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I write.as a new poster hi all I am one of the clubs sponsors which includes meeting and rider sponsorship . I read with Interest one post regarding who would buy Poole, speedway should Matt decide enough is enough. Simple answer to that is no one in their right mind would because of the way speedway is run at the moment. The whole set up needs a complete overhaul from top to bottom, rules and regulations need changing to attract the fans back and introduce the younger fans and the sport needs a rebranding to attract more sponsors and coverage. The tv revenue has reduced by more than 75% most businesses could not survive if such a budgeted part of its revenue was cut this much. i have personally seen how many riders Matt has contacted and he has left no stone unturned . Riders do not want to ride in the league in the UK and those who might consider you could not afford. We all know the money in Polqnd is far higher and being based abroad makes sense to cut down on travelling costs so British speedway is not able to attract the riders we would all like to see , so where does that leave us. Last year I wrote to the BSPA twice regarding new ideas and rule changes and suggestions of an open forum with promoters, sponsors , fans to discuss ways of making the sport more attractive and looking at ways it could compete in a very competitive marketplace , did I get any response ,not one acknowledgement and one wonders why the sport is struggling .. Burying your head in the sand while waiting for the fateful day to arrive is not the answer , the sport needs a new focus with people willing to listen and change, its still very much an exciting sport and could attract more followers but not in its current format in my opinion.. For me seeing how hard Matt works is testament for his love of the club on Wednesday following the call off debacle and I was their when it happened you could see the effect it had on him and though I don’t agree with everythinh]g he does I won’t criticise his commitment . I love the sport and am proud of my local team I know things at the moment things are not the best I believe changes will be made but I fear it’s not at club level most changes need to be made ..

First of all, no one wants to see Poole suffer financial trouble or close down. Its a real threat for a lot of clubs these days and no one wants any of them to suffer like that. The banter this season comes from the fact we were told pre season you had an unbeatable team on a great track after all the winter work. Turns out the team and track are garbage so people are taking the pee. Doesn't mean we want you to close down.

Good luck to you Nick, Anyone sticking their neck out to give more coverage to speedway in general deseves to be congratulated.

No probably about it. Those 2 take undue and unnecessary amounts of flak. I think they both do a terrific job. Granted, a couple of errors at the weekend of which Nigel instantly apologised using social media. Nicholls also made an error. Perhaps it's the farcical format that needs addressing and not the 2 who are their upmost for the sport.

A standing ovation from people sat down?

Wilko is riding well and lives down your way. Incidently, thank you Ipswich for the loan of Covatti, especially on Sunday at home to Berwick. Apart from a dead gate 1 race, he was fantastic value, and ride his socks off as our guest. Not many guests do that and he thrilled the crowd with his enthusiastic style. Well done Nico.

Edited for accuracy

How on earth it ever got past the idea stage ,i'll never know But surely after this they will have trouble next season attracting tracks to host these meetings and fans to attend,let alone 3 man teams from all these countries....

Ridiculous.

Here's hoping Milik & Franc can do the Aussies, would be a perfect end to the meeting if they could.

Very sensible interview from Woffinden.. and pretty much shows he was right to what he did all along. GB has a bright future.

I really like the look of this Team GB team and I think they can win this meeting tonight, and do reasonably well in Wroclaw, then I listen to Alun Rossiter.

Only at a weekend!!

And gave a masterful reply when young Porsing wasn't happy with the view from his Torquay hotel: "Well may I ask what you expected to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically..."

And MOTD is on the BBC free to air therefore has a great many viewers who don't have access to both Pay TV packages that broadcast it.. To add to your point re 'discussions to be had'.... As a Sport that slavishly uses averages to determine team strengths I do think that it doesn't use these 'stats' anywhere near enough.. I am a convert to Baseball and they throw batting averages, pitching averages, fielding errors %'s out like theres no tomorrow.. They even break down the pitcher v batter historical performances against each other, how many runs the batter has had at that particular venue previously, performance v left handers/right handers etc etc etc.. Speedway could show and discuss the head to head performance between individual riders, previous points scored/average at that track by each away rider and wins % over the season, seconds, thirds lasts %'s for each competitor.. They could also discuss individual points scored by riders from the four gate positions over the season, update the League table through the programme as points change. (With fixed nights several meetings take place so 'the table as it stands' could be a recurring theme). Maybe each riders fastest time around the circuit could be discussed and highlighted if he beats it? The track record never seems to be mentioned? Why not? Speedway uses so much data, and kicks out so many possible stats that it should use them in the inevitable down time to keep a watching audience, at home and at the track interested.. Announcing how many times 'Hans has beat Jason at Leicester this season' and 'Hans has won 'x' % of races from Gate 1' in the space before his heat starts must be of some interest to some I am sure.. Each race could have its own little snippet of info as a build up to it, adds a bit of spice too if the last time some of the riders had a coming together etc etc.. Which ultimately builds anticipation.. And got to be better than just having 'K Tels Hits of the 70's' on repeat or 'Birthday Wishes to Gladys who was 88 last Thursday and her favourite rider was Bjorn Knutsson' as the 'entertainment' between races..

People make mistakes. Professionals as well. To just say they can't make an error because they are professionals is totally unreasonable in my opinion. And the velocity of errors vary. Foul language for example shouldn't be tolerated, but minor errors such as Saturday night really shouldn't have people getting their knickers in a twist over.

Guys, There is no swerving here at all. I'm not at liberty to discuss payment and amounts etc on a public forum. This has been done with permission, is what I'm prepared to say. As, I said, if you want to find out for yourself, please contact the BSPA via the correct channels.

Led to believe that's what Somerset done a few weeks back. They realised if things carried on at the standard at the start of the season, fans wouldn't be coming back. Poole could do with taking a leaf out of their book if they want to keep hold of their fans...... oh and chop Starman's fingers off too, as his postings just keep digging a hole deeper and deeper for Poole and Matt Ford (excuse the pun!)

GOOD to see a preview of tonight's event at BV on the TV pages of the Daily Mail today

THERE is a lot of utter rubbish spouted on here but this one probably takes the biscuit... congratulations

Amazing how wrong quite a few of these points are , so maybe post facts and not gossip about the situation , for one we could not have made play offs via the last Sheffield meeting Ellis missed, it was mathematically impossible, he was up front with the club about the u21 championships Ellis had only 2 bikes , how was he meant to ride in Redcar Thursday and be in Germany in pocking 17hrs Drive non-stop for practice Friday midday ? Think being chosen for you country is big honour and Ellis took it seriously, he was also only reserve for the final in rybnik in Poland but actually took Bewleys last 3 rides , Ellis made an effort to get back to Newcastle on the Sunday and it actually cost him and myself to fly back to make the meeting for Redcar at brough Park , he borrowed bikes from Rafal Konopka in Poland to ride for the final , but unfortunately we don’t know anyone in Germany to do that so his bikes were in uk for Redcar meeting , unless you can think of any other way of getting 2 bikes from Redcar on Thursday evening to pocking in Germany the next day quicker than road , be my guest and maybe you could have offered to buy Ellis a couple bikes as he certainly didn’t have money to do so , Dan had 2 more bikes so he is able to fly in and his father and Steve Lawson drove his extra equipment over. Just thought I would clear that up for you , if you want any more explanation, feel free to pm me and we can discuss it over the phone Via facts

2 meetings with race offs etc to decide what was always obvious the 7 teams in final was going to be.

So in having the SON to give other countries a chance we have a final of Poland Russia Denmark GB Sweden Australia Germany Mission not really accomplished...

more than capable of upping his average came to Berwick as a reserve ended up Number 1 the year we made playoffs

I've often wondered if speedway would be better if you actually started the meeting after ten or so races... Steve

Poor 1st half but 2nd half of the meeting has been fantastic... and the lesser nations have been very much part of it. Great riding from Woffinden and Lambert there. Lambert did superbly to keep Lindgren back for as long as he did.

What a race! Lambert needs to stay in! Boom!

The difference is that in SWC 3 out of 4 teams in each semi are pretty good (if you would remove seeding); Swe, GB, DK, Pol, Rus & Aus. These teams primarily fight for first place to avoid race-off and there are usually quite tight results.

The thing is Iris is that so many of us in here said that this would be a load of rubbish, last year when it was first announced, but we were put in our places by the experts such as Rising, who said it should be great and better than the old format!!..... To be fair, the "two" finals have got to be better than the absolute trash we have witnessed so far but these first two "qualifiers" have been a complete waste of time and more fool anyone wasting good money on these farces.

Robert Lambert came over as a very level headed, focused young man, in interview. All credit to him

Doesn’t matter how good the track is, when the likes of Sweden, Australia, GB gate against Finland, Italy etc there is going to be no racing! Its a crap format, it was always easy to see who the top 7 teams were going to be, should have just bothered with the final.

No matter how good the racetrack it cannot make up for a crap concept like this.

Surely Milik should get a warning for moving in heat 1, unlucky on Lahti but he had to go

Are you the girl?

And his reasons for underachieving at most other places are?

Personally if he would ride for us I would have him tomorrow, he certainly isn’t getting many rides for Torun this year.

Completely disagree, the racing today is at least as good as it has been any time since I first went in about 1967. What has changed, not just for Speedway, is the huge variety of things people have the opportunity to do with their money these days. Like Aces51 I think the only way to grow the sport is to change the way people on the outside perceive it. It is mad, bad and dangerous so the authorities should be encouraging that side of the sport to be seen by the fans not trying to rule it out. Slowing bikes down wouldn't hurt the sport but neither is it going to bring in any new people through the gate. Preparing tracks for fair racing seems logical and personally I'm all in favour of it, however the big problem is that it is proven that a team winning at home on a 'trick' track attracts more fans than one losing on a great racing strip.

Me too, it's speedway on a brilliant track, the National team are competing, the weather poses no threat, what's not to like? Sod the format & scoring mechanism, if enough riders are in the right frame of mind and fancy a burn up we are in for a treat, bring it on.

Pure class that! Hopefully we will see riders helping their team mates out tonight instead of disappearing off into the distance. Despite all the moaning on here I am really looking forward to going to this tonight.

Josh Auty better than Kyle Howarth?

No mike it will not cost lots of money , just ask gary may just hard work and knowing what your doing.

I think we can all agree mathematically that the facilty ran out on 2nd June If Newcastle used it first on 6th May v Ipswich ….. that's 26 days in May, so that leaves 2 days in June ie ending on a Saturday Now given Berwick did not object and the referee rules the team ok there can only be 2 explanations 1 - the 28 days facility starts from when it is 1st used (unlikely - but I don't have the rule book) 2 - as leander quite rightly points out we don't know when the facility started. Lewis may have handed in an injury note before making the official announcement. A team may be allowed rider replacement in such a case until the BSPA officially gives the 28 day notice. we just don't know But to call George a cheat is bang out of order …….. it was not like we sprung this on Berwick at the last minute ……. Newcastle team was announced in advance and Berwick could have done the maths and objected … but they didn't and they haven't complained since still - we wouldn't want a sport where the rules are clear and the supporters understand whats going on ………………...

Always been a fan of Nathan. Said many times I would love to see him in a Bears race jacket. Got my wish, albeit only for 28 days....or maybe longer...I hope so.

I have hardly missed a meeting since they reformed in 2000. But after the fixture gaps the last two seasons being bad enough this year has made me actually loose the love of speedway. Three home meetings we have had in two month and now another three weeks to wait. I'm just about giving up on the sport now.

And you wonder why sponsors aren't rushing to sponsor the sport. Absolutely pathetic comment from a father of someone involved in the sport. Rules and regulations are there to be adhered too. They would be in other sports. Yet another reason why speedway is not taken seriously by many.

Race card for SON rnd 2:- https://www.keepandshare.com/doc16/21013/son-c-pdf-67k?da=y

So, if TV televised a concert you'd only want to hear the few chart successes in the gig? Just get it all finished after 15 minutes? Wonder why Sky and BT spend all that money on live sport when just a 'Match of the Day' style programme would be enough for the undemanding viewers with limited attention spans? All sport has its moments when action isn't rivetting, but viewing figures show that the public want live, full coverage of sport, even if others settle for third rate. The divide between the real world and the BSF is quite staggering at times.

ASSETS are a nonsense. Unless a rider is under contract he should be free to go wherever he pleases. Works everywhere else.

if bikes were slowed down and tracks were prepared for racing we wouldn't need gimmicks the sport could sand on its merits

Has Azerbaijan got a couple of Speedway riders? Or maybe Nigeria? Or possibly even Sri Lanka? (Don't they have the Tamil Tigers?)