The Worst Team

[packerman 160]

The idea here is to put down the 1-7 of the team you follow that was the worst that was on track over a season. We all have a team that really was shocking.

 

My team is the Poole side from 1982 the first year I started following the sport at 13 years of age.

 

Scott Autrey, Vaclav Verner, John Davis, Peter Prinsloo, Danny Kennedy, Neil Middleditch & Mikael Blixt/Erik Stenlund.

 

Apparently 6 of the 7 rode in 1981 and looked pretty good unfortunately they only won 3 fixtures in the BL. To make matters worse I missed the wins over Coventry and Halifax.

[THE DEAN MACHINE 4,742]

The idea here is to put down the 1-7 of the team you follow that was the worst that was on track over a season. We all have a team that really was shocking.

 

My team is the Poole side from 1982 the first year I started following the sport at 13 years of age.

 

Scott Autrey, Vaclav Verner, John Davis, Peter Prinsloo, Danny Kennedy, Neil Middleditch & Mikael Blixt/Erik Stenlund.

 

Apparently 6 of the 7 rode in 1981 and looked pretty good unfortunately they only won 3 fixtures in the BL. To make matters worse I missed the wins over Coventry and Halifax.

not the worst team on paper but one of the worst performing team ever for the quality of rider has to be the leszno team from last year , had a top 5 of sayfutinov , pedersen , zengota , kildermand and p pawlicki , and finish bottom of league and even struggled at home Edited May 26, 2017 by THE DEAN MACHINE

[NOBODY 538]

I remember 1982 & how bad the Pirates performed. For me i vividly remember the likes of Pete Ellams being atrocious & more was expected of Kevin Smith and Andy Campbell. Scott Autrey was coming to the end of his career, Middleditch was as good as could have been and i think a lot more was expected of Davis too. He was the only rider in the top 26 not to have scored a maximum whereas Kenny Carter who finished top of the averages romped to 15 full maximums. The first league win was v Coventry on July 28th! But Pirates had recorded 6 League Cup wins prior to that & 3 challenge fixture wins. After the Coventry win we won just 4 more matches that season.

Interestingly Poole's top average rider was John Davis with 8.68 and was 26th out of 201 eligible riders in the final BL averages that year. An average similar last season would have placed you SECOND out of 74 in the final averages. It shows how watered down the league is now and how there are so few top riders in Britain now. Also in 1982 in the BL there were 10 British riders in the top 26. Last year there were 8. Not much in it really.

In 1982 there were 182 recorded full and paid maximums in the top 26 compared to 33 last season. Just some interesting figures I thought i would throw in.

 

edit..Erik Stenlund rode for Poole in 1983 and not 1982 season. For me the dullest ever Poole rider and worst by far was Claes Jensen.

Edited May 26, 2017 by mr nobody

[lucifer sam 3,953]

It's Mildenhall 2008. A team with a rather unfortunate record.

 

All the best

Rob

[The White Knight 9,039]

I remember 1982 & how bad the Pirates performed. For me i vividly remember the likes of Pete Ellams being atrocious & more was expected of Kevin Smith and Andy Campbell. Scott Autrey was coming to the end of his career, Middleditch was as good as could have been and i think a lot more was expected of Davis too. He was the only rider in the top 26 not to have scored a maximum whereas Kenny Carter who finished top of the averages romped to 15 full maximums. The first league win was v Coventry on July 28th! But Pirates had recorded 6 League Cup wins prior to that & 3 challenge fixture wins. After the Coventry win we won just 4 more matches that season.

Interestingly Poole's top average rider was John Davis with 8.68 and was 26th out of 201 eligible riders in the final BL averages that year. An average similar last season would have placed you SECOND out of 74 in the final averages. It shows how watered down the league is now and how there are so few top riders in Britain now. Also in 1982 in the BL there were 10 British riders in the top 26. Last year there were 8. Not much in it really.

In 1982 there were 182 recorded full and paid maximums in the top 26 compared to 33 last season. Just some interesting figures I thought i would throw in.

 

edit..Erik Stenlund rode for Poole in 1983 and not 1982 season. For me the dullest ever Poole rider and worst by far was Claes Jensen.

I can remember the days when four or five Riders averaged over 10.00 in the same Season.

[Terry 1,319]

The 1977 Hackney team was pretty bad: We'd lost Dave Morton early on to a broken leg. Zenon Plech's Polish club wouldn't release him and his replacement Jerzy Rembas never showed up.

 

Barry Thomas, Keith White, Tony Featherstone, Steve Lomas, Bent Rasmussen and Vic Harding who joined late on, with the usual back up men Laurie Etheridge and Ted Hubbard filling in sometimes.

 

Apart from the usual excitement from Thommo and what looked at the time, but wasn't to be, superstar potential from Keith White it was a pretty dull side..Every Hawks line-up before and after was better.

[Gemini 4,894]

No idea who was in the team but 2004 was pretty bad to be a Coventry fan as both the E.L. and N.L. teams came bottom of their respective leagues. Strangely enough I really enjoyed that season as the racing has always been more important to me than having a team where it's a foregone conclusion they will win every week.

[NOBODY 538]

No idea who was in the team but 2004 was pretty bad to be a Coventry fan as both the E.L. and N.L. teams came bottom of their respective leagues. Strangely enough I really enjoyed that season as the racing has always been more important to me than having a team where it's a foregone conclusion they will win every week.

 

 

The Bees....

ANDREAS JONSSON, BILLY JANNIRO, SERGY DARKIN, STUART ROBSON, JOHN JORGENSEN, MORTEN RISAGER, CHRIS HARRIS

JASON BUNYAN, TOMASZ PISZCZ, BRYAN YARROW, MARTIN SMOLINSKI, JAMIE SMITH, SHAUN TACEY

 

The Cougars...who actually only rode Conference Trophy matches and lost all 12.

Tom Brown, Harland Cook, Karl Mason, Darren Andrews, Ben Barker, Jeremy Pestell, Karlis Ezergailis, Danny Hughes, Ben Powell, Carl Downs,

Lawrence Needs, Ricky Scarboro, Matt Bates.

i imagine the 1980 Workington season was bad. They won 2 out of 38 matches including a 65-12 defeat at Crayford and they were 13 heat days.

9 of their away matches were 60 point plus defeats.

Edited May 27, 2017 by mr nobody

[Bagpuss 10,780]

I think it was either 85 or 86 when Lynn went through the whole season without winning a single home meeting and only won one away. Vaguely remember them spending big on Mark Courtney and Paul Woods for that season and both being crap.

[Andy Downes 48]

The Hackney team of 1991 was pretty uninspiring compared to the other teams following the 1984 move from Crayford but I don't think they could touch Workington 1980

 

I always thought the worst BL side I ever saw was Eastbourne 1983 - they sold their 1982 number one (Gordon Kennett) and then the numbers 2 and 3 (Kelly Moran and Ron Preston) remained at home and were basically not replaced; but I was amazed to find they actually finished above Swindon that year - they must have been awful .....

[dontforgetthefueltapsbruv 10,706]

I think it was either 85 or 86 when Lynn went through the whole season without winning a single home meeting and only won one away. Vaguely remember them spending big on Mark Courtney and Paul Woods for that season and both being crap.

the biggest surprise is you could narrow it down to just poor years for Lynn 😉

[ruffdiamond 6,115]

Peetabra, generally

[StevePark 2,781]

I think it was either 85 or 86 when Lynn went through the whole season without winning a single home meeting and only won one away. Vaguely remember them spending big on Mark Courtney and Paul Woods for that season and both being crap.

 

1986. Won 0 home, 2 away (at Reading 40-38 and Swindon 42-36), according to the "Complete History of the British League. In the League Cup they won 2 and drew 2 at home, but lost all 10 away.

[Gemini 4,894]

 

 

The Bees....

ANDREAS JONSSON, BILLY JANNIRO, SERGY DARKIN, STUART ROBSON, JOHN JORGENSEN, MORTEN RISAGER, CHRIS HARRIS

JASON BUNYAN, TOMASZ PISZCZ, BRYAN YARROW, MARTIN SMOLINSKI, JAMIE SMITH, SHAUN TACEY

 

The Cougars...who actually only rode Conference Trophy matches and lost all 12.

Tom Brown, Harland Cook, Karl Mason, Darren Andrews, Ben Barker, Jeremy Pestell, Karlis Ezergailis, Danny Hughes, Ben Powell, Carl Downs,

Lawrence Needs, Ricky Scarboro, Matt Bates.

Thank you for listing them. Looking at some of the riders mentioned I'm not surprised now that they came bottom of the league.

As to the Cougars are any of them still riding? Well, apart from Ben Barker who obviously is because even I know that. Ben Powell rings a bell too because I seem to remember him aiming his bike at another rider after a race and he got the sack. I don't think he rode again over here.

[StevePark 2,781]

The worst Newcastle team (result wise) I've watched was the 2004 team. Not helped by the fact we weren't allowed to sign Matej Ferjan (his average deemed too high) at the start of the season, we brought in Mario Jirout and also didn't sign Kenny Olsson, but signed Scott Smith (the Aussie one) instead. The Premier Trophy was a disaster (14 matches 1 win 13 defeats. The win a 49--47 home win against Workington). The League campaign was later boosted by the signing of Jason Lyons, but the final table had us bottom after 28 matches, after we'd won 8 and lost 20.

 

Riders used: Jason LYONS, Richard JUUL, Kristian LUND (who made way for Lyons), Kevin LITTLE, Lee DICKEN, Lee SMETHILLS, Jamie ROBERTSON, William LAWSON, Scott SMITH (Aus), Lubos TOMICEK, Carl DOWNS (1 match), Danny HUGHES (4 matches), Mario JIROUT (axed after scoring 13+5 in 5 matches), David MELDRUM, (4 matches), Jesper OLSEN (came back in August and rode in 4 matches, but injury against Glasgow ended not only his season, but his career) and Mike PICKERING (1 match).