topsoil

I only hope that the fans will be patient with the young rider and supportive of the club by introducing a new face, but having already lost twice at home in the league, this season is in danger of ebbing away and all the positive work done by the promotion during the winter and early season could be lost. The best situation is for a young rider to come into a successful team, where any struggles he may have can be covered by other riders. Unfortunately Berwick is not that place right now. Hopefully he will get as many laps in as possible, the more the better. It's a risk the promotion have taken and hopefully it will pay off.

I would be surprised if any sportsman's first thought is 'do it for my country' rather than 'do it for myself'

Hopefully this will be a move which will pay dividends for the future, but I have my concerns for the team in the short term. This isn't a team that can afford to carry any passengers, especially with the heat leaders mis-firing. Hopefully the young lad will come good and be a Berwick asset for years to come, but having lost their last two home meetings, this is a big moment in the season. A very young reserve pairing this weekend anyway.

I've said this on a few occasions, I would like to see all Elite and Premier League teams align themselves with a junior team and provide second half matches. It gives the supporters more racing (I always find it surprising how many fans at Berwick stay behind to watch the NJL matches) and gives the younger riders much needed practice. Even if it is regionalised so that there is a North / South split to cut down on travelling costs. It can only be beneficial to the sport in the long run.

Can't beat a bit of Sunday night dead horse flogging

Good for them

Like you say official figures are never published, I'm purely going on what I've seen on Sky TV and wheat you read in Speedway Star, or on here. It would be interesting to see the actual numbers. The size of Shielfield and the fact that the crowd are spread out round three quarters of the track I think makes the crowd look deceptively small at Berwick. You look at places like Wolverhampton and Newcastle, greyhound stadiums where the crowd are restricted to one area and the crowd looks bigger, but if you put all the fans into one area of Shielfield, I reckon it would be more comparable.

Attendance figures throughout the sport are down, give or take the odd track, but if you look at youtube videos of Shielfield even ten or so years ago, I wouldn't say Berwick's crowds were much bigger then. But these days income can come in different forms, more emphasis is given to sponsorship deals and corporate hospitality. The holiday season is coming up soon and that is when the population of Berwick expands greatly. That's where I think the club need to target the promotion of the sport in the town. As for inviting all previous Berwick riders, yes this is good PR and should give the club an opportunity to expand the awareness of the club by getting photos, interviews etc. of theses riders into newspapers, the club website, social media.

The attendance figures at Coventry Storm do seem to have drawn a lot of attention lately. But for National League teams belonging to Premier / Elite League teams the attendance figures are not the primary concern, that is to being on home grown riders to supply the main team. I realise there is a point where it may not become financially viable to run a National League team if losses are incurred, but surely the promotion would have thought of this beforehand. The National League team isn't there to make money, the "savings" comes in the future, when you have a group of local riders (hopefully) serving the Elite / Premier team. That said, I would have thought that if it was scheduled correctly, the National League meetings could be run on the nights where the main team are either away or don't have a fixture due to GP weekends, thus giving the fans their weekly diet of speedway. It may also be the place for the owners to try out a number of promotional ideas, to get crowd numbers up. I have a lot of time for the likes of Coventry, Kings Lynn, Rye House, teams who run National League teams as well as the main team. I think the sport would be in a far healthier state if every team had their own feeder teams in place. That way we would be producing a lot more local riders, who fans and sponsors could relate a lot more to, than going to the expense of flying in riders from all over Europe each week.

I wonder if any sportsman does anything "for his country". I would have thought they do it firstly for themselves, or their team mates, or their friends and family.

Two time British World Champion. Go on, say it, you'll feel better :-)

Personally, I find it hard to understand the level of attention given to sportsmen and women singing national anthems at sporting events, certainly before the event. You are a professional athlete, you are judged by what you do on the track / field / pitch, not whether you can sing a song. I'll gladly take Tai never singing the anthem, just keep producing where it matters most. A lot of people point to rugby players singing anthems and how because of this they must be very patriotic. But I was interested to hear Martin Johnson once reveal in an interview that he is not very patriotic and feels more of an allegiance to team mates and friends than his country.

Had my Max Boyce moment tonight, Henning Bager won a race at Shielfield, 'I know, cos I was there'! Got to hand it to Captain Marvel tonight, saved us from a right humping. Into the grandstand after the meeting and swarmed with kids. Great work. Thanks also to Danny Ayres, who proved a really good guest for Liam. The rest of the Bandits just too inconsistent, Seb being the epitome of this, brilliant last weekend, poor this. But as usual, lots of laughs.

Going to be a very tough one for Berwick this, almost all of the Sheffield team go well at Shielfield. Need to get their gating heads on this week. Looking forward to seeing Simon Stead, has a great style. Hopefully the cracking weather we've been having lasts all week and for once it's not a three-layer night on the terraces.

Certainly if he replicates his form when he guested for us at Rye house last year.

If not, just make it up Spot on. Less than a dozen meetings into a career and some want him out. The size of club Berwick are, they are never going to attract top earning riders. And I don't want to see them mortgage the future of the club just to sign a big name. Didn't do us any good last season. Defeats at home are tough to take I know, but good things have happened at the club in the last six months. Good young manager with a lot of drive and enthusiasm, new promotion on board.

Positive thinking

On the subject of making things up, how about getting on with your own knitting

Just wonder about the fitness of Kevin and Liam tonight after both suffered bad crashes last night. Plus the damage to Kevin's machinery. TJ's first meeting for three weeks and Bager is obviously going to be rusty. Theo was a bit unlucky tonight with the puncture and then touching the tapes after Barker obviously moved. But the main problem again, as always, is gating, especially when the track is slick.

Too many weak links I'm afraid. Against a team who are strong at 1, 3 and 5 and when Lindgren came on strong at the end of the meeting you are going to get found out. The strength in depth argument falls down when you concede a 5-1 in heat 2 and your number 4 only scores a point. Only silver lining was Seb seemed very fast in his opening three rides and we need him firing. There's always next week.

I was thinking more along the lines of the amount of sweets and drinks sold to the kids, could be the reason for the increase in takings? But you have a point about internet sales. I've also thought that there is a huge hole in the market for somebody who could go beyond the bog standard t-shirt, polo shirt and jacket on offer at most track shops.

It was mentioned last night in the programme that takings at the track shop were at an all time high. Any connection to the fact that there are a lot of kids going who get in for free? Personally I think it is a great initiative to let kids in for free. You only need to see them interact with the riders in the grandstand after the meeting.

Can't agree with this. Given the amount of rain / sleet / snow we had from Thursday afternoon to Saturday morning, the track staff did a hell of a job to get it to the state it was last night. It was a bit slicker than it has been of late, but totally understandable. I've noticed this season that there has been new lines created on the second and fourth bends which have created a lot more passing.

Big pay day for Berwick. Scunthorpe actually looked like we did last season, missing a number one. Josh Auty was surprisingly out of sorts tonight, good to see ex-Bandit Carl Wilkinson hit good form, Ryan Douglas was worth more than he scored and they have a decent pair of reserves. Josh Bailey looked smooth enough. After his crashes lately really chuffed for Matty to be in the big points, would like to have seen Captain Ken get his paid max but not to be. Ostergaard looks class and can see him scoring well when he comes up with the Panthers. After the rain / sleet / snow of the past two days the track looked perfect. There are still a couple of good lines appearing out of the fourth bend. Good three points all in all.

Ryan Douglas, Alex Davies and possibly Zdenek Holub (if fit) are the missing 3-5. Auty and Wilkinson both go well around Berwick, but this is a meeting Berwick should be looking to win. Hopefully a decent night for weather would be nice. The first four meetings have either been wet or damn cold.