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www.scunthorpespeedway.comScunthorpe promoter Rob Godfrey has paid an emotional tribute to Scorpions team manager Kenny Smith, who has been given just days to live after battling throat cancer for two-and-a-half years. Smith, 55, was diagnosed with cancer of the neck and throat at the end of the 2006 season, shortly after Scunthorpe had been crowned Conference League champions for the first time. He has been undergoing a course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy but, despite his health problems, has maintained a 100 per cent attendance record as Scorpions team boss throughout the last two years.
His condition has deteriorated in recent weeks, however, and Scunthorpe boss Godfrey has revealed: “He’s been battling throat cancer and sadly it now seems the cancer is winning. Basically, they’ve given him a limited time and we’re in the final stages.
“Anyone who has seen Kenny this year must have known he’s seriously ill.
“He hasn’t got the strength and we know he’s really bad because he hasn’t been going to watch at Newcastle or Redcar like he usually does, he’s just been laid on the settee gathering strength for our home meetings.
“He’s put Scunthorpe Speedway first before his health, which is a mark of the man.
“Kenny has kept it quiet, even from me to some extent, because he was always conscious that he wanted to be in speedway until his last breath.
“He has been having treatment for a long time but the news that he has only days to live has still come as a massive shock.
“He is really struggling with his voice and his breathing and it has now come to the stage where he is supposed to be going into a hospice near his home in Yarm. Kenny’s a proud man, though, and he doesn’t want to do that. He wants to spend his last days at home so Ginger Abigail, the former rider and one of his best mates in speedway, is travelling up from Norfolk to be with Kenny.
“A lot of people are thinking about him at this time because we are all so appreciative of what he has contributed to speedway, and to the sport as a whole.”
Godfrey says much of the Scorpions’ success in the last five years can be attributed to the hard work of his team manager.
“Kenny has been with us from the start when speedway came back to Scunthorpe and he’s a legend, an absolute legend,” he said.
“With his help, we won two Conference League championships and everything there was to win in the Conference. It’s a shame we haven’t won anything in the Premier League yet, but if we do win anything, it will be because of Kenny.
“I’ve taken the things he does for granted, to be honest. It’s only at times like this that you realise, ‘Kenny does this, he does that, and he does that’ because I’ve got to take them over for this Saturday’s match against Edinburgh.
“Kenny is a great man and he knew everybody in speedway. He could ring anyone. I keep myself to myself a bit and don’t know as many people as he does but Kenny went much further afield because he spent his life in speedway. He could ring Nicki Pedersen up tomorrow and ask him to ride in an individual meeting for us.
“That was his great strength and I need people like Ken to help me do the things I can’t do. He certainly filled that void, to the extent that between us, we can do everything.
“He’s always got on very well with the riders, being an ex-rider himself, and the team are all going to be devastated when they find this news out. They’re all aware that something’s not right but not the true extent.
“Nobody’s going to take over from Kenny as team manager on a full-time basis for the rest of this season. If, by a minor miracle, he’s well enough to team manage any of our forthcoming meetings, and he wants to do it, then he will be team manager.
“If not, we have people who can stand in for him until the end of the season.
“Kenny is a great man, he has been, and is, a great servant to British speedway and his contribution to Scunthorpe Speedway cannot be under- stated. He is going to be sorely missed.”
