Sussex Express Review of WED

Picking over the Eagles’ bones

RARELY – if ever – can a club’s speedway season have been so picked over as the Eastbourne Eagles’ 2005 campaign.
It’s been given the Jeff Scott treatment – the Brighton-based author and self-confessed speedway nut who earlier this year gave us Showered in Shale.
That mammoth tome was a trip around virtually every speedway track in the country.
Jeff’s latest offering – When Eagles Dared – turns the microscope on the men from Arlington, charting the highs and lows of a highly unpredictable season.
He has a quirky style and gives readers something they do not get from the local papers, and the national speedway magazine – a view of the sport from the terraces.
Steen Jensen – a Danish rider who was tipped for big things with the Eagles – is a constant theme throughout the book.
Sadly for Steen and the Eagles, it doesn’t make happy reading for the youngster.
He struggled badly – often well off the pace – and managed to record only two heat wins in the whole campaign.
No wonder he disappeared without trace.
Steen keeps turning up like a bad penny but there is much more as Eastbourne’s roller-coaster season ended them with making the play-offs – to the surprise of many commentators.
Eastbourne fans will find much to savour and When Eagles Dared will make a perfect Christmas present for a fan and will help while away the dark winter nights before the action starts again next March.
When Eagles Dared by Jeff Scott, £10. ISBN: 0-9553103-1-8. You can order on-line at:
www.methanolpress.com
Richard Weston