Bryce

Godfrey promotes Scunthorpe, not Redcar. Mr Keay is the Bears promotor.

Cook spoke for a good ten minutes on the mic last night. He was saying mainly that he was going to keep fighting to save the speedway. IF there is a new tenant they MIGHT allow the speedway to stay. IF the speedway itself MIGHT be the new tenant. Several if and maybes. The only actual fact he stated was that he could not guarantee speedway in 2019. He was trying to put a very positive spin on matters, which you would expect him to do. Speaking to the vendors of the sweets and merchandising outlets it was a different story. They have been told the stadium is done after the last cars event this season, and that they won't be renewing their contracts. The Hammers scarves, hats, programme boards etc etc are going to be on sale for the rest of the season because the stock has to be sold by then. There won't be any other opportunities to shift that stuff after this season. That sounds pretty conclusive to me.

Blatant Scamming P1sstakers Association?

Keep on battling with it mate. As you know from our discussions, you're not alone.

Regarding surveying fans at meetings, I am almost certain that permission for such a thing would not be given at Lakeside. Jon Cook's attitude has always been that fans with an opinion are a pain in the behind. The club has been better than many at tweeting and updating the website, but hardly earth shatteringly impressive. These mediums are of course for telling us what they want us to know. They are not for us mere paying customers to express an opinion. The club did have a quite lively official fans forum, until Mr Cook got annoyed at the notion of it being used to criticize the club and closed it down. The bottom line is that the members of the BSPA do not want to hear from us the fans. Their attitude is we should be quiet and be grateful for whatever they serve up to us.

That was the implication given to the crowd at Lakeside on Friday by Jon Cook.

This is a huge part of the problem. Just look at the situation with Friday night fixtures being removed. One promoter (and a MC member at that) seems happy to potentially force up to 3 clubs out of business just so he can have a better choice of guests.

He was unhappy about the way Lakeside and other Friday teams fixtures were removed without warning. He said that ongoing discussions are to be had, and that whilst our next home fixture is in 2 weeks against Peterborough, this is only provisional as the official permission to run it has not been given yet. He stated that decisions were being made to benefit one club at the expense of several others. He didn't name names, but the implication was pretty clear that the culprit is Mr Godfrey at Scunthorpe.

A very enjoyable meeting with lots of good races. Much credit must go to Sheffield who gave a real battling performance. The two 5-1s in heats 13 and 15 made the score look a lot more comfortable than it ever felt. Fortunately for the Hammers, Lawson and Morris were superb, and it's that spearhead that may make the difference for us when the trophies are handed out.

Workington are stating they have to rearrange all their Friday fixtures after this week, and that 2 other Championship clubs are also affected. Nothing about this on Lakeside's site as yet. One thing I'm sure of, if Lakeside are not going to be allowed to keep their traditional Friday night, that could well be the death knell for the club. I really hope this isn't going to be the case.

I'm astonished that a club reported to be struggling financially would want to ban a loyal paying customer for expressing an opinion. Having read the offending posts I can't say that I found them to be all that outrageous. Perhaps not the politest, and maybe some offense could have been taken by Mr Whitehead, but surely criticism from fans is part of the job in sport. Jenga has made a fulsome public apology for any offense caused, I would hope that would be the end of it.

Much as I hate to say it, the silence from both the club and the BSPA is rather ominous. If it was a simple one off issue with the track or stadium, then surely that would have been stated to stop all the doom and gloom speculation. I've attended all but 2 of the fixtures at Rye this season and there has been a noticeable drop off in the size of the crowds. I do believe a lack of fixture continuity and racing on fixed nights have impacted negatively on attendances. We'll never be told the financial details, but it seems very plausible that the club is making a loss every time it runs a speedway meeting. That can only go on for so long before the plug is pulled. I hope I'm wrong, I really do. We've lost too many clubs.

Likewise. I sighed with resignation when heat 15 had to be re-run twice. Then Ellis has an EF at the tapes. It summed up a dissapointing meeting for me. On the plus side, at least Alfie got some rides and a decent points total.

I believe the logic behind the Aussies team selection is that Fricke rides for both of the tracks the meetings are at, and Doyle is the world champion. Pretty straightforward thinking in my book.

I must admit I expected a much closer match. The Comets were poor bar Campton and Proctor and never looked like threatening a powerful Hammers side. I may have missed it, but was anything announced regarding how the young lad (Jacob Clayton I think?) who crashed badly before the meeting is doing? The air fence took a lot of the oomph out of the crash but he still came down hard on the stock car tarmac.

A great result for the Hammers in the circumstances. Best wishes for a rapid recovery to Ben Morley. He's had a very solid start to the season and it would be a real shame for that to be disrupted due to this injury. Going 10 - 2 up and then losing like that at home isn't good enough. I'd be very concerned if I were a Bears supporter.

Morris will have to be a lot better than he was last night at Rye House, he only got 4 points. Hopefully that was a one off bad night and normal service will be resumed. If Lakeside are serious about being title contenders this is the sort of match we need to take something from.

An enjoyable evening of decent racing and good company. Scott Nicholls produced a couple of terrific passes in particular.

Rye website is saying the guest for NBJ will be Kevin Doolan. Although I think the Rockets have no chance of winning on aggregate, there is still the prospect of an entertaining meeting this evening. I suppose I'll be half cheering for Swindon since 3 of their team are Hammers too. Looking forward to it.

It's a beautiful day, so let's hope for a good crowd. Apparently there's some wedding and a football match happening today, I'm sure these events will not impact on the ever loyal speedway fans turning up.

As a neutral who was there, I agree that Woryna looked excellent once he had sussed the track out. It WAS a terrific pass. Poole were unlucky not to get a better result overall.

I thought it was a very strange flat atmosphere last night. Probably that was because of the result from the first leg. I also thought the size of the crowd was a little disapointing. There were some decent races, particularly those involving Schlein, and Connor Mountain impressed again. For the Hammers, the top 4 continues to look awesome, and although Zach and Alfie were not at their best it should be remembered they both took early tumbles on top of injuries they were already carrying.

I also agree that Will is doing a good job. His use of reserve switches has been very on the ball. As for Neil Vatcher, whilst he may indeed not have been an inspiring team manager, he does seem to have done an excellent job with the youth speedway set up. There has been a steady stream of kids with high potential coming through the system in the last two or three years. Perhaps he's found his calling?

Huzzah! An away win that wins the group. Well done the Hammers.

We seem to have a concesus of opinions from those who attended last night. This team is going to be very very hard to beat at the Arena, and will be a threat on the road too. The top six are as solid as any in the league. I hope that Alfie is given the time to find his feet as this could be a breakout season for him if he can make that step up from NL heat leader to CL reserve. Presentation wise the meetings are running noticeably more quickly once they're going, but I agree that before and after the racing it's a bit haphazard still. The track has been pretty good for the main part, but was somewhat messed up by that last watering break last night. All in all it's so much more encouraging a situation than we had 12 months ago.