Positive finish for Scorpions
PROMOTER Rob Godfrey has reflected on the 2016 season for the Henderson Insurance Scunthorpe Scorpions.
Although the Scorpions have one remaining meeting, away to Newcastle on Sunday, they are guaranteed of at least an 11th place-finish in the Premier League, ahead of Plymouth and Redcar, and that is highly likely to be their final position.
It matches their 2015 placing, albeit with two extra points scored this term.
Godfrey says: “We restored a bit of credibility in the last half of the season.
“Obviously we entered the season with higher ambitions than to finish eleventh. With 13 teams in the league, it may not be anything to write home about, but it still marks something of an achievement, given that we were seven points adrift at the bottom of the table at one point (until the win over Workington on August 21st).”
Only four riders spent the whole of the season in Scorpions’ 1-7: skipper Josh Auty, Ryan Douglas, Carl Wilkinson and rookie reserve Josh Bailey, although the unlucky Bailey spent the final month of the season on the sidelines with a collarbone injury.
Michael Palm Toft and Lewis Kerr came in mid-season and both were a revelation in Scunthorpe colours, while late-season capture Austrian Fritz Wallner – who came in for the injured Alex Davies – provided thrills galore in the closing weeks of the season.
“Had we started the season with the one-to-seven which we ended up with, our season would have been completely different”, Godfrey states.
“By the end of the season we had a team where the top six were all capable of scoring heavily.
“Had we had that team all year, we’d have certainly been pushing for a place in the play-offs. Who knows where that might have gone, because we were highly competitive by the end of the season, winning comfortably at home and pushing teams away.”
Godfrey has made no secret of his desire to bring back as many riders as possible from the Scunthorpe side who completed the season for next Spring, when Premier League racing returns to the Eddie Wright Raceway.
