Leaderboard

Basically as the title says, i would like to wish Stuart all the best for his retirement, been a great servant to the sport a really nice bloke and a great help to many younger riders that have come through, including my son. Thanks Robbo.

I'm a Comets fan and have no problem with Glasgow's signing of Cookie as it made a lot of sense for them at the time. It was an opportunist move, appears not to have broken any rules and is one a few other promoters probably wish they had thought of first. I think the problem is no-one is sure of the rules any more, including some of the people responsible for making them! Cookie seems to get a bit of stick, but as in other sports opposition fans very rarely boo a poor opponent. Furthermore he has been down to DP a few times this season where he has been seen helping and offering advice to our young guys Dan and Kyle. As far as I am concerned he is always welcome at DP. I know he is likely to visit DP shortly and rack up a lot of points, but surely we all want to see the best riders competing against each other. It's just a shame we won't have our full team out - I would have loved to have seen Cookie and Dan going head to head. Hopefully the rest of our team will be fit and maybe, just maybe we can finish the season with that bit of elusive silverware.

May the best team win and all riders are injury-free at the finish.

Just because you keep on saying it doesn't mean its true as other unbiased fans have repeatedly repeated. realise you are trying to emulate Jenga but at least Jenga can be funny. What is it about Workington fans, I blame the nuclear power station

Would have loved Cook to have come to Ipswich when King was out. Nothing wrong in him signing for Glasgow He is an attraction to the league and is the pantomime villan when he comes to Foxhall....the top rider in the league. Yes he does put bums on seats 100% and thats a good thing. I pick and choose my meetings at Ipswich and Glasgow was on of them because of Cook and Harris.......................no offence but i wast going to spend my money when Newcastle and Berwick were in town..................and yes i know Berwick did superb this season but when i do go i like to see the top riders in the league, Nicholls, Riss and Lawson as well

You've got a new stadium then? Hope its got terracing and can fit in a speedway rather than a slowway track.

Stop kidding yourself Cookie will ride for the team who can offer the best deal to suit his needs , better hope it's not Edinburgh or I can see you're admission fee being £25 and £3 parking , you would be better off staying in the car park you will see just as much and save yourself a fortune.

Don't think Gavan will be on tonight

IMO he deserves a Farewell/Testimonial meeting.

PROBABLY should ask Eric Boocock and Neil Middleditch whether they agree

Come down Friday Aceslider and see a decent speedway meeting without riders slowing down at the bends and bouncing up and down like yo-yo's The amount of fallers has no relevance really, just watching them hang on for grim death round the 4th bend was enough , riders from both teams , but hey I gladl'y don;t have to pay week in week out to watch it thank god Keith, the track has been no different anytime I've been , your lot are easily pleased over the NE to watch that every week , your lot know nothing else as they don't travel far to watch their team , get yourselves over Friday to support your team and see for yourself

Whether or not it is a farce that Craig is riding in this league, he was a very welcome visitor to Lakeside on our last ever meeting. Was great to have him and Chris Harris there to make it a better send off. Slightly off topic but also wanted to say how brilliant Craig was with the fans and children in particular when on the way to the pits. Class act.

This year I made a post on this topic that there were only 2 major markets left for the SGP, GB and Poland. You disagreed that GB was still a major market. That's why I made the comment. As for riders emerging from USA, America will never have a better rider in the series than they have now. You know it has nothing to do with riders, it all comes down to money and finding someone to finance it. GP's have readily gone to countries with no world class riders, New Zealand, Finland etc as long as the finance is forthcoming, nothing to do with emerging talent.

I only discovered speedway and Arena Essex in 2006 but was hooked straight away. In that time I have been privileged to watch the likes of Andreas Jonson, Adam Shields, PK, Davy Watt, Richard Lawson, Lewis Bridger and of course the Late but great Lee Richardson wear the hammers colours. Add to that Darcy, Chris Holder, Crumpy, Nikki P, Tai, Scott Nichols, and other greats riders for the opponents. Far too many Hammers and opponents to mention them all. My main memories, where do I start. First is probably the meeting with Swindon just 5 days after Lee Richardson died. The immense sadness of the occasion was obvious but the way the club pulled together was incredible. The memorial meeting to Lee at the seasons end with a packed Arena and a line up to do the man proud is another. Swindon again in 2008, and our only home league defeat of the season when a young unheard of Croatian by the name Jurica Pavlic turned up and having never seen the place before promptly banged in a 7 ride max that had the Hammers fans applauding. Any meeting involving Darcy and Chris Holder together was always memorable, and the meeting where Coventry beat us (2011?) and their fans were gloating on the way out, only for the meeting to be awarded to Hammers as Eddie Kennet had tampered with his silencers.... And then of course Friday, v Glasgow. Pulling up in that great big car park for the last time it finally dawned on me, this IS the last time. Going to the same window at the ticket office and paying my money to the same lady, Buying my last coffee and cake from the ever smiling Rose in the diner, and then taking my position on the stock car track and chewing the fat with the same faces who have become good friends for those years. Debating what artefacts we could nick from the stadium, ( I eventually decided against a urinal - Mrs E would not be impressed) and then having watched another great meeting, doing the track walk a scooping up some shale which now forms part of my garden. It was then goodbyes and promises to keep in touch (We live far and wide) and to try to get to Rye House when we can. The drive home was a sad one, having driven down the long drive to the roundabout by the services and then a feeling of sadness as I left. I will miss the old girl. She was never the most attractive of venues but she has given plenty of pleasure to many people, and she was rough around the edges but had a certain charm. ( Sounds like a few women I have known over the years). She provided great entertainment, and she will be missed. Thanks for the memories.

At the risk of sounding conceited, I was considered a "celeb"! Like my good friend Scott Mitchell, I played darts professionally. While I - unlike Scott - never managed to win a World title, I was third in the PDC World Championship, and am a former World No. 1. To be honest, it really doesn't seem like there have been too many really famous celebrity speedway fans over the years. Not sure, but I believe that DJ David Hamilton was actually a speedway supporter in addition to his presenting job. Steve

Just like to say Good Luck to Stuart Robson after he announced tonight that this season would be his last. Been a great servant to Newcastle and also British Speedway in general. Also well done Archie Freeman in winning the 150cc Youth Championship with four qualifying wins and a win in the Grand Final.

Workington to win the play offs...good for the club, good for its fans and good for the sport.

It's only half-time and still plenty to do. Now is not the time to get cocky so let's give Somerset the respect they deserve and treat the next leg with the same 100% effort. But great effort so far guys just keep it up!

My thoughts exactly. I still believe that Reading were robbed that year

Gorzow Vs Leszno What an utterly crud meeting. Does anyone know what has happened to the Gorzow track ? Its got steadily worse through the season. Had high hopes for this one but gave up watching on free sport after heat 9 and had to come back for a second sitting on Monday. Rybnik Vs Lublin Faith in humanity restored! What a meeting! Score possibly flattered Rybnik a little so i think they'll edge it over 2 legs. Couple of races from AJ at the start were sensational stuff. Rolling back the years. Massive crowd as well. Just 10/10 for everything

What a crackin idea...Maybe if we do a sacrificial slaughter of a pig, it would then be a crackling idea

We did have a trestle table for a full hot and cold buffet at one meeting - it could double up if required

I assume people remember the P’boro v Reading final of 2006? Absolutely correct that there are no tacticals in two legged ties.

Told you all to ignore the rubbish posted by the troll.

As a club i like Buxton and have no axe to grind with them however 3 planned home fixtures during June & July certainly does not help the case. Add in the three home meetings that took place in May were National Trophy matches it adds further fuel to the fire that these competitions should be placed at the tail end of the season and not at the start.

Never seen his plan yet. As he is so much against weakening the league, no doubt it is throwing money about to get the top riders in Wonder if he - and many others who advocate that - would be prepared to gamble their money rather than someone else's ?

Got to love a bit of doubling-up - 2 riders crocked for a cup semi-final due to tooling about in a lower league clash for a completely different team.

So Cook is not an attraction in this league just to clear that bit up , having ambition is now desperation because all I have seen from Glasgow is ambition and trying to promote the sport in the local area. If that is what you deem desperation then there should be other promotions being desperate to succeed unfortunately there are some running clubs couldn't spell promote never mind doing it. But I am sure everything will be rosy in the garden once all teams are on a level playing field with NO AMBITION.

And the next best thing is arriving home in Workington ??

Robson has been a fantastic rider , one of the legends of the sport. Always remember his guest performances at Newport filling in for Wato. He was a master aroun Queensway Meadows. glad he will retire in one piece after some horrible injuries.

“Tried to buy the league...”. Is that the same as trying to run a successful business by constructing a team that will entertain and have a chance of winning some silverware?! What next, Team GB (backed by the same people) trying to buy the World Cup?! “Nothing but a corrupt bunch of team managers running it into the ground” is that apart from the Lakeside, P’boro and Workington promotion that you want to see win the title?! Is it safe to assume your team didn’t make the play offs?!

According to the website we have moved Kacper Woryna to number 2 and Josh G to 3. I think this is a good move tactically. Josh has been going well and as the more experienced rider should be in the heat leader position and rides well with Nicolai Klindt.

Not fit ...here we go , Panthers trying to pull a fast one already , Ulrich came back he obviously thinks he’s fit , a long servant of Peterborough and fans want him sidelined for the major meetings ...win at all costs creeping up already

The NSS is a standout easily the best track & stadium in the UK hands down! No other track or stadium comes near in the UK at present.

I have been to the new NSS about half a dozen times now and nothing touches it in the UK for facilities and track.

Yes i agree he does seem very jealous and bitter personally having attended the NSS i have to say it was definitely worth it and is a amazing venue for speedway and i would think most people would like it to be their home track

Haha such a funny thread the Poole Piss Take Pirates are the biggest fiddlers in British Speedway and now some Poole fans are saying things are not right at BV ahahahaaa!

Surprised by the result. Perhaps the lack of experience in this environment proved pivotal for Somerset. All over bar the shouting.

Eric Boocock broke his arm there also i don't think Eric liked the track much but he usually scored well there.

Why was Lawson in heat 14 Summers should have been put in May slipped up there

Well done Poole - one foot in the final. Still not over for Rebels but they need to ride out of their skins st Poole

Super Simmo is one of my all time favourites. I remember him as a stylish exciting rider and a real enthusiast. The former has European. Trials Champion Don Smith used to say you can always tell the ones that are genuine enthusiasts because they carry on riding when they are over the hill . Simmo had a 10year climb to the top of the hill, then around 7 years at the top but still continued for maybe another 15- 20 years when he was increasingly passed his best. He was also a cracking grass tracker. One of the outstanding memories of the many , motorcycle events of various disciplines I have attended over the years is Simmo completely cleaning up at a grass track at Sittingbourne. I can still see him in my minds eye now, at That meetings, with the bike cranked so far over the handlebars were almost touching the ground, right round the outside of everybody else and off into the distance. Great rider, good bloke, despite the adverse and inaccurate publicity

The loss of Ellis is a massive blow, no Knockout Cup for Swindon this year.

Some posters have put the lack of fixtures during June/July down to not wanting to run against the Football World Cup. Have they heard of a "Record Button" at home. This has happened in all 3 leagues & every year has come up against CL Pairs, Cardiff GP, World Cup & The CL 4's in July. Surely, running some meetings with a possible loss of a few fans is better than running later in the year where "fans" will miss meetings due to being "pied off".

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.

So is that top spot confirmed? For a side that was written off by myself and many others as cheap and nasty whata season we've had so far.

I see on the Lakeside website that rain-off tickets issued when the original league match v Newcastle was abandoned without a wheel being turned are NOT valid for the return fixture on Saturday because it's a double header!!!! So Newcastle fans who forked out £17:00 + £3:00 for a naff program are expected to pay another £25:00 this Saturday to watch their team on top of another lot of travel expenses. Oh but we can use our re-admission tickets for any other match. Yea right. Like I'm going to travel another 500 miles to watch them race somebody else. Jon Cook you should hang your head in shame. DAMN DISGRACE.

What you need to do is get your team, others too, a new fan base. As an example, and I’ll use young Kilby for this, he asked for schools to show interest so that the Robins could spread ‘the gospel’. My girlfriend, who is a teaching assistant, thought ‘the kids would love it’. She has attended a couple of meetings so knows what’s involved and keeps an eye on the results but not really a fan. The school is some 20 miles from Swindon and she sent a request to him via Facebook. To date, and it’s approximately 12-18 months now but no acknowledgement or interest. Now, it could be Lee is busy. I know he has many hats and puts a lot of effort in but an acknowledgment or something similar would have been nice. Instead, as always, the chance to interest new people and let them know speedway is out there is missed. At the end of the day, I attend so it’s not me they have to convince but clubs just do not help themselves. Promoters need to think of tomorrow not yesterday.

It’s amazing how everything other than the subject of Poole 2019 is under discussion on this thread!! Poole has a very good stadium that has a track which when properly prepared gives us one of the best speedway facilities in the UK. All that is required for us to get the best from that facility is a governing body that has UK speedway as the focus of attention and strategy that’s reinvigorates the sport across the nation and prevents localised self interest.

I take it you are still referring to SCB specifically and not someone who just watches Speedway HR?