The world's top cycle speedway riders came to Manchester for the weekend's World Cycle Speedway Championships. The staging Astley & Tyldesley and Bury clubs put on a fantastic promotion of top class cycle speedway racing throughout a very hot and sunny weekend. As predicted, racing was fast and furious, with no shortage of incident and controversy.

Seven teams contested the World Team Cup at Astley on Saturday, with first blood going to Poland, as England's Lee Aris shed a chain in heat 4, but managed to scoot round to avoid being lapped, and secure a vital point. The very next race saw Poland's Lukasz Nowacki forced off the track by two opponents, but astonishingly English referee John Whiting excluded the Pole for leaving the track, to put England 1 point ahead. The remainder of the match consisted of a titanic battle between England and Poland for the top spot, with the other five teams competing for third place. Nowacki's exclusion proved to be a key factor, as England went on to retain the World Team Cup, beating Poland by just one point. A late surge by Scotland saw them overtake Australia to take 3rd place.

World Team Cup (sponsored by Eagle School of Motoring, Astley) result

England 71 Poland 70 Scotland  52 Australia 48 Wales 44 Ireland 32 Holland 31.

The Astley & Tyldesley and Bury clubs put on a terrific festival of top class cycle speedway racing over the weekend, which was widely praised and enjoyed by all present, but sadly the main talking point at the end of the weekend was the performance of the two senior English referees and the large number of exclusions handed out to foreign (mainly Polish) riders.