Coming out of the 2nd turn, a Tigers 5-1 in the makingAsk any football fan what they despise most in a player and they will on the whole tell you one thing. Laziness. You can be distinctly ordinary as a player, but if you give everything in a match, people will tend to overlook the
deficiencies, and even go as far as to overstate your meagre talent. There are of course levels of shite-ness that can never be forgiven, but that's another issue. The 'talented but lazy' player is often the biggest target of abuse. Good control, ability to beat players, the odd spectacular goal..........Not enough. In Scotland, any player(usually a winger or forward) who doesn't chase every single lost cause, fly into needless tackles in the oppositions half and run himself to a standstill is regarded as a lightweight or a 'sand-dancer'. In short, a poofy wee show off. If he wears white boots and has long hair then he's really fucked......The only way to avoid this is by scoring tonnes of goals to make up for your shiftlessness.
How does this relate to speedway? The
meeting at the weekend saw the strange case Czech rider
Mario Jirout of
Mildenhall. A former
Ice Racer and regarded as a bit of a star draw, he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else on the planet on Sunday afternoon than Ashfield. His first heat was no indication of his mindset, taking an unassuming third place. His next heat saw him lying last at the end of the 2nd lap, at which point he decided to, er, "conserve fuel" and trundle round at the back. Once you could forgive, maybe put it down to a machine failure. Twice was pushing it somewhat. He didn't even make it to the end of the 1st lap before he'd decided he'd had enough. If he wasn't going to score any points, then why bother? Needless to say he was given short shrift by the locals who know a malingering 'superstar' when they see one and the Mildenhall team manager seemed to be in agreement and he was replaced in his last heat.
George Stancl practices his start prior to the final heat
The guy from work I'd bumped into at the meeting has been going to speedway for many a year and the odd behaviour of Mr Jirout was no surprise to him.
"Ye get that with some of those foreign lads, if they aren't in the points after the first lap, they just chuck it."
Maybe a tad unfair on the foreign contingent I've seen so far who include Poles, Czechs, Danes, Swedes, Finns, Italians, Canadians and Australians (and a few others I've no doubt missed), all of whom have riden their nuts off in my prescence. He's seen more than I have though and I said no more............
In some ways though, theres a cold logic to it. Why scrap and scrape to get a single point, put yourself in danger and waste energy, when you can trundle round at 30mph and maybe get that point if someone else falls off............? He seems to be a decent rider, so I'llchalk it up to a really bad day at the office. Just don't do it in speedway, where fans, regardless of their persuasion will call you all the c**ts under the sun for not providing at least a nominal degree of effort or entertainment. To most sportsmen, easy wins are a blessing. In speedway, whilst it's good to get the points on the board, theres often a slight feeling of resentment if the opposition didn't put up much of a fight. It happened a few weeks back when Berwick Bandits were brushed aside with alarming ease by Glasgow. Cheers for the points lads? Ha! More like "Why not try turning up next time?"
Heat 15 winner Shane Parker performs a victory 'Donut'
As a wise man once said, "It's a funny old game"
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The Easter egg lies to one side, ignored. The last stubborn gesture of a doomed man. Under his tenure, the department was cut off, not just by time and space, but by a belligerent autonomy that that led to it's current isolation. Nothing worked, least of all us. This was where you ended up if you annoyed someone or fucked something up.
This was the Dead Letter Office.
We hadn't received Easter eggs from the company for a few years. No big deal, just a box of cheap chocolate, but it told you everything you needed to know. We were the Damned United.
The wee man though, he won't be suckered with this tawdry gift. The gaudy carboard box sits on his desk and gathers dust.
A bit like he did, truth be told......
He's letting us all know what he thinks of the company who gave him the boot, as he winds down his last few days before finding himself a job more suitable to his talents.
Like a shelf stacker. Or a toilet attendant.
Who'd have thought he was once one of Sir Fred's little devil spawn?
I tell you this though, I envy him. Next month he'll be at home watching Jeremy Kyle, Bargain Hunt and Fuck Truck Vol IIV while I grind through spreadsheets and write letters to the sort of wankers who remortgage seven times a year. What's fair about that?
Brough Park, Newcastle
Easter Monday is usually a hellish drag of a day. It's like a 2nd Sunday, except without the speedway. That's why this year I accepted the offer of Ashfield aquaintance Paulco and took a berth on the Glasgow supporters bus down to the north east of England to watch the Tigers take on Newcastle Diamonds. Glad I did. The journey down went by in a flash, as did the return, due mainly to good company and constant banter.
Brough Park, being a night track based at a greyhound stadium, is a very different prospect to Ashfield. On the up-side there's no dust and the floodlighting provides a great atmosphere. The hospitality and facilities are also top notch and on the night we visited, they had sorted the track to provide maximum entertainment. The rubbish elements included limited viewing (only the home straight, about thirty feet from the track), and the sense that photography is a bit of a no-no (I could be wrong on that though)
Anyway, a great night out and better than spending the day sleeping and watching fucking Bond flims and religious epics.
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