King Jamie

No rule change. The missing riders are representing their respective countries. Therefore a guest facility is available for all.

You'll need to help me out here. Roughly how long ago was this? I'm struggling to think of which rider you're referring to.

Aye, as long as he's pocketing enough zloty to pay for nappies and the mortgage, who cares about his contractual duties in the UK? Conscious much? I like the news snippet on the Monarchs website. Says something like, "he'll miss KL and Leicester and have treatment this weekend. He won't miss any more meetings." Perhaps they should have gone with, "he'll miss KL and Leicester and have treatment on Saturday before returning to action in sunny Polska 24 hours later." Wonder what sort of reaction that would've gleaned. Poland is famous for its 'gun to the head' policy. Perhaps we should do the same? If Mr Campbell wishes to purchase a rifle, I'm happy to provide the character reference...

What a farce. And not for the first time from Masters either.

The 3-3 in heat 1, if all subsequent scores had followed the same pattern, would've meant no T/S allowed, therefore no 1-5 in heat 9. Swings and roundabouts. Or chains and, er, something else unchainlike

Perhaps he's just a slow learner

The rules are long standing and make perfect sense. If a team (Berwick) is over the 42.00 limit and attempts to sign a 5.00 rider to replace a 4.3ish one, that's technically deemed as cheating. In such instances, it's only fair that another change has to take place in order to comply with the limit. If a team (Redcar, Scunny) is below 42.00, they can rebuild up to that level, no questions asked. League position is irrelevant. The joy of numbers

What a dreadful meeting. Thankfully, I was in hospitality, so had beer for company. Magnus Magnusson entered the stadium after heat 14 and announced: Edinburgh Monarchs. You've scored 45 pts and no passes. Poole Pirates. You've scored 39 pts and no passes. At least heat 15 gave the paying punter some entertainment. For the Monarchs, Masters was decent, Pickering likewise, Hook excellent, Thomson fine until heat 12, Castagna dreadful until heat 14, Sarjeant had a meeting of two halves and Fredriksen should've stayed at home. For the Champions, the former Worrallloadofrubbish, Daniel King, Ben Cook and young Ablitt gained pass marks. unKempt did his job by winning heat 8. The other two were woeful. I believe that's our first victory over Poole since 1995 at Powderhall, when Kenny McKinna was part of a heat 16 5-1 over Lars Gunnestad (a proper Norwegian rider), securing a 56-40 demolition and a bonus point to boot. Them were the days! Roll on Friday...

Sweaties isn't offensive. It's only rhyming slang. Why bother about it? Sticks and stones and al that.

Not sure about that. Between the 4 meetings between the sides last season and the recent Wimborne Road clash, Josh has only won 3 out of 23 races. His 40 points scored only averages 6.96. Indeed, in the two fixtures at sunny Armadale, he's returned a somewhat miserable 15 pts from 9 rides, an average of just 6.67. Much improvement required. As for Sam, even though he's only won 13 out of his 29 heats, at least he's averaging 9.24. Almost acceptable. Big test this Friday!

I do agree re unreliable riders not being ideal. Probably poorly written by myself but I was just noting how much more favourably he could be looked upon by certain teams given that he may be on 5.00 as opposed to the 6.73 average originally mentioned by MD. If he didn't cause any trouble during his Glasgow days then they, for example, could well be up for signing him in 2023.

It's better than that... The end of season rolling averages will be based on just 10 meetings. Vissing has ridden 10 this season (4H/6A) with an average of 5.00. Not sure if there will be any Newcastle adjustments to be made but I would say he's even more "hugely employable" now!

An interesting meeting resulted in an eventually comfortable victory, ensuring Monarchs remain unbeaten throughout the second half of calendar year 2022. No less than 14 of the 15 heats produced either wins or paid wins for an Australian rider. Surely some kind of record in UK speedway? The odd one out was heat 14 when Jacob Hook couldn't quite manage to follow home Michele Castagna for the 5-1. Damn you James Wright! Scunny put in a decent shift. Ryan Douglas was excellent. Simon Lambert was all action, as always, and managed to earn some welcome points to go alongside his efforts. However, after a bright start, Zaine Kennedy's scoring only went in one direction. With that, their challenge fizzled out. For the Monarchs, plus points all round. Lasse Fredriksen very nearly bagged back to back paid maximums (maxima?), while Sam Masters was more dominant than the Old Firm in a Scottish Premiership title race. We'll need the Fireman to repeat that again when the Champions visit 6 days from now. Finally, the proposed new stadium toy was on display, resulting in the first appearance by a model at sunny Armadale since... er, I've no idea. Can't remember Kate Moss ever settling foot in the place. Anyone know? Roll on Friday...

The facilities chart is straight from the rulebook, in which part D is highlighted. It wasn't done so by Normski to refer to anything in this situation.

Or perhaps not From 1 July, young Sarjeant will drop to 3.93, thus keeping both himself and Jacob Hook at reserve. Lasse will remain in the top 5, albeit now on 4.00 as you said. His previous higher 'average' will ensure he's not allowed to swap with Hook and enjoy a dabble in the bottom 2 for a while.

Fredriksen only missed one meeting all season. That was vs Redcar at sunny Armadale (he was taking part in some kind of qualifier or another that night?) and r/r was used that night. He returned, only to be decapitated by James Shanes. Don't worry though, he's due back on Friday apparently.

Sunny Armadale was more of a dusty springfield as the much promised natural sprinkle failed to drop itself on the stadium. As a racing spectacle, it's fair to say Harvey Weinstein made more passes in 30 seconds than the total mustered in this meeting's first 12 races. And then we received the glorious treat that was heat 13. I tip my hat to all 4 riders. Main talking point early doors was the lack of a TS in heat 6. Indeed, all 3 opportunities were wilfully ignored by both team managers during the course of the evening. The last 2 didn't matter as they delivered 5-1's anyway but the first failure probably gifted the Cheetahs a point. That said, they certainly earned their spots tonight. A sideshow to this evening's main course was a Team Australia 4's competition. The home side won that particular clash 40-22 if anyone's much fussed. For the Monarchs, tonight exposed the glaring vulnerabilities within the team. Only the much vaunted top 2 achieved their average. The rest had their moments, some more fleeting than others. The glue that is Kye Thomson, for example, will never score a less convincing 6 points in his career. For the Cheetahs, solid scoring was the order of the day (well, night). Biggest disappointment was Batchelor boy although, when he was correctly shoved back 15 metres in heat 9, I did mutter "Congratulations". It was also pleasing to see young Killeen hold him off for the solitary point in the rerun. A very promising performance. His super smooth riding style reminds me of Daniel Bewley in his speedway nappy days. Ach well. Roll on Friday...

Well done Monarchs From the website: "Although an abandonment after the completion of any racing would usually trigger British Speedway's readmission top-up policy, the Club has opted to allow the reuse of tickets at no additional cost."

Is that a statistical fact? I've never felt the need to keep a record of every heat over the course of 25.5 seasons but, if you have, fair play. Not entirely true. --‐--‐----------‐------------------------ The first Friday of weatherman summer (don't worry, the official version will be along soon) left yours truly stunned and pleasantly surprised by both the Monarchs display and the half time score. The soap dodging Tiggers appeared desperate to press the self destruct button from the off, with both Cook and Nicol giving the starting team some much needed practice at replacing the tapes the right way up at the first attempt. Things didn't improve for the visitors when Danyon went down a canyon in heat 2, the beginning of a frustrating evening for the talented young chap. Heat 8 saw a tremendous effort from young Ruml, which meant I had to applaud a Yank. Can't say that happens too often. There were some interesting first turns throughout the night, including heat 11, when Pickering attempted to go by Hook and by Cook in the space of one straight. His mere 50% success rate gave the Tiggers their third and final winner of the evening. However, young Joshszcz got his revenge on the visiting number one with two unbelievable efforts in 13 and 15, joining Samszcz up front for 5-1's. I have to say, Masters was imperious last night. Dominant and untroubled. Exactly what I expect every home meeting from the best rider in the league. After all that, we're left with a 16 point lead. However, I'm not naive enough to think we'll go through. I fully expect a 60-30 tonight, accompanied by mucho Weegie chirping. That's cup speedway for you. Roll on Friday. Not that I'll see it. A lady in the office is emulating her hero, Justin Elkins. At least she lasted 24 years, as opposed to 24 yards...

We'll get gubbed on Friday and the tie will already be over. However, this is truly taking the proverbial and cheating the public.

Children's evening at sunny Armadale brought chaos on and off the track last night. On track, incidents and delays were the main dish on offer while, off it, almost 3 million whippersnappers ran amok, obviously desperate to sample the delights of West Lothian's plushest venue before it changes ownership. And enjoy a shot on the bouncy castle of course. The meeting did have a number of noticeable achievements. Josh Pickering returned to his unbeaten best with a dominant performance and Jacob Hook bagged his first (and second) win(s) for the club. His reserve partner, young Blair, unfortunately wasn't aboard a weapon of mass destruction (or, looking at his scorechart, perhaps he was). Overshadowing all of these, however, was young Fredriksen who notched his first paid maximum in Monarchs colours, despite being used as a human skittle by his jealous opponents. Firstly, soap dodging guest Brennan dumped him off in true Martin Dugard / Sean Wilson fashion after a tight finish in heat 1. Then James Shanes completed his bulldozing expedition in heat 6 with a game of wipe out before exiting stage left in a cream puff. There was an announcement over the tannoy requesting the removal of a white van. Perhaps Shanes volunteered is do it with his bare hands. Of the other Brummies, the missing Vissing was ably covered (not sure the bar enjoyed being left with 300 unsold cans of Irn Bru though), Nielsen was very lucky to not only avoid exclusion from heat 8 but also still (hopefully) be in one piece, Sedgy looked edgy and young Morris will be dancing all the way to the Bank after his double figure return. Roll on Friday. It's the Weegies again. Joy...

Just prior to former director Brian Gray's death, was there not talk of a field for use as a training track? I've no idea where it was, or indeed the finer details, but could that be a potential avenue to explore?

An eventful evening at sunny Armadale. Dust in heat one. Who'd have thunk it? Schoolboy error watering immediately before heat 2, although we'll never know if it contributed to the crash. Speedy recovery to young Sarj. I doubt he'll be changing many nappies for a while. Two blips on the Masters scorechart. Firstly at the 10th, when Erik Riss blew him a kiss and left him trailing. Then on the final hole, there was another episode of Sleepy Sam, when Lewis Kerr was allowed to go right round him. Overall acceptable, but still room for improvement there. Much better from the others though. The Italian plumber certainly had the hot tap turned on last night. The switch to number 4 appeared to have worked wonders. Leaving without a point may well have been hard to Bear for the visitors but, ultimately, they only have themselves to blame by getting their Wright guest wrong. And what has happened to Kasper Andersen? He was dreadful. Finishing on a positive, special mention to Ben Morley who has always a competent performer on smaller circuits, without ever looking spectacular. Well done. Roll on Friday. Brum Brum and all that...

British Speedway has Rowe on 3.86. However, the Leicester team total is 41.62, so enough room for a potential replacement slightly above that mark. Obviously the figures will change on 1 May...

While you're quick to call out the bottom end, are you not concerned about the top end too? Take Sam Masters. After an excellent heat 1 and an untroubled heat 6, he promptly won just one of his last four outings (a race he shouldn't even have been in). Following on from the previous home meeting, he's now won just 4 of his last 12 races at sunny Armadale. That is, quite frankly, not good enough and it puts extra pressure on those further down. He's supposed to be the best rider in the league but, put him out against half decent opposition and he's continually found wanting. He even gave up in one race on Friday. Can't remember if it was 13 or 15 but he visibly stopped trying and piddled round in a safe second place. I don't pay to watch that. I want 100% effort at all times. We're also not going to win (m)any meetings when our second heat leader only scores 7 from 4. At least Josh is entertaining though. Moving on to the bottom five, their collective lack of track time isn't exactly helping their cause (Masters and Pickering don't have that problem). The make-up of the side also isn't right. In hot and cold Castagna, we have a third heat leader who was a reserve last season. Hardly his fault if he's not up to it on a consistent basis. The glue that is Kye Thomson continues to be the case. He's steadily doing a reasonable job again but also appears expected to pick up the slack from the low scoring number 3. A farcical situation. Lasse Fredriksen is finding points difficult to come by in the top 5. Again, hardly a shock. Even the haywire Hungarian struggled first time round in 2010. Jacob Hook has done his job. A third place in each and every heat two. There's consistency for you! His development will be interesting to watch as the season goes on. And then there's Sarj. All I will say is I hope Friday was a one off.