Leaderboard

Lol……I think I’ve heard most riders say in their after season speeches that they’d like to return the following year….

Basso is good and a really promising rider. Offering to, even periodically change race nights to suit a reserve/potential second string seems insane though.

Yeah, sure the liquidators only take things that are of any value?

There are more than enough quality riders if they were shared around better.. The issue is that a few clubs will have 3 heat leaders of Div 1 heat leader standard and some clubs will have one at best, and some maybe none whatsoever.. There really is no point in "saving" tracks and then leaving them to face another year of struggle due to not being supported in team building.. Running the sport like they do really doesnt help anyone either, as these teams with a poor side will struggle at home so their own fans will stop going, and struggle away so their opponents then get low crowds when they visit, and then invariably pay out loads in points money for a hammering.. With ironically the team with the poor side who get hammered away getting a 'positive' as they dont pay out much... Still.... Winning that UK Speedway title is so important isnt it? Much more important than the collective growth of the sport... I mean. You may get your results in the weekly local paper, (just above the darts and crib leagues updates), and, if successful at the end of the season, be invited to a buffet with the local mayor. (Covid rules allowing obviously)... A completely avoidable race to the bottom once again for some...

Maybe maybe not. Personal choice. Seen him spit his dummy out to many times and wouldn’t be happy to see him don a scunny race jacket. Plus just looking back he hasn’t really scored well at the EWR,like I say it’s just a personal opinion.

I sincerely hope Ian Jordon is utterly and totally nothing to do with the club as publicised, Eastbourne spent years and years doing it and were certainly one of the most successful at it, all that work wiped out last season.

He’s 91? Top bloke, wherever you take him he will no doubt see someone that makes him feel like a spring chicken, such is the speedway supporter demograph. If you take him to Birmingham, get him to wear some Kevlars. He will get free admission, but there is a catch!

I'd suggest you don't sign top heat leaders to increase their averages, you sign them to win heats & hope improvements come from the lower averaged riders. That being said I do expect Cook to up his average above 9.

I bet that Charlie Monk wishes he had held on to his bike after he retired. I see that a dealer has his 1952 Mattingly Jap up for sale on E Bay for a cool £6,950. Complete with Charlie's nameplate and signature red Tigers dirt guards. Looks a real beauty and brings back memories for those old enough to recall the loud Charlie..Charlie...chants and the thunderous foot stamping in the stand at the old White City. Btw it can be posted for £100 it would appear. A very quiet man was Charlie but some rider in his day and had some great battles with the other top men of that time such as Mauger, Hunter, Briggs, Boothroyd, Squibb, Ivor Brown to name a few. Comments are a bit off topic perhaps, but at least the word "bike" and "retired" are a good excuse to slip in an interesting commercial !

You need to stop living in cloud cuckoo land and come back to earth only 2 Swedish clubs - out of nine are non- competitive namely Vetlanda and Piraterna. Premier league teams over here wouldn’t live with E Winner clubs let alone Extraleague !!!

The top flight is still a decent standard now. Mostly filled with current and former GP riders or riders who've represent their country at World level. We're better than the Swedish league that's unbalanced with half of the clubs financially broke. Flaky Poles get exposed when they're asked to use actual skills in our Country, It's easy to ride Polish tracks like Leszno for example that's all about set up rather than skill.

No, Ludde's worth his weight in gold at Brough,,, his contract is only good for paper-mache or aeroplanes.

BBC Breakfast News this morning featuring Dan Bewley and the TeamGB winners of the SoN. Could TeamGB be in line for the 'Team of the Year' award on SPOTY tomorrow?!

I would have thought so. It probably all been sorted out now and they be laughing at us all arguing or 'debating' about it! lol

Having read the latest update in the Speedway Star about the vandalism lets just all hope that the relevant Authorities will grow some balls, be firm and visible and rid the area of the scourge of these animals and that Workington / Northside can rise from the ashes and destruction caused ready for 2023.

To be fair with Poole shelling out on visa etc it’s only fair that we pay some sort of fee. Wonder if the Lawson deal will become part of it.

Heard Willie Lawson might be doing the the same at Armadale

A rudderless ship without a suitable Captain, John, for far, far, too many years.. Crying out for someone to properly lead it... You only have to look at the threads for teams struggling to get a decent team together next year to see how ridiculous the whole operating model is.. The "collective" are desperate to keep as many clubs going as possible, (any Speedway must be seen as better than no Speedway), yet they dont ensure as a "collective" that every team has a fair chance of being successful. Yet they will use a supposed "team equality" mechanic which we all know to be far too subjective when it comes to previous riding numbers in the teams rode for, home track advantage of previous tracks, amount of meetings done, assessed averages depending on where you are from etc to be of any tangible accurate use.. Some teams next season in Division Two will, once again, have three heat leaders of a high level, (on a par with some in Div One given they will be the same riders), and other teams will end up with second strings having to take heat leader positions. The result? Well, we know that dont we? The teams using second strings as heat leaders will struggle at home and be dreadful away. However all will come to the tapes "relatively equal" and no doubt every team will talk up their side. "Strength in depth, always have a good reserve, all can put two points on their averages", etc etc etc.. What the "collective" (still after all these years of doing the same thing year in, year out), fail to grasp, is that unless EVERY track can be competitive then you will never move the sport organically forward... Getting visited by teams who are "cannon fodder" simply cannot be good for the host clubs business, yet they happily allow such things to happen... With the ultimate irony being that a few will throw hundreds of thousands of pounds into their teams to try and win something with only marginally more kudos than winning a meat raffle at the local British Legion. With the lack of kudos, financial rewards and publicity, all down to their very own operating model.. In short mate. No. The sport hasnt moved on.. (Over here).. In fact you would have to say that it has regressed a long, long way..

https://youtu.be/jAoNvwdVFCQ bbc east documentary from 1997 and features Kings Lynn - pretty depressing which reflects todays problems even then.

Watch this and the question is "Has the Sport really moved on" Regards THJ

Spam??

Pools fans moaning about a rider leaving them who agreed to sign….. someone remind me about Lawson….. or is it cause they are Poole and Poole can do what they want…..?

Or he was just telling the fans what they wanted to hear at the time.

Summers has retired, Shanes and Morris have already signed with Birmingham and I think Ty Proctor won't be returning to British speedway next season. I still believe Bates, Castagna and Sedgmen have a lot to offer a team though and would be worth the risk in the middle order of a team.

He could do as he was not he was not at his best at times last season.Still class when on song.Maybe just protecting average for Team place this season.

Sad news. One of that great touring team from 1964...

or back of a postage stamp

A bit off the mark

It did move on for a short while when the Sky money rolled in. But unfortunately the money rolled out of the sport via riders pay instead of some being retained and reinvested in it and thus ultimately it dropped back to what we have had for a number of years Depressingly, the same folk are leading the sport and by example they are unable to move away from continually doing what they have always done in the way they run the sport. Sadly with too many clubs & too few riders being available alongside insufficient vision by promoters who refuse to seek & accept external help if it means giving up some (not all) of their control the future doesn’t bode well for any significant improvement on the current scenario.

Two miles south of M6 Junction 7, on the A34.

yes gasso that would have been a stronger team than the team being forecast now,see why fords were bit rattled! might be just me but i cannot remember ben basso ever saying last season that he could return in 2022 or indeed wanted to,again maybe just me but i always assumed he wouldnt be back(regretably)and the ford statement was a bit of a shock!im happy with any racenight but i thought changing race nights albeit occasionally was contrary to the stance taken in recent seasons.however still sure well be competitive

That's also in the Speedway Star?

Danny mentioned it as a possibility (which he claimed Ben was aware of?) to avoid some of Basso's Danish commitments in the Speedway Star this week!! The forthcoming interview with Benjamin should make for interesting reading...........

Steen Jensen ? !!!!

Ole Olsen would fit with the age profile of the team

Poole expect they'll win every race and competition they enter, so.....

The crack is that yous may be getting a Dane ( former 1 at that ) to complete your team !!

Do it Mossy

His bikes retired in 2013.

Definitely Scunthorpe, although going with Ryan would have given us an extra point at the bottom of the team at number 7.

Are Poole and Edinburgh in a race to see who can be last to name their team.

I really hope we don't sign Jack Smith awful attitude and petulant child . As long as whoever signs gives there all and is good with the fans (particularly the kids ) I'm happy .

Bit harsh s4s.... Don't put B23 off from posting....his posts cheer me up with all this depressing covid rubbishe..... :)

This post will be referenced time and time again to prove that you are a clueless fool.

David Bellego? Chris Holder? Andžejs Ļebedevs? Krzysztof Kasprzak? Offer them the money and the crowds will come in. Doyle number one and Holder at 5.

Speedway racing can be the best form of entertainment. But going trackside to watch the spectacle becomes slightly samey if you don't have a dog in the race, a team in the true sense of the word or a favourite rider. How can you possibly turn up at a track and support what is often a list of seven men thrown together simply because their average fits... and the track's race day, which also allows them the to race for at least one other team? The sport has lost its characters, its personalities and, more importantly, the reason most of us tagged on in the first place - the team thing. Now it seems so much like Formula 1. If I would have wanted a sport like F1 to follow, I would have followed that. In fact, growing up, I used to get annoyed when people asked "speedway - is that Barry Sheene?" I wasn't at all interested in motorcycling, never have been. I told them it was league racing and not about individuals. Speedway was special, it was about my team, Belle Vue. It wasn't just about motorbikes. I didn't want to support one individual, as motorcycling and F1 required much of the time, I wanted to follow a team. In doing that, you got your own favourites in that team, at times not even its star man. But, now, speedway isn't anywhere near that. I see riders gaining the most from it nowadays and get the feeling they'd ride anywhere. It isn't about loyalty now. They just want a team place for next year. Maybe it's always been the case. But I genuinely think the way the sport has gone in the last two decades - an over reliance on doubling up and down, has killed off the team thing that most fans fell for. Although it's seen as being popular, the play-off system has also killed off reason to have six months of warm up matches just to get there. Then , after a few matches of higher than average crowds that the PO Finals drag from indoors (where've they been all year?), we end the season thinking the sport is in better shape than we thought.

Not sure anyone wants that wage bill around their necks for very little return again

A slick track Well, as a fan of the sport and no more than that, I call a slick track one with little dirt on it with only one racing line and after a few heats a blue groove starts showing, it could be said an over prepared track. One that doesn't challenge the riders or give entertainment to the fans. However that's just my take on a slick track, yours may differ. I get that it was the first competitive meeting on the track so they need to be conservative with the preparation and clearly nobody wants a dangerous track but also speedway isn't figure skating, one of the great enjoyments as a fan and I guess as riders is the unpredictability of tracks. The point I'm making is the track on opening night 2007 wasn't entertaining, it was dull to watch follow my leader rubbish, Which may have worked if it was a team meeting and Birmingham went on to win infront of 6000 people, As the meeting was hyped as the return of the Birmingham Brummies. However it turned out to be an evening of no team riding (because the was no team), an evening of very little passing, an evening interjected with a lot of people patting them selves on the back but ultimately missing the point on how to get new fans to support the team.

THJ, please don't let the fools on this forum annoy you. You done wonders for our club in the many years you were involved and for that, 99% of us are eternally grateful, I am gutted that you are not as involved now but you have moved on. And I want to wish you all the very best in whatever you have lined up over in Cumbria. It's our loss and their gain. Cheers, don't make yourself a strange on here or at Brough Park, please?

What an annoying wee nonce... okay you have got a bite (you've been trying for long enough)... and you have been told what the situation is... however on the issue to hand just about any company can be a sponsor... we (as a company) have just done it for one of our European Employees and as Crescent Girl points out it is time consuming but it isn't that expensive (we felt) and once you can show 12 months of trading you can apply for a Sponsors Licence. The important thing to note here is you should have 12 months of trading and produced a full set of accounts before you can apply to be a sponsor... it has nothing to do with the BSPL it is driven by the British Government and if you don't have 12 months worth of trading accounts you can not apply for the licence so being a new promotion with no trading accounts is a critical factor... 12 month into the job its a different story and you can apply for your own licence (or you can tie into another clubs licence which I wont go into here but it can be done) However costs for a licence are Type of licence Fee for small or charitable sponsors Fee for medium or large sponsors Worker £536 £1,476 Temporary Worker £536 £536 Worker and Temporary Worker £536 £ 1,476 Add a Worker licence to an existing Temporary Worker licence No fee £940 Add a Temporary Worker licence to an existing Worker licence No fee No fee I would suggest that Speedway comes under a small or charitable sponsor as you are usually a small sponsor if at least 2 of the following apply: your annual turnover is £10.2 million or less your total assets are worth £5.1 million or less you have 50 employees or fewer https://www.gov.uk/uk-visa-sponsorship-employers Furthermore the employee (in this case the rider) has to obtain a relevant visa and permit to enable them to enter the country and work which also has a cost attached (for someone)... its complicated until you get your head round it... so any Speedway fan who can get their head around the intricacies of the Speedway rules and regulations book will have no trouble with it as it is only half as complicated as they are... So don't keep trying to correct what you perceive as "some of the nonsense previously spread" as it is blatantly obvious you don't have a clue what you are talking about and worst of all because you don't know what you are on about you think it is okay to make up your own little version and stick it on here as being fact. All this has been covered in previous posts that you thought were nonsense then however hit the link and look at the facts and apply them to the situation to hand and you will see the facts (FACTS) for yourself its all there to read... There are none so blind as those who cant see... or aren't prepared to and who would much rather be an antagonistic little Pratt... Regards THJ