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Over the last decade the Elite League/Premiership has significantly weakened the product on offer and as a consequence crowds have dwindled. Therefore, the evidence suggests that a "watered down" league will only hasten the demise. Three clubs have gone from last year. Of those three, Lakeside rode on Fridays and Workington rode on Saturdays. Therefore I am not sure weekend meetings are the panacea you think they are.

Not quite as much excitement this week as last mainly down to track conditions which was heavy and also that Newcastle never really got going until the second half of the meeting and by then Berwick held a decent lead. Excellent from Steven Worrall and Lasse Bjerre once he got his bike going while the two Newcastle reserves were disappointing. Berwick were strong throughout but young reserve Leon Flint caught the eye most, scoring in all his rides which is way more than should be expected from him.

One question I have to ask after reading Dave Peet's comments on the Scorpions site “Leicester haven’t been in our league for a while, so some of the lads had not ridden it before, and we spent most of the meeting trying to get dialled in, while the track was a bit grippy early on. “In the end, it became a stepping stone for our league meeting here later in the season. Next year we come back, we’ll be dialled in.” Which guys haven't seen the track before? Auty and Garrity rode for them. Allen rode in top flight last year so will have been to Leicester. Coventry rode their NL fixtures there so Bailey and Kinsley will have rode for Mildenhall and List rode in the ben fund a couple of weeks back. Got to wonder if he does actually have a clue

Speedway in this country must stop being dictated to by Poland.If it is to survive,the best race nights for family's are Friday and Saturday with Sunday early starts. My team Belle Vue have never had Monday as a regular race night in all the years i have followed them.Just tell all riders to decide were they want to ride Poland or Britain so we can still have speedway there will be a watered down league standard because riders will have to be moved up into higher leagues to fill any gaps.But i would rather have that situation than no speedway.Three clubs have gone from last year how many more from this year,we cant let the current situation carry on or soon there wont be any clubs left.

......And the criticism of the track/racing goes on....(yawn). This is the ninth season of the new LIons era and whilst the track is obviously the worst in the universe (designed by somebody no longer having an interest in the running of the club), at least there have been attempts to try and improve the circuit, within the obvious constraints. It appears quite often that riders (of a lesser ability) are taken in by the plethora of negative comments made on social media about the quality of the track. If they don't make the gate they can be excused for not making up ground because its a crap track. It has been proved, that top riders (and lesser but brave ones) can make passes on the track. Is it because of their ability or mindset though? Gating is the most fundamental part of a rider's skill set and the vast majority of races, even at every other wonderful UK track are won from the gate. Better riders refer to Leicester as a technical track. Having witnessed the home meetings against Redcar and Scunthorpe, I have to admit that the huge winning margins were boring (although a bit of a novelty for us) but that was largely down to the opposition appearing not to be up for it and for some riders embarrassingly so.

Good job Gappmaier did nothing, otherwise this could have been a real hammering...

No nights will ever be right given the nonsense that pervades as its operating model.. If the day ever dawns when it sorts itself out, and can run itself as a team sport based on one rider having one team, and can cover absences from squads rather than sharing riders, then weekend has to be the desired times to open.. For Worky running so many meetings in such a short time was the disaster, rather than running on a Saturday, and Lakeside had to vacate the stadium.. There is a reason why Poland run at weekends. The crowds this weekend show it. If they ran on Monday and Thursday's this week the crowds would have been many thousand poorer (even though every superstar on the planet would have ridden).. Lets be honest, hardly any riders now riding in Britain put 'bums on seats' so you might as well run at weekends to see if non superstars can generate big enough crowds. Currently 'Superstars' don't bring the crowds in on a Monday, Wednesdays and Thursday's so got to be worth a try..

Who have thought that hope its just the start for Berwick great start to the season well done

Why say that we are sending contracts out. Surely the contract should be agreed before being sent out. I work in high end finance and I only send contracts when clients have signed off on million pound deals.

Good to see someone from Poole admitting the holes are there. Credit to Josh, even if it does make some others there look a little economical with the truth.

I think people will see what they want to see to a degree. Scunthorpes faithfull who are used to seeing a lot of passing week in week out will have seen it as a processional meeting, whereas those used to the FTG Leicester stuff will have seen a much better meeting than usual. I guess it depends what you are used to. It was a better than usual meeting at Leicester and provided more entertainment than usual, but it certainly wasn't like what was served up the night before.

And just realised it's not on a FRN. So again. What is the point in FRN

Was chatting to former owner Terry Russell at the Swindon Dinner Dance last year, local east ender, Ackney fan then owner, and Leyton Orient fan. Went a few times in mid 60s after New Cross closed. My first match was in 1963 New Cross v Ackney.

Many of the tracks in my golden era of speedway were dangerous. Many tracks like Hackney, had lamp posts with the lights hanging over the track. Yes Hackney's track was perhaps a bit too fast especially when the 4 valves came in. But we all know the riders new the risk they were taking way back then and indeed still do in today’s modern era of speedway, although of course still extremely dangerous safety has become paramount in modern day speedway. Probably the safest track in the land at the time was London rivals Wimbledon. The catch fence [which of course was used in modern day Rye House under the reign of Uncle Len] had no posts and if a rider was unlucky enough to fly through the fence there were no nasty surprises. Even the fantastic old Hyde Road track at Belle Vue wasn’t without danger. It had manhole covers on or near the track and Peter Collins famously rode in the 1977 World Final in Sweden with a bad leg injury after the manhole cover was dislodged and clouted PC in the leg. Yes in post war Hackney there were fatalities at The Wick and one pre-war with Dusty Haigh. Two certainly post war were as a result of the lamp posts, one wasn’t. I’m not sure on young Alan Clegg. These guys paid the ultimate price for entertaining me and many thousands of other speedway fans at Waterden Road. The Len Silver era had top quality riders from around the world and racing was excellent. I have to say the Russell/Pavitt era had very good racing to. Scofield, Galvin and of course Thommo were brilliant when they missed the gate coming from the back. Going back to the sixties and seventies so were Banger, Middleton, Plechy, Thommo [that man again] Lord Morton of Hackney and numerous others, but the track was different and had far more dirt than in later years. In 1996 I’m so pleased they were called London as the track and viewing was awful and they didn’t use the name Hackney, because Hackney was a brilliant race track despite its danger and produced far better racing than any other track in the country.

There is one main reason Lakeside and Workington closed and it's nothing at all to do with Friday and Saturday's. The fact they had to ride so many Fixtures in October mostly against each other was a huge factor. The other factor ROB GODFREY - cancelled Lakeside Fixtures in summer as them riding on a Friday stopped him booking Guests for Scunthorpe and cancelled some Workington matches too. The success of those sides unfairly affected them. Had Godfrey not cancelled Lakeside matches at a few days notice they would have ridden fewer Fixtures at Rye House and not lost huge amounts on last few matches there. Also a fact they lost their Track to developers, that would have whatever day they race on. We absolutely need ONE BIG LEAGUE of 14-16 Teams giving variety and whatever level that finds can and should be marketable until the Polish bubble inevitably bursts and Riders have to accept that "getting paid in UK" is better than not getting paid 5-10x more in Poland...". Some sides are having a real go at PROMOTING the sport, others are living in denial and negativity.

I think most Leicester fans will/would ‘put up with’ and actually love a season of easy home wins with good racing like last night, after 8 years of near bottom of the league stuff :-)

and an even bigger mouth . last time i heard of one of his tweets he was abusing a top cage fighter which is so brave from a computer sitting in a wheel chair. even his sugar daddies at poole seem to have got fed up with his "f**k british speedway" comments every time something happens that he doesn't agree with as i haven't heard of any darcy ward benefit again this year.

It’s all about opinions and mine is you’re a keyboard warrior!

We invite you to view the trailer for our Memories of Hackney DVD here: Only £16 (post-free in UK) from us at https://www.retro-speedway.com/homepage

Honestly Newcastle looked like the away team... Berwick definitely wanted it more... we need fortress Brough Park and the sooner the better... two totally different tracks from last week to this... it's not the NSS it needs to be grippy and the grippier the better... there is no home track advantage whatsoever at present... Needs to be sorted sooner rather than later... Regards THJ

He signed for Lynn and averaged about 1.00 in 01/02? Newport then signed him on a 9.00 in 2003 and he increased his average and went EL the season after. He spent many seasons as a second heatleader in the EL with Pboro/Wolves and Lynn and then had a breakthrough season with Lynn. A great rider, brilliant style and a great guy as well.

Going to be a long season if that display by Newcastle is anything to go by. Only Clegg came out of that meeting with any credit for Newcastle.

Away wins are a very rare thing for Berwick, so I`m sure this one will be celebrated well into the night. Excellent win and well team managed with the right riders being replaced in the right races. For Berwick to early to get carried away, but what a great win, while for Newcastle to early to panic but they need to improve especially at home.

Watching the Lublin match this evening i hope Lambert tells Buster about a chap named Miesiak,boy he was exciting to watch and scored well too.Maybe later on in the season?

Lambert seems to enjoy himself in Lublin nice to see him doing well there.

Don't be so negative. At least we get the chance to see Chris Harris & Craig Cook riding for Peterborough. Don't we???

Leszno v Wroclaw Extraleague Sunday April 7th

quick Polish lesson for you guys ZZ = Zastępstwo Zawodnika = Rider Replacement

Still posting bs I see

Yes ZZ is rider replacement

Any of you guys go to Raynes Park cycle speedway in 1964, particularly September 1964???? I only rode once their, it would be a Saturday afternoon (cant remember the date) but the meetings were the National Cycle Speedway Association championships. Juniors on the Saturday, Seniors on the Sunday. I rode for Belle Vue Gladiators in the Junior team final on the Sat'day afternoon against another Manchester team from Hyde. BV were favourites, but Hyde beat us by 2 points. Same afternoon, maybe less then an hour later, I rode in the Junior individual final and won it with 13 points. Thats was 4 wins on the trot then 3rd in my final race, when I only needed 1 point, and I was against 2 guys who were favourites - Pail Rennie, Gorton Manchester, and Chris Hunt from Wembley. Was any of you there???? Obviously the track suited me, does anyone have any photos or video clips of (any) racing there. As I said, only saw it the once.

Broken collarbone

Sounds about right. He won a few quali rounds. A couple at Oxford, but guess the semi finals were a big hurdle he seemed to have trouble with. But we shouldn’t forget there were some great riders at the time and the Aussies and New Zealanders were also in the mix I’d put him in the ‘could have’ rather than should have made a world final. He had the ability equal to a lot who did make it

Not a surprise ,likes the limelight does Mr Mc G.

It is numerous things, not just race nights, although I guess that keeps some fans at home. The Speedway Star pre-season edition with all the line-ups, for example, and there is not one single team that would encourage me to shell out £20 to enter a stadium. Reducing prices might help, but promoters are naturally worried about doing this, and so will increase them year upon year to make up for the missing fans and stand the risk of losing more fans who feel it not worth the price anymore. So they combat that by putting up prices again next year. As always, the best hope for speedway's future is for the old supporters to introduce the new ones. I had it done to me, and I introduced my young brother. But, when a new fan is hooked, you have to offer them a product that doesn't have their mates laughing at them.

Spot on. It wasn’t bad, wasn’t that great either. An improvement on the previous week.

Live on you tube

I,m with you Guitar man,.............every team ( what ever the sport ) full of new signings needs time to bed in !!! KRO

From only 2 rides I believe

Yes you're right and as long as there is some good racing as well I agree. Just hoping the opposition heat leaders put up more of a fight than they have lately.

That's good to hear. He was being chased very hard by Richie Worrall and tried to cover his run round the outside of bends 1 & 2, unfortunately he got the exit all wrong and bailed off just in time at high speed into the fence at the start of the back straight.

Well, it wasn't to be. After Bachelor broke the track record in heat 1 I couldn't have imagined they'd then be forced to abandon the meeting. Unfortunately I have almost come to expect these situations, having seen it all too often in the UK. Łódź riders simply didn't want to race. Tungate and Andersen, as well as the young reserve who did the track test were adamant it wasn't safe. Today I'm off to Leszno. With great weather forecast, I'm confident we will see great action there ...

A really good meeting . Some good team riding & passing in most races. Seems Stewart has managed to get some consistency in the surface, I fear for Scunthorpe on the road they have a very long tail end. Only downside from tonight is i didn’t have the courage to ask the attractive young female Scunthorpe fan in the Grey hat on bend 1 for her number :-(

F##k of zzzzzzz

2 things I wish for tomorrow at BROUGH is that when it says tapes up at 18.30 let's do it & a diamonds win

He would.... not known for his liking for a wet or grippy track ...

Not one which wants to spend £100,000000 over 50 yrs on a stadium no one wants except the council leader and reds shareholder, and ex town chairman as his deputy !

Got a car full susposed to be coming up from Workington (others planning to come up some are flying up on broomsticks !!) But don't know of any names/riders been announced yet, has anyone got any more info ?? Don't fancy watching the likes of sarj dodge the tapes all the time !!

I'm sure I read on here around December that Woryna wasn't returning to Poole in 2019 because he was to expensive.

I think it would be quicker to name the riders who Nicki hasn't upset down the years! Saying that he's had a raw deal the last couple of years with refs excluding him purely because of his reputation and riders (Woffinden and Janowski spring to mind,) overreacting after barely being touched. You know they wouldn't react like that if it were any other rider. I for one will miss him in the gp's this year because he's the last remaining character and he stirs things up. It's all gotten too chummy with all the fist bumps and high fives..We need another Penhall v Carter type rivalry!