topsoil

Needed to do a lot of track grading last night, due to the downpours just before the start, two lengthy hold-ups due to injuries, another hold-up after the first running of heat 15, not much anybody could do about it.

Could see this result coming, you won't win a meeting without heat winners and Berwick just don't have the top end fire power right now. Outgated in almost every race tonight and in conditions like that gating is all important. For me Wolbert and Riss were the match winners. You kind of knew beforehand that Edinburgh had the advantage with Masters and Fisher and Berwick would be stronger at reserve. That played out as expected. Really hope the gating gloves are on for tomorrow and next Saturday, or it could be a couple of long meetings.

Sounds about right. If this meeting goes the way of most Berwick meetings this season, then we will keep it close until the business end, we have struggled in heats 13 and 15 so far with TJ still not fully fit and Seb still looking for consistency. R/R for Anders actually makes us stronger, he has obviously been riding hurt this season. Hopefully fully fit when he comes back. I think a lot will depend on our result at home to Edinburgh tonight. We win that, we have a chance of challenging for the top spot. Anything other than 3 points and chances are slim.

I'm guessing #5 is Oxford (based on the "historic" reference) and #11 is Edinburgh (based on the facilities at Powderhall, which I always thought was a very nice stadium back in the day). Agree with above, very interesting little quiz this. Without doubt #1 is Middlesbrough, I was fascinated by the track back then, every time you would approach the stadium you would look down onto the track. #10 is obviously Milton Keynes Agree with above I think #6 is Stoke and #7 Peterborough.

I would feel a lot more confident about chances of winning if I thought Mellgren could get into the points.

Interesting Edinburgh have switched Etheridge to number 4. Will this be to match up against Mellgren, who has been Berwick's weak link so far this season? Despite being weaker than in previous years, I'm still expecting a very tough meeting on Saturday, with Masters and Fisher especially being very good around Shielfield and Riss, Wolbert and Clegg all having good meetings last season down here. Looking forward to seeing Dan Bewley as well. Obviously going to be a bit raw at this stage of his career, but there are good reviews about him. This is possibly Berwick's best chance yet to progress in the League Cup.

More encouraging signs for Berwick tonight. The first was when I turned up and the queue to get in was back onto the car park. Not seen that for a while. Following up from the result it was another good performance from Berwick against effectively a two man team. Lambert and Fisher almost untouchable all night. Will ten points be enough? Only time will tell. But it's been an encouraging start. Also liked to see Liam Carr coming out for some extra laps after the meeting. To be honest I don't know why more riders don't do it. Especially new riders to the track. And Leon Flint seems to get better and better every week, he looks fast and smooth on a bike. Really amazes me how many fans stay back and watch second half racing. Could be a message there? Again the hospitality box was full and the meeting went smoothly. Early days but so far, so good.

Speechless. Seen too many hidings at Armadale and even a few defeats off them at Shielfield. Really did not see this coming, even though Edinburgh are obviously weaker this season. Still thought they would have enough with Masters, Riss and Wolbert at home. Bit concerned about the form of Anders Mellgren, four poor meetings so far, but that won't spoil my mood.

Exactly If people would rather sit in the house and watch the sport on an amateur film taken from a mobile phone, rather than watch it live, this says a lot about the state of the sport and what is on offer for the spectators. You see other sports which are live on TV, in bad weather, you get live updates on the internet, facebook, twitter, whatever, but the games still get big crowds because of the atmosphere and experience from being live at the event. Rather than becoming worried about losing a handful of people, who lets face it if they would rather sit in the house this way than follow your team live, are very casual fans anyway, shouldn't the sport be more concerned about improving the product on show, to attract more supporters? If the product on show was that good, you wouldn't think twice about not wanting to be there live. I can remember the exact same reaction to the live updates website, some promoters wanted that banned because they thought it would affect crowd levels. Instead of fearing developments like this, learn to embrace them and find out how you can use them to your advantage to promote your product.

In a nutshell!

Every year I think that Berwick will start to put up a better fight at Armadale and every year they struggle to score mid-30s. The optimist in me says they've never had a better chance of snatching a point than this, the pessimist says it will be the usual let down.

I guess I started this off by commenting how good I thought the semi and final of the Pairs were. Heats 18 and 21 were crackers as well with Vaculik and Zmarzlik, then Kolodziej, Protasiewicz and Zmarlik changing lines, colliding, breaking up team riding. Good things come to those who wait. But then again Torun has a habit of producing great racing.

You obviously never watched the semi-final or final, two brilliant races.

Track covers, it's the future, who would have thought? The promotion were rewarded for their hard work and planning tonight with the meeting going ahead on a perfect track surface, despite rain falling from about 5 o'clock. A lot of things to be impressed by tonight, the covers, up to date music on the tannoy, hospitality box full, promotional giveaways for the kids, a lot of new advertisers in the programme, riders mixing with the fans afterwards (I know they have always done this), the win was the icing on the cake, a lot of enthusiasm around the place just now, the promotion deserve a lot of credit.

Normally yes, but last night Pijper took ill during the meeting, otherwise he would have have covered heat 13, Alden picked up an injury during the meeting, which may have restricted his performance and Mellgren went into the meeting not fully fit so same applies. But top and bottom of it, this was a pre-season friendly, so more important to get match fitness and equipment ready for the proper stuff.

Brilliant news for both the club and the sport in the North East and Southern Scotland, especially after the farcical events at Belle Vue. It would be great to think that in ten years time the Berwick team will be made up from entirely local lads.

What incident does this relate to?

Maybe your promotion should put a complaint in to the BSPA and have them change the meeting to a Friday night? ;-)

Good interview on facebook from last night with Dick Barrie and Kelvin Tatum. Really liking what the club are doing with twitter and facebook recently with the interviews, videos, photos etc. good way of free promotion and keeping the fans involved while there is no racing going on.

Well the future seems bright for these teams eh? Edinburgh and Glasgow the top two teams in the PL last year but unfortunately too far north.

I'm very much an advocate of this theory, but it will be a long term project and do clubs have the luxury of time on their side? I would like to see a countrywide scheme to encourage each club to develop their own riders, to the extent where one day all clubs would be made up from local lads. There would be a lot of benefits to this. You look at any successful league and you will see clubs which have a conveyor belt of talent. But to do this speedway needs to develop training facilities, sufficient coaches, equipment, this won't be cheap, but in the long term cheaper than flying in riders from all over Europe on a weekly basis.

Chances are there will be a couple of promotions who put out a statement saying that unless crowds improve they will close down, somewhere along the line there will be a fixture backlog because of the weather. Probably an injury crisis and a shortage of riders causing the usual complaints about guests. Much like every other season really.

Haha whoops didn't see my typo. Try Emily, she might be a bit cheaper than Emil.

The club have been very active in social media lately, a lot of it trivial stuff, but it follows the example of other professional teams in other sports, keeping the club in the public eye. I like the latest developments where they are going into partnership with three local good causes. All good p.r. For the club. The more publicity for the club the more sponsors / fans / investors are encouraged to get involved.

Sometimes riders are attracted to riding part of a season later on in the year, look at Greg Hancock at Poole and Emily Sajfutdinov at Coventry. One of the biggest faults of the sport is doubling up and even riders competing in several countries. I would love to see the sport get to the situation where it had enough riders to go round so that each team had its own seven. For that to happen the sport must make a concerted effort to get more riders involved. If each club was forced / encouraged to have its own youth set up would be a start. Then you might eventually get to the stage of having teams full of local riders and not relying on the cost of flying riders everywhere. Pie in the sky stuff but I can dream.