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Let us celebrate the beginning of something bigger than petty squabbling. When all else has gone, history will show that Great Britain raced against Australia in a Test match today. This is no small thing and if GB weren't good enough to take home the honours, then bloody well improve. Oz take the bragging rights today and if that hurts (it should) come back fighting all the harder. Feel the desire, because sure as hell the Aussies ain't going to make it easy. And why should they? We have the makings of an international side, but there is a long way to go. There's the need, now want the right outcome. Well done Glasgow. You did a good thing, even if the wrong team won (just kidding!).

This weekend is the one weekend of the season when all FMNR`s have priority on their riders. PZM or any Polish club for that matter has no say where a British or Finnish rider rides this weekend, he rides where his FMNR says he rides. This is why we have the finnish, swedish, polish and danish finals this weekend. All agreed last winter between the big nations.

Mate, it is a big thing. Every single clash between us and your lot is a big thing. As someone said before, if it wasn't an official international, Chris Holder wouldn't get a visa to ride in it. I'm in Glasgow now, nice city. Bring it bloody on!

So I guess Aussie won - so what, why not. Its the first test match in years Team GB has been in (Great Britain is too long so I gonna keep calling them Team GB or even GB). The youngsters have got to start somewhere and now they done it. Its a yardstick been laid and that's a good thing.

Definitely Perhaps because often the view of a good race is one of their teams riders making a pass which is more likely to happen at their home track

With regard too how good or bad the racing is at different tracks...One things for sure posters opinions are nearly all biased towards their own tracks ..and I do include myself in that observation......

Couldn’t disagree more. I support neither club but now living in Colchester and recently retired, I visit both quite frequently. Ipswich is a much better race track IMO. Having been to both venues Thursday and last night it was night and day. Respect your own personal opinion of course. We all have an opinion and what we see. I’ve seen Covatti for example pull of moves at Foxhall in recent weeks that he’d never have a chance in hell of pulling off at Lakeside.

Hope its a huge success.

They must have moved the inside line out to the fence when Nick Morris and Scott Nichols were out then because that's wher e a lot of their 13 points each came from. In fact Scotts two defeats both came when he was off the two inside gates and couldn't get get out to the dirt quick enough . Nicks win in heat 13 was aff gate 4 and he blasted right round the outside of both Scott and Rory.Alfie Bowtell only knows one line and it's not the inside one . His heat win was right round the fence. I though it was a good meeting myself. Highlights for me were Zach in heat 10, going from 2nd to 3rd, back up to second then just taking the win on the line, and heat 11 , with Nick and Rory passing and re passing, several times often so close it was difficult to tell who was in front. It takes two sides to make a decent meeting and I thought Rory and Scott both rode like the quality riders they are, Scott in particular was in find fettle for a 40'year old.

Must of just been me then but I enjoyed the meeting and I thought their was plenty of passing. Looked to be a very good crowd and they even had the fans back on the stock car track. Some encouraging words from Cook regarding the clubs future so fingers crossed what he said they are trying to do comes off.

I enjoyed that today.... well done Glasgow. Well deserved win for the boys from down under Just as I thought pre meeting, it was very difficult choosing who to cheer on with 5 X Monarchs split between the teams so I changed my allegiance from race to race Love or loathe Tai Woffinden, I have to say he makes riding a Speedway bike look so easy. He looks like he’s sitting in an old favourite armchair Big crowd, big noise.... nice touch with the free horns and flags Hope the collection for Lewis Kerr went well, get well soon lad

The problem today was that Lambert refused to ride for his country, deciding he would rather have a holiday, and Rosco chose the wrong Worrall. Why choose an out of form rusty one when Richie is banging in the points? Made no sense.

I think we're going a bit far here by wanting other forms of entertainment. It's speedway ffs and there should be no reason to attract people for any other reason than watching a properly run sport. Speedway is thrilling, but the thrill goes for the newcomers the longer they have to stand around waiting for the next race. waste of time trying to introduce newcomers if you're going to instantly lose them. No gimmicks like double points, no teams being near the bottom after a few months and then signing a few better riders and coming good just at the right end of the season (I didn't even mention Poole). It's like Popeye eating some spinach and growing big muscles. The qualifying matches for the Play-Offs allows this. As long as the team gets there, even if they just scrape it with a much better side than began the season, then they are quids in. Belle Vue lost some fans that they managed to win back a few years ago when Wolves brought in Woffinden to eventually come good in the PO Final after BV had made all the running. Ridiculous. Get the rules right, make it simple, fewer gaps between heats and fewer restarts because of a rider getting a quicker start. There is nothing worse on a cold night than gaps between heats. Nothing worse on a cold night than gaps and having to watch someone trying to entertain you with another form of a show while there's a speedway match going on. Again, the latest BT Sport matches have overrun. Why? 120 minutes to do 15 heats and we still run out of time. It's wrong to make the public think they're getting value for money the longer they're out of the house, but most of the time is spent wishing they'd hurry up with the next race.

There is a reason Tai does not ride in the U.K. Lets face it if he did then he would be scoring maximums every meeting but would it make him a better rider, no - its competing with the top riders in Poland, Sweden etc. that keeps him sharp and at the top of the game. Only one in the Aussie team double up here the others are abroad and until the GB riders do the same we will never be at their level consistently.

That's a fantastic idea. I've never worked out why the promotion here in Ipswich don't do more with the cycle speedway club. When I was a kid I wanted to be a speedway rider but never had the opportunity however I found out about cycle speedway and I did that. They could have a rider at the club in Whitton every week and then open up the Foxhall track once a month to the any kids who want to come along and use pedal power. Hats of to ipswich thou on the tie up with the football club that is great promoting.

My lad plays Sunday League Football... His Club has teams from U8 to U18... There must be around 200 lads/girls in the whole of the Club.. They play in a League that has 40 teams per age group over Four Divisions.. Thats approx 400 different teams in total... That's approx 8000 lads and girls.. Many of the games are played on adjacent pitches so three times on a Saturday and on a Sunday all pitches are full of kids playing football, coaches coaching football and lots and lots of parents, guardians, friends, relatives etc etc of the kids watching football.. Why dont Speedway clubs sponsor their local League and set up 'roadshows' at the various game venues each weekend..? They could either do giveaways or flog £5.00 tickets for adults with kids free.. (These people invariably are not attending Speedway now so hardly any threat of loss of revenue I would suggest).. Plus you would get 'teams' turning up together which can only encourage further visits as individuals won't be 'the only kid there' which looks to be often the case currently.. (As BV have a football pitch in the middle of the track maybe they could even put some short games on during the interval or maybe a longer game before the Speedway starts)? It costs approx £3000 to pay for the end of season prize giving day trophies... My team (BV) must have circa 20 different football Leagues in and around the Gtr Manchester conurbation, in towns such as Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Inner City Mcr, Bolton, Wigan, Tameside... A huge amount of U18's to be made aware of the Sport and targeted... Add to Football, you have Rugby, Cricket, Hockey, Lacrosse and even Cycle Speedway Leagues, (many U18 riders of which don't attend Speedway)! (?)... There are lots of opportunities to get Speedway noticed in its local community with many not costing the earth to do so..

No penny dropping required here. My history of criticism of our promotion's BS over the years is well documented on the forum.

I wasn't there so can't comment on it..but some people class good racing as riders being close all race and some would say that's rubbish as riders can't pass. As long as the majority think it's good and turn up the week after then happy days. I personally try not to visit some tracks , because I don't like what I see, but will travel the other end of the country to what I think is good. We all see and want different things.

Very difficult to go there and score points on a one off visit when home riders are so dialled in even if he used to ride there, one could argue that his score proves how tricky a circuit Armadale is. Even Cook has posted modest scores there in the past as a visitor. Just like Poole in the top division Edinburgh look to be revitalised by a couple of changes and seem to be the team to beat now.

isn't it amazing how we see a meeting differently!. I thought there was a lot passing, good close racing and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Surely representing your country in an actual meeting is more important than practice?

He has started crashing on the way to meetings now, I knew he was prone to the odd accident well several accidents but doing it on the way is taking it to a whole new level.

Not a fine, but there's a big presentation made to Stoke every year they manage to complete their fixtures. Not sure what the presentation consists of because I haven't seen it, as I have only followed the sport since 1956

I have been “lambertlasted” by mostly Kings Lynn fans for having the temerity to say Lambert should cancel his “holiday” to ride in the meeting. To cry off as tired is feeble in the extreme, especially for a kidof his age. Very poor imo.

Really enjoyed that meeting , not the result I wanted but hospitality certainly helped ease the pain. The Aussies were sharper at the gate. Tai Woffinden sublime at times and it will be some time before anyone takes the track record from him, heat 15 with Cookie picking off holder and taking the win just about took the roof off. Hopefully we can get some more of these meetings , our boys need to race the best to improve, let's hope it is the start of something for team GB

I used to get annoyed by a race interrupting a good conversation

We all know Jack has been thrown in the deep end, for whatever reason. The lad is trying his best.. Do you think he likes running last? It's to early for him, and i'm sure he's riding to try and help the Robins. He could easily say FU and don't bother. I doubt he is doing much more than covering his costs. Being a youngster and a Brit, he may well read this forum..

Haha!!! I will not be getting banned for saying what everyone thinks.

You are right in all you say rules etc need changing including the BSPA but when I suggested a supporters group to try and influence the BSPA with clearly defined priority changes as a group (ok so it might not have worked) only one other forum member took the idea seriously. If a supporters "influence" group is a non starter then all we can do is try and encourage supporters through the turnstiles. The vast majority of the public dont even know they have a local speedway track. My idea is not to have other forms of entertainment but to get more kids aware of their local track.

Not a very deserving champion as IMO he shouldn't have been in the re-run of the final in the first place. Spoiled a very good meeting.

Would be sensible to check that everyone can make it yeah ...... no doubt for Robert this break was a one off .....

The 1 league idea would mean a lot of pointless meetings this time of season though. There can only be 1league winner. And maybe a playoff stetch to 6? This x amount of teams with daed rubber meetings. Crowds will be low. Also local derbies will be a minimum if teams face off once. And if it becomes farcical like a few seasons back where you face some teams 1ce and others 2ce then that would be a joke too. The 3 tier thing is a good foundation. The middle tier is too strong. The middle tier needs to be half that of the top league. Just like it used to be. If you scrap set race nights (I’d give it longer) then the top league needs to always get the priority on riders. We need to get a vibrancy back to the league. Look at team gb at the moment. It’s being marketed well and there seems to be a lot of people promoting that area of the sport well. A team of people like this to run British speedway as a whole. Hopefully in a way that may attract people to advertise through it. social media needs to be ran in a way so negative coments are deleted before the toxicity damages the sport completely. Theare a lot of people out there who talk down the sport so much. In the modern day of social media people see this and treat it as a review. So the people who love the sport are also poisoning it and slowly killing it with their half witted comments. A bad meeting is a bad meeting, it’s a sport so not every meeting is going to be great. It’s a dangerous sport too that requires the weather to play ball. Hold ups happen. Don’t make every issue into a crisis! the pricing is my main gripe. Its a sport that is hard to follow until you get to grips with the riders . I’d give every school kid 3/4 free family entry tickets. This would mean they would get familiar with riders and rules. And if the price right they may return after these expire. If it’s was around 12 pounds entry it would be very tempting I’d suggest stands would look fuller too maybe prompting more advertisement and a better atmosphere. 7 vs 7 domestic speedway is great. It annoys me that the Phil Rising column in the star focused in on the 1 league idea as being popular. Based on what? A few coments on the forum? Most speedway fans don’t use the forum and those that view it without commenting see it (forum) as a depressing joke. The speedway star is where people go for their speedwaynews fix. Maybe use that as a gage as to what people want. Structure wise. But don’t forget brexit/the us elections. Sometimes what people want isn’t always the answer. People get too het up on the politics of the sport and don’t enjoy it for what it is. exciting but overpriced

At last, thank you Jane

Starman, I am fully conversant with the REF and probably closer to it than you might be giving me credit for. However, this is not about the good work that the REF and in particular the work and effort that Stan and Val do to keep it all working it is about collections for individual riders (which apparently has to be approved from an ivory Tower! I’m simply stating my own personal position and for clarity it is: Collections for all riders in the 2018 campaign = I’m in collections for named riders = I’m out. simples

Think usually that means some fines weren't paid by the riders

will end up like Coventry, pikeys in there to trash the place

Many of us contribute monthly to the REF in addition to their Winter events. All monies are donated between the riders over the course of a season - usually £500 at a time.

Just as we thought our bad luck had ended, here we go again.. I almost made the trip up for this meeting and glad I decided not to. We can still mathematically make the playoffs, but it would mean claiming 4 points from at least 2 of our 3 aways, which will be very tricky as we have to go to Workington and Ipswich. Congratulations to Edinburgh on their win and best wishes to Jase and Gino

I assume you weren’t there on Thursday evening then? Pity, you’d have seen a good meeting (for the first time ever)

It is his home track so not surprising. I could say the same of Ben Morley for instance at Lakeside.

First thing I noticed on getting to the car park was how much fuller it was, it was nice to see the support back to the sort of numbers we have seen in the past, I think Panthers will probably bring a few people next week too, at all helps to strengthen the clubs argument for a right or at least a chance to continue.

But that wasn’t the average he came in on as his average dropped this season before he was signed up. His average was current. Like saying Morris is being dropped at Swindon and we bring him in. Then you quote his average from the end of last season!

I suggest you re-read then. It was posted by foreverblue - so that should be a clue!

Get your facts right Steve, only one rider commented on the quality of the track, that was NKI. Lambert's comments were concerning an environmental/ unfair to rider cost issue. As I recall Lambert said nothing about the track good, bad or indifferent. For the record I'm no longer a KL fan

Me too. Still haven't got over it. They won't be satisfied until the whole country is one mass of shops, offices and houses, and life is totally dull with no excitement .

When Steve Worrall broke his leg at the start of the season, a collection was taken during an home meeting probably about three weeks later, but Stephan Nielsen also broke his leg roungd about the same time, but NO collection has been taken for Steph, I am wondering why this is the case??? Steve will be a high earner due to Championship, Premier League and International contracts, where as Steph has been out just as long, and will not be in the same wage bracket as Steve, would it be possible for a collection to also be taken for Steph, who is also one of our team and has earned nearly nothing this season.

If oil has been used to bind the shale on a regular basis, not during a match, it is still an environmental offence and I hope a large fine ( rather than points deducted ) is the deserved punishment. To put oil on the track after a match in front of supporters shows a total disregard for them and is a further display by a promoter that they feel they can "do as they want".

Christ the Reverend I.M Jolly is reborn.

and here is me thinking sponsors for a struggling sport would be most welcome. Perhaps not !

And Rob's been one of yours!