Gary Nuttall took over as Club Chairman, with the club re-surfacing the track in the winter and completing the installation of electric starting gates. Seven club sponsors were retained, to enable the purchase of a new set of green jerseys and the Club began it’s links with the Rotary Club of Astley. A&T had a then record number of 56 club members.
However, the year ended in bitter disappointment, as Sport England withdrew their £150,000 funding offer to re-build the track and facilities, due to Wigan Council’s failure to provide the club with a 25 years lease.

The Club moved up into the British Premier League for the first time. Team manager Mike Hack had assembled a strong squad on paper, but this didn’t materialise on the track, as some riders either didn’t turn out at all or very infrequently. Early season injuries to Andy Angell and Lee Phillips added to the absences. The team fielded was generally made up of a mix of Polish and Scottish riders and club veterans. After a promising start to the campaign, the club was forced to take the embarrassing and unprecedented step of withdrawing from the league mid-season.

The slump affected the team in the Northern League, finishing 6th out of 7 teams. However, we finished 2nd in the Northern Cup, for the third time in four seasons and we won the Manchester League Division1 for the third time in five years.

A&T finished 3rd out of 5 teams in the North section of the British Youth & Junior League, Bottom out of 5 teams in the Northern Combination Division, 7th out of 8 teams in the Northern Junior League and bottom out of 3 teams in the Manchester League Division 2.

A&T finished 9th out of 19 entrants in the British Club Championship. Darek Kurkowski was the club’s top points scorer, with 423, whilst Tomasz Wlodarczyk had the highest race average, on 3.59

1st team photo, back row, l-r: Lee Phillips, Ewan Tulloch, Tomasz Wlodarczyk, Mike Hack, Steve Ward. Kneeling, l-r: Gavin Kennedy, Remi Burchardt, Darek Kurkowski.