LEIGH Adams, one of Swindon’s all-time greats, hopes the club can return next year ‘bigger and better’.

With the Robins on hold for a second successive season pending building work at the Abbey, riders have been fixed up elsewhere.

Jason Doyle (14) and Rasmus Jensen (9) both did well for their Polish clubs at the weekend, Troy Batchelor and Adam Ellis are preparing to race for Sheffield and both Anders Rowe and Jordan Stewart will be at Ipswich.

Adams, a veteran of 115 Grand Prix rounds and eight wins in his glittering career, admits he was shocked when reading the news in January about his former club missing out this year.

He said: “Obviously it was a big shock for everybody - riders, fans, everyone I’m sure.

“The management have their reasons I guess and the stadium is going to be upgraded.

“I hope they can come back bigger and better but I feel sorry for the fans who have been starved for 2020 and now have to go another season without speedway In Swindon.

“In this crazy world we’re living in, I think we all have to expect the unexpected!”

Doyle’s switch to Leszno in Poland continues the Swindon connection between the two clubs as Adam spent 15 years at the club.

“It’s a fantastic club, fantastic sponsors and great people,” said Adams. “I still keep in touch and try and feed riders and what-not to them, and it’s a pretty awesome place.

“I loved going to race there. Banking to me is gold, as soon as you’ve got banking on a track what you can do with that is awesome, and the speed of the place is just incredible. To turn up there every week was a pleasure.

“It was pretty gnarly there in my last year, they really gripped it up just to try and put off the away teams, and it was just incredible how grippy it was - sometimes I could hardly hang on!”

Riders up and down the country are back in practice with youngster Rowe going through his paces at Redcar last weekend.

Batchelor, meanwhile, is also set to take to the track for the first time in months in the next few days.