PREVIEW: Oxford Spires seek all three points from home clash with Birmingham

OXS Oxford Spires are looking to maintain the all-important fourth place position in the ROWE Motor Oil Premiership when they entertain bottom club Birmingham Brummies at Oxford Stadium on Thursday evening (7.30pm).

Spires are currently in fourth place, the final position that will qualify for the end-of-season play-offs that determine the league champions. Leicester are in fifth place, just one point behind Spires, with four matches in hand, although it won’t be an easy task for Lions, since all those four matches in hand are away from home.

Birmingham may currently be bottom of the table, with just two victories this season, but track a decent looking line-up, headed by current World No 2 Freddie Lindgren, who makes his first visit to Cowley since 2006. Lindgren won the most recent Grand Prix round in Poland after passing World Champion Bartosz Zmarzlik in his own backyard.

Provided that Spires win, they will also take the aggregate bonus point, since they were 37-23 victors in a clash shortened by rain in the West Midlands on July 8.

19-year-old Luke Killeen – now in all three Oxford sides – makes his home debut for Spires. He will occupy the Rising Star position in No 7, with 16-year-old Ashton Boughen at No 6 in the Premiership’s most youthful and exciting reserve pairing.

For Brummies, both skipper Steve Worrall (illness) and Justin Sedgmen (injured) are currently on the sidelines. Zach Cook – dropped to accommodate Lindgren – has been recalled in place of Sedgmen, while Michael Palm Toft is a temporary replacement for Worrall.

Oxford team manager Peter Schroeck said: “We won’t take Birmingham for granted, although it does make our task simpler in that a win will automatically bring an aggregate bonus point, since we took a nice victory up there a few weeks ago.

“One of the exciting things about the Spires this year has been the presence of World Class riders at Oxford Stadium. We’ve already seen the likes of Tai Woffinden, Dan Bewley, Emil Sayfutdinov and Jason Doyle in opposition to Bomber, Rohan, Maciej and the rest of the boys. This week, we see Freddie Lindgren riding for the first time at Oxford in almost two decades. Freddie is a class act and all our boys will want to take his scalp and get the better of him.

“I realise there’s a tendency at this time of year to look around and see what other teams are doing. But we’re going to avoid that. At the moment, we’re still in fourth place and our job is to approach one meeting at a time and add to our points tally.

“While Spires are scoring points in the ROWE Motor Oil Premiership, it’s putting all the pressure on the teams behind us, because they’ve got to convert their matches-in-hand into points. We’re going to let them worry about the play-offs, while we’ll just score as many points as we can in our meetings.”

Tickets are already on sale on the Oxford Speedway website at https://oxfordspeedway.club/tickets/

Admission is available at the early bird price of £22 for all adults, which increases to £24 on Race Day. All under-16s go free. A reminder that Oxford Speedway is online ticket sales only – tickets remain on sale on the website until the start-time of the meeting.

Teams:

OXS Oxford Spires: Rohan Tungate, Erik Riss, Maciej Janowski, Charles Wright, Chris Harris (C), Ashton Boughen, Luke Killeen (RS).

Curtis Sport Birmingham Brummies: Fredrik Lingren (C), Wiktor Lampart, Piotr Pawlicki, Zach Cook, Tom Brennan, Michael Palm Toft, Leon Flint (RS).

(Photo by Steve Edmunds)