STEVE WORRALL admits teaming up with a homeless charity puts his racing life into perspective.
The Poole No.1’s original testimonial at Wimborne Road was rained off in April.
With all the food for the event set to go to waste, Worrall decided to look up a local charity to give it to and discovered Roots to Routes.
Kind-hearted Worrall then invited the shelter back to the restaging of his testimonial earlier this week.
Worrall takes his Pirates side to Redcar tonight live on BSN. He revealed: “The decision to donate was just made between us. We had already paid for it all.
“It was either leave it at the stadium and the caterers get to do whatever they want to do with it, or go and pick it up and give it to charity.
“We were just sat in a room and we decided to give it to a local homeless charity. We looked it up on Google and found Routes to Roots, gave them a ring and asked if they’d accept the food and they were thrilled. We went down, they showed us around.
“Since then we’ve kept in touch and had the trustees at the restaging.
“We made arrangements for donations to be made. We are happy to help the charity get more publicity and further public support.”
Worrall, 31, believes that integrating speedway clubs into their local communities is vital for the future of the sport.
Belle Vue already started their own initiative at the start of last season with local charity Hideout Youth Zone and Worrall feels it’s crucial, especially in the current cost of living crisis.
He added: “Everyone is in a different position in life. Until you delve in deeper, you only realise how people are. The majority of us are quite privileged, we can go to the shops and get what we need or have a house to live in.
“Speedway clubs rely on their home fans. It’s not like football where clubs bring thousands of away supporters.
“The more that clubs can do in their own towns or cities, that will encourage people to come to the speedway.”
Worrall's thoughts will be echoed by his opposition tonight, as Redcar are a club that have also got close connections with the local community. Redcar recently donated Easter Eggs and gifts in person to the Children's Ward at James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough, something the club has repeated annually for over 10 years, as well as welcoming children affected the Chernobyl Disaster to racedays free of charge every year.
Worrall is currently on the crest of a wave with both his UK clubs flying high. Wolves are Premiership Play-Off positions while Poole, as per usual, are the pacesetters of the Championship.
He continued: “Team-wise the season couldn’t be going any better. Wolves have gone top of the Premiership. I know we’ve got some tough away matches coming up. But if we keep doing what we are doing at home, we will be up the top of the league.
“Then if we can pick up the odd decent away win like at Ipswich recently, that will almost cement our place in the Play-Offs.
“We are already in two finals at Poole. It’s just the league that we’ve got to nail down.
“We’ve got the chance to make history and do three successive doubles.
“Form shows that we’ve got every chance to achieve that. We are winning meetings but I’d say that myself and Richard (Lawson) are quite at our best. He is still coming back from injury and I’m still trying to get myself going.
“I’m not scoring what I know I can and want to. I know there’s more to come from me. I feel we are well on the path to making history.”
The Pirates will be looking for a repeat performance of their recent visit to Redcar in the BSN Series semi-final on the 20th May, when they came away from the Ecco Arena with a 14 point victory.
However, the Bears have since put in impressive team performances at home against Glasgow and Berwick, beating the Tigers by 16 points and the Bandits by 24. The Bears are also boosted by the return of German star Erik Riss to the side, who scored an impressive 12+1 points at the Ecco Arena last week.
A victory for the home side tonight would reduce the gap in the Cab Direct Championship league table between them and the Pirates to 1 point, as the Bears currently sit in 5th position on 4 points, with the Pirates joint top with Oxfpord on 7 points.
LINE UPS:
REDCAR: Danny King, Danyon Hume, Charles Wright, Jason Edwards, Erik Riss, Connor Bailey, Jake Mulford.
POOLE: Steve Worrall, Anders Rowe, Ben Cook, Zach Cook, Richard Lawson, Kyle Newman, Adam Roynon.
Words by Holeshot Media.
Images by Taylor Lanning.