Walkers Triumphant

THE great Walk Speedway group – including Oxford Speedway’s Laura Pollard – duly completed their 107 mile walk from Berwick to Redcar on Friday night when they arrived at the Ecco Arena around 7pm, in good time to be greeted by fans arriving for the match v Workington.

The Talk Speedway trio of Scott Frame, Greg Blair and Laura Pollard were joined for the concluding day by Chris Morton, who last year had been part of the great Bike Ride fundraiser.

SRBF Chairman Paul Ackroyd was there to wave the chequered flag for The Talk Speedway trio of Scott Frame, Greg Blair and Laura Pollard along with Chris Morton as they completed a lap of honour of the track, and he said: “It was quite an emotional event. The riders from both teams formed a guard of honour and cheered them home to a rapturous reception from the crowd.”

Scott Frame is the group’s spokesperson and the driving force and he was clearly thrilled how things have gone, and with the support received from so many.

He said “For the benefit of the Speedway Riders Benevolent Fund there’s around £7,500 on the Just Giving page and around £1,000 was collected at Redcar. There’s more still to come from certain sources.”

Without doubt their effort caught the public attention. Frame added: “Because we were right in the centre of it I don’t think we realised how much people were buying in to it. Looking at the numbers on each post and how much they were getting shared, you can actually see the viewing figures going up as the week went on.

“Donations were going up each day. We’ve definitely captured the imagination. People were amazed that we’ve done this. We’ve had great support from people coming out and walking with us. There’s so many to thank.

“Sarah Bulman, Fiona Robertson, John Anderson, Ryan Nassau, they were the people who were ferrying us to the night stops. Sarah’s been fantastic taking stuff away to wash, she and her husband did that.

“That allowed us to go and do it each day with people turning up, we had Danyon Hume, Jye Etheridge and about 60 Berwick fans at the start, then Leon Flint did a whole day, 22 miles with us. Danny King did 18.5 miles with us. Chris Morton joined us, all that support has been brilliant.

“There’s so many people to thank, I could go on all night with different names and things they did to help. People just mucking in to make sure we are OK. The last day was difficult because you could see the finish line but the body was still having to keep going.

“We need to thank Redcar because the welcome we got there was amazing. Both sets of fans were amazing, and also BSN who went live with us as we were walking into the stadium.”

To donate, please visit: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/walkspeedway

PHOTO: Greg Blair, Laura Pollard and Scott Frame with SRBF chairman Paul Ackroyd (pic: Colin Poole)