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But it still doesn't matter,,, he is contracted to race for Sheffield on Mondays and or Thursdays,, so he is with holding his services,,, and I'm sure that comes with a 28 day ban,,, or it used to. I would imagine a conversation went something like,,,,, hello Simon it's Jack,, I'm really awful at Foxhall,, even on my last visit I had to fake injury, so maybe you should use rr for me and I will stay in or go to Poland, it should be okay cos speedway fans are mugs and will buy the BS and turn up anyway.

So the cost of flights and tests were ok last week for Dan Bewley to get to the NSS a day after racing in Poland? And Jack himself after riding in Poland the same weekend.. Amazing isn't it how it worked out ok then? Also amazing is how when a No1 is missing it always seems to be not at his home track but when riding away? I wonder if it was a Tigers v Witches fixture if their number one 'drawcard' would have been missing? Still, I suppose they have that many fans attending that one or two more deciding 'enough is enough' won't be even noticed... Just like those who already have given up over the past decade in particular seemingly haven't been noticed yet...

One difference - Ipswich said we are not having that , you're out!! Timing was far from ideal but the decision that means some longer term credibility was made The Holder situation is unacceptable We should be lodging a protest and publicly condemning this type of scenario Instead it seems it will be meekly accepted and brushed under the carpet rather like the Bates rising star fiasco This has even someone like me seriously considering why I bother

Entries already closed for the 2021 annoying knob of the year awards Congratulations on your win (as this is Speedway related there is no trophy and no financial reward -enjoy)

Maybe they should, I think British fans know the Poles are pulling the strings ...... on the other hand if this is going to be a problem with Jack on a lot of Thursdays something has to give? Basically it's not fair on clubs that meet Sheffield with Jack racing .....

I wonder if he will be bringing a brown envelope back on his return.

The Poles (PZM) cancelled it because anything less than 100% crowd level would be a financial disaster for them.

Jack isn’t very good at Ipswich. Last time in the play off semifinal he faked injury so Poole could use R/R in his last two rides. trouble was he limped on the other leg he claimed firstly a toe injury and then it was his knee. more chance of Ritchie Hawkins riding at Edinburgh than holder at foxhall

See also the following regulation, noting 010.5.p with reference to Leicester's team line-up (Jamie Halder was not in Leicester's final team declaration for 2019). 010.5 FACILITIES No facility is permitted to replace a rider, who although included in a redeclaration has not made an appearance for that team since being redeclared. A team may utilise a facility to cover the absence of a rider(s) who is: - a) FIM World Speedway Championship and FIM World Long Track duty b) FIM Speedway of Nations duty c) FIME Speedway European Championship duty d) FIME U21 Championship duty e) engaged elsewhere at a BSPA shared or purchased meeting f) recalled in accordance with the FIM ISLB regulations g) injured whilst speedway racing, within 48 hours of the injury occurring. If no evidence is available, a Medical Certificate must be sent to the SCB; failure to do so will result in the mandatory suspension of the riders SCB Registration for the next home fixture. The Directors cannot overrule the suspension h) sick or carrying a non-speedway injury, the rider must immediately inform the SCB and their club. A Medical Certificate must be supplied to the SCB within 48 hours of the sickness/injury occurring in which case the rider will receive a mandatory 7 days suspension of his SCB Registration from the day of the first meeting missed i) suspended by the FIM, ACU, SCB or riders FMN j) in dispute with his club, provided that the circumstances have been accepted by the BSPA Directors who will determine the facility and period of the riders inactivity k) retiring during the current season a facility will be granted for a period of 28 days. After which the team must re-apply for a further 28 day facility outlining the steps they have taken to find a replacement. An extension up to 28 days may be granted at the BSPA Directors discretion. In these circumstances a rider cannot return to ride for any club within 28 days, effective from the date of notification to the SCB l) a Championship rider who’s own FMN does not have a current agreement with the BSPA and is competing in another FMN’s National, League or Open Meeting. This will result in the riders SCB Registration being suspended for one (1) season and the riders team will be automatically granted a facility for a maximum period of 28 days, after which that team must re-declare m) awaiting medical clearance for the riders FMN n) NDL only: absent for any other reason - applicable to riders 18 years old and under, providing 3 days’ notice is given o) a rider with an assessed MA p) has been approved in a teams declared 1-7 at the start of the season, a 28 day facility may be granted at the BSPA Directors discretion. In the NDL this only applies if the rider was in that teams 1-7 at the close of the previous season.

Funny no one has mentioned the fact that Berwick have a rider named in their 1-7 that they have no idea if/when he will be allowed to travel and enter the country, but that's OK. Teams in the same situation have made changes, so no need for R/R or guests.

Its an interesting one from a club point of view. If you allow live streaming once crowd restrictions are lifted it may well result in more people watching due to on line coverage but at what cost? And how do you police it? If someone within travelling distance takes you up on the live stream, it costs the club in real terms. It could be three or four people watching - thats basically free admission for all bar one person - plus you lose out on takings at the bar, at the snack outlets, for programmes, half time draw tickets, souvenirs. Yes there will be people watching who perhaps wouldnt live but the numbers would not make up for potential loss of income. If you advertise for away fans or for say fans over 50 miles from the track, how do you police it? In todays internet market of VPNs its impossible. How would you make sure it was only away fans who used it? Maybe some sort of arrangement amongst the clubs (ha! yeah right! lol) where their season ticket holders get to buy through their own club who know where they live? How is that fair though to fans who pay per meeting? Whats to stop friends from different tracks 'making an arrangment' or sharing the feed? Much as I have loved having on line streaming from all sorts of sports over the pandemic, in the real post covid world I am not sure that there is any way it would work for the clubs. Happy to be proven wrong

But to be fair they have something to whine about, they haven’t won anything since 1998

But his meeting in Poland is re scheduled,,,,, this one isn't,, so should take priority, or are we bending over for the PZM

I may be wrong but the ticket re-admission seems completely cock-eyed to me! If I am correct you can use the ticket from this meeting on any other meeting apart from bank holiday. In the current climate of restricted crowd numbers how on earth are they going to know how many people are going to turn up for a future meeting? If they have sold 80% capacity for the Kings Lynn home fixture already there can be no idea how many others are going to turn up using re-admission tickets! Surely a better system would be tickets are only to be used for the re staging or a refund , at least you know how many tickets are sold for each meeting !

Spot on.... And in reality that is SIX teams racing on Saturday nights.. (Unless any of the above race against each other obviously which lowers it a bit).... I presume the FIM/FIME seem to think that by publishing its calendar well in advance, that this should be sufficient for UK promoters to use common sense and work around it, and not race league meetings needing Guests on the same nights which destroys the credibility of the league?... How very dare they come to such a conclusion, don't they know how Speedway is ran in the UK.. ... NB: Maybe we could run more meetings on Fridays? Oops. Forgot, we once did that and it wasnt 'universally' liked was it?

Interesting question....just who do the FIM and FIME think that they are, daring to have their meetings at weekends? Don't they know that we British have three teams, yeah, count them, THREE teams, who these pesky World and European tournaments interfere with. How dare they! About time the FIM and FIME got their priorities straight. Because WE say so, innit?

Probably good advice for all of you.

Got my ticket for this. Is it likely to be on? I fancy a narrow away win

Contact the Club

He's only doing it so you post! lol. Oh....now I have too! double loll's

Totally agree with all three sentences. Some might not well agree with my stance, but I now only attend speedway and pay my money to enjoy the racing that's going on in front of me. I cheer for my team to win and admire the abilities of all 14 riders (if we see two full teams) on view on any particular night. For a couple of hours or so I'm happy in the knowledge that the majority are busting a gut to do well on the night because their efforts in most cases are reflected in their pay cheques. Other than that I try to forget that I'm watching a league structure that allows so much manipulation it really doesn't have any integrity. And, it is only because I am watching speedway at the NSS that I still choose to go. Had Belle Vue Aces & Belle Vue Colts still been at the Greyhound Stadium I would have stopped going several years ago.

i would give Greg Blair the spot he is getting better every meeting and with more racing will get even better his all out way of riding the boards will be great entertainment for the fans plus local boy

No it doesn't matter - you are 100% right. My thoughts on maybe no return flight to Gorzow, and the twaddle over a rearranged fixture, were hinting that the Ipswich website was feeding us some BS. Jack himself was probably giving us a clue that he wasn't going to be at Ipswich in his Eurosport interview at the NSS last week. And Red Flag is most likely correct. Doubt a UK club would 'get away' with insisting that though.

Would guess he’s been told to be in Poland 24 hrs before to ensure he doesn’t have last minute travel issues forcing him to miss his Polish match, no one will want to say this officially though

Everyone is going to try to get the KO Cup meetings on as early as possible so there are bound to be some fixture switches.

Getting the in form Flint in for the injured Akins is a handy bonus (i must say i thought it would be an unattached rising star rather than other clubs rider but s a whole other discussion). Next home meeting is going to be very important for the zero men, its one thing to struggle on the road but if Cook, Ruml and Goret don't get going at home its going to be a long season.

I’m happy to see Berwick run a NDL team, but feel they it would have been better supported in stand alone meetings.That’s just my personal thoughts.Feel that £25 for double headers might be too much for some people.I certainly feel that £50 + fuel is not value for me and wife.Will pick and choose matches I will attend.

Probably wouldn't have batted an eyelid, had the boot been on the other foot. Can't disagree with any of that. Berwick will struggle with the current seven. However it is probably a economically viable side and will keep the club afloat.

So that will be a no then?

It’s all about flights availability and costs, I mentioned at the start of the season that some leeway was going to be provided because it’s clear that until the flight availability returns to something like normality riders are going to struggle to get from Poland and Denmark etc into the U.K and vice versa. Unfortunately it was always going to be a can of worms and the BSPL have opened it, regulations were changed to allow facilities for riders who hadn’t yet ridden for their respective teams and going forward for those who would miss meetings due to travel problems. We will have to see if things change but at the moment this is what we have and I can see it going on for a while. I just hope that it’s consistent and applied properly to all.

The Speedway Tavern is finally back in our refurbished all-new studio tonight. Hallelujah! Its been difficult to keep the show going on Zoom which is why our shows have been sporadic, but we are back now (Covid willing.) So on tonight's show we have Peterborough rider and Brummies number 1 Chris, Bomber, Harris. Be sure to tune in to ask YOUR questions. Facebook link: -https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=uk%20speedway%20tavern Also on Twitter, podbean, and of course youtube. Just search for speedway tavern.

Or you being Jason Crump's fan club secretary

So Jack's problem is not getting to Ipswich bit getting to Poland He is therefore choosing to withhold his services from Sheffield for a legitimate priority GB fixture

The only thing left for laurence Rogers to do is hire a mini bus and come around your house & pick you up on Wednesday evenings & drop you home afterwards

If clubs are having such difficulty in putting out seven man teams, why did they not bite the bullet and have six or five man teams and make up the evening with the junior league teams. They had an opportunity to do something different but failed to show any initiative and yet the owners, promoters, managers and racing officials continue to treat the punter with such contempt and as long as the minority put up with this, they will carry on regardless. The majority have long since walked away from this farce.

The fact that no speedway promoter has come forward at this stage probably tells us what we need to know.

BIRMINGHAM are opening up opportunities for fans to purchase tickets for home meetings on a Tuesday night at the stadium.Boss Laurence Rogers will be at the club office in the pits from 5pm – 6.30 over three Tuesdays in June – 1, 8 and 15.Rogers will assist fans who are unfamiliar with online ordering and will have forms to fill in for him to input and complete the process.Tickets must be booked by midnight on a Tuesday before a Wednesday night home meeting and the service is a lifeline to some older fans.Entry will be through the blue gates where the car park is and the old car wash was and fans need to turn left and follow the path round into the pits with the office based at the bottom.Said Rogers: “I know there are fans who will have these problems so we thought we would do what we could to help them.“We are also at the stadium on Saturday and Sunday this weekend from 9am if anyone wants to pop in then otherwise I will be there on Tuesday June 1st, 8th and 15th to get the forms completed.“

The extension lead wasn't long enough...

He was class his first heat if I remember correctly he was leading then got shunted to third and then his craft and skill got himself back into the lead for a deserved win

Big risk going with three untried foreign riders in the top five, you can see Plymouth getting more hidings away from home.

Cook and Ruml looked awful. Goret struggled but he never gave up, He'll come good but may take a season to get going. Bowtell didn't look great but have seen him do well in the past I'm sure he'll be fine.

Not the reason stated. Standing joke at Berwick last night about Hurry RR Relatives important birthday allegedly.

I watched young Mulford on my computer at Glasgow on Friday. He was taking Daniel Gilkes place in the Kings team. I was highly impressed with him. Bear in mind he has very limited experience at National League level, none at Championship level and he faced a tough team on what was A very wet and heavy track he'd never seen before. I'm looking forward to following him progress at Central Park. He is one to take note of.

No different to all the other rising stars! Yes they were swapped around and that was cause Rowe was getting stuck in and producing the goods. Kemps had plenty of publicity but needs now to do his talking on the track. Rowes had little publicity but certainly looks the better bet.

Odsal is a fantastic facility and could draw big crowds for big meetings - GP, SEC, World Cup, BLRC, etc so could BSPA Ltd run it in a league sharing whatever losses and preserving an excellent facility.

The bottom line is whether your a super speedway fan owner of a stadium or just a Business person earning money out of such a facility, if the moneys right you'll sell out! Lets say that you own a stadium which earns you £250,000 PA from the various activities taking place there after costs have been deducted. - Then you get offered £5 million from a housing developer to sell the land to them. - That amounts to 20 years (5 million divided by 250,000) income, working to keep the stadium running given to you in one hit which you can then invest and be financially secure for life without the hassle of running a stadium or having to do any sort of work. When you look it at like that it would be tempting for anyone I suspect. This scenario is probably close (different figures probably) to what happened when Cradley was sold in the 1990's and when the Ochiltrees sold Coventry to Sandhu who obviously had longer term plans to sell to developers. Indeed the GRA (alleged greyhound racing association!) made it their primary Business plan selling of their Stadiums to developers. Stuart Balmforth selling Belle Vue stadium in 1987 is another example like the previous poster states. No doubt his family are still very wealthy through this? This also happened in the 1960's to two of the biggest speedway clubs in the Country, Southampton and my beloved Norwich Stars. Combine this with Councils bending planning rules which are meant to protect sports facilities from being built on and thats where we are at now. - Apparently the Custom House home of West Ham speedway was meant to have such protection but it was gotten round by stating that people living in houses built on the land would have TV's which counted as leisure! I suppose that Odsal being in a bowl, an ex quarry which then became a landfill tip site wouldn't be good land for housing which could ensure its future as a stadium? - Just need a very brave person(s) to reopen speedway there! - Though in reality if it was viable speedway would be reopening there this season?

It's,speedway what's rules got to do with it . All in the best interest of the sport

The late Danny Ayres was the master of celebration and that was one of the many reasons he was so popular. many riders said they wanted to honour his memory this year and for me the best way is to celebrate like Danny !!!

Saturday night at Wimborne Road would be great. Certainly attract away fans and neutrals.

Actually, I could have added Stuart Bamforth of Belle Vue. He owned Hyde Road, but 'sold out'.