Ipswich U16 108
Jack Chaplin 19, Pierce Bacon 19 , Terry Gilbert – Rolfe 17, Charlie Rumbold 17 , Richard Fellgett 16 , Matty Hill 13, Fraser Harris 7 .
Kesgrave U16 52
Harry Swallow 13 , Lily Gedge 12 , Matt Gifkins 8, Matt Oakley 7 , Stefan Farthing 6 , Luke Gifkns 4 , Tyler Brinkoff 2 .
Referee : Jordan Stant .
The South East U16’s league got under way with the first match of the season pitching reigning champions Ipswich against local rivals Kesgrave Panthers. It was the Ipswich side that came flying out of the blocks, throwing down a serious statement that they have no intentiion of giving up their title.
In truth the match was over before it really ever got started with the home side blowing their opponents away with five straight maximums leaving the visitors a mountain to climb. Ipswich gave starts to current British U10 champion Jack Chaplin and the returning Pierce Bacon riding against his old team mates, this being Pierce’s second match of the season having rode at Norwich on Sunday in an SE2 fixture.
Kesgrave were galantly lead by Harry Swallow who scored to his credit 13 points and was the only rider to beat an Ipswich rider all night.
Manager Les Fellgett certainly has a bag of riches at his disposal to pick from and intends to give some of the younger riders breaking through a chance to shine and collect valuable experience in team riding events as well as building the next crop of SEY riders. With the likes of Sam Warner, Ben and Alex Harvey ,Brandon Gilbert-Rolfe and Harrison Bacon all supported by the likes of Fellgett, Hill, Rumbold ,Knights and Clark there’s plenty of backbone in the squad.
This juggernaut of a team have now notched up seventeen straight wins and in fact you have to go back to April 2009 to see when they last tasted defeat. It’s a testament to the club and seemed a long way off when the Youth league started back in 2005 – in fact between 2006 to 2008 Ipswich lost ten matches in a row, so it just goes to show with hard work and dedication what can be acheived. As for this season its hard to see where Ipswich will drop points, but you never know, no one will be taken for granted and will get the upmost respect from the Ipswich team.