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While people may not be saying this exactly, at times it looks like they are waiting for Cook to miss matches due to mental health so they can say "I told you so". Do people really get pleasure in suggesting something will go wrong for Craig? Because that appears to be the case at times.

Not to shabby for a couple of guys both the wrong side of 40, British speedway will be a poorer place when they both finally hang their kevlars up.

Hope that’s shut the absolute b***ends up tonight, go on cookie lad!!!

A bit of a damning assessment of Boughen based on one meeting in my opinion. Up until last night he had been improving each week. He comfortably beat Anders Rowe twice in his last Spires match, and beat Jason Doyle the week before at Ipswich. Not to mention outscoring Luke Killeen (8pts to 1pt) against Plymouth with two heat wins - and scoring six points and a heat win in the away fixture against Glasgow. He's also beaten the likes of Leon Flint (x3), Dan Thompson and Dan Gilkes, so not sure what else you expect from a 16-year old. He's never going to have consistency at this age, but can only think you've based your opinion on seeing one fixture?

Boughen was poor last night, but I agree with the last post; the bigger picture shows he’s exceeded expectations this season, especially for a 16 year-old. His heat two win at Ashfield was an outrageous display of technical ability. His track craft was as responsible as his speed for his pass of Pijper.

Still need a replacement for palm toft imo

Poor team management giving Charles & Bomber 4 rides when Cook is flying at reserve

He's got family, friends and sponsors in Berwick and had been one of the away team to make a genuine pass that night. You were just beat by the better team that night... He moved away from Berwick to take his career forward and has went to a track he was known to struggle with. It would have taken a lot of balls to step out of his comfort zone the way he has done IMO.

I'm not really bothered about his age as I don't think that's relevant, experience and ability are. When in front he's shown this year he can get around the track fast enough. For me what he needs to learn this year is how to 'race' i.e. be in really close contact with other riders at full pelt and be confident enough to stand his ground. Last night when in close contention he backed off going into turn three and not to do that is what he needs to develop. With all the racing he's doing he's got plenty of opportunity to develop thsi and I think he's done a great job so far for Oxford.

Yeah was first match I looked for when fixtures came out. Great to see Craig proving a few people wrong

A win! Hurrah. And a new hero.

Next week then, I presume? Loved watching him at BV, always gave his all, and a great lad to talk too.. Hope he has a great season.. If he does, come SON, and any of the "big 3" are injured, he would be the best option to replace any of them..

Well done Cookie. Good lad.

Get in cookie lad. 16 points. 5 wins out of 6. Beating Jack holder twice and holder and woff in the last heat. Keep of up lad. Us cumbrians are supporting you all the way

Pssst you didn't mention the car parking

Cookie on fire at Sheffield tonight also , wouldn’t come as a great surprise if the Comets win tomorrow night.

Kemp, quitting onto the centre green when Doyley was on a sick bike... hate to see that!

God the track absolutely terrible

People got too carried away with Jack Smith’s performance last week. I stand by what I said - one good performance doesn’t strike out a lot of underwhelming performances at Championship level. Whatever the reasons for it, his baseline performances have been more like last night’s than last Friday’s. Good performances at National League don’t necessarily carry to the Championship - Kyle Bickley a case in point. I hope he does well, but the more likely scenario on past performances is that he scores a very small handful of points. Up against Cook, a seemingly rejuvenated Batchelor, and Vissing, I think we’ll be in for a hard night. Certainly closer than against Oxford.

Flint is overrated.

Oh well you can't win them all . The heat leaders did their job , but had little or no back up hence the amount of last places and no heat advantages . Think that might be the norm for us this season away from Ashfield . But well done Oxford , hope you go on and win the cup now

Great to see Jordan Jenkins ride so well at Oxford last night. Went from 4th to 1st in one of his races. good confidence boost for him

You could argue Ashton Boughen hasn't been the huge success we thought he would be but we have to remember he's only 16 and - more importantly - only just started his second full season. He's been riding competitive speedway 18 months only. Definitely need to give him time. Last night he was poor and he was poor against Ipswich. He's going to have bad meetings, however he's also going to have good meetings. The fact he can have good meetings means that he's more than good enough to compete at this level.

And worse still: last night we were cheering when a Spires heat leader got beat. And on Monday we'll be hoping Cheetahs no 1 Sam Masters has a poor night.

As much as I love Speedway the attitude from the BSPL towards the NDL leaves me losing interest in it. The first match if this season for example, Leicester allowed a guest for Max James as he was due at Edinburgh's pre-season practice. If the powers that be have decided that is considered more important than a NDL fixture, it doesn't exactly encourage me to attend NDL matches.

Excellent racing all night. Killeen was the match winner in my view. Bougoen looks like a beaten man, A big off in his first race then he backed out going into turn 3 in another his confidence is so low I believe he should return to NDL & learn how to win races. He is still 16 & has a big future theres no need to push so hard in his first full season. Glasgow to be fair other than Harris & Worrall looked poor. The reserves were very bad & both vastly experienced with good family pedigrees. Well done Oxford. It's going to be a headache fitting extra meetings in with 3 teams to run. Lets hope the rain continues to dodge Oxford.

Flint, Bickley, Gilkes, Rowe, Kemp, Palin and the Thompson twins were supposed to be the golden generation. While some of them are making decent progress they haven't hit the stratospheric heights many of us hoped. And looking at subsequent riders coming up through the youth system none (bar Ashton Boughen) look better prospects than the ones named above.

Problem for Cook is he isn't the most popular rider so when he has a poor meeting he gets the most stick, but when he does well he doesn't get the same amount of praise back. Can't be fun to have, that would affect anyone.

Woffy spends most of the race these days watching what is happening round about him.He really is just going through the motions.He’s not got the hunger nowadays.IMO

Sounds like pawliki needs a drugs test?

Oops. It's free. Of course.

Copied and Pasted off Facebook..... Quick message from club promoter Greg Palmer; Good morning everyone, I hope I find you well. It's been a few weeks since my last message to you all. I'm hoping all being well this time next year we will be providing regular updates, while you are smelling the sweet smell of methanol and hearing tiger feet over the sound system I would just like to update you on how things have been progressing in the background; After talks with Rob Godfrey and the BSPA if all plans fall into place, we should be racing on a Sunday. It's not a day I wanted if I'm honest, however for the future of the club to race it is a Sunday or nothing. My dream was to take Mildenhall to a week night racing slot but with the other established clubs taking the other nights, its a decision from the BSPA which I respect, accept and move on from. Their help along side that of Rob Godfrey, in trying to get Mildenhall back to tapes has been pricless. With that in mind, it is possible we could be hosting up to 15 home meetings for the 2025 season. I've been in constant talks with the Mildenhall stadium owners, working along side each other so no schedules are disrupted and the stadium is used to it's full potential. I have to thank them for their continued support in my quest to get the Fen Tigers back to the tapes. With more meetings comes the need for more track staff. We would like a meeting days to run as smoothly as possible - everyone working in tandem to carrying out tasks, so we can all enjoy a race meeting. To achieve this I'd like 2 fence crews; 1 to put the fence up on the morning of a meeting and 1 to take it down after the meeting is finished. This needs to be a 100% committed team. Too many times in the past it's been left up to a few track staff, which has a knock on effect in every aspect of a race meeting Put simply, if I don't get the numbers for the fence crews and track staff and I don't think it's viable, I will pull the plug. As this is the case, I would like to get the ball rolling as soon as possible. I will be taking names and numbers of people interested from next week. Please contact me through our socials Facebook, Instagram or X (Twitter) or alternatively email neilsoutham082@gmail.com Finally, I want to deliver a brilliant product in 2025 but I can't do that unless I have 100% committed team of people behind me who I can trust to be the stadium race ready. I'm a honest hardworking reliable man and I'd like a group of people similar around me to make the dream of a Championship team come true.

Ashfield is a racers track very safe to ride flat out really smooth this year too with no problems on the third bend

I've just listened to Nicolai Klindt on the British Speedway podcast and I must say I've never heard such a load of crap he was spouting about being dropped from Oxford because it was too cold! He was basically saying that he couldn't get going this season because the temperatures have effected his machinery and that now that it's warming up watch him go! Now Nicolai is a rider with some 20 years of senior Speedway experience initially in "tropical" Denmark and to use this as an excuse is scraping the barrel, yes weather and temps do effect machine performance but to use this as an excuse says more about him than the weather... what does this say to anybody that is thinking of signing him for their team next year? Don't bother until May? He also said that Steve Worrall says he suffers from the same... erm, condition? If I was Worrall I'd be distancing myself from those comments

They tried Riss but couldn’t due to commitment clashes not sure anyone else out there on an average close to 7.87 to sign for cover

Dan Thompson is guesting for Antti Vuolas tomorrow night

typical Poole response to be honest, do you not understand the point of the RS system?

Yeah my (pre-season) Atkins suggestion was based on him being a 4+ Champ rider last year, so statistically the strongest non RS available. As he started the season poorly (till last night) don't see him getting a chance now.

I can only echo this. Spires have had great crowds, but Cheetahs well down on last year.... although the Plymouth match was a bit of a dead rubber, and cup matches never seem to have the same crowd levels. Will be interesting to see if the Cheetahs draw bigger crowds when the Championship matches actually start.

Sure the SCB meeting with Lee is 2 days after his ban ends would have thought it would be before it runs out can't remember when his suspension ends

Unless your name is Garry May!

Even then he might get a ban if I read it right.( could be wrong )

That’s the treble out the window now.

Bomber & Nicholls! Now they've learnt not to knock each other off is there another pair that consistently race against each other better?

He'll be due a testimonial soon!

I would go as far as to say Cook is still the 4th best UK rider.. Put him against any three from Brennan, Ellis, Wright and King, over four races, with each using each gate, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Cook come out on top overall...

I know that we have started the season well but from what I have seen so far I am not convinced that this team is as strong as some are making out. Jenkins has been struggling probably through being in the main team, although his lower scoring has been compensated for by Thompson’s impressive start. Can he keep up this start now he is the main team? The greater concern has to be Rew. He was never intended to be in a reserve position which is forcing Jenkins and Thompson into the main team. Rew is the key to success particularly if we are going to be using r/r for a while.

bloody hell I'm going to have to take it serious now.

Woffinden is a very talented rider and can still turn it on at the top level and he can certainly talk the talk but for me his body language on the bike says he doesn’t really want it enough, his first ride he backed off going into first turn, did a cut back and then basically moved over to let lindgren through, that’s not the body language of a world champion

Scottish football teams whose grounds were once Speedway tracks are having a tough time. Clyde, who at one time played at Shawfield are currently bottom of Scottish League Div2 (tier4) and are in danger of ending up,in the Lowland League next year, where they will join Albion Rovers of Coatbridge, Berwick and Cowdenbeath , all now in reduced circumstances. Edinburgh City now back playing at Meadowbank are being relegated to Div2, while Queens Park (Hampden) look like avoiding the drop to Div1. Blantyre Celtic are now an amateur team while Ashfield Juniors no longer play at Ashfield, having moved to a council facility a few miles away Any English equivalents? Barrow seem to have bucked the trend by getting promotion back into English Div2.