A six-pack, a paper and a world champion's bike

Pop into Londis in Morecambe for a pint and a paper and you’re in for a pleasant surprise – a speedway bike belonging to local resident and TT hero John McGuinness.

Speedway fan McPint bought the Italian GM-engined machine from three-time world champ Jason Crump, and has put it on display during the sport’s world team cup, which is taking place this week and sees riders from nine nations riding as teams.

The TT racer told MCN: “The shop’s owner, Don, was fed up of the football during the World Cup so we thought we’d put a bike in the shop for the speedway world cup.”

McGuinness tweeted a pic of him and Don with the bike on a patch of artificial grass in the refrigerated section at the weekend.

The British speedway team are outperforming their football counterparts, having secured a surprise place in Saturday night’s final in Poland.

The Brits were expected to lose to the Australians in a qualifier at King’s Lynn, Norfolk on Saturday night, but they cruised through to their first final since 2010.

Poland are already through, Denmark are likely to join them from Tuesday’s qualifier and the Aussies will be favourites to get through from a last-chance qualifier on Thursday. The title has gone to either Denmark or Poland for the last 10 years and Britain hasn’t won the team title since 1989. The meetings are being shown on Eurosport.