The final trophy to be settled in Scotland was the Scottish Junior Championship which was held at Linlithgow last Sunday after the Four Team Tournament.
The event sponsored by Beaton's Coaches and the Glasgow Tigers Speedway Supporters Club has been staged at Shawfield in recent years. It was not held at Ashfield this year. Glasgow had hoped to stage a Junior event on Sunday 29th August, a day reserved for the restaging of the Fours finals, but did not recieve sufficient entries to make a viable event.
The Junior Championships were not staged prior to the closure of Ashfield for the winter on October 10th. The Championship was then scheduled for the second half of the Armadale Junior Championships on October 15th but was not run. It was programmed again for the second half of the Scottish Cup second leg at Armadale on October 22nd. This time a line-up of Derek Sneddon ('Dale Devils), Robert McNeil (Ashfield Giants), James Denholm, and Mark McIlkenny was billed but again it did not run.
It was finally staged at Linlithgow on Sunday 24th October. It was the last competitive race at Heathersfield prior to closure.
The heat was run after the main event just as the rain was starting to fall. Denholm was in red, McNeil in blue, Sneddon in white and McIlkenny in yellow/black.
The race too three attempts to complete. The first time their was a first bend pile-up and all four were invited back. The second attempt saw Sneddon gate with McNeil pressing hard. McNeil edged ahead and Sneddon came down as he was trying to get past. The referee excluded McNeil for unfair riding which looked a good shout. In the third run of the heat, McIllkenny made the start but Sneddon passed to win convicingly and to collect the George Beaton Memorial Trophy.
Result:
1st Derek Sneddon, 2nd Mark McIlkenny, 3rd James Denholm, Robert McNeil (excluded) [Time 60.7].
Derek Sneddon made a late start this year and possibly failed to make the progress expected of him after his very successful season in the Youth Development League at Armadale. He has looked very impressive towards the end of this year with Linlithgow.
Glasgow's failure when attempting to stage a Junior event coupled with the difficulties Edinburgh had with the Armadale Junior Championship illustrate the rundown state of Junior speedway in Scotland. The fact that only four riders could be found to contest this event underlines this point.
This might be due to the success in recent years with Blair Scott, Barry Campbell, David McAllan, Stuart Coleman, Paul Gould all coming through to the senior ranks in the past three years.
However there clearly are some problems. The injury suffered by Ryan Milburn is one such difficulty. There certainly appear to a lack of riders. This may be related to the fact that Linlithgow didn't run a Conference League team in 1998. This illustrates the importance of getting Linlithgow back in the Conference League next year. Hopefully they will be joined by a team from Ashfield.
If neither runs next year then the future is very bleak.