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Like I've said before one of the best naturally talented speedway riders I've ever seen in my time! Yes he was made a scapegoat from 1984 onwards (the early 1984 incident at the King's Lynn V Poole meeting was blown out of all proportions!) but his lifestyle, attitude and punctuality particularly after his 1980 World title win were very poor which put him in a precarious position with officialdom and made him an easy target for disciplinary action. King's Lynn in the Cyril Crane era bent over backwards for Michael Lee until the end of 1982 by which time they were glad to sell him, their previous golden boy, to Poole. Michaels return to King's Lynn for short lived spells under the Martin Rogers promotion for stagnated parts of the 1985 and 86 seasons were again fraught by a complete lack of reliability due no doubt to an ever expanding drug problem. A lesser rider than Michael Lee would of not of been afforded the numerous chances Rogers gave him in 85 and 86, when even the laid back nature of the well spoken promotor was tested to the limit. A shame cause even at this stage in the mid 80's if Michael could of sorted himself out he looked still capable of returning to something near his previous best. I always wonder how Michael Lees career and indeed the history of Mildenhall speedway would of turned out if the plans for Mildenhall to step up in to the British league in 1983 with Michael as number 1 at his original training track stomping ground had gone through? - I believe King's Lynn objected cause Mildenhalls very close to Lynn and no doubt had it happened with Lee as the Fen Tigers No 1 quite a few Saddlebow Road regulars may of defected over to West Row. - Would this move have settled Michael down and possibly cemented Mildenhalls place as a top flight track? His last aborted comeback in 1991 saw Michael Lee as a pale shadow of his former self, while still competitive as a reserve, time and bad lifestyle choices had fully taken their toll by this stage. Even in 1991 his reputation went against him as he was picked for a random(!) alcohol and drugs test when he was a reserve in the 1991 Commonwealth final and was found to have traces of alcohol after apparently having a pint on route to the meeting when he thought he wouldn't be riding. Again like I said before, Michael Lees a nice bloke who went of the rails through drugs use and through having so much ability he didn't appreciate what he had, but its wrong to lay the blame entirely on officialdom for his downfall. Yes by 1984 onwards the authorities were out to get him but he had put himself in that position to be shot at.

That's irrelevant. Surely all sports are to be treated the same. You can either have 1>2500 spectators or you can't. Elite or amateur is neither here nor there.

i think that's a little harsh on PC. I know he only ended with the one World Title, but he could/should have had one of Mauger's titles in 77, and one of Olsen's in 75.

The whole situation regarding crowd levels at events is a complete farce.Logic says every event or no events should have a crowd. IMO.

off to Bydgoszcz Poland v Russia on Tuesday

So think about it, Spedeworth are getting £125,000 income out of an alleged grass roots non elite sport from a 2500 crowd, somebody somewhere seriously needs to get a fricking grip on this country's sport regulations. 'Professional elite sport' of any kind can't make a penny out of paying punters yet the stockcars can! Its absolutely 'Beep, Beep, Beeping' rediculous!!!

Up here in comets land we are due colour tv soon and some people have stopped pointing at the sky when an aircraft goes passed.

About a month or so after my book, Speedway in London, came out, I looked in on Sportspages (a specialist sports book shop) In Charing Cross Road to see how it was selling. They told me that it was going quite well and that Mark Loram had been in and signed all the copies they had, which had helped sales. I had no idea he had done this. We never spoke about it, he just did it. I thought, as Terry said, what a great bloke. There was nothing in it for him; it just helped me.

Can't wait to see some live speedway again, particularly supporting my team Lost interest, no way!!!! I have watched a few of the Polish meetings etc on PremierTV but apart from watching the form of a few riders they do nothing for me, I feel no passion for any Polish team lol I am quite excited about the prospect of British Speedway streaming, particularly if the BSPL somehow have meetings streamed on a regular basis next year, would love to be able to watch Lynn's away meetings and I would certainly pay for the privilege .......

Mark was such a down to earth bloke, everybody liked him, fans, fellow riders. He never changed from that 15 year old mascot having after meeting rides in 86 til the day he retired. (Such a shame it wasn't on his terms.) I remember the 75th anniversary meeting at Rye House. He and Ove Fundin had a match race with Mark on an old bike and Ove on a modern machine - just like Jack Parker and Simmo at Hackney in 78. Ove led until the last corner before suffering an engine failure. Mark didn't take part in the meeting so he was chatting away with fans in the bar, and I was chuffed when he told me he remembered me from the Saturday afternoon training schools which I used to help out at...As I said, a great bloke.

https://vimeo.com/462112863/ce641c3e6a

Yes Mate Loram was classy could not gate for Toffee what a r ridrer Remember Mark as a mascot at Hackney With Thommo,loved Mark great rider,

https://youtu.be/tfv6MmlW_W0 Some interesting stats from the Office of National Statistics...

Never believe a Latvian

That was my first visit to Tolworth. I've been to Richmond Road and Kingsmeadow several times. It was my 10th game of the new season. 4 revisits and 6 new grounds. Hopefully a couple more next week.

Different Frank Ebdon to what i remember.Didn't know how to keep a meeting flowing,he would be what fans want now he would get a meeting done and dusted in 75 minutes no problem.

So the original West Ham track was a Long Track?. I always believed a long track had to be between 500 and 1,000m.. Seems I was wrong.

Yeah, back in the day when it was a one off World Final in "longtrack" and there were some proper top stars of shale sport competing, it was always on genuine long tracks, at least as far as I can recall. Once it moved to a GP style series all sorts of weirdness seemed to happen. Grass tracks, sand tracks, speedway tracks...I guess that there just weren't enough proper 1,000m tracks in enough Countries to run a GP style series, but the FIM wanted one anyway. Before the GP days, it was pretty much Germany and Czechia that held the finals with the odd appearance of Denmark and Yugoslavia (Slovenia). Still, the mention of a round at Rzeszow reminds me of the 2013 round there where Jonas Kylmakorpi did his best to turn a speedway track into a long track.... Gotta love his wide lines...and feel horrible for him when it all goes wrong on lap 4...

Well at least that means I can go to Donington Park tomorrow instead.

Eddie did you see the video on this thread ?

Wet Spam really ?? hope you are well Doris .

Stock Car racing is not classed as an elite sport and can have a crowd. Madness innit??????

Definitely was right decision to move from tonight's running, been foul here all day today. From a personal perspective am certainly glad I'm not going to be standing on the heath tonight, albeit in the pits.

It can only ever be an opinion but from the many Polish matches and GP's I've watched this year and in previous years, I can't say that I have seen any tracks there that consistently produce better racing than the NSS.

I can't believe the event finished up at Manchester and not scunthorpe !

What else can/are they allowed to do?

and Tuesday, no forecast of rain until Wednesday. So all you doom sayers about Manchester....... your wrong (this time).

Trouble is they are lying gits - this is from their Twitter account days before the season started in June " Starting this Friday we will be bringing you live coverage of the Polish Extraleague through to the end of the season on Premier Sports and Freesports"

Your opinion is very much valued Norbold, and you are on the money.Rickardsson was a rider i never really took to but his achievements says it all.My biggest regret was never seeing Craven and Knutsson ride the big five Ove, Barry, Peter, Bjorn, Mirac were something else.My uncle who first took me to speedway said that Knutsson had untapped quality silky smooth a rider who was a threat to everybody.Another rider he always harped on about was Gote Nordin he always maintained he was a class act.

Eddie i agree with you, i have for years banging on the will NEVER be a 16 year old like Lee-until now. Damian Ratajczak. I can only describe as sensational & ONLY 15 years of age!! IMO this is POTENTIALLY the next Gollob/Zmarzlik! Another off the never ending Leszno production line

So all the governments around the world must be telling lies cause this bogus virus story is pretty universal and hitting a second time in lots of places. If it’s a load of lies there must be thousands upon thousands around the world complicent to the lie which to me sounds incredible.

Sad to see political comments on this site....especially ones spouting bile as we see above. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but please keep politics off this site....it simply makes you look bigoted and stupid.

Reminds me a bit of Jan O, he could usually find grip and speed where no one else could Either the Russian mafia has got to him or his bikes are running on novichok May as hold a GP in Blackpool then If I were BSI I'd pull him from tonight's GP, didn't even finish a few of his races. I thought the wildcard was used to pull in a crowd... as crowd's aren't allowed they may as well grant it to somebody who's interested in finishing races. Seems injury prone They're always wrong! You either need to be sitting down with a laptop and dictionary or have racers & royals by your side to understand at any speed what's going on. I predict a real shambles in the last GP when the winner is to be decided if one rider makes the final and another hasn't as people are trying to calculate who the new world champion is!!! to be fair it's always been the case... the only positive I can see with the new system is that Zmarzlik is only 1 point clear of Lindgren, where under the old system he would now be 14 points clear of Woffy

I wonder what that has got to do with Kent ? Posted on the wrong place I think ?