Peterborough Panthers promoter: '‘It’s been a joke to be fair, we have tried everything' but a deal looks like it's been done for a number one

That was 100 days ago last Monday and the Panthers, rooted to the bottom of the Premiership, are still searching for a new number one. Promoter CARL JOHNSON in a remarkably honest, soul-searching interview with Holeshot Media, reveals the behind-the-scenes drama to replace the three-times world champion.

“We are in the process of signing one, possibly two, riders and we are just waiting for confirmation.

“Vadim Tarasenko, he’s done and we are hoping he can come in for Monday at Wolverhampton. We will re-declare the team with him in it and hopefully if we can get the deal done with Rohan Tungate, he can be in the side as well, but it might be too early for that.

“I’m the one who has spoken to him to get him at the club and I’m probably 85 to 90% certain we will get him. We are looking to get personal sponsorship to bridge the gap. It’s probably paying slightly over the odds for him, but we know what he is capable of and, to be fair, at the minute we have got no other options, he’s probably the best of the rest that’s available.

“We have spoken to so many riders, it would probably be easier to say how many we haven’t tried. We have tried a lot, we tried Artem Laguta [the 2021 world champion who signed for rivals King’s Lynn last week] but at the time he wanted to ride in Sweden and when we sort of knew what was going on we had already got well down the road to signing Tarasenko and Tungate. We missed out on that because we didn’t jump on it quick enough, and he ended up at King’s Lynn.

“We tried Matej Zagar, we’d done a deal and he moved the goalposts and wanted more money. He wanted a few different things even though the deal had been agreed and we had to back out of it because it was too expensive. It’s not me that pays the money, it’s not my decision, the final decision is for the owner [Keith Chapman] and he has the last say which is fair enough, it’s his money.

“It’s been a very testing time. I have been involved a long time at Peterborough, I went in as team manager in 2014 and I’d been there way before that in other roles. But as an official role it was 2014 and, since 2019 as promoter, but I’ve always had someone else holding the purse strings, someone in control.

"It’s been a joke to be fair, we have tried everything, it’s been hard work and we just wish we’d had 100% backing from elsewhere. We have had to go down different routes to find things out but that’s life we will keep going.

“We don’t want the club to disappear without a fight and we don’t want to lose too many matches this season. We are already a part way through the season and we have had eight meetings and only won one.

“I’ll always be honest. There’s no reason not to be. This has 100% been the worst season I have had since I have been involved because of the uncertainty around the club’s future, with the Showground [the Panthers lease ends this year] and riders’ unavailability.

“It’s been very testing; I have been involved a long time and this is one of the toughest times we have gone through and a lot of it has been of our own making because it’s not like the financial restrictions are put on by ourselves [the management team].”