Revealed: Eastbourne's full speedway schedule for 2021

The club is staging the Championship of Sussex, an individual competition which dates back to pre-World War II.

All seven Eagles will take part, along with invited visitors, and club managers believe it is an ideal start to the season for riders who saw little or no competitive action in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

An early season highlight will be the match against Poole which marks the return of the south coast derby – a feature for many years when both clubs were in the top division.

The first away match is at Birmingham, a club run by former rider David Mason, who lives in Eastbourne. The delayed 90th anniversary celebration is marked down for early September.

Eastbourne Speedway director, Ian Jordan, said: “Our planned fixtures are obviously entirely dependent on the Covid-19 lockdown being eased and restrictions lifted.”

It is highly likely that when the season gets under way, matches will be all-ticket (bought online and paid for in advance) with limited crowd numbers because of strict Covid-19 regulations.

Supporters who last season bought and retained season tickets and ten-match tickets will have priority when applying for tickets.

Jordan added: “We will be shortly issuing a full guide to show supporters how simple the system is to use and will aim to put match tickets on sale for all Speedway matches from no later than early March, or as soon as the Government produces a road-map out of lockdown.”

Co-promoter and team manager, Trevor Geer, who lives near Eastbourne, said the fixture list would give the HG Aerospace Eagles plenty of time on their home track, to build up confidence, before undertaking a run of away matches.

Jordan summed up: “It’s been a long time since we saw competitive speedway at Arlington (September 28, 2019).

“The stadium owners (the Dugard Family) have been amazingly supportive of all we are trying to do and we cannot wait to reward the patience of them, our riders, officials, sponsors, supporters and speedway fans everywhere by getting the show back on the road, whilst paying absolute respect to all of those affected and impacted by this horrible and exceptional period in our history.

“It will be a very emotional return for us all, I’m sure.”

Full fixtures are here