Stags appreciate Poole and Henderson’s help

A FEW WEEKS AGO the Henderson Insurance Scunthorpe Stags had a practice day at the Eddie Wright Raceway, and last week they wore their new race jackets for the first time at Plymouth, while the club are looking forward to next season.

Over the winter, there were long deliberations as to whether the club could afford to sustain National League racing but, thanks to the backing of the Poole Pirates and Henderson Insurance Broking Group, the future is looking bright for the fledgling side that has been created with the sole purpose of developing new riders.

This week, the side face two of their stiffest tests with trips to Wolverhampton on Tuesday to face Cradley and Stoke on Saturday, but whatever the outcome club chairman Richard Hollingsworth is adamant the project is going to prove a huge success in the long run.

Hollingsworth said: “Thanks to the support of Matt Ford at Poole and Joe Henderson of the Henderson Insurance Group this project is sustainable. I can’t thank them enough and, sooner or later, we will all start to bear the fruit of our labours and see riders make a jump in their development.

“We had to start the season with a very inexperienced team, so the results haven’t shown a massive improvement yet, but they will.

“We will see some better scores during the second half of the season and I’m particularly looking forward to our two home meetings at the end of August and our trip to Buxton.

“I can see confidence and ability gradually improving as the riders gain experience so, by then, I’m sure there will be a noticeable difference. Then I’m sure there will be more progress made over the winter and we will be a different proposition again come 2015.”

Hollingsworth is passionate about youth development and the remarks emanating from one or two of the other National League clubs about the strength of the Stags do cut a little sometimes.

He added: “I know one or two of the other National League chairmen have made noises about the strength of our side, but they set the team building rules in the winter, and allowed us into the league, knowing full well we were going to run an inexperienced side. I think nearly everyone can see that the league has to get new riders into each team each season to turn it into a more balanced league and one where development is being encouraged.

“At the moment, we have a league where the last four visitors to Cradley have conceded an average of over 67 points per meeting; Stoke conceded 64, Kent 65, King’s Lynn 69 and Buxton 71. There have been complaints that our strength means that other teams’ points money is costing too much, but Cradley can only score 4 more points than they did against Buxton and up to eleven more than they did against Stoke.

“That’s not a criticism of Cradley, in particular, but simply to point out the big wins in this league are not merely restricted to matches involving the Stags.

“I’m sorry our team aren’t scoring a few more points but, believe me, they will next year. It’s just we had to start at scratch.

“Sadly our one experienced rider, Steve Jones, can’t get the day off work to ride at Cradley on Tuesday; but despite not having one rider who was in a team last year, we’ll be battling all night to score as many points as we can. It’s unlikely we’d be able to find a five-point rider who would want to guest at number one on Tuesday, so we’re putting in Jack Hall again at number eight, with the intention of giving him all the rider replacement rides.

“He’s not likely to beat any of the home side, who have six riders who have been riding in the Elite League or Premier League this year, but it will be good experience for him. He, like the rest of the team, will get to ride a track that can’t open for practices and they will learn from the process, whilst trying to score a few points at the same time.”

The Scunthorpe Stags team for Tuesday is 1. Rider replacement for Steve Jones, 2. Arron Mogridge, 3. Danno Verge, 4. Ryan MacDonald, 5. Sam Chapman, 6. Liam Sanderson, 7. Reece Downes, 8. Jack Hall.

Cradley: 1. Paul Starke, 2. Matt Williamson, 3. Max Clegg, 4. Nathan Greaves, 5. Steve Worrall, 6. Tom Perry, 7. Danny Phillips.