets within four days and pay off the outstanding debts – reportedly a relatively modest £22,000.

Many, especially in the north east, felt that Lindon was being punished for upsetting the establishment one of whose clubs, Swindon, had finished bottom and was saved from relegation by Berwick’s expulsion.

For many that “conspiracy” was supported by the fact that Lindon was fined £1,500 for speaking out of turn on the club’s telephone hotline – £500 more than Belle Vue had to pay for not fulfilling that officially sanctioned fixture at the Luff.

In the end Berwick – with Knight, rather surprisingly, still captaining the side – returned to the second tier of speedway in 1992 but the fallout from our year with the big boys sent the club on a downward spiral and meant that our days at the eighth wonder of the world were numbered.

T for tumultuous or W for WTF?