Marksman

Good to see new faces in the league, rides with Palovaara, Fraser Bowes and Drew Kemp in the same Swedish team. And also had a couple of outings for Lublin U24 team alongside Bowes this season.

By my reckoning only 6 riders who have a team building average of 8.00 or more from last years championship field will start in 2025. Harris, Masters, Lawson, Wright, C Cook and Batchelor. Probably shows how much the dynamic of team building changes to teams building to a more strength in depth option, not out of choice but because they have to. Redcar might be the only expection in 2025 if they have Wright, King (just under 8.00) and the return of Riss.

No he is 29 now, but did ride a handful of meetings for Opole this year but his season was cut short. Previous to that he’s hardly rode anywhere apart from international meetings for Ukraine.

The rule is that you need to have rode 18 heats to qualify in a Category, in the table by the above poster. It’s on the next page of the rulebook. McDiarmid only rode in 17 heats for ZG. Meaning he is a a Category 6 rider on a 4pt average, however criteria can always change as we know!

The guy you are talking about would be a 4.00. Good 2 page spread on him in this weeks Speedway Star..

And Joe Thompson (was in the Speedway Star)

5 weeks too early, that meeting is on the 29th December.

It's the art of Persuasive Speech, 'Bargain average' is the most overused saying in Speedway at this time of year. Subconsciously done to seed the thought of optimism in minds of supporters.

Etheridge will do just fine at Northside next season, like others have said he's a 5pt average at worst. Riding at No.2 or No.4 he'll be a good asset to the team particularly at home. He found it tough riding in the heatleader posistion last season espcially when Berwick were decimated with the injuries they had. Fraser Bowes to be announced tomorrow 😎

Yeah there hasn't been such a rule that a team requires a 2pt reserve, just last season it worked out that alot of them moved into the Championship. Plymouth for example started with 2 reserves above a 3pt average

Maybe it’s Claus Kristensen. He rode for Berwick didn’t he

Mistaken Identity 🤐

Henriksson would be a 5.00 ave though, Lightcap would be 4.00? Lightcap isn’t of the required standard imo.

Someone joking about, must be burned bridges there? Not heard the story

I heard that Etheridge is signing for Edinburgh? I’m guessing the Comets are going for two 5 point riders. Etheridge would fit of course on 4.98, depends if it’s worth the gamble of having another new U24 Ekstraliga rider to the UK. They don’t always work out like we had last season

Think everyone will be pleased that Antti is back, especially as it seemed a challenge according to the press release. That’ll be another strong heatleader trio at Home if Batchelor is next. All averaged over or around 9 at home in 2024. A lot rides on the aggregate bonus points, as you may only need 1 or 2 away wins to make the play offs.

I agree with the sentiment and people probably forget we signed him on that average, but this is a guy who once scored a 15 point maximum in a GP. So people probably always expect high levels from him. Will be a good signing even as Number 1 especially with even more heatleaders dropping the league next season. Presume he will be Captain, he did a great job in that role when Cookie was missing. And his performances helped drag us over the line into the play offs

Matty Wethers too

Apologies to all the Chinese speedway fans out there

Cookie will do a great job when he’s actually on track. Probably will have a higher home average at Berwick as he’s the best gater in the league, alongside Lawson. Was very tentative at times nursing the current shoulder injury he’s got, hopefully it can recover probably. At 80% he’s a 8.5 average rider, but an 9.5+ next season if fully fit with a bigger home track advantage.

There seems to be this strong core of older fans in Workington who love to spout negative Chinese whispers about the club. We’ve had all sorts in the past few weeks, even the referee’s box had burned down the other week. I just don’t get it? Where were these moans directed when we didn’t have a club, football or rugby?

Probably the same made up news as he said about Cook going to Redcar

The way our teams keep being built is certainly different to the norm in terms of how other teams approach it from a continuity perspective. Builds excitement, not every overseas signing will be a Tate Zischke, but it certainly gets people talking about the club and brings new riders to our shores, which is only a good thing for both parties.

All I’ll say is that the Workington scouting pool stretches further than riders known to British Speedway. That combined with the strongest reserves in the league is probably how the team will line up in 2025. Plus in my opinion we have the most exciting talent in the league on a sub 7 point average who will outshine a lot of those riders on your list The same was said last winter when people assumed we’d be signing the likes of Theo Pijper and Simon Lambert as second strings…

That is so untrue, stop spouting pure BS Rumours from who, yourself?