Peterborough Panthers star on great club memories and why he's at home in his adopted city

This week Holeshot Media talk with Danish ace Niels-Christian Iversen as he reveals why Peterborough will always be special to him and his family.

He’s in his third different spell in the Panthers’ colours – he first joined for two years in 2006, had another two season spell in 2009-10 – and fondly remembers a dramatic league championship winning season and reveals how his young daughter’s biggest wish can come true.

Iversen said: “It was quite a big year for me, 2006, but I wouldn’t say it had an amazing year average-wise, but we won the league which is very good.

“We had a really good team, Ryan Sullivan, Hans Andersen, Piotr Swiderski, Ulrich Østergaard, Jesper B. Monberg, Richard Hall and myself, and personally it was a memorable year for me, a great experience.

"I had my first Grand Prix season which was hard, and I missed the first round of the Grand Final, away in Reading, after I had crashed in the play-offs in Poland, but I rode in the second leg when we won the Championship by a single point in a last race decider.

“It was a big year in many ways, as I also rode for Denmark when we won the World Cup and, when I think back over the year, it is with mixed feelings, obviously there were some very big moments but it was a bit of everything!

“I came to Peterborough from Oxford when the promoter Nigel Wagstaff sort of shut it down. I just got a call from Peterborough and I said ‘yes, it all sounds good’.

"That was when Colin Horton was promoter, I think and he was great for the two years I rode there. He was always helpful to the boys in the team, whatever we needed he got for us.

"That was also the only time I have won the league in England and, of course, I want to do it again. I always want to win things, it doesn’t matter whether it’s in England, Poland or wherever.

“It would be good to win it again this year, but it’s all open right now. I think we have a good team on paper, but the league looks strong so we will have to try to do our best, although it’s always hard to say you are going to be champions by the end of a season.

"It’s not the favourites on paper that always win the title and we just need to get started. We have only had that one meeting, at home against Ipswich, which we lost, so we need to get winning on Monday against Leicester.

“I have only done three meetings so far, one was a testimonial meeting for Piotr Protasiewicz in Poland and then Peterborough against Ipswich and Monday night’s Peter Craven Memorial Trophy at Belle Vue.

"I’m riding in Poland for Lodz, but we haven’t been able to do what they call test matches [challenges] because it’s been raining. It’s unusual not to have done a test meeting, some of the teams have done more than others because of the weather and we start the league on Saturday.

“When I was at Peterborough in 2006 and 2007, I lived with my mechanic Paul in Northampton and I’ve also stayed in Wolverhampton, but I didn’t have my own property in England until I came back to Peterborough in 2009 when I bought a house in Hampton.

"I had been living in Sweden with my partner, now my wife, Laura, and I knew the area a little bit and it was fairly close to Stansted Airport.

“We just had to make a decision about where we wanted to base ourselves and I knew some parts of England, but Peterborough was an area that was more natural to go to when I was racing for the Panthers.

“We moved to Yaxley in 2012 and before we moved back to Denmark I bought another house in Hampton which is let.

“It’s good to be back at Peterborough again and our daughter Nicole is looking forward to seeing some of her friends from school again. I know that’s what she wants to do and I need to get that sorted.

“She’s nine now and was born in Peterborough at the end of 2013, and went to Holme School. We are quite a cosmopolitan family as Laura is Belarusian, I was born in Denmark, Nicole was born in England and we have also lived in Sweden!”

Niels and his Peterborough teammates are on track again on Easter Monday (April 10, 7.30pm) when Premiership newcomers Leicester are the East of England Arena visitors.