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Any team starting from scratch,as Nottingham had to do before moving into the National League for 1979,know full well that it is going to have a battle on its hands .Not only to get somewhere in the table which is not down at the bottom,but just to establish itself with its fans.
For Nottingham the move into speedway was even harder for they had to cotend with the memories left be the old Long Eaton squad,since the Outlaws were indeed operating out of the old station road circuit.
The had changed,the venue was the same .The promotion,though,was totally different.In had swept Dan NcCormick and his merry men,intenton making Nottingham as fashionable as he was in the process of making cradley.The team looked dicey for fifty or more mames were associated with it but when the ink was dry on the contracts,the big names had whittled down to one and a half.
One because Dan had scooped the leagues top rider in Mike Sampson from eastbourne.At one stage it seemed that Mike would stay with the eagles and go British League.Then it looked like he was destined for Edinburgh,In the event of this star attraction became an Outlaw.
The half of it allow me to beg his pardon now,was Dave Perks,he turned down a move to Belle Vue and arrived to become Nottingham skipper .Injury had wrecked his average with Cradley.The season had ended almost before he was ready to resume and a big question mark against what he might accomplish.
That was extent of the Nottingham heat leaders ,when they started the season ,they had high hopes of Australian Glenn McDonald,the chances of Craig Featherby blossoming and Neil Collins was drafted into the early squad but soon moved on .Sad for Notts as it turned out half of a season later
Where would the third heat leader come from ?
McDonald was obviously the hoped for the answer -and he looked the part from the start ,he"d need a while to get accustomed to the pace and that was exactly what he didn"t get with the internal injuries which cost him the seasonfrom june to september.
Yet it all started most brightly for Nottingham served notice that they were not to be anyone"s whipping boys,but by going to Boston for their first match and on Craig"s old track,coming away with the points .But hardly had they finished patting themselves on the back,however Milton Keynes and Oxford both visited Station road and their wins signalled danger for the Outlaws.
Les Sawyer a fringe member at Oxford the previous year ,was clearly in for a struggle .Neil Collins moved on and made way for the poor Nigel Wasley who,after he had battled hard to win his place and points ,crashed in the late summer and sadly died from his injuries.
Featherby went off to the kind of start that was to punctuate an up and down season ,showing a distinct liking for his home track.That is clearly where the young potential must improve next season but then he"ll have a working knowledge of most circuits by that time which he clearly didn"t have in 1979.
So very early Notts wer seeking a third heat leader and it came from a most unexpected source.Kevin Hawkins had joined Coventry,surprisingly from Peterborough where he was only the No"5 man .He made fine mark with the bees who then chose to allow him to return on loan to us instead of Peterborough.
From the moment he got there the different was obvious.After their poor start to the season we had broke our duck with a win against Weymouth.Once Kevin arrived then on,the shock of the year by us winning at Newcastle and then coupling the double over them a couple of days later,They made Ellesmere struggle so hard before the Gunners took a two point home win and then we beat Edinburgh at Station Road .
It looked bright and the sun was shining,Away from home they just couldn"t put it together.At home they were better than all the bestand certainly there wer no worry about any bottom of the league position ,although the doubts must of risen when Mike Sampson took a bad fall and crushed vertebrae in the spine in mid -August, an injury so awkward and painful that he did not ride again.
By then Sawyer was beginning to put together much better scores home and away and also John Homer from Cradley was making his mark at reserve looking much livelier than the late Nigel Wasley had responded to the need of higher scoring all round and he was looking good to piles of points before his tragic crash.
Certainly that had its effect on the team when they lost ten straight league matches ,never won a pair of league points until their last home match of the season.
The snag noe is what happens next season ? will Mike Sampson returnwith his mammoth scoring ? isn"t it a cert that KevinHawkins will be in the coventry team now that Mick Bell seems too have retired? will Glenn McDonald return from aussie and hit the top and the best skipper in the land Dave Perks not be wanted back on a full time British League duty ?
But that"s for next season to tell us ,wahat we don"t need telling is that Dan McCormick did usual fine job in re-establishing Nottingham-come Long Eaton and making it a first class nursery track.
