Back in May I had somewhat of an existential crisis
If you read my column regularly (and if you don’t, I don’t blame you), you might remember that in preparation for the Coronation weekend Knuckles Peasley made me write the column so far in advance that I ended up questioning the very meaning of space and time. I’m going through the reverse at the moment, because by the time the Kent and Scunthorpe fixtures take place the columns I wrote will be (or indeed, already are) weeks old, meaning the things I’ve written we’ll be doing “this week” (that week?) will happen neither that week, nor have happened the original week we’d planned. All I ask is that when those meetings eventually do happen, you’ll take my words as a snapshot of a more innocent time, and try not to get yourself as confused as I am.
But on to this week (and I do hope it’s this week), we have a lot of loose ends to tie up. In the lost columns I was plugging the collections for Jordan and Rory Schlein after their crash when Glasgow came to town. We’ve now concluded the collection, and thanks to your donations we’ve raised a grand total of £450 for each of them. We handed Jordan’s cash over last week, and we’re going to get Rory’s to him up at Berwick as he’s not due back to Oxford this year. Both riders are over the moon with the support you’ve shown, and it’s a credit to the club how generous you the fans are.
Another thing I’ve excitedly teased in the columns even fewer of you have read than normal is the first monthly donations from OSSC funds to the Chargers riders. This is something we’ve intended to do at both attempts at the Kent match, but we know how well that’s gone so we haven’t been able to. Tonight (fingers crossed) we’ll be giving out £200 for each of the July and August donations to two separate riders, so keep your ears out for who the lucky riders are this month (and last month). We’ll be giving out donations in September and October as well, and if your support for the Raceday Jackpot remains high – and I have no reason to suspect it won’t – we’ll continue into next year, too.
Finally, after all sorts of design, ordering, manufacturing, and logistical delays, we’ve finally taken delivery of the first batch of Oxford Speedway programme boards. The original plan was to have them last week – I think if one more person accosted poor Drew Kemp in the pits demanding to know where they were he’d have cried – but they’re available in the track shop tonight. So if you want to be among the first to get your hands on one (Clerk of the Course Geoff Barber was stood next to us when we opened the box at Poole and he announced he was going to be customer number one, and who are we to argue), come and see us upstairs.
So three weeks after the last time we successfully held a speedway meeting here at Sandy Lane, the Workington Comets come to town. It’s a fixture few would have thought possible a few years ago, but here we are, and with a 12 point lead from the first leg it should be pretty straightforward to claim the bonus point tonight and bounce back to the top of the National League. Speaking of bonus points, the Cheetahs are yet to drop one in the Championship after a nailbiter at Poole last week. The meeting on the night was out of reach after a disastrous run in the second quarter of the meeting, but sometimes you have to win ugly, and 91-89 gets you bonus points. And on cold Wednesday nights in October, it also wins you league titles.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Tonight we have to concentrate on two things. The Comets, and getting a tenner out of Geoff for his programme board. I wonder which one will be more straightforward?
Go Chargers