Lakeside Hammers stage their most important meeting so far this season at their Arena-Essex Raceway this Saturday (October 6) when they take on the recently crowned 2007 Sky Sports Elite League Champions, the Coventry Bees, in the Elite League Knockout Cup Semi Final.

The Bees, who finished top of the League, defeated second place side, the Swindon Robins, on aggregate in the play-off Final on Monday at their Brandon Stadium in front of a huge crowd.

Most of Speedway's so called experts believed that it was apt for the two strongest teams throughout the whole of the League campaign should have reached the Final so the Hammers promotion and riders are fully aware that it will be a tough job beating the Bees but they are intent on proving the Speedway world wrong by getting through to the Cup Final.

The Essex Club are very disappointed that they will go into these two important matches without their Pole Krzysztof Kasprzak but the Hammers Co-Promoter and Team Manager, Jon Cook, has booked in Coventry track expert, Simon Stead, as the replacement for the first leg at Brandon, which takes place on Friday, and then, in the Saturday's vital home second leg, he has chosen Chris Louis to take the Pole's place.

The Saturday home leg sees a departure from the Hammers' usual Friday staging but by setting the start time at 8pm it will give supporters the opportunity of doing what they usually do on a Saturday afternoon, like watching football, and still give them time to get to the Arena-Essex Raceway in good time.

It should be a very big occasion for the Hammers supporters and the Club is urging their supporters to turn up as early as possible as a big crowd is anticipated.

Jon Cook commented on Saturday's vital match stating: "We will be looking for a solid team performance up at Coventry on the Friday so that we will be able to give ourselves a good chance of beating the Bees on aggregate on Saturday and that will mean we will have a Cup Final to look forward to.

"It is clubs like Coventry we need to be able to take on and defeat if we are to get where we intend to be in the next year or so. Our performance against them in this Cup tie will help us judge how far we have progressed since Stuart (Douglas) and myself took over the Hammers prior to the start of this season."

Both teams are expected to go into these two meetings using 'Rider Replacement' - The Hammers for Joonas Kylmakorpi and the Bees for Oliver Allen. Coventry will have the same side which won the play off final and will be led by Britain's two GP riders, Chris Harris and Scott Nicholls.

They also will include Rory Schlein, Steve Johnston, Martin Smolinski and Billy Janniro in their line-up.

Hammers will field their usual side of Andreas Jonsson, Adam Shields, Leigh Lanham, Ricky Kling and Andreas Messing with Simon Stead replacing Kasprzak for the away leg and Chris Louis coming in for Saturday's home leg.

The winners of this clash will eventually meet the winners of the other semi final between Swindon and Reading.