Tigers Return At Last

NEWS Wednesday 4th May 2016, 10:27am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Border Roofing Monarchs look forward to an exciting night at Armadale on Friday as the Glasgow Tigers return for the first time since last October’s historic Championship Final.

Only top scorer Richard Lawson remains from the Tigers’ riders who rode that night (though Aaron Summers would have ridden had he not been injured), while Monarchs have four of their Championship winners still in the team this season. Of course Glasgow have boosted their side and are rated favourites for this season’s honours.

MAX CONFIDENT: Key man Max Clegg knows that it is important to get a good result on Friday even though the section qualifier is already known. He said “If the weather is OK, and with some good starts I think we can win meetings. I’m sure we can sort things out and get a win against Glasgow.”

LEAGUE CUP: The Border section of the League Cup has already been decided, Glasgow top the group and will race in the semi-final. Monarchs’ home loss to Berwick was too costly, especially as we went on to win at Berwick while Glasgow could only draw.

So Friday’s match is for pride and bragging rights only – but in Scottish derbies these count for plenty!

RAIN-OFFS: The story of the season so far is, regrettably, mainly about the weather with three matches completely washed out, one wet one and just one on a nice dry track.

A trawl through the club’s records shows that we have never previously (in 56 seasons of racing) had three postponements before the end of April. Only in 1987 had we even had two – in that year we twice tried to stage a challenge against Berwick but both were cancelled.

Even more remarkably, in our first 18 seasons between 1948 and 1977, we never had a single postponement in the months of March and April!

It sounds like we need a meteorological expert to explain that..

MINGERS SPONSOR: Friday’s match will be sponsored by the Mingers – a supporters’ group which stands for “Monarchs in Need – Giving Edinburgh Riders Support”.

The group have made presentations to numerous riders in recent years, invariably those who have suffered severe mechanical problems.

Teams for the League Cup Match at Armadale on Friday 6th May (start time 7:30pm, gates open 6:30pm), are:

EDINBURGH BORDER ROOFING MONARCHS: Sam Masters (capt.), Erik Riss, Kevin Wolbert, Jye Etheridge, Ryan Fisher, Max Clegg, Dan Bewley.

GLASGOW TIGERS: Richard Lawson, Nike Lunna, Ben Barker, Richie Worrall, Aaron Summers (capt), Fernando Garcia, Danny Ayres.

TOP FORM TIGERS: No-one really wants to be rated favourites to win anything in sport, but the experts of Speedway Star were almost unanimous this winter – Glasgow have the strongest Premier League team.

So they will have to out up with that. They have retained their two big signings of last season, Richard Lawson and Former Monarch Aaron Summers, and added another two big names in former League no. 1 Ben Barker and Armadale specialist Richie Worrall. That’s a tough top four in anyone’s book.

However their tail-enders have also been grabbing the attention with some good scores, especially Fernando Garcia (who of course rode for Monarchs in the League Cup Final last season and beat Richard Lawson – possibly prompting the signing?)

Danny Ayres too has show great potential. So it’s going to be a very tough one for Monarchs, who are awaiting a decision on whether Dan Bewley rides at Armadale or Belle Vue on Friday. This is being discussed between the clubs.

LAST MEETING: Nothing last Friday, another rain-off, and a fortninght since a match was staged.

NEXT MEETING: We are into the Knockout Cup next week with a tie against the Plymouth Devils, starring Charlie Gjedde, Jack Holder and Sam Simota. We race them at Armadale on Friday 13th and away down at Plymouth the following day.

Full Result Details