4thbender

Reckon it'll be Bellegone if he doesn't score a hatful tonight.

It's been so long since any of "our" riders put in a shift for the Tigers, I'm surprised any of them remember their commitment to the yellow and blue. Even when the poles allow them to ride in the UK, they're all carrying injuries incurred elsewhere. The last time Musie rode for Tigers was April 6th, and by the time we fans get to see any of them again at home, it will be at least seven weeks since their previous outing at Owlerton. Building any sort of team camaraderie must be difficult for promoters.

Are we seriously being made to believe that BV is paying Bewley a 'flat fee' to lose races in order to reduce his average, allowing 6-point Charles Wright to be replaced by 8-point Matei Zagar at the earliest opportunity? Wrighty must be looking over his shoulder after every match. I suppose knowing how BV fixed the team prior to the play-offs last year, nothing is impossible. I hope Phil Morris is reading this.

Are you suggesting that a professional such as Dan Bewley would "throw" some races early on to lower his average (and his pay!) to enable the management to ditch one of his team-mates in order to bring in a higher scoring replacement? If I thought for one minute that premiership riders and promoters were capable of colluding on such a nefarious scheme I would never enter a speedway stadium again.

Planning the play-off "ringer" already? Zagar in, Bewley out, perhaps?

....Well, one of 'em anyway.

The match was over by 8.45 - I was home in time to watch most of the second half of the England match on telly. Will we get a proportional reduction in admission prices for shortened entertainment value? I've known a frame of snooker at the Crucible last longer! (not complaining really!)

If this is the future of speedway, I'm glad I'm in the past. But how long before councils (like Sheffield, Oxford and Manchester!) insist that only electric bikes will be allowed to race in local stadiums? FIRST RIDE ELECTRIC SPEEDWAY BIKE! IS IT THE FUTURE ? - YouTube

Does this mean Lambert won't get his end-of-year outing as BV's ringer for the play-offs?

Not at Owlerton.

Seen it, but the rider in white wasn't in the lead when he came a cropper.

People on here are constantly moaning about their sport not being taken seriously, making up the rules as they go on, dragging the sport into the mire, etc. etc. And yet, when it comes to a wrongful decision affecting the outcome of no less an event than the Premiership Grand Final, they say it doesn't matter and it's of no consequence. For the record, I thoroughly enjoyed the event - it was a joy to mix with the BV fans on bend 4 (got a bit concerned by the flares with kids around, mind you). Nevertheless, it seems no-one can provide any justification for a cock-eyed ruling that effectively changed the result. A bit awkward for any sport that wants to prove it's serious about fair competition.

This is the speedway equivalent of Mo Salah being brought down by Kyle Walker in City's penalty area in the 90th minute of the cup final with the scores level at 2 - 2 and the ref saying to Mo "Don't bother with the penalty, I'll just award Liverpool the goal." Bet you'd have something to say about that!

This is an important decision - it affects the outcome of the 2022 Speedway Premiership Grand Final and it seems to hinge upon the referee taking out a crystal ball to predict the outcome of a re-run which never happened. So instead it would appear that the efforts of the two riders who legitimately crossed the line first - the riders in Yellow and blue (the rider in red having been excluded) - were leap-frogged by a rider lying on the track 80 metres back from the chequered flag. The two legitimate finishers were in no part to blame for the demise of the fallen rider, so I simply put it to you that they are deserving of the points for first and second place respectively. I don't believe this precise situation has ever occurred in 94 years of British speedway history. But it makes a massive difference to the outcome of the single most iconic event of the 2022 British Speedway calendar. I don't know what the ACU will make of it.

Can anyone provide a single example in the history of speedway when a race non-finisher was awarded three points for a race win, ahead of two other riders who had legitimately finished the race?

You omitted to add "with the help of the referee" after "BV riders just raised their game".

Natural justice cannot be overruled.

Here’s a different view… If the integrity of speedway racing is to be maintained amongst the panoply of British sporting endeavour, the outcome of the Speedway Premiership Grand Final must be reversed forthwith and awarded to the Sheffield team, on the following basis. Heats 1 and 3 were the subject of re-runs after riders fell, the riders adjudged to be at fault having been excluded (rightly so) from the re-run. In heat eleven, the rider in white fell and the rider in red was adjudged to have been at fault. In keeping with the correct procedure carried out in the earlier heats, the referee should have initiated a re-run of heat 11 with three riders, the rider in red being excluded. In a totally unprecedented interpretation of the rules however, the referee failed to initiate a re-run, but pre-empted its result by awarding Belle Vue a 5 – 1 race victory… .. in a re-run that had not taken place! As witnessed by thousands of spectators in the stadium and countless thousands of viewers of the Eurosport TV broadcast, the rider in white failed to finish the race and was laid on the track 80 metres short of the finish line, and yet was inexplicably awarded 3 points (see the referee’s race card), in contravention of the spirit (if not the written rules) of speedway racing, the conventions of which stipulate that points are awarded according to the order of riders crossing the finishing line after the completion of four laps. It is utterly unconscionable and against the spirit of speedway racing than a race non-finisher, regardless of circumstances, should be arbitrarily awarded a race win ahead of riders who completed four laps and crossed the finish line in open and fair competition. Having failed to initiate a re-run therefore, the only fair and equitable option open to the referee (with the rider in white having failed to complete the race and the rider in red having been excluded) was to award points to the only two riders to legitimately finish the race, i.e. three points to the rider in yellow and two to the rider in blue. This gives Belle Vue a 3 – 2 race victory, bringing the total accumulated points after heat 11 to 37 – 28 in Sheffield’s favour. Given that in the remaining four heats Sheffield scored 14 points to Belle Vue’s 10, this brings the final totals to 51 – 38 in Sheffield’s favour, giving Sheffield a victory by a single point over the two legs of the Premiership Grand Final.

Three.

That was the oddest decision I ever remember. Kurtz was awarded 3 points whilst laid on his back on the fourth bend, whilst three riders had passed the finishing line ahead of him. If the referee reckoned Tobi had cheated and deserved exclusion, surely the race should either have a) been re-run with three riders, or b) awarded to Belle Vue as a 3 - 2 victory. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems odd to base the score on the assumption that Kurtz would have won had he not fallen off. Passing the finishing line first is usually the criterion for the awarding of 3 points.

Big matches come and go and, should I live long enough, I expect I'll see more in the future. For me the Tigers' victory at Ipswich in 2017 to win the Championship was a great highlight, as was the winning of the knock-out cup in 1974. Both occasions were the result of long campaigns where good and bad fortunes were overcome along the way. The one feature that stands out is that on neither occasion did we use "ringers" to score our points.

Winning and losing are both aspects one becomes accustomed to over time.

That's quite correct. It's the manner of winning that matters.

I'm not concerned with the fact that Sheffield lost - I'm used to that. But the fact remains that whilst Jack's low score had a part to play in the overall outcome, so did Lambert's 25 points over two legs. The difference is Jack had a right to be there and Lambert didn't.

Mikebv has put his finger on it there! As a died-in-the-wool Tigers fan for 56 years, I'm actually glad to see Belle Vue win the title, for the simple reason that it highlights the sheer hypocrisy and corruption of the ruling authorities in allowing a rider who has shunned British racing for three years in pursuit of personal treasure to suddenly turn up for three matches in the colours of a team for which he has no past or present connection and have the audacity to collect a champion's medal on the rostrum. A "ringer" by any definition. Surely the authorities will now be shamed into ensuring no such aberration will ever occur in the future. As for the real championship, whichever team wins the Sheffield v Ipswich tie two weeks' time can hold its heads high and rightly claim to be the season's champions - an accolade won over the course of twenty matches home and away and without recourse to underhand and devious chicanery, the stench of which will always hang around this alleged Belle Vue "victory".