By John Walsh

Last updated 12:20, Friday, 25 July 2008

Berwick Bandits have had to pull-out of Saturday’s Premier League Fours after their side was decimated by injuries and international call-ups.

In-form Adrian Rymel is riding in the Czech final and Tero Aarnio is also involved in an international meeting, while the Bandits have injury problems over Tony Atkin and Norbert Magosi.

Atkin, who has a damaged ankle and Magosi, who hurt his shoulder, would have had to face late fitness tests after missing Tuesday’s match on the Isle of Wight.

“It was getting to be an impossible situation so reluctantly we have withdrawn from the competition,” said promoter Peter Waite. “There was nothing we could about riders taking part in their national championships or the injuries.”

Scunthorpe Scorpions have been drafted in to take their place in the meeting and they will be in the same group as King’s Lynn, Reading and Newcastle.

Either King’s Lynn and Reading will be fancied to win that group, especially as Newcastle now have an injury doubt over Christian Henry.

Scunthorpe will track Magnus Karlsson, Richard Hall, Carl Wilkinson and Viktor Bergstrom.

The Isle of Wight won the Fours at Peterborough last year but they don’t get the chance to defend their trophy, for contesting the other group will be Somerset, Workington, Sheffield and Edinburgh – by far the toughest section.

Workington won their first Fours title at Peterborough in 2001 and have subsequently won it twice on their own Derwent Park track in 2004 and 2006.

The Comets missed out, however, in 2005 when the championship was held at Derwent Park so this is the fourth time in the last five years that the competition has been held in west Cumbria.

A bumper crowd is expected and it will be easily the biggest audience for a sporting event at the stadium this year.

“There’s always a lot of interest around the country at this type of meeting and we are fortunate in having some of the best riders in the League for this one.,” said Comets owner Keith Denham.

Workington have two of the top ten riders in the Premier League averages, as do King’s Lynn while Somerset’s Jason Doyle is the other. Only injury (Ulrich Ostergaard) and an international commitment (Adrian Rymel) have kept-out two more of the top ten.