The lyrics talk about "rainy days ... get you down" and so it is with us here at a very wet and miserable Blunsdon. For the second time in a month we've had a meeting called off with everything set up and ready to go ... and once again I had to make a journey home in soaking wet clothes fending off the onset of yet another cold.
I can think of few more depressing sights than a speedway stadium in a rainstorm - no one on the terraces, riders and officials hiding in the pits and the track staff out in the middle taking everything down that has just taken 8 hours to put up.
Still, from a miserable day there are some positives, and I'll start with one. No sooner had I got home than my phone rang. It was Swindon and Lakeside track curator Gerald Richter on the line. Gerald's not been well recently and has spent time in Swindon hospital. After an operation on his heart he's just been discharged but told to rest. I know that everyone involved with both clubs is delighted that he's come through the operation and we will all be keeping our fingers crossed that he is past the worst and that he'll take notice of the advice that he's been given to take things easy. If you're reading this Gerald, get well soon and take things easy - we all miss you but we're more than happy to hear that you're feeling better!
I'm wondering if the velcro kickboards are really such a bonus. In previous years the request to remove kickboards at the end of a meeting would have been laughed out of the stadium, but these new ones can be removed so quickly (and put back in about an hour) that the suggestion is no regarded with looks of pained acceptance. Ronnie believes (and it pains me to agree) that the rubber boards merely trap water under the bags in periods between meetings so that, when the bags are inflated, this water is released to run across the track. And so it was that we removed the slime laden rubbers at the end of last week's meeting. Heavy, awkward, wet and slimy, they were a delight to handle for the small crew who stay on right to the end of meetings.
They are washed down in the pits area so our first job, once the air bags have been inflated, is to fit them. The trouble this week is that the contrast between the kickboards and the air panels is clear - the boards and pristine; the air panels are still coated with the residue of last week's meeting.
Punch has been round the edge of the track with the ripper and has made the striations that will help some of the surface water to drain away into the base of the track. Mark and I attach kickboards, Arron and Adam move equipment around, Mick and Roy clean the banners and Ronnie and Punch amuse themselves making up a set of new wooden kickboards (which are used down the main straights) to replace some existing ones that are beginning to show the ravages of time.
Inside the new pit area, still under construction, a wooden plinth has been made presumably for presentation ceremonies although someone makes a rather cruel and "verticalist" comment that the vertically challenged Kenneth Bjerre and Weislaw Jagus might use them to get on their bikes!
The awning on the new pits is now nearing completion and makes the area easily big enough for an entire team to store 2 bikes each.
With the fence up, the banners in place and everything going swimmingly (poor choice of word in the light of events to come) we repair to the warmth and comfort of Number 96 for lunch - a bag of chips and some beef sandwiches. Flo has popped in and left us some of her extraordinarily wonderful chocolate treats.
We sit and watch the DVD I made of the "Demolition Derby" that was the meeting at Eastbourne on Monday. There is much laughter when Kelvin declares early on about how beautifully prepared and smooth the track is. Rosco has been sent a photograph of David Norris's arm injury - it's real X rated stuff. Jurica will be missing the meeting tonight - he's battered and bruised - but Stoj has declared himself fit. Of the others, Ryan is still unclear whether he will be fit enough to ride for Edinburgh on Friday while Troy and Steady have minor bruising. Quite who will be riding for Eastbourne this evening is not clear. David Norris is certainly out, as is Lewis Bridger, whose leg injury is worse than first feared. As we eat we find that Adam Shields will guest for Davey Watt while our old friend James Wright will be in for Bridger or Norris with rider replacement for the other.
While Punch rips the starts, Mark and I start to remove old kickboards on the main straight. Adam and Matty (who has joined us for the day - thanks mate) bring out the new boards but they're a little on the small side. We can't simply take out rotten boards and put the new ones in their place. The only way is to removes 14 boards from the main straight, fit the new boards in their place and then wash down any decent boards that we've removed and use them to replace rotten boards on the back straight.
And here we come to our next problem. The boards are there to push the bikes back onto the track if they veer towards the safety fence. Of sufficient height to prevent footrests, or even feet, from getting caught in the chain link fence behind, they are nailed in place to stakes driven into the ground on the other side of the link fence. But the reality is that vast amounts of sand have built up against the kickboards on the greyhound side of the fence. As soon as we remove a panel the sand collapses through the gap. Also, the weight of the sand has pushed the metal fence forward so the pegs, to which the kickboards are nailed, are now some distance away. Having shoveled up the excess sand from the track I now try to nail a board in place. In the end I have to use a 2 inch nail just to reach the peg.
With all the carpentry skills of a potter and ex school teacher, I blunder my way down the main straight with Mark's help. The lads bring out more boards and somehow we manage to get all fourteen boards in place. Sod's law - the last one looks OK close up but from the pits gate it is clearly cock-eyed. Also, relaxing into this nail bashing, I miss a nail and hammer my thumb into the wooden boards. As my thumb nail turns a delicate purple the air turns blue. The Anglo Saxon oaths are picked up 50 metres away.
And then it just gets better. It starts to rain. We've known that this was coming for quite some time but it's a distinctly depressing development
The weather forecast has proven to be accurate; shame that last week's was no wrong! We've seen the rain coming on either side of Blunsdon Hill but it has always passed us by. Now, it starts with a steady drizzle that over the next hour gets heavier and heavier.
Some riders clearly have decided that there wont be a meeting - the bikes are left in the vans.
For the first hour the rain sits on the surface and does a fine watering job for us, but there is no sign that it will stop/
Clerk of the Course Mike Hunt, fights with an umbrella which resolutely refuses to stay up. It gives us all an entertaining lift but the depression is settling upon the pits like the clouds above and around us.
Individuals rush from one set of pits to the other as the rain beats down harder. Referee Daniel Holt arrives and wants to know our opinion. No one wants to call off a meeting - the weather might be even worse later in the season - and some people will already have set off expecting a meeting (although even Noah would have been reconciled to a night in front of the TV in weather such as this).
The ever cheerful Trevor Geer joins us at the pits gate for a chat. Ronnie is confident that if the rain stops he could get the meeting on in 15 minutes. The fact is that the rain is now running off the track down to the white line and thence to the main drain. A close investigation of the track shows that just under the soggy surface, the track is dry. If we can get the wonder wheel out we can fluff this top up and get a good track, but we need it to stop raining and to desist from raining again for the duration.
Ron describes this feature as the "track crust". Whilst I can see his point I just can't see the rain from stopping.
Clearly Punch has decided the outcome. Looking like something out of a "John West" 1970's salmon advertisement, in full "southwester", he chats with Trevor.
The grooves cut to allow water into the base, are now filling up and we wait for the inevitable. Cameron Woodward and Adam Shields join us at pit gate. Adam keeps us entertained with stories about his early days of riding in this country. "I used to have this old Renault van and I dreaded getting up the hill to Blunsdon when it was full of equipment." Cameron is still, rightfully, buzzing about that last bend blast around Travis and Leigh that wrapped up full points for the Eagles on Monday night.
In the home pit area, riders, mechanics, wives, girl friends and children sit around and chat. The fact that speedway riders spend so much time together irrespective of who they ride for is made very clear here.
Punch and Trevor are still at the gate, swapping stories from their collective memories, and what a store of speedway related memories those two have!
At last the inevitable happens - the meeting is called off. The rain is now heavier and any chance of riding has disappeared.
But while the riders pack up their vans, and a number of track staff who had appeared disappeared, a small team of track staff were left to take down what it has taken us 6 hours to put up.
Under leaden skies and with the rain driving in, this hardy little group remove the kickboards, the banners and everything else and then stack it all away.
It takes us well over an hour and we are all wet. We could be annoyed - if a few more had helped we would have been quicker and less wet - but there's a Dunkirk spirit amongst us.
So, in no particular order, the role of honour.
Thanks to : Paul Gibbs, Roy Hicks, Keith Johnson, Bob Cook, Mark Price, Matt (all pictured above) and Arron, Adam and Punch. If I've forgotten anyone, sorry, but these were the very soggy ones left at the bitter end long after the bars have cleared and the riders departed.
