Arena juggle fixture diary.

The Arena-Essex Hammers are at present re-arranging several fixtures following the postponement of three home matches at Purfleet in the first two months of the season due to the weather.

Somerset were originally due at the Arena Raceway this Friday for a Premier League fixture but that has been replaced by Rye House in the 1st Leg of the Knockout Cup replay following the original encounter being drawn on aggregate and, therefore, requiring the two legs to be replayed. The 2nd leg of this tie will be at Hoddesdon on Bank Holiday Monday (26th May) with an afternoon 3 p.m. start time.

The Hammers were not travelling down to Somerset this Wednesday (21st May) as the Rebels have also experienced several postponements and wish to catch up on those cancelled fixtures by running on their normal race night of a Friday, which coincides with the Hammers race day. Arena, however, take preference on dates and the Hammers will travel down to Somerset later in the season probably on a Wednesday.

The Premier League home matches against King's Lynn and Trelawny together with the British League Cup match against Sky Sports Elite League side Ipswich all fell foul of the weather and need to be re-arranged later in the season. The Hammers trip over to the Isle of Wight was postponed on 1st April and was then rescheduled for Tuesday 27th May but this has now been called and a further date will need to be agreed.

The Arena team would have been missing both Joonas Kylmakorpi and David Ruud, who share a heatleader role in the side, as they are both engaged in racing in Sweden that day. In a recent change to the rules there is now no facility permitted to cover their absence. The Hammers Promoter, Ronnie Russell, did not wish to enter a meeting without his full team being available, as happened when the team had to undertake a meeting against Trelawny earlier in the season.

The date for the Premier League match at Swindon has still to be agreed following the original date being used for the staging of the qualifying round of the 2003 Championship of Great Britain. At the request of the Peterborough Promotion the Elite League side's British League Cup match against the Hammers has been brought forward to Friday 6th June. There will be no home meeting at Purfleet on Friday 30th May as the team will be up in Scotland that evening for the first of three Premier League meetings on a Scottish Tour. They face the Edinburgh Monarchs on the Friday, the Berwick Bandits on the Saturday (31st May) and the Glasgow Tigers on the Sunday (1st June).

The bad weather has certainly disrupted the programme of fixtures for the Arena-Essex Hammers and a lot of work is now being put in to re-arrange those postponed matches. The team have been performing well both at home and away and are determined not to have lost any impetus through these missed meetings. The side, at present, are in second place in the Premier League table and would have undoubtedly have been top if the weather had not intervened.