Leaderboard

Absolutely. It goes back to what we were saying earlier about the nights when Mauger, Olsen, or Penhall came to town; we had been looking forward to those for weeks! One of the other factors you mention that destroy the aura is familiarity. We would generally only see those riders once - maybe twice - a season. Smaller leagues and multiple matches against the same teams means they become a "part of the furniture" so to speak, and they lose that aura. Steve

Bring back the old club call lines at 1.50 a minute, to get your results and new signings

Chris didn’t know who was in our group either did he

Plus this year I will see the 'superstars' riding Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the Polish League and Tuesday's every week in Sweden.. And then watch them regularly in the GP's too... All in glorious HD from the comfort of my armchair.. No 'mystique' sadly anymore.. You went to watch Collins, Mauger, Olsen, Penhall etc etc when they visited your track, as it could be the only chance you got all season to see them, apart from the Saturday highlights on World Of Sport of the big meetings...

There wouldn't be enough hours in the day to keep putting out press releases/news regarding speculation,rumours especially that arise from this forum.If Neil and Ged are still the promoters and nothing has changed why should the club have make a news item to say all these rumours are untrue.As i said not enough hours in the day to keep putting out news bulletins regarding rumours that 90% of the time start on here. Now if they have left then things are different and you would expect the club to make an announcement straight away.

Please can we get back on topic i.e. the underwhelming and depressing article by the uninspiring vice chairman Godfrey....?

My favourite rider of all time was Mark Loram right from the point of watching him as a mascot and my uncle sponsoring him all the way through to the Holy Grail. It doesnt however cloud my judgement as to his ability.......He was a one time world champ whose overall form was worse than most other world champions..............couldnt ever stand Havelock but without doubt in 1992 he was the dominant rider on the world stage that year bar perhaps Per Jonsson. I never saw Fundin ride and not much of Mauger either but im not foolish enough to think Mark was better than either of those. But yet out of Rickardsson and Loram i know who i would prefer to watch and pay to see

Disappointing? Didn’t Harris beat Doyle when it mattered most,finals!

Just what the promoters need to listen to. Gone are the days when fans just follow a club blindly, watching any type of speedway is expensive, if the standard of entertainment is poor then the fan will pick and choose what to watch. It is not disloyalty to comment on the standard of racing, when you can fill your programme in on 1st lap 2nd bend, is that entertainment, I fear not. Why is it the fans fault when they walkaway , surely it is the clubs fault for not supplying good speedway and entertainment, so unless the Promoters pull their fingers out and give what the paying public want, I fear for the future of the sport.

Two races that stick out for me are Rolf Gramstad beating Ivan Mauger in the 1979 Swindon v Hull meeting and Malcolm Holloway beating Shawn Moran and getting a 12 point max in the 1982 Swindon v Sheffield fixture.

Do you think any current promotions genuinely give a toss about bringing on young uns? The vast majority of M/SDL teams are all organised and run by devoted individuals despite clubs/BSPA best attempts to hold them back (i agree the NJL is a little different). Until everyone stops thinking about the next meeting and has a genuine view to the future there will be no future.

Doubt that anyone would choose to watch the updates rather than go to the meetings. The guy probably wasn’t going to attend anyway.

Sounds like the name of a good book to me....

The problem is that so many people just see things in black and white, whereas in most situations, there are grey areas that apply to many facets of that situation. One of the biggest issues I have with modern sport (and trust me, American sports are the worst) is that they try to explain and justify EVERYTHING (including probability) by using figures and stats. Look at darts. Percentage shots (having two beds to aim at instead of just one) are inflexible. Points-per-dart averages are also, with the ONLY factor involved being what you throw yourself, but speedway CMA's are affected by many outside factors, such as opponents, gate positions, mechanical issues etc. Having said that, trying to explain to an idiot how you can win at darts despite having a lower average, isn't easy... In speedway, a similar situation used to occur in World Championships. A rider could win every race in every world championship round, yet drop one point in the final, and he ended up second. Another rider could scrape through each time, have a good night at the final, and he was World Champ! That is why I find the SGP's much fairer... This leads me to ask one question that I have been thinking about during this discussion (and I would love to see everybody's answers and reasoning)... Which was a greater achievement; Hans Nielsen winning the 1986 World Championship, or his incredible 1986 BL record away from home? Steve

ive never understood the need for all riders to have the same set of kevlars and team suits so i get why Poole dont do it. I always remember as a young lad going to Rye House and Ipswich and buying the little riders toys and racing them on the kitchen table..........Cox in black and white checks....Naylor all black. Mullarkey in white and red..........Preben Eriksen all yellow......John Cook in grey........Siggy in white with the stars and stripes...........different leathers made it more fun for me back then and i still prefer it that way....dont like everyone decked out in the same stuff.......just my opinion

Thank goodness the vast majority of supporters do, it’s just a very few of the posters on here that quite frankly moan about everything that the club does that doesn’t. My worst fear is that I might find myself standing next to one of these people at a meeting, doesn’t bear thinking about.

The number of studio and pitchside experts deployed to live sport broadcasts is becoming ludicrous. David Coleman and his like didn't need that, and what is more they wouldn't have tolerated it.

Two ex-New Cross riders battling it out.

They wouldn’t.

So, if you didn't have updates for home meetings, how would the away fans be able to follow them ?

Swindon v Belle Vue 2008 Adams 2. Crumpie 1 three great races i remember Jason taking Adams from the back in heat 1.Then later on Leigh getting his revenge one of the races Crump was all over him but Leigh stood firm.

Chris on the countdown with Mike bacon https://www.eadt.co.uk/sport/witches-promoter-chris-louis-on-his-hopes-for-season-1-5896536

S4S very much respect your views and sentiments, I think we'll have to agree to disagree though about a Club subsidising another that is 100+ miles away. As there are Clubs much closer to Reading that seem to not wish to help. I do think BSPA have to take accountability here, happy to collect Bond money and presumably sit on it, or may be if they took Loan Fees from some of the displaced Riders they now own and invested that in Junior Development Leagues. One issue with SDL/MDL/NDL is they are more "amateur" Leagues now than Development; we certainly had a few 40+ year olds and a wonderful lady rider at Brum last season!

If you want to talk about Chris Morton, it's hard to beat his ride against Gundersen and Muller in the 1981 WTC Final at Olching... Steve

Liberal use of the record and fast forward facilities gets around that one

I think one of the problems we get when averages "collapse" as a consequence of smaller leagues, is an accompanying reduction in the "wow effect" when a lesser rider upstages one of the higher scoring ones, because having a 10-point average, in the minds of the spectator, creates more of an aura than if that same rider has a "mere" 8-point average. The achievement by the lesser rider is probably just as great, but the reaction is possibly more muted because he has "only" beaten an 8-pointer, especially if that 8-pointer is having what you would call an off-night. There just aren't any riders taking part in any league nowadays who has that sort of aura. The collapse of averages produced by smaller leagues plays a part in that, but other factors have contributed significantly to a situation where no rider in the world has that aura.

And Stan Stevens beating Barry Briggs at West Ham.

Jim Tebby beating Ivan Mauger at Wimbledon has to be up there moments like that made speedway special.

It was. I was there and it was a glorious sunny rare Friday night meeting at Hyde Road. Great that it was captured for posterity too and with the superb commentary of Dave Lanning :-) I am a big Mort fan, so this gives me ample opportunity to indulge myself. Oddly enough, the ones most etched in the memory were not so much Mort at his best (as above), but scraping through World Championship rounds. In 86, winning his last race at the Intercontinental at Bradford, making a rare start and hanging on from Pedersen, Thorp and Shirra (?) after an otherwise unconvincing meeting. Also, the 87 British Final, being last away in his final ride and facing elimination but picking off Doncaster and Cross (on the last turn) to sneak through. I think it was the relief and living every second of those races that made them so memorable.

As N.K.I is not in the line up of any other Premier League Team it must be that he has opted out this season because I don't think Lynn wouldn't have not signed him otherwise. We must use what was a TEAM during the last two or three months and the fact that they will be all together again is good. RISS will improve as he will be in from the start this time KASPER was getting better until injury M.P.T is a must as he really wants to be at LYNN The same goes for JORGENSEN. IF LEWIS can go as well as before his Injury The team will do well and be in the top 4 without trouble.....

Interetsing thread this one. What's developing in to a bore on another thread is the insistance that riders be judged upon how many times he wins a race. Sure winning races is important but it's how those races are won is what many of us remember and judge. Those are the memories I cherish and reflect back on. I particularly recall the classic race between Peter Collins and Gordon Kennett at Hackney...Peter riding the fence and Gordon the white line side by side for four laps which ended up as a dead heat and drawing massive applause from the appreciative fans. Or Gordon splitting the team riding Ole Olsen and Alan Molyneux at Wood Lane and coming thru' fo a tremendous win!

Strange that we have 3 promoters that fail to communicate with each other and the team manager is the only one making official club statements. It gets more like a Whitehall farce by the day .

The best way to sort this out is for the club to make an announcement on the official website, or is that too simple ?

T Balfe Construction are proud to sponsor Peterborough Panthers who are a British Speedway Team. In 2019 they will be in the premier league and we look forward to supporting them. https://www.tbalfe.co.uk/t-balfe-in-the-community/

Most interesting thing there is the omission of T Balfe construction in the team listing on bottom right.

Bought a lump to my throat that. Very unusual for me. Nice to see someone like that young Lady stand by their partner when things go ** up. Great little vid SS. At 6.35 Fu@king allergic to alcohol comment from Darcy had me genuinely laughing out loud after hearing it earlier from the brides Father( I take it)

Fantastic thread Rob Godfrey must be pizzing himself!

The Sverre Harrfeldt thread got a bit side tracked by a discussion about Christer Loftqvist andReidar Eide so rather than spoil that thread I thought I would start a separate one as both were involved in two of the most memorable races I have ever seen. I say memorable rather than great because we can have different opinions on what is a great race but sometimes you see a race or races that just seem to define everything you love about speedway. The two races in question took place in a West Ham v Wembley match 13th October 1970 . There was a great build up to them . Reidar went out and won heat one over a second faster than anyone else rode that night, and inflicted Olle Nygrens only defeat of the evening. He was back out in heat 5 and whopped Tony Clarke and Barry Crowson. Two heats later he came out on a tac sub to beat Christer Loftqvist. He was looking invincible and the fans resigned themselves to him going through the card. Then came a fabulous heat 11 , when Loftqvist and Eide were programmed against each other. Reidar made the gate (just) but with Christer scraping the fence as only he could , he slowly edged in front , but with barely half a bikes length lead he locked up sightly coming out of bend two lap 3 allowing Reide back in front by a matter of inches. I think Christer had the throttle hard against the stop for the rest of the race and came back to win by about half a bikes length. Heat 13 was a repeat of Heat 11 except that this time Christer was round the line unusually for him and Reidar round the boards. Christer again locked up a bit, same place ad before, but being on the inside, he recovered more quickly and again won by about half a length. Speedway at its absolute best. Anyone else remember it ? One of the few programmes I still have. West Ham closed down for redevelopment soon after and I felt bereft. I continued to Hackney for a time but it was never quite the same to me and eventually I drifted away for many years until returning to Lakeside, which for me somehow captured the mood of Wets Ham in a way that Hackney never did, not for me anyway.

My opinion and i am entitled to it and you mock me and tease me but you have a WEAKNESS it is your way or no way my opinion of Rickardsson shows you that i don't go by stats.

I think the racesuit has been a bit of a flop for the sport personally. It's embarrassing seeing clubs showing their team off and all the rider's look different anyway. Each rider gets theirs made by their preferred manufacturer so they never match up. Might aswell just use race bibs.

so,build his private business from scratch to be a successful local based business,takes a unused grass field in a run down area and turns it into a profitable business and a track that is upthere with the best in the country,and has won silver wear at various levels and you call him not intelligent a clueless? now it matters not if you like him or not or if you agree with him or not,but to dish out personnal insults is below the belt,especially when the hard facts prove other wise and id go as far as saying that it isnt the BSPA,the MC,the riders,the tracks thats wrong with British speedway,its clowns like you that continually pull the sport down ,,,,,thats wrong wiith speedway and btw,have you looked on google maps yet to see if your statement that the EWR is a circle is correct?

Of course they are interested, the difference being they know their team line ups and are not as frustrated as the poor Lynn fans. They are being treated like mug punters in my book...

this thread is at the top of the page, you'll notice also that threads for most of the teams that are all announced are slipping down to the bottom because no-one is interested any more, they've had their say, but this one keeps going .....

Being critical of the management and 'supporting the team' are two completely different things. Indeed, it could be strongly argued the absolute worst fans are those who stand around happy clapping instead of voicing their displeasure at the decline in fortunes of the club/sport they claim to love so much.

Both - On the Racers facebook group a few days back they announced they are still riding at Eastbourne but as second halves on the days that the track is running various amateur days.. see text below.. "The stadium will be host to several Sunday amateur meetings and "Powerslide" days - where beginners can hire a bike and be supervised in their first laps of a track - and the Racers matches will take place after these sessions, running 2 matches on each occasion" Cheers

Remarkable that Ricky continues his story, who knows how far this will go.

Apologies if I've missed this, but any truth in the rumour that Buster's home had a fire whilst he was away?! As for the TJ story in the Star this week - it was primarily about the help he received from the club during 2018. It stated he was 'still hopeful' of a team place.

I fear we will not hear from Ged or Neil again. It is almost unbelievable the total disregard for the paying public shown by the Mafia and the seeming contempt in which we are regarded.