Leaderboard

Encouraging to see both Connor and danyon score some good points tonight in NL challenge - 12 from 5 and 10 from 4 rides respectively, should be a good confidence boost for them to get the season going!

You just have to look at the Poole v Somerset thread for your answer tbh. This morning calling for it to be off, then it was called off, now they are crying, forecast has changed so perhaps wrong to call off. By their very nature, it would appear speedway fans are weird. If a promoter calls off early, you will have conspiracy theories winging about, and if they try to get it on, but get defeated by the weather, they get it in the neck for putting money before fans. Can't win, springs to mind

So you have a decent holiday crowd in who have paid full price to watch 15 heats of speedway. "Okay, folks, the weather's beaten us. Hope you didn't mind the riders' problems in staying on their bikes. Don't worry, if you're new to speedway the racing's usually far better. No, you don't get any money back, but hey, we GOT A RESULT!" See you next week!" Too many people believe getting to heat 10 makes it all worthwhile. You get the points and the cash, but what about next time? Isn't it time that giving the paying public value for money counts more than getting a result while we still have a paying public left?

2009. “I think he’s found his level in the NL”. 2012. “Cook is just a top tier second string, he’ll never be anything else”. 2014. “Did well to make the rostrum, he just doesn’t have the mentality or skill to clinch top spot”. (British Final) 2017. “Can’t see Cook troubling the scores today”. (GP challenge). 2018.............

If they can't get 15 heats in then they shouldn't start the meeting....

To mark the start of the new season ITV News Anglia have done a feature with Len Read who celebrated his 100th birthday in January. There are links to a little taster below feel free to share it. The full piece will be on our 6pm programme tonight. https://twitter.com/itvanglia/status/979279219070062593 https://www.facebook.com/itvanglia/videos/2308155269198544 Cheers David Golley ITV News Anglia

Credit to the track staff for getting it on, looked bleak when we got in and it started raining again but after a tentative first couple of heats which cleared some of the surface water it held up pretty well. Promising for the Brummies, Davey's hot start for Swindon looks like no fluke and he was absolutely miles ahead of everyone, reminded me very much of Adam Ellis at #1 for us and Eastbourne a couple of years back, wouldn't shock me at all if he's got the highest average in the league come the end of the season. And he's going to be backed up very well by Danyon Hume who was also flying, he'll make an absolute mockery of his starting average if he stays fit. There's going to be some very good heat 13's (when Mitchell gets to #1) and 15's for us with those two. Bacon looked good too, had most of his success at #4 last year and not as a heat leader but hopefully with a couple of big hitters above him this year it'll take the pressure off a bit, hard to see a better HL trio in the league even at this early stage. Flint is definitely the real deal, going to be very exciting watching his progress this season. Cupitt looked like the rider from the first half of last season not the second, and 10 points from number 2 is very encouraging. Good to see them both get the outing in heat 15 whilst the rules allowed it. Walker a little disappointing, but plenty of leeway given for the tricky conditions and it being his debut, as long as he can chip in with 5 or 6 at home from that position then that'll be fine, and he'll probably end up at reserve once Flint's average goes up which will let him rack up a few more. Butcher unsurprisingly well off the pace (led Halder for a lap though) but that was all expected and we just need him to stay on his bike and pick up the pieces if anyone comes off, which he did to get his second place. Coventry were disappointing, Mountain will be a reliable high scorer, and Halder rode well, much like I expected him to when he guested for us last season and flattered to deceive. Armstrong and Harris the biggest disappointments though, Armstrong well off the pace and Harris has impressed me around PB before, so surprised for him to get 0 from 3 rides before winning a relatively low calibre heat 14. Not many Bees fans, not a fantastic turnout of Brummies either, not massively surprising with the weather I guess but hopefully now people have seen the Mason's will do everything to get the meeting on then it might encourage people to chance it a bit more in the future.

Looking more closely at the video the stadium looks a real mess. They have bought in a shipping container in place of the scaffolding on the home straight and there is a new (refs?) box on the floor nowhere near in line with the tapes. Anyone in the small stand in front of the pits/bend 1 won't be seeing a thing of bend 3 & 4 with the humps. Anyone who used to stand at ground level won't see a thing. There was a problem with there not being enough viewing positions last season & will now be even worse as everyone needs to be up high to get any sort of view. What an absolute shambles & embarrassment.

What the &*+# is this monstrosity? Must be a wind up with April 1st near? Who the hell puts a motocross track in the middle of a speedway track? Must be illegal. The view was diabolical last season with scaffold stands etc and they come up with this now. Joke of a club.

Massive improvement to the official BV website, and an online shop in the pipe line Happy days !

Didn't think anything was allowed on the centre green and there had to be a 4m and 10m zone from kerb that had to be kept free? How can the ref see the entry into the 3rd bend? Looks like Bye bye to the speedway in the future....

Is that mess on the centre green legal? Where are the paramedics going to sit? How about the track staff with the red flags etc I thought they all had to stand about 4 metres from the track when a race is in progress - will they have to stand on top of a pile of mud? And as someone else said people on the back straight will need a ladder to stand on to see the starting tapes. Sorry but my opinion is this is a disaster waiting to happen.

Think Poole pulled the plug after seeing Somerset put in a decent performance at Leicester. They will be hoping to fit them in later in the season when the Somerset riders are not available so riding against a patched up team.

Surely with all the rain around today it was the right decision. Having it in the morning doesn't give them a lot of time to sort the track out.

Osdal boy.. I know the meeting happens on april fools day but its too early for them jokes atm

Owners haven't changed as I understand. Downers Management(I think that's what they were called), the consortium that Mike Bowden, Per-Axel Warensjo and Steve Park are a part of, still own the club with Terry. It's just those with a day to day involvement that have changed around from what I can see, and this happened last season.

People aren't daft, they know why the happenings of winter 2010/11 occurred. Ford was made to look very silly on national TV in the Grand Final and by fair means or foul wasn't going to let it happen again. The guy is like a mafia boss, he runs everything from the shadows.

A little early in the season for a fishing trip surely.

Spoke to Colin at Birmingham tonight and he confirmed that it is indeed his older brother Terry and that they rode together in a pairs meeting.

Daniel just put it all to one side and give it another try you are obviously still are passionate about your speedway and the sport needs supporters like you.The sport pi..... me off like hell at times but i have to go habit i suppose but i see a few good races and i suddenly forget all the other crap just give it another go.!!!

The winter of discontent was caused by MF falling out of his pram after losing to Coventry and then seeking vengeance and retribution..

Live on N sport start time 4.30 pm UK time latest line-up Szymon Woźniak, Krzysztof Kasprzak, Martin Vaculik, Linus Sundstroem, Bartosz Zmarzlik, Patryk Dudek, Jarosław Hampel, Leon Madsen, Emil Sajfutdinow, Antonio Lindbaeck, Peter Kildemand, Nicki Pedersen, Rohan Tungate, Grzegorz Zengota Przemysław Pawlicki

Reading that regulation it reads to me that the mess on the green is illegal. Certainly looks like bye bye speedway at Rye. Wonder how the referee will view it on the track inspection i won't be surprised if the meeting doesn't get the go ahead after fans have already entered the stadium. Surely with alterations like this to the centre green someone from the SCB should be looking it over before the season starts.

I'm sure one of the " Forum Fannies " will be able to tell you

Edinburgh by 20

With SD having gone, we have lost many years of experience and speedway nuance with it, that wont replace itself overnight. The Facennas will have harvested some knowledge during the last few years but not everything. Do we have the ability to see through the chancers e.g. Barker, do we have a good enough knowledge of the rules to crunch the numbers on a team change at the next set of averages, do we have the contacts to seek out new riders if injuries happen, who is going to kick arses when riders dont push themselves? Time will tell. There has clearly been a fall out somewhere along the line though hopefully the door has been left open for SD to return. Its only after someone has left you fully realise the contribution they made.

A 1939 (29 Oct.) Oxford programme sold for £96 the other day on Ebay.

Speedway fans are the weirdest Badge, you have to be, some are just more weird than others.

Weather looking good just a few light showers in the afternoon, will be cold though!!

sometimes ratty when people go fishing they try to hard, and im afraid youve massively overdone that attempt,sorry, good try but no cigar

It’s not about being offended. I’ve nothing against looking at attractive women. It’s just tacky for the same reason that I’ve never understood why it’s necessary to drape rather fake women over cars to sell them. I find it rather insulting that someone would think they could sway my purchase that way.

That's why I drink straight out the bottle.

Swindon's has already been re-arranged and so becomes the original fixture. If Ipswich then have a call to make then they'll need to be looking at potential clashes

Sounds my idea of Easter..... Nurses and eggs

Sure is, Shows what can be done with plenty of hours in the gym, a winning mentality and being a fast gater, and his loyalty to British speedway is to be respected.

Should be targeting a win here. Lakeside have picked up a point so we must be looking for 3. Can’t see us getting anything at Lakeside so if we’re going to win the group, we need a point minimum. Agree with Taps though, even though I believe we’re a much better side, never confident of anything at the Showground. Such a difficult place to go and very home friendly.

But you conveniently ignore the fact that it would never have got to that point if it had not been for the actions of Ford in the first place. The league is a much poorer place for absence of Coventry and Peterborough, 2 teams who have always brought excellent away support. Who knows, maybe Poole could have afforded race suits this year if they were both still in the league!!

Yes, a nice idea of Jo, we will try to make it a yearly thing, thankfully the ward wasn't full and the nurses sent a lovely little thank you card awwww

Don't let the barstewards get ya down, as someone shouted out to Shane Parker once lol Let's just try to think positive people, you can do it if you try really hard arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Think the Championship promoters can be blamed fairly and squarely for our Weds race night #should'vebeenThursday!!

Not surprised. Cook will struggle this year imo. Lack of meeting's will get to him eventually. I know this sounds silly but I don't think qualifying for the GP's is going to help Cook. Hope I'm wrong because I like Cookie I just worry about his confidence being affected in 2018 due to struggles in the GP's and possibly limited Polish rides due to form outside of the UK.

Team suits do look more professional in a photograph or for promotional work. However...for me, I find it harder to distinguish who is who in a race, unless I look at the helmet colours and remember who's in the programmed ride. I found it much easier to instantly work out which rider was who, when they wore individual leathers. The individual colours stood out more. Riding styles were also easier to see for some reason. For example riders like Simon Wigg and Leigh Adams instantly stood out because of their colours and style. I'd personally prefer to see riders in their own style and distinctive Kevlars/Leathers with Club race jacket. The Race Jacket being distinctive, and not a small symbol surrounded by massive sponser's name. Birminghams big red 'B' on yellow, and Belle Vue's Large 'Ace' really stand out. Swindons robin and somersets just get lost somehow. Perhaps instead of team kevlars, team bike covers and fork covers would be better?

Please spread the word about this superb offer, to all season ticket holders across the country for what should be a great meeting. Also a great gesture from the club for a great cause. Roll on 7pm Saturday. http://www.workingtoncomets.co/news/article.asp?id=100909

Indeed it is but did you ever visit Harringay, perhaps your subliminal memory was also sending you messages. I was also just thinking about the journey those Belle Vue riders will have undertaken that day, assuming they were mostly northern based it must have meant a hell of a drive, pre motorways etc, no doubt they would all travel home following the meeting too, that's a long day for the cause. There is a scarf wearing Aces supporter in the picture too, again that would have been quite a commitment. As they say, every picture tells a story.

Exactly, he is part of a squad. He will ride when available. I'm all for giving the club and its riders a kicking if they deserve it on the back of something that's actually happened, but moaning like some have on here today is embarrassing.

On this day in 1959 Coventry and former Birmingham junior Alan Pearce (23) succumbed to head injuries sustained in a crash at Banister Court, during a Junior Challenge match between Saints and Bees the previous evening - part of the second half of the Southampton v The Rest meeting He had ridden for Bees Juniors earlier in the day (Good Friday) at Oxford in another Junior Challenge Match, which followed the Oxford v Coventry challenge match which saw the first ever appearance for Bees of Nigel Boocock

Yep Phil Fry. Seasoned speedway supporter and sponsor

I know this is going to go down like a lead balloon, but some of the crap that has been written over the last few days about the management and promotion really is tiresome. I doubt any of the negative bile is based on any sort of informed fact, just posting for the sake of it. If you don' like what they do, don't bother turning up. I know this is forum for open speach/debate and that's what I've done, but not about the management who I can see are trying to get up to speed with our sport. Just stop the moaning and get behind them.

"a big man in a small place" starman a ludicrous statement and a touch insulting to somerset speedway,speak regularly to a guy who goes nearly all poole and somerset meetings and was his opinion that last yr of the two, somerset had the better crowds.Its very possible in fact probable that somerset have the better business model,they own their stadium so dont have to pay say 50/100 k yr in rent(pure guess)they keep all food and drink receipts and any car park receipts plus income from all other events at the stadium,of the two businesses to most businessmen i would think somerset would be the more attractive option

The last few years of Silver on track weren't great. The PR also wasn't good but it was still better than it has been from the current promotion in the fact that it was consistent rather than coming in flurries with plenty of silence between. Let's not kid ourselves that last year we had anything like a great team. Two results mean nothing. Our last truly good team was in 2007. KK fell in our lap last season and dug us out of a hole. The team for this season isn't great either and will rely on Kasprzak again if we are to make a play-off challenge. We've opted for 'names' in Nicholls and Harris who are probably only going downwards, over trying to bring in someone like Sundstrom who may actually increase his average. The way the promotion team build strikes me as "he's done well in the past so he will again." See Watt last year, see Lanham in the Premier League campaign for evidence of that. We're not in the censorship era any longer. Tell us why Barker was released (tell us why we even signed him in the first place, he's bobbins), tell us how the stadium developments are going, give us a reason why there is no Press and Practice as opposed to letting people speculate. It doesn't take long to do these things but they will be appreciated greatly by fans of the club a.k.a. The paying customers.

Unfortunately the inclement weather has delayed any progress these last 5 years.