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In other words, nobody had the forethought of this happening when the fixtures where agreed before the season started. the fixtures were agreed to at the start of the season, so should have stood. This not through rose-tinted glasses, but from a neutral, who just wants to see rules and structure adhered to.

I seriously don’t know why you bother to respond. He is simply a Poole hater and it’s pointless having a discussion with someone like that. Much better to ignore his diatribes. If we lose against Somerset, he will post we have choked. If we win, it will be because of some luck, poor ref decision or a Somerset had an off night. Don’t ever expect him to actually praise Poole on a win. He will respond with some utter guff about me or Poole as usual. He always does.

It does get very tedious i must admit, that much hate can't be good for someone's health. I'm hoping Poole can pull it off this year, the changes show intent and desire in my book ...

Why is the pressure on Poole and not Somerset? Somerset finished higher up the table, I would have thought the pressure was on them to make the final.

Of the current teams Vue have won 12 top titles, Poole 9, Wolves 5, Swindon 4, so would like to see Lynn or Zummerzet win for the first time. Lynn finished top so most deserving of the trophy.

Honestly Tony Jackson rang every possible rider who 1. fitted the missing rider's points average limit 2. riders who were not racing that night and appeared to be available and 3.ultimately (and thanks to him) Dale was the only rider who was "available" to (and wanted to) do the meeting. So even on Glasgow's preferred race night Workington still had difficulty in obtaining a rider with Championship credentials to replace a rider (Dan Bewley) when they were allowed a facility. So they went, sucked it up and fulfilled the match . However when certain other clubs had difficulty in obtaining guest riders they choose to pull the pre-agreed meeting of three other teams, whose first choice race night wasn't a Friday, to allow these Friday clubs a bigger pool of riders to choose from but this was on their chosen race night. Not exactly cricket is it Regards THJ

Enjoy your rest, it would have been a lot more palatable for those affected clubs if the fixture list hadn't been adopted by the BSPA. Let's be honest both the home and away clubs had agreed to every Friday fixture that was in the list so wtf were the rest of them doing when this occurred?

He can't help himself. My only surprise was that he didn't claim we were stronger without Dan.

The Berwick fixture has had 3 dates all within the cut off date and all rained off in genuine circumstances What more could be done? Last nights date was a reserved date within the cut off ready for any what wouldve been unexpected rain offs in August Having 3 rainy Thursday in the last 5 weeks was impossible to predict or plan for

BSPA will be thinking what's forethought got to do with it, when there was five of us that made the decision to cancel meetings.

Race sheet for 2018 Slovenian GP :- https://www.keepandshare.com/doc16/21376/gp-2018-8-pdf-39k?da=y

People don’t need to walk your track, any video of a race from Poole shows riders back wheels jumping around in the corners. Mr Shovlar recently added one from Wednesday night and good race though it was it clearly shows an uneven and bare (maybe with a blue groove?) inside line. Nobody will ever convince me that a track with lumps, bumps and holes has been prepared in the best way. The smoother the better for me as it gives riders the ultimate confidence to throw their bikes at each other, just like Belle Vue the other night. Uneven tracks will make away riders tentative and play into home riders hands who know where the obstacles are.

As I mentioned briefly in the Wroclaw v Torun, Sunday August 19th. topic, I made a visit to Lodz to see their new speedway stadium whilst I was staying in Wroclaw last month. The match I attended was Lodz v Pila on Friday 17th August. The new stadium is indeed very impressive, and I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. Everything, however, isn’t up and running yet. There was no ticket office or club shop in operation, with ticket sales from a van on the roadside and merchandising from a couple of tables outside the stadium. Admission tickets were 25 zloty (£5.26) and programmes (£1.05). The electronic turnstiles were not in use and entrance was through the exit gates with someone checking and clipping tickets. Not all the toilet blocks were open with those in use being ‘unisex’. The floodlights were not yet commissioned, so hence the unusually early weekday start time of 5:15p.m. The area between the old and new stadiums is still very much like a building site and, for those that know the Belle Vue area; the old and new Lodz stadiums are much much closer than the NSS is to the Greyhound Stadium. Before the match I had an interesting 15 minutes or so talk with Hans Andersen. He wasn’t selected to ride in the Lodz team that day, but was about to do some ‘meet and greet’ with the fans at the merchandise stand. He mentioned that he very much liked racing at the NSS, but hadn’t been able to put four or five consistent rides together. ‘I can win some, but also run lasts’ he said – as if to predict exactly what he would go on to do three days later when he had two wins and a last amongst his rides in the Aces v Leicester match!! Thankfully, the refreshments stands were all open – it was a very hot and sunny day and touching 30 Celsius – and, as I was in the queue, one of the Lodz supporters struck up a conversation with me when he heard me speak and spotted my Aces cap. He was most likely in his late 40s and spoke English more than good enough to hold a conversation, insisting on buying me a beer. Later at the end, he and his friends came over to me outside. They must have spotted me buying a Lodz cap at the merchandise stand, as he presented me with a Lodz scarf and said ‘to go with your new cap’. Before waving goodbye he said they don’t often get foreign visitors – ‘they all want to go to Torun or Gorzow’ he said ‘so we are happy you’ve come to see us’. Speedway fans eh? Fantastic people. As for the match itself, there was some good racing with Lodz beating Pila 53-37. It had been pretty close through the first half of the match, and after heat 6 it was only 19-17. Pila, though, only managed one heat advantage after that, but when they had either Thomas H. Jonasson or Tomasz Gapinski out on track there was some good battles with the Lodz heat leaders. For Lodz, Aces’ Rohan Tungate scored 6+2 from 3 completed rides - he had a tapes exclusion in his other heat - and Poole’s Josh Grajczonek 4+1 from 4 outings. For Pila, Thomas H. Jonasson was in fine form scoring 15+1 from 6 rides whilst Tomasz Gapinski got 11 from 5. The track length in the new stadium is 321 metres and, at the time, Rohan Tungate held the track record at 58.84. I’m not sure, though, if it’s now been bettered as they’ve had a few meetings since as they catch up with their home matches. There was just one sub-60 second winning time in the Pila match, however, and that was 59.94 by Lodz reserve Jakub Miskowiak in the reserves race. He went onto score 11 from 5 rides. It was quite a long day as the coach had left Wroclaw at 10:15a.m. on Friday, getting back at 12:30a.m. going into Saturday morning. It was well worth it, though, and it would be nice to return one day to Lodz to see the fully finished stadium and surrounds.

You pay admission £15-18 for 15 heats You only see 6 yet the refund/discount offer (standard terms) is just £4 as refund/discount is only calculated upto heat 10 when a result could be called Imagine going to a restaurant paying for a meal and only getting the starter but then being told theres a hole in the roof , rain has poured in and the kitchen has closed Its ok though you can come back next week and pay full price again minus the cost of half your starter How many would accept that and in those circumstances how many would go back? Also Id hazard a guess trading standards would be investigating Is speedway a special case? Should we as 'fans' suck it up for the sake of 'our club'

It has got normal people on it, you don't go on there

Okay this is going to be the last time but 1. How can you call anyone else strange when 'apparently' you spend 90% of your time on Poole threads, but not because you are genuinely interested but because you like trolling and putting out negative posts. But you don't spend time on Ipswich ones, I am going by other Poole fans on this as I never go on the Championship threads. 2. The last two sentences are you admitting you are an anti or hater or whatever term you want to use. So thanks for finally admitting it. Well done.

The BSPA as a whole take the blame.

I think you’ll have to explain “forethought” to the BSPA.

Prior to the season starting, the August fixtures were agreed in full by both Home and away teams with NO protests from any other club. If objections had arisen, then those fixtures would no doubt have been changed until agreement was reached. The decision to be "Behind" on the fixtures as you call it, was made to ensure regular weekly speedway at Derwent Park throughout the summer. Some teams sorted their fixtures earlier than others to suit themselves I presume, whilst Workington had a full fixture list agreed at the start. With the reduced number of Home fixtures each club would arrange their fixtures to suit their own individual needs, as Workington did at the time. The whole point of the argument is that these fixtures were pulled from the calendar well after they were agreed and arrangements put in place to race them. If the fixtures had been culled in say March or April, they would have had a "Chance" to do something about it, albeit maybe an impossible one due to stadium or rider availability, although however small, at least a chance. If the fixtures had been culled in say June (When they were still on the Speedway GB fixture list by the way), then they would have needed a time machine to go back and run those meetings in April or May. If those fixtures had been culled at the start, then I fully agree that arrangements for earlier fixtures could have been made, but to get three months down the line before it happened means an early season home fixture bonanza in the likes of Scunny, Sheffield, Redcar, Berwick, and Peterborough would have been impossible. Does anyone actually know when the fixtures were "Officially" pulled?

I've been highly critical of the King's Lynn track hence why I no longer attend. The racing their is already pretty processional even when slick. 2 or 3 good races just don't justify my £18. But, now the club is in the Play-Offs I think that this is a time any club has a right to prepare a track unfavourable to the away side. This is King's Lynn's best chance to win their FIRST EVER top flight league title. If King's Lynn can prepare a track to win their home meetings by 60+ I certainly would be very very happy in winning the league that way. As they say, the track is the same for both teams. If the away side can't cope with it, tough tittie. This is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for many many Stars fans.

Some of the racing from Belle Vue on Wednesday made me feel I might attend the occasional match. It was blood and thunder stuff. But it has got to give itself a good shakedown and offer a sport that is credible. The first, to make that first night experience make you want to come back if you're a new fan. Waiting 10 minutes between races, even to me, a very old fan, it would be something I'd not like doing if I returned to watch a live match. I honestly don't know how I coped for 40 years with all that dead space between the heats. Secondly, rid it of all the rules etc that'll make any new fan begin to question it further down the line.

He is doing a more than decent job for us and can and does pass riders. He passed Covatti on Wednesday and made passes in a couple of races against both Wolves and a Leicester. Obviously, it depends on the opposition and any rider with his sort of average is going to be inconsistent.

Yeah and to rub salt in the wounds, three of the "Scrapped" fixtures at Home v Peterborough (August 3rd), Newcastle (August 10th), and Lakeside (August 17th) are still to be run when they as per early season agreement could have been done and dusted by now, leaving Workington to complete their League campaign as of now with one home and one away fixture. Now of course, as it is looking like there will be no date for the Lakeside home meeting before the cut-off, the Comets could be denied a chance of a top 4 place due to that Friday night decision. Additionally Lakeside, another club forced to cancel some Friday night fixtures, are also in the same boat.

Having a 'home advantage' is part and parcel of all sports, it adds to the drama. Look at the Ryder Cup next week... The European team will make sure that Le National course is set up to their liking, and not for the big hitting Americans. What about Davis Cup tennis? You think the Spanish teams choose to play their matches on clay not hardcourt just for fun? No. When Liverpool played at Leicester at the weekend, you think it was coincidence that the pitch was dry as a bone and not conducive to a quick passing game? Even the Welsh Women's team narrowed the pitch when then played the England Lionesses the other night.

But however you want to rose tint it...you are mugged off for turning up to a cancelled meeting, the worst scenario the one I put.

I dont know the answer but welcome your thoughts

Hardly shafted at Armadale,even the most optimistic Bandits knows a 2 point lead after 3 HEATS is hardly being shafted., Do you really think Berwick would have won that match.

Ironic isnt it we cant find a suitable guest on a friday night at scunny now who was it that stopped us riding on fridays during the summer because they couldnt.find suitable guests???

Seems to be a bit of confusion regarding the refund policy. The T's & C's on the website states Should it be necessary to abandon the main Meeting before the 8th Heat, re-admission tickets valid for the re-staging of today’s fixture or any Meeting (excluding a BSPA Shared Event) at this Track within 1 (one) month will be issued to all persons who have paid for admission. No mention of a reduced admission price. But under the report of the meeting it says In accordance with the British Speedway Policy, a £6 discount will be available upon showing your ticket from the Berwick meeting at one of the remaining meetings at Foxhall this season. In the case of abandonment before heat 10, £1 is taken off the re-admission price for every heat that was run at the original staging. In this case, six heats were raced and therefore there is a £6 discount on re-admission with this ticket. Adult tickets will be £10 and Concessions will be £7. So, if we'd have raced 9 heats we'd have got £9 off the next meeting(s) or £2 off if 2 heats had been completed. Should it not be £1 is taken off the re-admission price for every heat that was NOT run at the original staging, making Adult £7 and Concession £4 or am I missing something here? Can anyone clarify?

agreed with virtually all this post. imo, only big names will create big crowds, british speedway is very weak and not very attractive. Its not knocking it, its just fact. Olsen, Collins, Jessup, Lee, etc, were worth admission money, seeing them just once/twice a season was a motive to turn out, you now seeing same riders race for you, and then against you . clearly british clubs are not in the position to afford this, hence we have what we have now. I would guess a lot of people on this forum "used" to go to speedway, in which case the speedway PR have a opportunity to address these people. if you go on a cruise, the company try to entice you back after your holiday. People on hear "could" be persuaded back, some will never return. only my view, but doubling up and not having your own 7 riders has taken away the true team aspect.

Of course they will bother, or cop a heavy fine. All meetings must be run.

Honestly Bear with me on this and it's not that I disagree with you however there are numerous mitigating facts and circumstances to this fixture fiasco. The whole idea of the reduced number of fixtures was to save promotions money, it was also to give promotions a chance to run one Home meeting one week and an Away fixture the next. The reference was home/away fixtures work in other sports especially football. However what I don't think was fully appreciated is other sports tend to have squads or pools of participants/players that they can call upon, football teams have large squads of players so teams can readily bring in a replacement for anyone injured or unavailable. Speedway in this country does not operate in this manner (although it does in Poland with squads) and when riders are not available there is a clear dislike for teams to run with a Guest or Rider Replacement for unavailable/missing riders by promotions and fans alike (unless there is a serious injury then people tend to accept these facilities more readily, which I have never really understood) However Poland has had a major impact for all the reasons outlined in other parts of this forum which I wont go over again here and although it might not seem like it there was a valid reason and some methodology for the approach taken (its your call as to whether you think it has worked or not, I know mine). When organising meetings at the start of the season the majority of the promotions met in Rugby before the season kicked off to organise their own fixtures and sort out who they would ride against and when. (in previous years it was left to one promotion to sort out the fixtures and this left some promotions unhappy). So for Workington Steve Whitehead took himself down to Rugby to arrange all of his clubs fixtures. Steve had to avoid 3 Saturdays due to the stadium being used for two music events and one Rugby League event. He was approached by other promotions who gave him their preferred option on when they would like to come to Derwent Park, he did not have to twist any arms up backs to force anyone to attend when they didn't want to; and ended up with 6 or 8 Fridays (cant remember the exact figure now) rather than Saturdays to run meetings which included the 3 forced changes, Workington were under the opinion that everyone was happy and had been accommodated on nights of their choice and Workington were happy. It was then decreed that Workington could not run on Fridays due to a shortage of riders and the bulk of their fixture list had to be rearranged and this is where the problems started as clubs who had happily arranged Fridays were now reluctant to come on Saturdays as some of their riders would not be available due to other commitments and they were not prepared to race without a full compliment of riders, so that left Workington in the lurch and after they had been forced to used Dale Lamb up at Glasgow due to a lack of riders on Glasgow's preferred Friday night; was a bit rich. Although Glasgow hadn't done anything wrong it just happened that Dale was the only rider available, but did it devalue the result any or rob the fans of any entertainment that night? Consequently other clubs whose official race night was Friday who had also had issues obtaining guests expressed there frustration and clubs whose race nights were not Fridays had all there second race day meetings pulled (Workington were not the only ones impacted by this decision). So Workington not being able to run the mutually arranged Fridays and the reluctance of some promotions to agree new fixture ended up in Workington having run only 2 home fixtures by the end of June. The dreaded Double Up/Down riders and Poland were the main issue I believe and of course rider availability, so not really the race night again in my view. As for anyone hoping that clubs miss a Play Off series due to not having the correct amount of fixtures need to remember that this has already happened to a certain extent. Workington have been in the position where due to the weather they were denied the opportunity to get to the play off final. In 2012 the year Newcastle were top of the league and Scunthorpe won the Play Off, Workington did not fulfil their final away fixture against Edinburgh. A meeting they may or may not have won however Scunthorpe who had their full quota of matches run; went through to the final against Somerset; and the rest as they say was history, however to me it devalues the whole process and that doesn't happen in any other sport either. Personally I would much prefer to see teams in finals who are there on merit. What's the glory if Kings Lynn beat Belle Vue only for the Somerset/Poole meetings to be washed out from now to the end of the season? Do Kings Lynn say they are play off Champions? Probably yes but again me personally I would run until December if needs be to get to the final outcome. There are always exceptions in any sport (more so in Speedway) but a rigid cut off date that means a team that could possibly end up in the bottom half of the table going to the play offs honestly can not be right, is it? Surely? Regards THJ

I think this is one of the reasons several forum members take a dislike to Poole.It's not the club or riders themselves.It just boils down to a couple of posters from the Poole fanbase who gets peoples backs up.And it is only a couple mind.

To follow a 'Team Sport' you need an emotional attachment to 'your' team... (British) Speedway doesn't recognise any importance in that... The 'Guest' system only underlines that lack of emotional attachment... No disrespect to any rider who takes the booking to earn a few extra quid (as pay rates can be 'lucrative' given the situation ) but all it does is reinforce the belief that, for the riders, each team they ride for is nothing more than a 'flag of convenience' to earn coin on any given night..... Brady Kurtz, as have many before him, could possibly have helped a team qualify for the Final, that may well end up preventing himself, his team mates, and his fans, celebrate a title triumph... His opportunity to earn a few quid came about because Craig Cook took up a place at Glasgow knowing he would more than likely clash with BV meetings thus impacting one of his teams either way.. If riders can do this then simply they either don't have any emotional attachment to the team they ride for or, just simply see the Competitions as not important enough to take seriously and treat them as a bona fide Championships like they would in Sweden and Poland... Either way, not easy to sell a Sport ran like that and expect those who you are selling it to to buy into it and follow it with emotional investment.. Cannot knock the riders for trying to earn a few extra quid, but the Sport in the UK won't stop the decline, never mind move forwards, by allowing such things to happen..

There you go again could have , would have as I said you know sweet FA !! As for your other reply to my post, LOL , we were missing Dan quite a few meetings to his GB duties and World U21 so try again with that one . The 3 meetings we struggled to get in were the 3 that were agreed at the start of the season until a certain team needed guests on a Friday so pulled the plug on other teams running on Fridays , backing up my opinion on what you know

Always the same- never seen a decent meeting from there yet.

No chance of either of them two riders missing the gate , having engine failures or falling then , might point is you just don't know what could of happened, but you've made your mind up as you know best.

pmsl ....I'll borrow you some polish for the Halo

Will be ten yards first bend side of the start finish line near a small gate

I believe if they go past heat 6 it's not a full refund. This was within the report on the robins website: ''Supporters are reminded to retain their re-admission tickets, and details of discount policy will be available in the near future.''

So if one race is raced you get a 9 pound off next meeting...so that race cost you 7 pound ...wow just wow. Big thanks to Rory and cook for not giving it a go the other week. Saved us all a lot of money

Wouldn't worry about it he likes to try and ridicule anything he latches on to. Its not like he hasn't made anything up on here regarding Glasgow & an ex rider.

Swindon's season gone from good to pants, started off winning the Charity Shield against Vue, top of table March April, then last couple of months apart from Poole match has been crap. Must be something behind the scenes affecting the club, heavy losses, lack of new stadium? Didn't go last night but bloody awful score, how many die-hards turned up? When you look back at the end of last season with crowds of 2500 to over 3000 it's gone t1ts up. You have to fear for the future of this great club. Roll on Monday then.

Perhaps you will like this one better. NSS is the best track in the country but you should accept the Poole track produces excellent racing as well.

He typed into google “good race Poole” and got something from 14 years ago. Very amusing that he tries to make out how good his gate & go track is but ends up showing it up for what it is. The gift that keeps on giving.

Courtney will just have to put the track covers in the van for away meetings and get there early

In other words, it suited you to just to make it up

Christ Berwick were only 4 points up at heat 7 ... could understand your frustration had it been around 12-13 heats ..anything could have happened Sense should prevail , but won’t , like I’ve said on another thread , cut-off date should be extended until all teams have completed their fixtures to get a fair and true result of the finishing league positions ..

Kiss of death but here goes, c'mon the ex-stripes

Who are the money men in UK speedway? Teams who have get by attendances backed by modest sponsorship seem to be the case now. And the ‘try it for a season’ will probably wipe out any teams financially.