OUR DIAMOND DAYS

2008 was being celebrated by Poole as their Diamond Jubilee season but it was one they would have to go into without familiar "face" Craig Boyce, who, the previous November had announced his official retirement, returning to Australia. 
 

Two other big name Australians were missing from the 2007 side - Jason Crump and Troy Batchelor - as Poole, like all clubs, had to reshuffle to meet the average, whilst on the management side Mike Golding sold his interest in the club to allow him to go out on his own at Somerset.

However, stability was there with the ever reliable Bjarne Pedersen being joined by a somewhat green Chris Holder, the showman that is Adam Skornicki and a rapidly developing Swede in the shape of Freddie Eriksson. Dave Watt and the relatively untried Karol Zabik and Zbigniew Suchecki completed the season's starting line-up, but the neither of those latter two Poles were to see beyond the end of April due to injury and a lack of confidence, respectively.

May though saw return of Zetterstrom together with Daniel Davidsson as replacements and the Pirates began to look title material inspite of back-to-back home league defeats at the hands of Ipswich (40-50) and Peterborough (44-46). After this mini-set back the Pirates were to remain unbeaten at home and only lost four more times on their travels, twice in league combat and twice in the Knockout Cup, including the first leg of the final at Eastbourne.

The league form was good enough to see the Pirates climb to the top of the tree, although top spot was decided on race points difference as both Poole and Lakeside accumulated 52 league points. With the play-off semi-finals restricted in those days to just a one-leg shoot-out, Lakeside produced a resounding 56-33 win over Swindon and the Pirates went marginally better with a 59-33 demolition of Ipswich to set up a two-legged affair for the title between the Hammers and Poole.

The first leg was staged at Purfleet and despite the difficult track conditions the Pirates began well. In fact before the Hammers could gain a heat advantage the Pirates had stormed into a 16-8 lead, courtesy of back-to-back maximum advantages from heats two and three, sandwiched between two shared exchanges. With Lakeside closing the gap by a half with two-in-a-row 4-2 scores Bjarne Pedersen and Adam Skornicki quickly restored that healthy lead with a 5-1 from heat  7. Magnus Zetterstrom and Daniel Davidsson followed suit as Lakeside took a chance with a 15 metre tactical handicap start for Andreas Jonsson, which failed to muster any hope for the Hammers. Jonsson though did feature in a 5-1 with Jonas Davidsson in heat nine and the Hammers' number one was out again in ten, three in a row, when he took Skornicki so wide the Pole Pirate hit the deck, all this happening whilst Pedersen was setting the pace out fron, thus protecting the Pirates lead.

With two more shared heats following, Poole still held an eight point lead and there were just 18 heats therefore left of this Grand Final, 15 of those scheduled for home soil in seven days time. Poole fans were anxiously wondering what magnitude of lead they would be taking into that second leg and they really weren't backing on a 5-1 reversal in heat 13. But Dave Watt and Chris Holder conceded that very thing, Jonsson and Tomasz Jedrezjak prevailing for the home side who had designs of at least being involved in a last heat decider. Skornicki though had other ideas in heat 14 to bank his third race win of the night. Daniel Davidsson followed home his brother thus giving Poole a match winning 4-2 and a six point lead heading into heat 15. Jonsson made it four race victories from seven outings, spoiling Pedersen's hitherto unbeaten performance but crucially for the Pirates, backing up in third was Skornicki to seal a six point victory, 48-42 for the Pirates ahead of the return clash on 13th October 2008 and it will be that second leg that features on week three of Poole's Wednesday night lockdown streaming service on 29th April.