John Leslie

What puzzles me is that Rye House was chosen to hold the NL Fours/NLRC in the first place. As Rye run both PL and NL they already have a crowded programme, and it was odds-on that at the business end of the season they would have the PL play-offs or Young shield to fit in. So why try to cram in these extra events? Looking at the days that NL teams race, I reckon we have:- Saturday - Rye House Sunday - Buxton, Newport, King's Lynn Monday - no one Tuesday - IOW, Dudley@Wolves Wednesday - Bournemouth, Dudley@Brum Thursday - no one Friday - Plymouth, Scunthorpe, Weymouth So more than often there is no NL activity on a Monday or Thursday. Now, as I've already said most PL teams are involved in play-offs or Young Shield, but if we look to the EL we have a number of teams not in the play-offs and out of the KO Cup who are left kicking their heels with no fixtures at all. Swindon seem to have held some league matches back beyond the deadline, so they have something to pad the season out, but the teams most devoid of fixtures are Belle Vue and Ipswich. these teams race on a Monday and a Thursday...the days of no NL activity...so they could have easily staged the NLRC and NL pairs. (and probably still could). Maybe EL stadium rentals are higher, and they are not clubs who have an NL team, and so the crowd may be down. But surely out of all the Sky money, the BSPA could pay a couple of grand to rent one of these tracks and subsidise the paying admission down to a fiver? They would then get the meetings on, have no fixture congestion, and may convert some EL fans into NL supporters? Or is this too sensible?

Why did Matty waste his time writing all those words? He could have demonstrated Average fiddling with just one picture - HERE And the rest of his comments with an other picture - HERE

you were right

The BSPA website says there is a British U-15 championship round at Buxton on Saturday, although I haven't seen anything advertised anywhere else and it isn't listed on Buxton's website. Anyone know if it's true? I might have gone up there for a look as Saturday is better than Sunday for me, but I couldn't find any info in time to include it in my weekend plans. Shame really. Someone told me that they can't charge admission or advertise the meeting because the riders are unpaid and underage...does this mean it's closed to the public then?

Steve Worrall is in the list

But we've had an election in between. It's the new government who want to reduce the size of the armed forces. It will have been the old lot that signed up to throw away loads of taxpayers money on something so barmy as a recruitment drive at speedway meetings.

It's a recruitment drive. When there are no wars plenty of people want to join the armed forces, but when we have a few wars going on people aren't so keen. We're recruiting to staff a new Armada to sail into Poland and put Johnny Foreigner in his place. Wonder why the opening poster didn't complain about previous GPs which were sponsored by FIAT vans? (whisper it, but the T in FIAT stands for Turin...bloody Eyeties getting everywhere). I don't see what's wrong with the Leszno tourist board sponsoring speedway on a "visit Leszno" campaign. The GP programme had a "visit Wales" advert. The attractions of Wales were illustrated by photos of someone bog-snorkelling and a piccy of four cows arses....now that is frightening.

Just tell Matron to make sure she gets you up and dressed at 5.30am. That's what they're there for.

Just be careful where you are buying in the City Centre. Most, if not all, of the ones sold by the street traders are the inflammable ones and you won't be allowed in the stadium with them. (you can spot the inflammable ones as they have the warning sign on the cannister). The Millennium Stadium sell the permitted non-flammable ones (at a hefty price). Other than that you might have to find a camping shop or something to buy a permitted non-flammable one.

You're still living in cloud cuckoo land. The meeting is nowhere near a sell out, so you're not likely to get anywhere near face value unless someone wants to do you a favour and take them off your hands. I don't understand why anyone buys tickets before the day. Worst case scenario you can buy tickets on the day from the box office at face value, but most likely you'll be able to pick up £82 tickets off the touts for less than £60. If anyone offers you anything over £50 for your tickets snap their hand off.

erm..yeah...good luck with that one. p.s. If you find a buyer can I have their details as I'm selling Brooklyn Bridge and the Eiffel Tower.

Well, before the England v Algeria match we had Adrian Chiles telling us that it was Slovenia. After apologising for that, he went on to tell us that the Algerian goalie wasn't very good as he had let in a soft goal in the previous match...the only problem with that was that it was a different Algerian goalie!

I'm in agreement too. Even before they're into the corner AJ can hear Gollob coming and makes an early decision that he's going to bail out. He doesn't even attempt to go into the corner properly all he's concerned with is getting somekind of connection with Gollob's wheel. It's a tactic perfected by Nicki Pedersen a few years back, and now popular with a lot of Scandinavians.

What an absolute tragedy of a meeting tonight.....Kenneth Beer/Bear/Beerer wins a GP, and Millard isn't there to mispronounce his name properly....sort yourselves out Skysports!

Yes, it's wrong. Joe Owen and Louis Carr won the pairs for Ellesmere Port in 1985. Joe's crash was later that year in the Birmingham v Ellesmere match. Ellesmere Port closed at the end of 1985. There was a benefit meeting for Joe Owen on Boxing Day in 1985 the last ever meeting at Thornton Road...and it was freezing! (Edinburgh won the pairs in 1986).

Well to give you an example from your youth... Remember when Billy Meredith was banned for fixing Manchester City matches in 1904/05? The inference here is that Mr Ecclestone arranges things in Formula 1 to keep the final result more interesting, and with Crump only scoring 4 points through injury, the Speedway GP final result has conveniently become more interesting.

Can't help thinking that Babelfish let them down there and gave them a more polite translation of the word they were actually looking for.

Why not? He might fancy an extra year in the PL

If Scott would like to post his phone number here, I would be happy to offer my services to Rob Lyon as a secretary, and phone Scotty on a daily basis to tell him that he's not very good.

Would we have to race cup matches over 3 legs?

Has anyone spotted Chris Harris's new catchphrase? When interviewed he starts nearly every answer with the word "definitely"

Since you're the only person in 10 pages who doesn't think that the pre-meeting entertainment was extremely poor, I guess you're either the guy who played crap music selection, or the guy who thought he was impersonating Freddie Mercury. I guess it's the former.

No idea who he is, but he must be cheap. Exactly one year after his last booking he is back by popular demand! Also agree about that dire welsh song. Let's cut it out. It was the British Grand Prix and we only needed the British National Anthem. When Freddie Williams won the World title they played God Save the King/Queen; and it will be the same it we ever get another British World Champion from Wales. We had a World Cup round at Poole once, But we didn't play the theme from Hoawrd's Way.

From this picture it's clear that the one on the left is oversized.