Birmingham Brummies v Edinburgh Monarchs

A great performance by Monarchs and an unlucky night for the Brummies added up to the shock result of the season.

It seems Chris Kerr has broken his leg after a heat 3 crash, which everyone will be very sorry about, and Jake Anderson was also ruled out.

Justin Sedgmen would have been expected to cover for Kerr at least, but the young Aussie was kept fairly quiet by our in-form riders.

A win did not seem at all likely as we lost the opening heat 5-1. Johnston led from Summers with Fisher chasing hard. Going in to the last lap Ryan drew alongside Aaron, who went down on the next bend.

Observers close to the action felt that Fisher was hard done to by the exclusion.

Heat 2 saw another unfortunate incident with Anderson and Katajisto going in to the fence on the first turn. That was that for young Jake, and Kalle wrecked another frame on his no. 1 bike.

The decision was all four back, though after a long delay only Sedgmen resumed for the home side.

Our reserves gated and scored a notable 5-1 win to level the scores.

Matthew Wethers was the early leader in heat 3 after a brilliant outside run on the first corner, but on lap two Kerr, lying third, lifted going down the back straight. He got the front wheel back down but slid off going into the next turn. It didn't look a major incident, but he was whisked off the hospital after another long delay.

It was after 8:45 when we got heat 4 under way. With 6 additional rides to cover, Birmingham sent out Lyons on his own, but a superb ride by Tully brought us a heat advantage. It was a 3-2 rather than 4-2 because Kalle crashed on the last lap with his bike becoming entangled in the fence.

Our one-point lead was preserved over the next three shared heats. Ryan Fisher won heat 5 with Sweetman looking threatening but Jozsef well back. Andrew Tully won his second heat aftera great battle with Johnston, and the Wolbert/Wethers pair shared heat 7 behind Lyons. With Sedgmen at the back, the high-scoring home reserve had been limited so far to 2 from 3 rides.

He improved that in heat 8 though taking a 5-1 by backing up the flying Summers. Jozsef again had a disappointing ride.

Travelling fans may have felt at that point that our challenge was wilting, but the riders had other ideas. Once again Andrew Tully rode a great race to defeat Sweetman after another good start.

Summers won heat 10 to take his score to paid 11, but Wolbert and Wethers fought off the Johnston challenge thanks largely to a superb late outside sweep by Wethers.

Fisher was a winner again beating Lyons in heat 11, but Katrajisto trailed after failing to pull off an early outside sweep. But we were only delayed from retaking the lead.

Wolbert raced away from Sedgmen to win heat 12, another 3-man heat, putting us a point ahead.

With three heats left and the top Brummies coming out, we were down to the crunch heats now, reminiscent of Redcar. Once again we proved how strong we are under pressure.

Perfect gates by Fisher and Tully and four hard-riding laps brought us a great 5-1 over Lyons and Johnston in heat 13, and with a 5-poinjt lead suddenly all seemed possible. We now needed to share heat 14.

In fact Matthew and Kalle looked like doing even better as they fought a fierce two laps against Sweetman and Sedgmen, until Sweetman lifted and fell on the back straight.

In the rerun we only needed finishers but again we did better, a great team ride by our pair to take a 5-1. At 47-36 we were home, needing a second place to take 4 match points.

That's what we got after Ryan had led all the way, but lost position on the last lap and fell victim to a typically brilliant Lyons pass. It was enough though, and while we had to have sympathy for the Brummies, we could take nothing but pride in the performance of our own riders.

Birmingham Brummies v Edinburgh Monarchs

Will there ever be a good time this season to visit the lion's den that is Perry Barr Stadium? This week it is the turn of Edinburgh Monarchs to see if they can put a dent in the remarkable start made by the Birmingham Brummies in the quest for Premier League points (7.30 start).

Graham Drury chose to retain only two of last year's team who had finished fourth in the league, Jason Lyons and Richard Sweetman. To this he added fellow Australians, Steve Johnston, Justin Sedgmen, Jake Anderson and our own Aaron Summers. The final piece of the jigsaw was Californian, Chris Kerr.

In 13 matches, the Brummies have lost only once ? by only four points in a Sky Sports thriller at Rye House. And in their 7 home matches, the average score has been 57-33. Only Glasgow and Scunthorpe have so far managed to reach the 40 points mark in Birmingham. In contrast, Stoke and Sheffield failed to reach 30.

And staying with statistics, only two Brummies riders have failed to increase their starting averages. These are falling star, Steve Johnston and raw recruit, Jake Anderson. But such is the strength of the team that Jake seems set to get as long as it takes to reach his 3 point starting average.

Of the other five, Aaron Summers and Jason Lyons are over a point up each, Richard Sweetman and Chris Kerr have added over two points each, and Justin Sedgmen over three points. This makes for a combined team average of 49.85 compared to a starting figure of 42.33.

So there hasn't been a cloud on the Birmingham skyline so far, not even a volcanic ash cloud, to slow their relentless progress. Jake Anderson, he of the Scottish grandfather, is the only obvious 'weak link'. The other six riders all average above 7 points and have recorded only 13 last places in 13 matches.

So that's the size of the task facing Monarchs who will be hoping their German pairing of Max Dilger and Kevin Wolbert are fully fit so that they can at least field their starting seven. Everyone will have to be on top form right from heat 1 where Steve Johnston and Aaron Summers are making a habit of opening with 5-1's.

No team will fancy their chances at Perry Barr this season, so Monarchs can go into this match with the attitude that they have nothing to lose.

Probable line-ups

Birmingham: Steve Johnston, Aaron Summers, Chris Kerr, Richard Sweetman, Jason Lyons, Justin Sedgmen, Jake Anderson.

Edinburgh: Ryan Fisher, Jozsef Tabaka, Kevin Wolbert, Matthew Wethers, Andrew Tully, Max Dilger, Kalle Katajisto