Reports suggest that Berwick Speedway is to close. The consortium that took over from Mike and Yvette Hope appear to have put up the shutters before they have been in control for one week. Mike Hope was said to be 'gutted' after the work put in keeping Berwick Speedway going and the return to Shielfield Park being destroyed in a couple of days.
It appears that the consortium intending to take over Berwick have pulled out citing difficulties in team building as the reason. This all seems rather lame for a team with as many assets as Berwick.
Attempts to sign a number 1 failed when Frank Smart and Brett Woodifield went elsewhere and Kaj Laukkanen and Les Collins were unavailable or too expensive. David Meldrum was reputed to be considering an offer to join Coventry and was wanted by Newcastle. Meldrum said that Berwick was still his first choice if they were running. The final straw came when Wesley Waite announced that he was considering his position due to work committments.
Shutting down because of the loss of a reserve seems rather implausible. What about Scott Lamb, Peter Scully, Scott Robson, and Martin Dixon, not to mention Rene Madsen and Jorg Pingel. Surely a competitive team could be produced from that lot especially with Barry Campbell and Derrol Keats still available. A suggested team is given in the Premier League team pages: Northern Tracks.
With Berwick looking exceeding unlikely to run and Glasgow still without a track following further delays in the planning application for Ashfield Stadium, we have a situation where Berwick have a track but no team and Glasgow have a team but no track. The logical solution is to move Tigers to Shielfield at least in the short-term to give time for the planning application to be processed and the track constructed. If this happens, I just hope that the Berwick locals give the Tigers more support than the Shawfield fans gave the Monarchs in 1996!
[This news item was added on February 14th 1999]
[This news item was modified on February 18th 1999]