The Lakeside Hammers prepare for this coming Friday’s important home Sky Sports Elite League match against Wolverhampton by visiting Peterborough on Thursday.

The Peterborough Panthers have made team changes since the Hammers last visited the East of England Showground in June in the Knockout Cup. On that occasion the Hammers roared to a comfortable 12 point victory. Hans Andersen, Morten Risager and Henrik Moller have left the panthers and have been replaced by Ryan Sullivan, Lukas Dryml and Karol Zabik but Sullivan will, apparently, miss the visit of the Hammers due to a prior continental commitment. The Peterborough promotion will only be able to replace their new No.1 with a junior. The Hammers will, therefore, be looking to see whether they will be able to repeat their Cup win.

On Friday the action returns to the Arena-Essex Raceway Following the good overall team performance of the Hammers in their last home match against Eastbourne in the Cup Team Manager Jon Cook has decided to retain the same line-up by using the ‘Rider Replacement’ facility to cover injured Joonas Kylmakorpi and name Kauko Nieminen as No.8.

New father Andreas Jonsson is expected to return to the Hammers line-up for these two fixtures and everyone at the Club wishes to pass on their congratulations to Andreas and Frida on the birth of their son, Vincent, last Thursday evening.

The Hammers owner, Stuart Douglas commented on the Wolverhampton visit on Friday by saying: “ Wolverhampton have recently strengthened up with the addition of Jesper B Monberg (formally Jensen) and will be looking to extract revenge for the two defeats we have inflicted on them on their home soil this year. I’m certain that they will be looking for retribution, which will add spice to Friday’s match.”

The Hammers will be looking to claim important League points in the two fixtures this week with Jon Cook commenting: “We have to wait and see what both Swindon and Ipswich do away from home but both those teams need to win their remaining fixtures to go past us if we win our remaining home fixtures and both have to visit Poole. If we are able to pick up any points in our final away matches we will take a little pressure off ourselves. It’s another important week for the Club.”

The Wolverhampton match this Friday at the Arena-Essex Raceway has an 8pm start, although there will be a series of junior heats before that starting at 6.45pm. If the meeting does fall foul of the weather it will be restaged following day, Saturday 23rd August, but at this stage the weather forecast appears to be fine for Friday.