Edinburgh Monarchs v Glasgow Tigers

REPORT Friday 26th August 2011, 10:00pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

This was a very bad night for Edinburgh Speedway with a shocking result against their local rivals, and a dreadful, long meeting on a very heavy track.

Fans coming into the stadium were greeted with the unwelcome sight of tractors circling while fresh dirt was piled on to a wet surface. Given that the Scotwaste Monarchs had already lost to the same opposition three weeks earlier in similar though less extreme conditions, it beggared belief (whatever the meteorological circumstances) that a circuit like this should be presented.

Riders from both teams were unhappy prior to the match, but Glasgow had three riders who managed to get round apparently comfortably (two of these handily placed at reserve) while Edinburgh?s only real success was Andrew Tully, with another excellent showing.

Christian Henry was the unlucky man of the night and he really has had a terrible run of luck. Byron Bekker fell right in front of him in heat 7, and Christian came down heavily, sustaining a shoulder injury. To add to the misery of the watching fans, this resulted in a 40-minute delay while the second ambulance arrived, during which time most of the dirt which had been heaped on to the track was scraped back off again.

The first two heats were completely farcical as riders two wheeled round, both home men falling in heat 1. A deficit of 1-10 was the result and there was never any likelihood that that could be overturned, even though the pairing of Tully and Matthew Wethers did perform admirably and quickly regained some of the lost ground with a heat 3 5-1 ? another abject heat in terms of entertainment.

Heats with Tully in them were the only relief for the home fans over the first half of the match, though Monarchs did manage three successive heat winners from heat 9. Tully though fell on the first bend of heat 12 and the mini-fightback ended there.

Nick Morris was again astonishingly good, with great control and terrific boldness in all of his heats. James Grieves has shown many times that conditions never bother him and he added another fine Armadale performance to his amazing record, while former Edinburgh captain Theo Pijper piled up points with relative ease also.

Although some of the home riders have been criticized, it was not really effort which was lacking but the knowledge or ability to cope with conditions they will not have met often. For everyone?s sake it would be nice if they did not meet them again in a hurry.