MD

Good point but other clubs dont need to meet those riders demands. If a rider is trying to hold them to ransom them they are better choosing someone else. John Campbell wouldn't tolerate it and neither would any of the other old school. No rider is worth jeopordising the club for.

Tough season for 10k next year where he'll be second or third in the averages. No more reserve slots to fall back on.

I would'nt have Sarjeant on the track staff never mind the team. Send him the same way as Harris.

The anti Glasgow undercurrent from quite a few Workington fans on here has been apparent for a few years now. Not sure why, i dont recall any flashpoints, and i also dont recall it being there in 2013 or 2014. Perhaps they have previously seen Glasgow as beneath them, perhaps its jealousy, perhaps its something else only they could explain. Im sure those who do post don't reflect the vast majority of Workington fans.

It will be but Harris is hopelessly inconsistent and seemingly overstretched machinery wise when the longtrack weekend events are on. Oh and there is also the GP qualifier to consider, so thats another weekend down. Happily pass the frustration baton onto Somerset.

Best of luck with Harris, never seen such lack of effort and interest from an accomplished rider. With all the high averaged riders being pushed out he'll likely appear a superstar.

Having only 15 home meetings doesnt exactly help. Should we start our season the first Friday in April we could be done the second Friday in July assuming no rain offs or blank fixtures. Naturally these will be dragged out significantly longer making speedway the same turn off as last year.

Shareholder in a private limited company have to be invited to join. Who are the actual shareholders?

Sky ditched speedway along with a few other minority sports when they chucked mega money at a new EPL football rights deal a few years ago and had to save money elsewhere. Other broadcasters werent exactly lining up to take it on, far less pay for the rights. Other than Poole or Belle Vue I wouldnt go out of my way to watch it. You can also watch Polish speedway highlights or occasionally live on FreeSports and its much more exciting. Swedish speedway on the other hand is an utter borefest, even makes Leicester look interesting.

Aren't BT Sport showing it for nothing and actually doing speedway the favour?

The losses are covered, Glasgow are running in 2019, albeit cutting their cloth. Today's statement confirms that things wont continue as they were and its time for realism from riders and fans. The fantasy years are over, largely enjoyable as they were. Can cope with that.

Its an honest statement and not really a surprise. We have paid the price for some poor rider choices at the start of this season and having to bail out the whole thing by signing Cook who wouldnt have come cheaply. That wont account for all the losses however like everyone else we suffered with a sporadic fixture list that frustrated the die hards never mind newbies. 2019 looks to be a goer, though many aspects of speedway are out of our control. Hopefully the AGM comes up with something at least better than this year.

A very one sided post. In that meeting with Glasgow nine heats had already been run and ht10 had to be rerun with two Glasgow riders only. It was a foregone conclusion. Redcar penalised themselves by dragging the remaining time out to curfew with an alleged badly injured rider who was neither transferred to hospital by the track ambulance or had a 999 ambulance called on his behalf. Said injured rider then made his own way to hospital after the curfew expired. The Redcar promoter then made plenty of noise about taking legal action so sure he was of injustice but never did, he never even took up the right of appeal.

I see your dilemma Tigerforever. I initially thought there is only one punt he'll be getting and its back south. However having thought about it some more I realise that the M6 is still the way I'd send him. I can understand your thoughts, having taken the hit this year of dropping the best part of a point off his average, he must surely have bottomed out and be better next year. He is on 7.71 as that's what he is, a 7 point rider. I tried to think back to a meeting he had won for us, and cant remember one, home or away. He was signed to be our No1 but wasnt even close. I don't have confidence that re-signing him next year he could even maintain that 7.71 and where would that leave us. A lot of fans are exasperated with him, the perceived lack of effort is a common complaint. I would see his return next year as being like the Ksiezak factor 7 or 8 years ago when fans turned away when we re-signed a rider who had gone stale and admittedly had fallen out with the track. Time will tell I suppose.

As long as he's not back at Ashfield all will be fine.

Here was me thinking a reasoned debate could be had.

Im not sure what relevance teams from 30 odd years ago have to today. The bikes, acceleration, track prep etc are all markedly different. Arena Essex and Newcastle also dont (or didnt) ride at Ashfield. Each track shape will determine what type of team each team needs. My post referred to Glasgow and Glasgow alone that a strong top 5 has never worked for us, even going back to 2006 when we had Danny Bird, Shane Parker, Kauko Nieminen et al. I agree there is often another factor or factors which get in the way such as injuries or in our case Harris treating us as second class. For Glasgow our league success in 2011 came as a result of Joe Screen at the top and four different riders sharing the reserve berth over the season, as one found it heavy going at No2 , he would drop to reserve, rapidly find his confidence and bang in heavy points. The team was much better balanced with Nick Morris the serious improver that year. We need to find a Nick Morris again for 2019.

Depends on the league structure and points limit. If its one league Cook wont be back. If its a vastly reduced points limit in the Championship he also wont be back. No easy answers here. I would already have asked Harris and Sarjeant for their Kevlars back.

Throwing money at the wrong riders even less so. I dont think the throwing money at riders really applies outside the top two. We allegedly said no to Lunna for this season as he asked for more money to cover his increased flight costs as we were changing race days to Fridays. The problems for this season were there from day one when the manager chucked it after the first meeting. That unsettled Worrall who went on a woeful run of form, in part at being under constant pressure in 13 & 15 to make up for the shortfall in points from Harris. Lewis Kerr and Vissing thankfully covered our arse in the early meetings but both started to tail off in early June. As well as yielding little points at the top of the team, the same was true at the bottom as Jack Thomas struggled with the big step up from NL and Sarjeant often could have got the same points sitting in the house, particularly at home. The home thrashing by Workington and unforgiveable defeat to an average Edinburgh in May underlined the fragility of the 1-7, but wasnt a surprise if you attended the home meetings to that point. It was widely speculated we tried to replace Harris in May and June to no avail. He was embarrassing at points, with unreliable machinery and perhaps worst of all, a lack of fight. An already poor season got worse when Paul Starke tried to ride through injury in May & June, and Kerr got injured at the end of June. It meant r/r required Sarjeant to take at least two of his rides, and he couldnt even cover his own rides. The team had no chance of making the playoffs until Kerr and Worrall made way for Cook and Nathan Greaves in mid July. Despite only riding 8 meetings Cook had an immediate impact and Harris finally started scoring. It was enough for us to scrape into the playoffs with that holy grail of away wins but ultimately not enough to make the final. Stewart Dickson wont be there next year so the mental policy of having a stellar top five and whoever will fit for the reserves hopefully cant happen again. Its never worked for us previously. The marquee signing of Harris promised much but delivered little and can only be described a spectacular failure, as Sarjeant too. Whatever the league structure for 2019, we know what hasnt worked, its time to learn from it and not make those same signing mistakes again. A bit of continuity may also serve us better than another sweep out.

He's been more than comfortable at our expense this year and now represents good value to his 2019 Championship employer.

I know but that EF is just another one to add to the list. They never seemed to happen at Poole. Harris now leaves us on 7.71, the best part of a point lower than when he started with us. Signing riders on the way down rarely works out.

Been like that all season. Ironically his last bend EF earlier today that turned an easy 3-3 into a 1-5 appears to have cost us. We have a lot of lessons to learn on team selection from this season.

We've been here about 3 years now. It cant change when there isnt actually anyone in control.

Depends which Klindt turns up.

Didnt really have a play off feel about it today. The weather was uncomfortably hot in the sun and pretty cold behind the cloud which made the track still wet in the areas that the sun didnt reach and bone dry in those it did. Worky seemed to be holding back early on, perhaps they are confident of turning any score round down there. The good thing is we know the result of the tie tonight, the down side is it will be another two weeks for the winning team to run the final.