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He's attached in the Premiership though which I'd have thought makes him eligible.

That document on the PCC planning portal that gives the AEPG rebuttal of the speedway at the EoES is very telling. The obvious anger in the tone of it shows how much Butterfield is hurting and how much the fact that he had no idea at all about anything to do with speedway was in his mind all along.. The fact that he didn't even understand the position of speedway in the sporting hierarchy of the country is an obvious open personal failure on his part. It shows that he has had no intention at all of even considering speedway as a part of his thinking when he used the standard proforma approach to the development planning structure. That exposed level of incompetence has become personal now. In that document he has exposed the extent to which he was intent on only considering the bog-standard development type carbon copy that has succeeded when used by others in the past down south. That hollow personal crusade approach makes it very clear that the sort of activities that have made the EoES so valued by the community were never going to line his pockets to the extent he thinks he needs to survive. That makes him simultaneously both dangerous and vulnerable. The AEPG approach is to make a significant point in the low number of times a section of the EoES would be used for speedway. On it's own that simplistic outsider understanding is obvious in every part of the Butterfield plan. No separate proper spectator sport can ever hope to get close to making a profit without becoming a part of a shared multi-use volume occupancy. Even the new Spurs stadium has been designed to take in American Football, Women's Football and huge pop concerts plus more. Moreover, if you are shouting your mouth out about only allowing one more year of occupancy to anything, including speedway while you draw your plans up was always going to make sure that having more than one speedway team riding at the EoES was going to be impossible to justify. The lack of speedway in Peterborough is solely down to one misguided outsider. Any multi-use sport facility of the kind that anyone with a single brain-cell would contemplate to future-proof the continued community value of the EoES would have to be designed to accommodate a wide range of sports, both inside and outside. The areas under the grandstands could be able to house gym-type sporting facilities, squash, badminton, martial arts and so-on. The centre green could be used for grass type sports like local school football and hockey championships and so on. Add that to the fact that the local plan only approved 650-ish houses by including the LP30 sections because it was making sure that there were proper large spaces to carry on the EoES legacy of events rather than the Butterfield concrete jungle of houses, the hotel/pub that no brewery will ever want to take on and daft posh-boy psuedo-sports concrete shells, mean this ill-conceived pile of dross should be consigned to hanging on a piece of string in the smallest room so it is at least doing something useful.

Since my beloved childhood Diamonds closed I have grown more attached to Plymouth (a team I liked before the Diamonds closed anyway) and more recently Glasgow (Love the city, follow their ice hockey team, always up in the west coast of Scotland) it would be hard for me to choose between the two... But Plymouth are definitely my 'south' team

Why do Plymouth get so much grief (on various sites) for their rain-offs? Currently they've raced the same amount of home fixtures (0) as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Oxford (Cheetahs), Redcar & Workington. Plymouth can race on Tuesdays & Saturday, whilst clubs like Edinburgh, Oxford & Redcar also have to fit in 5 NL fixtures. Yet still many act like Plymouth will be the club holding everyone up etc. I just don't get the negativity towards Plymouth?

I fully expect to be six up after heat 2.

Unfortunately even the hay is soaking wet, so we couldn't set it on fire

Sadly because it fits an agenda used by a minority of the people on this platform. Sadly, this minority won't be happy until they see another club fold and close, without realising the knock on effect of such a decision. It would leave an entire region, not just a city/town - the whole of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Gloucestershire without a team. Just let that sink in for a minute? Millions of people without a team to support, they'd rather that happened than see the Gladiators make a good go at things. I really feel for Mark, he's constantly getting battered from all sides (including by riders from other clubs!) despite doing what he can with what he's got. People are more than entitled to their views I get that, hence why we are on a public forum discussing it however most of the time, it's not constructive, it's not helpful and it's hurtful what people say about the Gladiators.... However, it's us against the world and we're going to embrace that!! "No one likes us, we don't care... We are Plymouth..."

I might be inclined to add King's Lynn to your list. We've got to be picking up bonus points if we want to do anything this year, I'm not sure taking 5 points to Lynn will be enough

Good race track, good few racers on show so given the right weather should be an entertaining meeting. Once again a new track for the Comets newbies to get to grips with soon as possible. Score wise it's hard to call for me personally but the Bears obvious favourites. Always enjoy my trips to the ECCO Arena, it will be great to cheer on my home town team there for the first time since 2018.

Done on both. Sanitised, de-personalised and re-pointed.

Meeting called off. Unbelievable, fans already travelling. Very poor. Clear with the weather forecast this was always going to happen!! Bang out of order… Oh wait… Plymouth were away? Oh it won’t fit the agenda of most on here, I’ll keep quiet then

I saw Parker in the flesh a couple of times last year and its safe to say he is technically challenged. Thats not to say he doesn't have potential but to put any rider straight into a league side after riding for a year is a huge gamble (yes Dan Bewley blah blah) but he was a generational exception rather than the norm. Im not saying Parker won't make it but i feel like he should have served more of an apprenticeship first

It isn't as if there are "millions of pounds" riding on their decisions is it? Refs in other sports get well paid, and even get someone else watching a monitor to advise them if they get things wrong... Speedway refs are more like "Sunday League" officlals who do it as they enjoy being involved.. And, like it or not, the rewards for winning titles in UK Speedway are more "Sunday League" than even "Conference League".. If they make decisions that could recklessly impact safety of the riders then that is a different issue, and disciplinary action should be taken and be severe.. Otherwise, common sense, and perspective, should be used..

Is my understanding correct that referees are only paid their expenses? If that is the case, I do not think that The SCB should have gone public with the suspension. I’m all for ensuring that correct decisions are made in sport and the referee definitely got things wrong in this meeting, but this could easily have been dealt with internally without having to explain the referee’s absence for a few days. Nobody is going to query this referee’s short officiating absence. If this is the way they treat ‘volunteers’, what a great way to encourage potential officials into the sport! Premier League football refs consistently get brown stuff thrown at them, but they are on £100k a year. I’ve seriously considered taking steps to become a speedway referre myself but this has made me realise how stupid this would be.

Agreed. Both teams built similarly, strong 1 to 5 but weak reserves. I’m hoping that home advantage will see us over the line. Lions to win by 6 or 8 points.

Impressed at the U21 final always thought make big strides this season.

I make it 2.625. so assuming you round up? To 2.63. But even if you round down Hagon still fits. Good practice for when we visit

Still no jubilee final??

NO ONE LIKES US, WE DON’T CARE.

Which one? The way things are the only stream we're going to get will be the one running down the the track

It was probably the final downpour that did it. Was drizzling for a while but an active and very heavy rain cell developed just north west of Poole and soaked the stadium. Promotion we’re thinking if it stops by 4pm there’s a chance but it was not to be. Stopped now and a dry evening forecast as predicted but the 2-3 hours of rain stretched to 4 and a half hours and was heavier than forecast.

Promotion can’t win in these situations.More to the point dis it effect you.

Funny thing is, I didn't mention him, as he was around longer. So, I just checked the stats, and Grubmuller actually has better figures than Funk! Didn't realise that...

Unfortunate, you can't beat the weather, most teams have had postponements.

It's off

Sports governing bodies refrain from providing details relating to findings from an investigation into match officials preferring to limit information to that which would be clearly visible to the public, such as a change of the scheduled match official. This is very much along the lines of disciplinary procedures in the workplace. To be fair to the SCB, they did promptly communicate publicly that the referees actions were to be investigated and subsequently provided the follow up to say that the matter had been dealt with. As part of the hearing, the incident(s) would have been reviewed together with the referee. After due deliberation, the panel would have informed the referee of his mistakes and what the correct course of action/decisions he should have taken. He would also have been given follow up work in terms of revision of rules and procedures etc. The one match ban would be the next match he was listed to officiate which would also provide the time for him to complete his corrective actions. There will also be follow up sessions planned to evaluate the referees performance in future meetings.

Probably uses his Prem average X2

After all the rain the track was bound to be grippy and that does produce processional racing. However, the Met Office forecast was for no further rain until 10pm so therfore, no good reason to call it off. As I have witnessed on many occasions, the drainage at the NSS is exceptional and if the forecast had been correct the track would have been fine after the first few races.

I’ve edited it to save confusion. I would argue that it clearly states in the original post this is the fixture on Friday at Scunny and I was clearly mentioning the home fixture in devon

He can guest as he is attached to a premiership team.

Sedgy had couple decent meetings guesting last season, particularly in the enemies colours. Ben and Tom were tougher opposition for him than worrall and Leon imo. Think might be pretty tight actually, would take 10 points

Perfectly summed up. It would be very good if you could very slightly sanitise the text and post it on the councils planning portal in response to the two applications. Your second paragraph regarding the multi use occupancy of the stadium as part of the overall development is something I have been banging on about since the start of this nonsense.

Meh, might as well just make it one big thread haha.

You cant believe these 2 sides have team built too a limit such is the enormous gulf between them .

Riding for King's Lynn or Leicester, don't remember him riding for Wimbledon

Very difficult to say because the system in this country doesn't help riders who are starting out it's to boost vatchers self ego as the savior even though he's never ridden and so not many riders are produced that are exceptional, the British national League is happy for most riders to just turn up to make up numbers to form a team and eventually give up and retire like a few have already this season. I'm not that in the know of any riders who could replace these two specifically but realistically the system fails apart from the odd dozen that make it to higher standards.

If memory serves me right George Stancl was the pits at Mildenhall he was rank rotten there.

Would love to see a Ipswich victory dedicated to the memory of Suffolk and Ipswich legend John Louis. RIP tiger.

First trip of 2024 from Swindon . A fair few ex-Robins in action. Come on Ipswich!!

Red Rory! Everybody Out!

Justin time

Considering Joe's average 3.51 is nearly double Max's 2.0 it's hardly surprising. Max will be disappointed with his performance today but considering he's only 2 races back after a major accident it's hardly a concern.

Good to see young joe had Perry in his pocket all afternoon today I hope the same happens on Wednesday.I’m only joking he only kicked his backside twice would have been three but Edinburgh’s team manager didn’t pick him for heat 15.

And we nearly dropped off the page there. Can't be having that. Need to keep the struggling momentum/interest going. Although it's unlikely, Chapman might do the right thing and offload the club to those actually fighting for its survival?

Surprised no one's filled him in over the years with his behaviour

Only four points for him last week, so Witches fans will be hoping that was a blip

By the sounds of shovlars weather reports earlier not being a danger, it must be the poor drainage of the track that’s the issue? When will Poole ever sort there track out?

The two Edinburgh riders are two of many in the ndl that will never be much good other than spending their or parents money chasing the dream, if they have fun that's all that matters.