topsoil

Only speedway fans would moan that their club has gone up a division in the off season and had four last heat deciders in the first four meetings of the season.

Doesn't matter if it's a team or an individual, the end result is the same

There are numerous occasions when football matches have been delayed if the visiting team is stuck in traffic

1968 season didn't begin until May, there wasn't many fixtures in 1994, 1995 or 1996, so technically, no.

Decent meeting, the racing was a lot closer than last week. There may not have been a lot of passing, but there was certainly a few intriguing races, such as Dany and NBJ holding off a charging Cook on a T/S, Leon holding off Rasmus Jensen and on the flip side Sarjeant holding off firstly Doolan, then NBJ. A few passes, the more memorable ones were Sarjeant passing Doolan and Cook passing Summers, both using a seldom seen before inside line off the fourth bend. Two of the young riders in the league, Kyle Bickley and Leon Flint, both having good performances over the weekend. The future is bright. Always good to see Glasgow down, with a big following, their supporters always make it a big match type atmosphere. Also a word for the way the meeting was run last night. Helped by the fact there was no serious incidents, 15 heats done and dusted by half past 8. Leaves plenty time for any junior racing and interviews for those who want to stay, those who don't can be away in a decent time.

Any weather predictions or covers advice this week?

A hell of a lot of sense spoken here. Look at the delays Tottenham had opening their new stadium. Did anybody consider they were shooting themselves in the foot? One week won't do any harm. Like you say, there are plenty spare weeks in the summer to use. You really don't want a repeat of the Belle Vue opening night, that would be far more damaging.

Breakfast, dinner and tea

Can't argue with that, racing wasn't as good as the week before, I actually thought the rain in the morning might help, but it did look a bit heavy. Meeting was won early on, but for a couple of engine failures, the score might have been bigger. Once again the difference in the sides was the reserves scoring, both Coty and Leon scoring very well. Hopefully it was down to the weather, but the crowd was very poor last night I thought. Seemed well down on previous years when Newcastle are here, both locals and visitors.

One day we too will live in a land where local councils will build speedway specific stadiums (NSS coincidence?) and we too will see racing like this. Until then we will have to make do with renting greyhound, rugby or football stadiums, where dimensions are limited and local councils are just waiting to close it down due to noise or build houses on it.

This one big league of 14-16 teams, what do the other existing teams do?

Good luck with that. Take away all the riders who currently ride in Poland and see what you are left with. And even better luck trying to spread the riders left around enough clubs to make a league.

Foggy, overcast, but dry. No rain in Berwick since dinner time.

Is it really that much of a hardship? The lineups are announced during the parade and the riders announced before every heat. It's not like they are keeping anybody in the dark.

Programmes are free with season tickets

I got on really well with Peter and still do, every time he is back and we bump into each other, we speak for ages. It seems you have a grief with someone?

Peter Waite also created some god damn awful tracks. He created them for a specific type of rider, if you liked it, you thrived, but several didn't like it and the sight of riders two wheeling into corners turned a lot of fans way. It was the days where Berwick had a huge home track advantage and on this basis had some good league finishes. Funny that Peter got a lot of criticism back in the day but fans now look back all misty eyed on his time in charge.

every cloud.....

These days the sport would be ridiculed for this, "how can the sport be taken seriously?". Ah, the good old days :-)

It is if it comes from you :-)

Looks like another average day on whining on the forum then? Standard

I've never been able to understand this theory that everything was better in the old days. You can look back to a lot of results in the 70s and 80s and see absolute hammerings. Imagine how those type of results would be treated on this forum nowadays. The "second halves", I can remember a lot of the time riders didn't fancy it and either went through the motions, or were replaced by local juniors because of bike problems. I bet the forum members would love that these days. The good old days when riders were part timers, travelling about with the one bike on the back of a car. What if that bike got damaged in a crash or blew an engine? You either had to borrow another bike or withdrew from the meeting. You can imagine that going down well these days. You look back at the race time back then, I will use my own club Berwick as an example. Race times in the 70s and 80s are roughly the same as a Northern Junior League race now. Can you imagine many fans nowadays putting up with that as a night's entertainment. Yes it would be great if we could get back to a time where we had the top riders in the world competing in our leagues, but unless we can find some rich benefactors or miraculously find some big sponsorship or TV money, we have to accept this isn't going to happen. Let's face it, we were all a lot more easily pleased in the past. There were fewer alternatives, we were less coddled in those days. Now we want instant gratification and we want it all the time. For my opinion, speedway is better now than it ever has been, throughout the sport. More riders are becoming "professional", the standard of riders have gone up as a whole, right across the sport. But all I see on the forum is doom and gloom. I find I spend very little time looking at the forum these days, the general mood starts to bring me down.

Didn't realise Berwick had signed him. Know he's a local lad obviously, but was considering him an Edinburgh rider. Makes sense to sign as many assets as you can, the loan fees come in handy.

He's the only possible starter Berwick could have in it

There is no doubt there is a lot to admire about the Isle of Wight club and the way it is run, growing the fan base, giving novices a first taste of riding a bike, the entertainment they provide at a meeting being a few examples, but to say Barry Bishop should be in charge of British Speedway is a big leap. For instance, how would he deal with the problem of riders giving preference to the more lucrative leagues in Poland / Sweden, how would he deal with doubling up / down, fixed nights, all problems at the top end of the sport, which fans of the sport continually complain about, which he has no experience of. My thoughts is that he would end up as powerless as everybody else in that position.