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Belle Vue Rentruck Aces
Speedway
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belle vue ACES
speedway
may be wrong in assuming, but when Belle Vue revealed their team and
ambitions for the 2015 season there was already the sense early on that the
club had something special on the cards. Granted it wasn’t the best start to the
year - with one rain-off and three consecutive losses - but once the boys found
their mojo, they were most unwilling to see their miserable fortunes continue.
Bar one slip up, their home form
throughout 2015 has been second to
none while away from home, while
not flawless, they’ve been anything
but a disappointment to their fans
and bosses.“Right now there’s a very
positive feel around the club and it’s
a feeling we’ve not experienced for a
good ten years now,” says COO Chris
Morton. “But when you’re winning it’s
hard not to feel good!
“I often say it’s all about winning and
as we got past the season’s half way
point the team was really starting to
pull together and for the last eight to
ten meetings or so, we’ve really been on
it. The whole mentality of the club, and
the riders, has changed this year and
that’s something you can really sense
around the pits. The will to win has been
particularly palpable since last Monday.
“We’ve waited a long time for a lot of
things, from the play offs to the new
stadium, and although we started off
this regime nearly ten years ago we’ve
had no choice but to be reasonably
patient. Having said that, our target
wasn’t merely to just get into the play
offs. This is the start of the next chapter.
There’s no sense of being in the play offs
without the better intention of wanting
to win.
“We’ve tried to keep our goals realistic
as we have gone along and now that we
have delivered on our aim to reach the
play offs, clearly our next ambition is to
qualify for the final. As I’ve previously
alluded, the start of the new year rang
out with an all too familiar tone for the
Rentruck Aces. Back to back defeats on
the road had many fans shaking their
heads in despair.
A lot were left wondering if the changes
- or in some areas, lack of changes wrought out by the management over
the winter would be effective enough to
see the struggling squad bounce back.
Hopefully now the answer is clear,
with the club sitting pretty amongst the
title contenders, but as far as Morton
is concerned, a slow start doesn’t
necessarily precede a bad season.
He said: “I suppose the best way to
describe this year is that it has been a
slow burner but with the changes we’ve
made and the shift in the dynamic of
the team, maybe that’s how it needed
to be. I’ve always maintained that this
league is a highly competitive one. All
eight tea ms started this season roughly
on equal footing with squads of riders of
similar strengths and abilities.
“But what separates the top four
from the rest is how they manage their
progress and maintain good form. I’m
not saying that’s the only element of a
good campaign, but maybe the most
crucial. The most significant change I
feel we’ve made was bringing Mark
Lemon on board as our new manager
and that in itself was an adjustment all
parties concerned required time to get
used to.
“We have riders at this club who have
been with us for what has been the
better part of a three-year programme
where we’ve developed a very healthy,
very positive relationship with them.