Bournemouth V Dudley

[BobC 664]

I wasn't there mate but I'd have fancied our boys if there was more dirt on it. The Bournemouth riders must have been asleep if the Heathens were out-gating them. Apart from Smarty, ironically, they are dreadful from the gate most of the time. I've lost count of the number of times Perry has gone from last to first, and Franklin is a different rider on his home track/s. Morris has scored a fair few from the back too. If the track was as bad as comments generally suggest then it's no surprise Perry had his worst meeting of his short career really. A very slick track would be completely alien to him having come from grasstrack.

Ive watched the Heathens at 5 different tracks this season.They have won 3,lost 2.Their other loss was at Newport.I agree with you,21st,especially about Perry.On the concrete motorway,he didnt stand a chance.Smart had to ride so close to the fence,I thought he was coming off on ocassions.There simply wasnt anything left to hold them up.Im quite sure Perry would have loved the track had it been earlier in the evening.

 

By the way,in 2007 Poole Academy had a 2nd half meeting v Somerset Giants.In the Giants team,there was a Tom Perry.I wonder if this is the same rider?

[heathen76 0]

I would doubt it as Tom is only just turned 17 now.

[greyhoundp 990]

Bob C, Tom Perry i think would have probably been 14 in 2007, and he has supposedly not ridden a speedway bike until this year, but is an accomplished Grasstracker.

With regards Richard he was at reserve at Bournemouth, but still scored 0 points, he should be almost one of the best reserves in the League.

Edited August 13, 2010 by greyhoundp

[BobC 664]

Bob C, Tom Perry i think would have probably been 14 in 2007, and he has supposedly not ridden a speedway bike until this year, but is an accomplished Grasstracker.

With regards Richard he was at reserve at Bournemouth, but still scored 0 points, he should be almost one of the best reserves in the League.

The Academy League as it was,did allow for 14 year olds to try Speedway,provided they took a 'competence' test.I know Ray Dickson had many kids wanting to have a go.

 

Fair enough if it wasnt him,just seemed a coincidence.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

Bob C, Tom Perry i think would have probably been 14 in 2007, and he has supposedly not ridden a speedway bike until this year, but is an accomplished Grasstracker.

With regards Richard he was at reserve at Bournemouth, but still scored 0 points, he should be almost one of the best reserves in the League.

 

Tom came second in a Club championship meeting at Sittingbourne in a meeting in 2008 so it's certainly NOT the case that he hadn't ridden 'til this year..

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

Surprised that no-one's mentioned the extraordinary refereeing decision in heat 3 of this one..! Perhaps by the end we were all so knackered it slipped everyone's memory...

 

Mark & Kyle were leading clearly for the Buccs with Jake Anderson a distant third. Coming onto the second bend of the third lap, Anderson lost shape completely and came to grief with his team mate, Tom Perry some way further behind having to take evasive action and also falling. The race was stopped and (correctly, obviously) awarded as a 5-1. But to the incredulity of all (and surely everyone by then had filled in their prog. to give Tom the one point..!)the decision was to exclude Perry and award the one point to Anderson..!!

 

Clearly the ref got this badly wrong...! He too must've been flagging badly by then!

 

No difference to result of heat or match of course, but certainly a bizarre moment...

[superguest 194]

Rich has ridden very well at home and he deserves a lot of credit for his performances in those meetings. Equally he deserves any criticism because his away form is shocking. There's no getting away from the fact that it's not just since the crash a few weeks ago. You only have a 3-point average after several meetings if you're consistently struggling. Still, we have a run of home meetings over the next few weeks so we can look forward to some very solid performances by the Heathens if form so far is anything to go by.

 

Come on 21st, he's only a kid! Far more experienced rider suffer the big home and away divide!

[771neil 31]

Why do people always write about the bad yes 3 lads had of nights and they know they did and are hurting because of it but how about some praise for the 4 that had good nights. Lee and Jake were brill Micky great for a first time at the track and Ash well 7+1 from his middle 3 rides was excellent ( and yes he my boy but i am proud of what he did )

 

I had a good chat with rich and he will turn his away form around, as for Tom he has to work on his slick track riding if he wants to get up the speedway ladder and he will

 

ps Tom has riden before but don t think was alot but I know he did a meeting or two for swindon sprokets so think it was him

[bruno 1,790]

got to agree neil i wouldnt crisize any of em.they always give everything.tom avin a bad meeting now and then is gonna happen but what entertainment hes given us.rich is avin a sticky patch away from home but hes not let anyone down with hes effort.keep it going rich were all behind you.as for ash well i reckon he was our match winner and also at kings lynn.the disappointment of course was barrie evens who should have done better but he knows that and hes gonna be rusty afta a bit of a lay off.watch him get it right tuesday tho

[21st century heathen 220]

Ive watched the Heathens at 5 different tracks this season.They have won 3,lost 2.Their other loss was at Newport.I agree with you,21st,especially about Perry.On the concrete motorway,he didnt stand a chance.Smart had to ride so close to the fence,I thought he was coming off on ocassions.There simply wasnt anything left to hold them up.Im quite sure Perry would have loved the track had it been earlier in the evening.

 

By the way,in 2007 Poole Academy had a 2nd half meeting v Somerset Giants.In the Giants team,there was a Tom Perry.I wonder if this is the same rider?

 

Thanks Bob. Nice to know that the slick conditions were perhaps to blame rather more than bad riding as such.

 

As others have said I was under the impression he had never ridden speedway before. That said, before the season started there was a quote from 'Fred' saying he'd only had about an hour's practice on a speedway bike. I wonder if this has been misinterpreted and he was referring to previous meetings and we, the fans, thought he meant actual practice rather than proper meetings? In any case he came into the season with virtually no speedway experience and has made the switch from grasstrack to speedway very well indeed. It's been a pleasure to watch him improve his track craft at Monmore. At the start of the year all he knew was wide lines and keep the momentum up. He's now learning to turn the throttle both ways and has made a number of inside passes in recent weeks.

 

With regards Richard he was at reserve at Bournemouth, but still scored 0 points, he should be almost one of the best reserves in the League.

 

I would agree with that. Rich needs to get his act together on the road. Not just for us in the short term but I mean for himself and his career in general. I'm sure he is disappointed and is trying though. So chin up Rich. There's always another meeting just around the corner to put things right.

 

Mark & Kyle were leading clearly for the Buccs with Jake Anderson a distant third. Coming onto the second bend of the third lap, Anderson lost shape completely and came to grief with his team mate, Tom Perry some way further behind having to take evasive action and also falling. The race was stopped and (correctly, obviously) awarded as a 5-1. But to the incredulity of all (and surely everyone by then had filled in their prog. to give Tom the one point..!)the decision was to exclude Perry and award the one point to Anderson..!!

 

That sounds like a contender for cock up of the season.

 

Come on 21st, he's only a kid! Far more experienced rider suffer the big home and away divide!

 

True. But the contrast is almost unbelievable. His home average is 7.81 (8.57) and his away average is 3.14 (3.71). Now he's at reserve he should be turning it around, rather like Ash has. As above though, while he wears a Heathens jacket Rich has my support and I reckon he'll have a good one on Tue.

 

Why do people always write about the bad...

 

It's only natural to concentrate on what went wrong when you lose and what went right when you win. Some of the lads had a nightmare and have rightly been criticised for it. I haven't seen any comments that are over the top. I think everyone has just been honest in stating where points were lost. There have been plenty of positives throughout the season and I'm sure the lads have enjoyed taking all the praise that's been heaped on them at different times. Equally they need to take it on the chin if they get a bit of stick for a bad performance.

[MattyHart 0]

Stayed for 4 heats of this meeting and, even though I wasn't expecting a lot, it was the same sort of racing I saw at Newcastle in the CL years ago, the likes of Smart and Brundle were good but most of the rest were really quite poor.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

Stayed for 4 heats of this meeting and, even though I wasn't expecting a lot, it was the same sort of racing I saw at Newcastle in the CL years ago, the likes of Smart and Brundle were good but most of the rest were really quite poor.

 

Congrats on the nonsense post of this season so far!!

[Edwardian 6]

This one was a good meeting, after 4 heats i thought that the Heathens would just crumble, but fair play to them, they battled and got a point they probably deserved. James Sarjent looks a decent prospect, battled all the way(headed Barry Evans in both stagings of ht 4) he is only 15 isnt he? and good to see Mark Baseby score well tonight, still miffed at the changes going from a balanced 1-5 to a strong top 4 and a weak rider at number 2(Aarron has been struggling even at reserve), but the management must know what they are doing.

 

Also nice to see soo many Dudley fans make the trip down, very vocal lot they were tonight

Hi all, I love going to Dudley my family always have a great time there win or loose the atmosphere is great the supporters are a credit to the club, keep up the great work.

[heathen79 6]

Hi all,

 

A few belated comments from this meeting as I stayed on the Isle of Wight until the weekend and am just catching up.

 

The TRACK - it was slick as a necessity due to the time constraints. Don't know what the track is normally like at Poole, but it seemed fine in the Elite League meeting; there just wasn't time to grade in the NL meeting which was a real shame.

 

The TIMING of the meeting was interesting. I have never seen a meeting rushed through at a pace such as this and at 9:20pm when we were just starting, I was convinced that we would not get to Heat 15. I thought at best a result would be called after 12 heats, so credit for it to be completed, but it just didn't do the teams or the league any kind of justice. I feel sorry for the poster above, who only saw the first four heats as that was so far away from what we have experienced of the National League so far this year.

 

The HEATHENS TEAM deserve praise for digging deep and snatching a point. Lee Smart has shown such mature and intelligent riding in the last few weeks, I can't praise him enough. He seems revitalised and is proving an awesome captain as well as an out and out number one. Ashley Morris had one fantastic ride and a few other good ones, adding up to a quality performance. Micky Dyer also did a job on his first visit. Jake Anderson took a couple of rides to size up the track and then showed real quality in his last two rides to earn us the point.

 

Barrie Evans contributed far less than what Jon Armstrong would havem and even less than what James Sarjeant could have done if he was on our team instead! But fair play to Barrie for his comments after last nights meeting at Monmore where he apologised to the fans for his performance and did cite some ignition problems too. Richard Franklin struggled but by and large has done a good job for us this season in my opinion, hard to believe he had to drop to reserve in fact! Tom Perry has been our rider of the season, but it just wasn't his night and he perhaps wasn't in the right frame of mind as well as the track not suiting him. Regarding his previous experience, I believe he said something like he had about an hours total experience on a speedway bike before this season, so he had enjoyed a brief ride or two.

 

The incident referred to in Heat 3 was exactly as described above. I never even filled in my programme as I kept expecting a correction to be issued. Tom should certainly have had that point after laying down the bike when Jake fell. The only defence for the ref is that Tom ended up sliding on the track past Jake and therefore may have looked like the rider in front. Wrong decision though.

 

Finally, the wonderful HEATHENS FANS - what a turn out all the way down at Poole (and Isle of Wight) on a midweek match. I just wish the home tracks would wake up to the fact that we're bringing a big following. After queuing in traffic for half an hour to reach the stadium, the car park was full and programmes had sold out. Many fans didn't get a programme and lots of Heathens fans are quite avid collectors, so this was a real inconvenience and disappointment.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

Tom Perry has been our rider of the season, but it just wasn't his night and he perhaps wasn't in the right frame of mind as well as the track not suiting him. Regarding his previous experience, I believe he said something like he had about an hours total experience on a speedway bike before this season, so he had enjoyed a brief ride or two.

 

Finally, the wonderful HEATHENS FANS - what a turn out all the way down at Poole (and Isle of Wight) on a midweek match. I just wish the home tracks would wake up to the fact that we're bringing a big following. After queuing in traffic for half an hour to reach the stadium, the car park was full and programmes had sold out. Many fans didn't get a programme and lots of Heathens fans are quite avid collectors, so this was a real inconvenience and disappointment.

 

Hmm, I do think Tom is slightly understating this. He appeared in a Dragons meeting at Sittingbourne (Iwade) on 16/11/2008 finishing third behind Dutch rider Benjamin Borgers and Mark Baldock (wonder what ever happened to Mark..: he seemed hugely promising..)..

 

Of the programme, I can appreciate how disappointing this must have been. Mind you it was a very big crowd and it should be noted that at the corresponding fixture earlier this year at Monmore Green, the progs sold out there too!!

 

If it's any help I have a copy I'm happy to send free of charge to any Heathens fan who PMs me his/her details requesting it. Obviously only the one but it's an offer if anyone wants to take it up..

It is, I'm afraid filled in - including obviously as you point out the crossing out in heat three when the ref made his gaffe!!