Bring it on – Jye

Skipper Jye Etheridge says his critics are welcome to “bring it on” on the eve of the new speedway season.

The 31-year-old Australian-born but long-term Berwick-based battler has been the target of criticism throughout his British career, usually online but sometimes from his own management.

“The negative stuff? I thrive on it,” Jye, who has returned to skipper the R.E.D Bandits, powered by STS, Berwick after spending last season at Workington, said. “All I’ll say is they’d better be there when we win the BSN Series, the Knockout Cup or the league to say sorry.”

While it may be a little tongue in cheek, Jye believes that the town he has lived in and represented on-track for most of the past decade could be on the verge of something special. He admits to becoming stale in 2024 after seven seasons at Shielfield Park and to losing the joy of racing; a lack of meetings meaning he had to work full-time to bankroll his racing.

A 2025 switch to Workington saw an uplift in scores and a mid-season return to top league racing – where he had been a Grand Final winner for Belle Vue – with Sheffield. Jye is back with the Tigers in 2026 and returns to a Berwick side which has undergone a winter overhaul and been tipped by many to be challenging on all fronts.

“To be honest I hadn’t given any thought to coming back but Jamie Courtney called me and when I saw the team he was putting together I thought, I’ll have some of that,” Etheridge said.

Being named Bandits’ skipper is an extra incentive for a rider who is very much the talk of his adopted town. “Population-wise Berwick is a little but it’s massive for speedway. If you go to the shops someone’s always asking you what’s going on with the speedway.

“If we made the play-offs the town would be pumping. If we actually won something the Black and Gold wouldn’t close for three days!”

Berwick’s season begins with back-to-back fixtures in the BSN Series this weekend. That means facing Edinburgh, where he made his British debut in 2016, a season in which the then 21-year-old Jye struggled to such an extent that promoter John Campbell’s interview with a local evening newspaper prompted a headline branding his signing the “worst ever”.

Since then Jye has saved some of his best performances for against the Monarchs including a paid maximum at Shielfield in 2019 and paid ten in their last win at Armadale – a 49-41 2023 triumph.

In what promises to be a tight qualifying section – which also involves Glasgow – Berwick will be looking to add the bonus point when the teams meet at Shielfield Park on Saturday. But despite losing on their last four visits, Edinburgh have a decent record in the Borders, three of those defeats by just four points and the other by two.

Australian reserve Reid Battye makes his British team debut on Friday. Saturday’s meeting at Shielfield Park starts at 7pm. Buy tickets here