DANNY King insists scraping through tight calls “is not fun at all” for Sheffield after leading a last-ditch fightback to beat Scunthorpe 45-44.

The Sheffield Window Centre Tigers trailed after every heat bar the one that mattered, nudging in front by a point after the final race which signalled King’s fourth win from six outings.
His 16-point haul was just enough to take the sting out of a Scorpions side that had led by seven after 11 heats thanks to flying guest Ryan Douglas bagging 13 and the speedy Danny Ayres snaffling nine.
The result follows on from a home draw against Glasgow in the Knockout Cup and 46-44 win over Berwick in recent weeks with King adamant the team expects more.
“It is not enjoyable I can tell you. It is not fun at all,” said King.
“We had a chat at the interval and said we needed to knuckle down in those last five heats. We didn’t straightaway and left it until the last three to do something.
“We certainly need to have a chat because we don’t want to keep doing this at home.
“Unfortunately it hasn’t happened yet and I don’t know why. On paper we are solid but we are now in June and cannot keep going on like this, we need to sort ourselves out.”
Todd Kurtz made a solid return to Owlerton as a guest for the injured Kyle Howarth, weighing in with eight-paid-10 and a vital point in heat 15 to push the Tigers over the line.
“To be fair to Todd he did a tremendous job,” added King.
“To come in as an away rider and do what he did in an such an important heat 15 deserves a lot of credit.”
Ayres made the most of the inside gate to fly away from the tapes in heat one with Kasper Andersen stuck at the back.
The missing point was caused by two exclusions in heat two. Zaine Kennedy was excluded for running wide Ryan Kinsley on the back straight before visiting guest Alfie Bowtell went down on turn three in the re-run. Broc Nicol made three clean getaways and led the 3-2.
Douglas cruised to victory ahead of Stefan Nielsen in the third with Jake Allen sauntering round in a shared fourth.
Sheffield looked to hit back in the fifth by gating on a 5-1 but while Ty Proctor won with ease, Drew Kemp was reeled in by both opponents on the final lap.
King’s first win came in the sixth and cut the deficit only but Douglas led a 3-3 and Ayres beat Kennedy at the back to grab Scunthorpe a 4-2 in the eighth.
Allen was too quick in ninth and King repeated the trick in the 10th, making it five shared heats up to that point.
Ayres again flew away with the 11th and while the 4-2 looked to have ended Sheffield hopes, a bullish burst out of turn two from Kurtz limited the damage and retained a glimmer of hope.
King was sent out as a tactical substitute but got pinned by Douglas who then passed Proctor at the end of the opening lap to prevent the hosts making inroads.
The breakthrough arrived when King and Kurtz bagged Sheffield's only 5-1 in heat 13, comfortably taking the spoils to make things interesting.
Nielsen and Bowtell seemed set to hit back in the 14th but the latter clipped the fence on the back straight and was excluded.
The re-run gave Nicol the chance to fight back and beat Nielsen on the final lap to cut the gap to one and King made no mistake of the golden opportunity with Kurtz comfortably holding on to the match-winning point ahead of the plucky Ayres.
SHEFFIELD 45: Danny King 16, Todd Kurtz 8+2, Broc Nicol 7+1, Ty Proctor 6+2, Kasper Andersen 3, Drew Kemp 3, Zaine Kennedy 2.
SCUNTHORPE 44: Ryan Douglas 13, Danny Ayres 9, Jake Allen 8, Stefan Nielsen 5+2, Josh Auty 4+1, Alfie Bowtell 3, Ryan Kinsley 2.