It’s a Knockout: Cheetahs vs Bears

In last week’s column, I told you that the Scunthorpe meeting had been my first home meeting as chair of the Supporter’s Club. Little did I know when writing the column that I’d be struck down with Covid before the Poole match, so would have to spend my second meeting as chair at home in isolation rather than in the stadium enjoying the meeting. Fortunately for me, the guys from BSN were in town and I was able to catch the meeting anyway on their streaming service, so I didn’t miss any of the action. The coverage was generally excellent, but those of you lucky / well enough to be in the stadium will have missed the ongoing confusion we caused the BSN production crew by swapping Nathan and Dillon in the riding order. The low point (or highlight, depending on your sense of humour) came in heat 11, where Nathan came to tapes as the on-screen graphic showed Nathan’s head, on Kyle’s body, with Dillon’s name underneath. It’s no wonder the meeting stopped before heat 14 to unpack everything…

Tonight sees your third – and possibly final – chance to snatch up a copy of the first issue of the new Cheetahs Chronicle. After last week’s meeting there were very limited stocks remaining, so if you see Mark selling out and about on the terraces, be sure to grab a copy before they all go. This month’s edition has interviews with Hans Neilsen, Spencer Timmo, and Mick Fletcher, and profiles of Rick Timmo, Dag Lovaas, and Jack Geran. Mark’s planning on having issue 2 ready for the 11th of May, when the Redcar Bears will be in town in the Championship. Not to be confused with tonight, when the Redcar Bears are here in the Knockout Cup.

Redcar being here two weeks out of the next three, with the inaugural Chargers match sandwiched in between, means that Jordan Jenkins will be here three weeks on the bounce, riding for the ‘away’ team twice. Here’s hoping he uses tonight to learn the fastest way around Sandy Lane for next week, then promptly forgets again in two weeks time…

Last week the top prize in the raceday jackpot went unclaimed. If you’ve still got yellow ticket 807 tucked in your jacket, come and see the Supporters Club in the top bar because it’s worth £100. If the prize isn’t claimed tonight we’ll add the funds back into the money we’re raising for the team, which currently stands at over £400 after just two weeks. Thank you everyone for your support, and please continue to dig deep when we come round selling again this week.

It’s a busy few days for the Cheetahs, completing a mini ‘Northern Tour’ to Berwick and Newcastle last weekend, then off to Redcar on Friday for the second leg of tonight’s match. Let’s hope we can have another good showing tonight and take a healthy lead for the return fixture.

Go Cheetahs

Gav