Leaderboard

We have lost a giant influence on the sport. His legacy will be the magazine that he saved from ipc's scrapheap and made it survive as an independent title. The Star has been a far better magazine than the sport often deserved. Thank you for that Philip. My condolences to his family, both at home and at Pinegen.

Panthers giving it to the Aces again,,, whatever happened to Geoff the Aces fan

Did anyone force you make such a ridiculous statement. Folk travel all over to watch speedway even when their team isn't involved like myself because we enjoy the sport. Also without our support many clubs would close. Such as at Newcastle, many people travelled there from all over the UK because they wanted to help save Newcastle. Belle Vue, Sheffield, Wolves, Glasgow, Poole, Plymouth fans were amongst others there who travelled so for you to av a pop at people who travel is down right disgusting, worra dumb nuts! Without these very supportive fans Newcastle speedway may now just be the fog on the Tyne!

This is true in the same way that Hartlepool have the same team building opportunities as Manchester City.

This is indeed very sad news. I never knowingly met him, but had occasion to write to him numerous times and always received a courteous response by return. My sincere condolences to his family on their loss. His contribution to speedway and to the Speedway Star has been invaluable, and will be sadly missed. Rest on the peace of the Lord old friend.

I often didn't agree with him on here, but it was never personal and we had some good banter along the way. I would fully agree that the Speedway Star was a higher quality magazine than the sport deserved, and I did appreciate his insights into the sport on here.

Just taken a look at the British Speedway News website and I agree, a disgracefully brief obituary, lacking in facts, poorly researched and without depth for a man who should IMO have been inducted into the Speedway Hall of Fame for his services to UK speedway. One can only hope that a more adequate obituary will follow shortly.

They weren't for the club as the deal had been done... and Claus wouldn't comitt to Newcastle and said his Danish team would come first unless he got a second British club... he wanted to come in and out of the country as per the old days... pre Brexit... which at that time would have meant that his availability could not be guarenteed... there was also other outside interference that dictated the action taken... if you were aware of the European riders this promotion have approached you would be astounded... They have tried for six Scandinavians and five British based riders (in the last 6 weeks) all to no avail and cost has never come into the mix... neither wages or travel expenses... there's one thing for sure this guy pays his riders as per contract unlike the previous shower who run the spot... who still owed money to 4 of the 7 at the end of their last season and left this promotion to pay the bill... It's just another sorry saga in Diamonds history that this new promotion have had to contend with but with the support that come to the for this weekend hopefully Rob will feel revitalised from the good will and support he received and he carries on fighting the good fight... The show of support on Sunday was absolutely fantastic just a pity the team couldn't rise to the challenge and my only wish would have been to race against Plymouth first then Poole and although I still think Poole would have been good for the points it would have been a bit closer (and two heats shorter) but never mind it was a fantastic turn out... Just need half of those in attendance this week to come back next week and build from there and it will be a different story next year that's for sure... although three quarters would be better... Regards THJ

Phil was a great journalist. H was a man who didn't suffer self serving short sighted "johnny cum lately"..hence his contempt of the recent governership of British speedway. We were friends for 40 odd years..always great company and he was actually very shy .# An evening in his company along with Frosty..Oaksie, Scoop, Scotty, Clarkie, Mike Patrick, Terry, Briggo, Ole, etc..magical.. Rest well my Sarasota golfing mate...you were a class act Jimbo x

No thats definitely not the case, Plymouth got accepted into the championship when their was very few riders left to sign and given 10 days to put together a team upto a certain strength average wise. Hence the reason we have the team we got but we are in the league now and its all about next season when we will have the same opportunities to put a team together. Mat and Danny Ford have been a good help to Plymouth and they do have a good working relationship I believe.

Really sad to have seen this today, had the pleasure of his company and undoubted generosity a few years ago at Cardiff and will always be so very grateful. My sincerest condolences to Sheila and the family and to everyone at Speedway Star and many friends he made during his time involved in the sport he loved .

The obituary really sums up the powers that be in the BSPL not fit for purpose, shame on them,This for a man who has spent pretty much his whole life promoting the sport of Speedway.

It really does beggar belief doesn't it? A man who for many years delivered a publication, the quality of which belied the sport it covered and showcased it at a far higher level than many other more mainstream sports get coverage.. This alone speaks volumes as to the level of leadership quality at the top of the sport in the UK.. No mention of any minutes silences either at the tracks...? Disgraceful..

A sad loss... did more to "Promote" our sport than many track owners! Should be the next inductee into the Speedway Hall of Fame!

There is no possibility of running double headers at Perry Barr. Speedway only takes place there under the most stringent of conditions imposed by the City Council's Planning Officer who argued very strongly against granting a planning consent in the first place, and who was distinctly unhappy to find his recommendation for refusal, overruled. Amongst a plethora of conditions, one is the strict 10pm curfew and another is that no more than a maximum of 21 races be staged. Both would prevent the club from staging a double header even if the planning office would relax the rule - which they won't! We have made enquiries this season about the possibility of running one or two meetings on a Sunday, and the planners have confirmed that we can only race on the four Bank Holiday Sundays as Planning Condition 15 stipulates, and even if they had agreed to this as a one-off, it would have been conditional on us not running on the Wednesday of the same week, so it would have been no help in alleviating any fixture congestion. We had no choice but to accept all of the conditions when we were granted a planning consent, and to change or revise any of them would involve submitting a fresh application and one which it is highly likely would be refused, so there is no option now, but for us to abide by them. I hope this clarifies the situation for everyone.

He mentions this in the Raceday Magazine. He says: "We have dropped the car parking charge of £1 to help make things cheaper. It's OK a minority saying, well you're losing all that money, but in fact our car park holds only 180/200cars depending how well they are parked, then you have to staff it and provide security it was just as easy to forfeit £180 a meeting and help make it cheaper for punters. We regularly get told we are too expensive and if that's the case we don't want to put people off for the sake of £1 on the car park that has more hassle attached than it's worth. If any of you feel strongly about the car park charge by all means help us and buy and extra ticket on the 50/50 draw for £1. The ladies will be walking around at the start of every meeting."

First time visit to Newcastle - every penny counts and throughly enjoyed the visit even though I had problems with a Bus Lane in Gateshead ( just added £60 to the trip ) and couldn’t find the ground ( bloody NAV ) Burger the best I’ve ever had at a Speedway venue not surprising with Rob - queue was long but worth the wait , left after Heat 12 as Plymouth looked beaten and a bit sad to see Crumpy looking so off the pace against some average riders … however had a nice chat to some fans ( think I was the only one wearing a Belle Vue shirt and got some friendly stick ! )

Thats not true... and on Vissing it had nothing to do with not being able to fly Claus in and out of the country so where you got that information from? Or are you just making it up? Claus couldn't commit to Newcastle because he didn't have a second team over here to ride for... furthermore it was cheaper getting him here from Europe than it is for getting some of our other riders in this country to Newcastle... No one in Europe is ruled out on cost... Regards THJ

Stadia UK - bunch of chancers !!!! bet they find someone to take the car park money. !!!

Out of the speedway clubs hands

pretty sure when they shut the greyhounds they only retained two full time staff at the stadium dave phoebe deputy manager and a lady in the office (plus part timers in the car park)damm sure those duties could be covered easily also damm sure stadia uk wouldnt make any effort to help speedway,horrible firm run by horrible people

Very sorry to hear of the loss of a truly great friend of Speedway. I will miss his erudite postings on this Forum, they were always well worth reading. I would like to offer my condolences to his family and friends at this very sad time. I never met Phil but he had my total respect. R.I.P. + Phil.

Absolutely devastated to hear this. First met Phil back in 2012 and he was an absolute Gent. Not only tremendously helpful and generous whenever I would travel over to watch GP's but always a great laugh too. He may have been almost 30y years my senior but he was as good a company in the pub as anyone you could ever wish to meet. We've lost a passionate supporter of our sport, a wonderful writer, superb story teller, but most importantly a lovely, lovely man. I'll miss our chats, I'll miss his stories. I'll miss my buddy. Sleep easy my friend, I'm glad you’re not hurting anymore.

I would imagine loan deals etc will also be being paid to various tracks and quite likely on a drip basis through the year, so getting Birmingham a few quid in the coffers to pay their bills can help other teams too.. A common sense decision to have a local derby and the BSP's often (quite correctly most of the time), get criticised for not using that level of common sense.. Crisis times require crisis management.. Not ideal for all but then again, it never will be when a crisis strikes..

I'll take week by week. It's far better than make or break last week when most had written us off. Let's get being the Promotion rather than constant sniping.

Not quite. The track was very wet for the Poole meeting and more or less perfect for the Plymouth meeting. Some riders preferred the wet conditions while other riders, the home team, excelled when the track was more consistent. As for the haves and have nots, yes Poole is always built to the “haves”. It means wins and a strong following. Crowds at Wimborne Road have been very good for the last two home fixtures and with ~Redcar visiting on wednesday it should be another big crowd. Winning means bigger crowd. Very pleased Newcastle bounced back from a mauling to win the second one.

I actually thought 30-60 but didn’t want to put that on here. Just shows the difference between a team with three heat leaders (not to mention a guest reserve riding like one) against a team with no heat leaders. Unfortunately, Newcastle heads went down very early on. I was hoping for a win against a two man Plymouth team even if it turned out not the two I was expecting. Good to see the decent crowd and hear the news that 2021 will run to its conclusion. If the Diamonds run in 2022 I will sponsor a heat.

They've explained why they have changed the fixture, a local derby when the kids are off with good weather will bring in much needed revenue when the club have admitting their going from week to week. Or would you rather the club fold just to keep a handful of fans happy that may or may not travel the 200 miles from Edinburgh? I really sympathise for fans that are down south already but the promotion are trying to save their club. I'm not sure they had much choice tbh

If it wasnt for Mole , Workington would never of returned when they did and Birmingham wouldnt of in the mid 2000’s either.

We know we are the weakest of the six teams so all fans want to see is effort, commitment and fight and in scoring 38 at Wolves I think that was the case tonight. Thought we'd do well to get thirty so fair play to the team.

Newcastle Speedway website in April :- “Regrettably we have had to let Claus Vissing go, as we simply do not know what the travel restrictions are going to be, and with the guy expecting to travel a lot, it could have caused major issues for availability and push the travel costs very high indeed. Looks like travel costs were an issue to me!

Some result that without our number 1. Big well done to Jordan Palin

RIP Mr Rising i never met him but as a young man i always looked forward to reading the Speedway Star every week, he along with everyone at the Speedway Star did a great job promoting the Sport throughout the UK and elsewhere, he will be missed and was a person that it will be difficult if not impossible to replace, make no mistake the Sport will be poorer for his passing, I just hope the powers that be remember him in a way a man of his standing deserves, God rest his soul.

Some really excellent work going on at the stadium, which I’ve been proud to be apart of. For those not following the progress on Facebook, here is a recent image of the current status of the track

I thought the same - until I read it! When the first thing stated in an obituary states that you disagreed with that person, that's not good...

Felt sorry for the lad who was leading heat 2 against Poole and in for a point against Plymouth before falling. Good luck to the lad and glad nothing is broken. He will be scoring his first points for his club soon.

He has a burn on his leg, caused by being trapped on the exhaust, and part of his Kevlar's is trapped in the wound. Spoke to him afterwards and he'll be riding next week OK.

Eurosport are going to be showing the same amount of meetings BT did,,, I don't remember all this non stop whinging about them. Should think yourselves lucky anybody is showing it

I had a quick word with him in the car park after the meeting and he said he was "OK."

As I'm sure Glasgow would love another crack at Edinburgh with Ulrich Ostergaard in the team.

Does it matter? Godspeed Phil

Peterborough's rising star next season after all he was born in Bristol and he started at Peterborough in 1991on a 2pt average maybe end as 2* rising star

Best Peterborough can hope for is probably a point, dont see this meeting going the same way as the A fixture , cant see Hans getting the required big reserve score that has been the catalist for Panthers recent away results and Nicholls form has dipped in both leagues since his reported shoulder problems . But then again you never know with this Panthers team this season

That smacks of being a good idea, careful!

Yes I know....but this weeks money will help pay off some of the 'losses' so far this season.... (just guessing) We will probably try and swap the next 2 fixtures, so we face Poole and Redcar ? (better away attendances) As soon as the attendance falls below a certain level, it looks like we'll struggle to stay alive.... The club website says week by week survival ? Not much to enthuse about knowing that each Heat 15 could be the last?

Very sad news,his contribution to the sport was immense and will be sadly missed.

So the club gets a guaranteed income stream through rent. This makes budgeting easier. And the vendor in the shop takes all the risk having to pay rent "upfront" and carries the risk of having stock left at the end of the season. It would appear a no brainer to me that the club made the decision not to sell merch because that is financially in the best interest of the club. Remember, the Bates run Leicester as a business so would weigh up risk & reward before making any decisions.

In my opinion Lindgren is responsible for this crash and injury to Vaculik. Now and then he takes too many risks the way he is riding. Spectacular but dangerous. We want spectacular racing not crashes and injuries …. It seems that FL doesn‘t care much about the other riders.

Very good news for Diamonds,Granty deserves a bit of luck.Let’s hope he can capitalise and get some decent meetings on for the loyal fans.