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Speedway: Swales and Oakes go back a long way
THEY go back 17 years and Peter Oakes is confident he and team manager Trevor Swales will enjoy an excellent working relationship.
THEY go back 17 years and Peter Oakes is confident he and team manager Trevor Swales will enjoy an excellent working relationship.Both men will do their utmost to ensure there is a happy atmosphere at Alwalton next season.
Oakes believes that is vital if the city side are to stand a chance of challenging for honours in their milestone year.
Oakes said: "Trevor was the first new person I got to know through speedway when I took over here back in 1992. He and his family were an enormous help to both myself and my family when we moved to the area.
"We were struggling crowd-rise quite early on in our time and both Richard Greer and Trevor had to come to my house and persuade me not to throw in the towel. I'm very grateful for that because everything worked out very well in the end.
"Myself and Trevor have already chatted at length since I've been back on board and it is good to have someone to bounce ideas off.
"One of the main jobs will be to ensure there is a good spirit within the camp. Riders to have a habit of keeping things to themselves, but if there is a problem we need to know about it and help to put it right.
"They have to have confidence in people like Trevor and myself to feel able to talk to us.
"We also want to get fans more involved in the club. There needs to be a happy atmosphere at the Showground.
"The only way you win things and challenge for honours is by having a happy bunch. If they don't have a smile on their faces then they have to have on in their hearts."
Oakes admits the big poser facing Panthers bosses is whether to attempt to attract a top-line number one rider to spearhead their team to set-up a side where the emphasis is on strength in depth.
He continued: "The big decision we have to make is which route we go in our team-building.
"We can go one of two ways - either look to bring in a recognised number one rider or build with more strength throughout the team in mind.
"But we are looking at riders that we believe would come in on bargain averages. Were that to happen we might have scope to add riders of higher averages in other areas.
"I think too many teams become obsessed with building a team to as close to the total as possible and lose sight of the fact that it is all about putting together the best one to seven you possibly can.
"Hopefully we will be able to do that. No-one puts together a team with the intention of struggling after all, do they?"
See also:
Speedway: New lease of life for Peter the pensioner
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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