A huge holiday crowd of over 1200 packed into Central Park on Easter Monday as the Kent SLYDE Kings got their 2015 home Speedway season underway with a match against new local rivals from Sussex, the Eastbourne Eagles.
The start had to be delayed ten minutes with queues stretching the entire length of the car park and when the action did get underway in this National Trophy clash it was to be derby day delight ultimately for the visitors: clocking up successive maximum 5-1s in heats two and three to establish an early advantage they were never to relinquish.
The entertainment quotient increased exponentially when new signing for Kent, the diminutive James Shanes came to track though and his amazing gravity-defying pass of both opponents in heat four raised the temperature within a heaving Central Park. Skipper Ben Morley did what was needed of him when given the double points route to get the home side back in the match and then a 5-1 of the Kings’ own in heat 9 by Danny Ayres and Aaron Baseby raised the excited crowd’s hopes. But in Central Park first-timers Georgie Wood (rather gallingly hailing from Maidstone) and the Kiwi, Bradley Wilson-Dean (coming, not like Woods, from the other side of the M2 but from the other side of the world!) the Eagles had the two stand-out performers.
They had good back up in guest Dan Greenwood (replacing the sick former Kings’ man David Mason – a rule being waived for some reason which normally forbids replacing a rider who’s never actually appeared for a club with a ‘guest’) and the much-improved Richard Andrews – and when these two somehow kept the hyper-active Shanes back into third place in the first heat after the interval, the chances of an unlikely SLYDE Kings’ comeback had receded entirely.
Six heat winners (three from Morley including that one six-pointer), two in his opening two rides from Shanes and Ayres’ win anchored home by Baseby suggested that the top end can hold its own against even fearsomely impressive opponents as the Eagles; but the tail is long and at second string and reserves it’s a tail that’s not wagging and a tale of woe at the moment – none of Danno Verge, Jamie Couzins and Adam Sheppard actually heading home an opponent on a difficult afternoon for the trio.
Next up at Central Park is the Invicta Pairs and an opportunity to regroup before the League season gets underway away to Mildenhall in 13 days time.