After a bright start to June, which included four back-to-back wins and a couple of closely fought away defeats, the month of July has taken a less than glamorous start in the aftermath of the Birmingham defeat.
As I travelled down to Poole to watch some Championship action, I was sent the line-up for the Stars in the lead up to their crunch Premiership clash away to Leicester Lions and at this point, already knowing this would be a difficult assignment, I knew it would almost be Mission Impossible.
Having lost the services of Ben Cook and Jan Kvech after recurrences of their respective injuries, we would also be missing the services of captain Nicolai Klindt, who was required by his Polish club, Rzeszow, on the same evening.
Having seemingly been left out of the side and available for the Stars, it was a shock to see his unavailability, given that he would also be dropping to reserve.
With the greatest respect to Tobias Thomsen and Zach Cook, we were very much up against it from the start, and so it proved, despite battling to a 16-point defeat, it was always a meeting we looked like we were coming up short again.
Having had the opportunity to speak with Tobias pre-meeting at Poole on Wednesday, this was a track he had never visited before, so the opportunity of big points was slim.
It was nice to see a return to form of Richard Lawson as well as another fine display from Chris Harris.
The 5-1 in Heat 15 from Bomber and Rich at least gave the club a boost at a time when we needed it most, but this was a meeting to stick at the back of our minds very quickly.
We were due to entertain Sheffield Tigers on Monday evening, a fixture we would be looking to pick up all three points from to get ourselves back on track.
Unfortunately, a biblical rainstorm on Sunday evening put paid to this fixture, and an early decision was made to postpone the meeting.
Perversely, this was the first home fixture we have had postponed in 2025, which is quite an abnormality, not just for King’s Lynn, but the sport in general, given how the weather has such a detrimental effect on the sport.
It was still unclear on the fitness of both Ben Cook and Jan Kvech for this fixture, but both riders enjoyed successful weekends in the Grand Prix and Polish League, respectively.
If anything, this left us with a period of seven days where we could regroup again, and ensure we have seven riders back on track when we entertain the Ipswich Witches in Premiership action.
The Stars do currently sit six points outside of the play-off positions, with Leicester Lions now having two meetings in hand in fourth place, although we do only have three more away meetings to come with a further six at home.
All is certainly not lost but looking at the fixtures remaining for July, we must ensure we pick up three wins at home, collecting the full eight points available to us.
The weekend saw the seventh round of the SGP series take place in Malilla, Sweden and there was improved fortunes for both Jan Kvech and Robert Lambert, who looked much more back to themselves.
For Kvech, it was a sixth-place finish, which was easily his best performance of the series, not only in 2025, but since he entered in 2024.
It placed him in 10th overall, only 10 points behind Andzejs Lebedevs in 7th place, who currently holds the last of the automatic qualification places. Jan has also qualified for the Grand Prix Challenge in Denmark in August which will give him another opportunity to qualify for the series in 2026.
Robert Lambert does not currently have this luxury, having opted out of the qualifiers in 2025, and he will now have to work hard again for the final three rounds of the series when it starts up again in Riga, Latvia in four weeks.
Robert enjoyed his best round for some time, having qualified for the last chance qualifiers.
Having started slowly, he picked up two confidence-boosting wins before bowing out in seventh place, picking up 10 points.
He does still find himself in eighth place, but just two points behind Lebedevs and Max Fricke for an automatic spot.
This weekend will see the Young Stars back in action as they make the long trek to Plymouth, as they look to maintain their fine start to the National Development Trophy campaign.
They currently sit top of the table, three points ahead of Birmingham Bulls, knowing that a win at Plymouth could almost seal the Trophy at the first time of asking, having returned to the third tier for the first time since 2016.
All of us at Pride of the East send our best wishes to Jason and the team for a positive result before we welcome them back to the Adrian Flux Arena next week.
As for the Stars, we look forward to what will be another nail-biting affair against those Witches, where any form of win will be what is needed to get our push back on track.
I’m sure the fans will still get right behind the team.
Up the Stars!
