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I often disagreed with him on here ... In a very enjoyable way. His view was to be respected and I greatly appreciated the numerous times he instigated one to one discussions via personal messenger that greatly enlightened my understanding of the 'real story' that would not be possible to print. My respect for him was greatest just because he did have the balls to come on here and engage in real debate with us. He did so with the passion of someone still in love with the sport but with the deep knowledge of his lifetime of covering it so magnificently in print. A wonderful combination. His biggest legacy is of course Speedway Star, which PR curated for so long, offering Michelin Star coverage of what is often a transport cafe sport. I trust the team will carry his torch well. Farewell Philip.

I've always loved the Speedway Star. I adored the stats page, and spent more time reading with that magazine than anything else while I was growing up during the 1980s. Of course, the editor of the Star during that period was Phil Rising. He made such a huge contribution to speedway, while at times, it could be argued that magazine is better than speedway has deserved. RIP Phil.

A crass stupid pointless posting. Speedway has enough problems as it is. Poole Pirates should not forfeit this fixture in any circumstances.

Sorry Bob, but I disagree entirely with you. The meeting should be restaged to allow riders to earn money and the club to earn revenue. The sport is in trouble with dwindling crowds add in the delayed start to this season and at Poole Stadium because of Covid restrictions the club lost money with only being allowed 1300 spectators at the first two meetings. Without supporters and meetings, clubs will not survive. Tomorrow's meeting being cancelled is beyond the control of Poole Speedway. Stadium staff being pinged by the NHS Covid App to self isolate. Therefore the club has no access to the stadium tomorrow evening . I will also take you to task on the fact you stated Redcar fans won't trust the Poole management to honour tickets for any restaging date. That remark is not only inappropriate its borderline slanderous. You are entitled to your opinion but its not constructive and I don't consider your post is a fair reflection at all.

Says it all...

I'm sure it's more of a pain in the arse for the suspected covid cases, don't you think... Lets hope they don't end up in Hospital eh... Or worse !!! All you are worried about is the bloody money ffs.. Seems Ford thinks the same, saying they have lost thousands already.... Lives come first, or it should do. Having know 2 people die with Covid, and my daughter and Grandson tested Positive 4 days ago. I find your post out of order.

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.

What is it with this postponement? The Poole management have tried every angle to get this to run. It is out of their hands completely. And I'm pretty certain to become a licensee you can't do it in 2 days.

Message to all the Redcar Bears Speedway Fans on the Southern tour, who have extended it to visit the Isle of Wight. We are all very sorry to hear of the meeting cancellation at Poole, so we wanted to do a small surprise to cheer you all up while you are at Smallbrook Stadium with us. We will organise a centre green visit at least during your visit and if we can extend it to other treats we will. Send me a DM or email speedwayontheisland@yahoo.co.uk and we can go from there . All the best from us all and we look forward to welcome you If you are coming there will be Gates open 5.15pm Pits open 5.45 - 6.15pm Youth demos from 6.15pm Lady races - 3 races featuring 4 female riders. 6.45 Parade Upright challenge 6 races of Team MPS Body and Paint Jawa V Metro Timber Weslakes. 15 races of 3TT Warriors V Oxford V Heathens. 15 races including Handicap races, and nominated races. BRUCE CRIBB rides an ice bike and if there is time we will have a few japs out and about at meeting close

Message from Barry Bishop of the Wightlink Warriors for Redcar fans coming shortly.

Steve why do you bother? The situation has become another reason to knock Poole.

He could probably go round in a wheelchair and pick a few points up from KK & Berntzon

What's he been up to then . I Suppose he was part of a team who was involved in an attempted robbery of a result last night

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

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.

Its actually my bike so its not so old... well not as old as Bruce..... Never tell him that ha ha

Tell ya what I will bring Rob over on Sunday and he can explain what the true situation was... cost never came into it with Claus it's people trying to be diplomatic that muddy the water... I would rather have it all out there... then the truth can't be denied... on the riders that have been approached the biggest stumbling block has been Poland and racing on a Sunday not costs... Regards THJ

As the intended sponsor of the Poole v Redcar meeting, as soon as the rearranged date is confirmed, I'll ask Danny Ford to see if the meeting can be streamed - especially for those Redcar fans who have missed out this week. Maybe Redcar could arrange the same next Friday for those Poole fans not able to travel?! (Assuming its not rained off of course)

Birmingham should be banned then, they just run meeting when they want and pick their opponents.Get a Grip.

No , no need, Willie is usually socially distanced and well tailed off out the back.

Willie or the bike.

Yes and yes. I would have loved Sverre to have gone one better too.

What's the point of the SCB awarding a point each. Another stupid pointless reply. Restage the meeting so both sets of fans can attend and create revenue.

Not going to get into your spat but Zane Keleher was the worst rider of 20 there by the proverbial. Regardless of the behind the scenes issue he would have been out by now from his on track riding.

This is very heart warming, on the fact of it everything is still pretty much in place, a bit more work and you could run practice on that track no problem.

I'm glad you said something! I've been wanting to say that, but I didn't want to have to deal with the responses... Why should a rider have to go down in order to get something done? People whine about those who drop the bike too easily, but if you've been given a hefty whack and fought to stay on, why should you be the one penalised?

Interesting that @chris4gillian has nothing to say about Bowtell's score for Poole compared to ZK score for Plymouth! Totally gained from that! Only meeting we missed him since he left is prob at Berwick.

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

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.

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

Does it matter? Godspeed Phil

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.

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

OK so in true investigative journalist style and cutting to the chase with the important questions of the day... Start Marshall's - what's the point!

Very sad news indeed, his name has been part of my life since I was a young teenager, when I bought my first of many many Speedway Stars.. Condolences to all that knew him, especially family and friends.. RlP Philip..

Pictures look very promising, used to love my trips to Oxford, good speedway.

What sugaŕray has said is facts not lies as you seem to think they could be so give it a rest and enjoy the meeting weds week against scunthorpe the meeting just cannot run tomorrow night

Not so sure about that... Michael Parkinson funeral planning and Thora Hird stair lifts

Possibly not so when you look at Belle Vue,s record of keeping underperforming riders.

Updated Masarna lineup: 1. Przemyslaw Pawlicki 2. Martin Smolinski 3. David Bellego 4. Piotr Pawlicki R/R 5. Antonio Lindbäck 6. Emil Millberg 7. Alexander Liljekvist

Fair play to Barker, he did good for the Stars. Track was difficult due to the rain, so well done to all riders from both teams.

If only there was a 'yawn' emoji

Those sitting on the top table, hang your heads in shame. You really do not appreciate how much he and his now legacy magazine did to promote the sport over so many years and in many troubled times which is far more than any of you half wits at the BSPL have ever done. You keep on digging that publicity related hole for yourselves, you are doing a grand job.

Agreed, why would you make any obituary/tribute about yourself! smh

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...

I was watching some old video yesterday and one of the meetings that popped up was the WU21 round from Poole in 2011 and after watching the GP from the night before it was unbelievable to see who was riding in this competition, some have obviously fallen by the wayside due to various reasons, but here are the competitors: Maciej Janowski GP Darcy Ward Retired Przemysław Pawlicki Ekstraliga Patryk Dudek Ex GP Dennis Andersson What happened to him? Michael Jepsen Jensen Ex GP Martin Vaculík GP Bartosz Zmarzlik World Champion Piotr Pawlicki, Jr. Ex GP Aleksandr Loktaev A fall away from the GP's Simon Gustafsson Retired Oskar Fajfer Is he still riding? Mikkel Michelsen European Champion, GP's next year Mikkel B. Jensen Retired Kacper Gomólski Polish League? Joe Haines Retired Vadim Tarasenko Polish League? Dino Kovačić Never heard of him Václav Milík, Jr. Polish League? Steven Worrall BV/Poole heat leader Paul Starke Kent/Ipswich 2nd string René Bach Retired Jerran Hart Retired Tobiasz Musielak Polish League Ashley Morris Birmingham 2nd string 2011 may have been a particularly good year, but even those riders that have now retired, for whatever reason, went on to have achieve great things and make a good career from Speedway. But look at where the British riders are compared to a lot of the others! Even looking beyond 2011 at the British riders: 2012: Kyle Newman, Tom Perry 2013: Joe Jacobs, Liam Carr, Kyle Howarth 2014: No rider 2015: Stefan Nielsen I think the best thing we can do to bring on our youth in this country is to protect the team places available much in the same way that the Poles do with their U21 & U24 protected team spots. It was always stated in the past that this couldn't be done because of European law, well that's proven to be a load of woo woo as not only are the Poles doing it they're also restricting rider's being able to trade in more than 2 leagues, how anti-european is that! If we don't protect team places all the great work being done by GB Speedway team will be to no avail as the riders will drift away from the sport or stagnate like they have done in the past.

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.

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.

Gollob was nowhere near good enough and consistent enough during the Rickardsson/Crump/Pedersen era to get close to dominating. Put him on a big wide track with rockets underneath him and he was superb to watch, however as proven season upon season, he wasn't consistent enough to win a world title until Rickardsson had retired, Crump and Pedersen were passed their peak and the overall quality in the line up was well below the standards of previous seasons. I actually liked Gollob a lot, in full flight a joy to watch and had that aura about him. But to consider him in the same breath as the likes of Ricko, Pedersen, Crump, Hancock is ridiculous.