TheCookster

With nobody aside from Graj in the Sheffield line up who has a good history (or any history) at Berwick, I suspect this should be a comfortable home win.

You make some good points here. I watch speedway from all three UK leagues and would have to agree that PL offers the most entertaining racing as a rule. As you say, the difference in quality between the best and the worst riders in the EL and NL is so significant that there are very few real contests on the track. There is an additional problem with the NL that the riders have often not yet developed sufficient track craft to enable them to effectively explore different racing lines, so heats can become even more processional as all four riders use the same lines. However, as you rightly say, NL is where riders have the opportunity to develop. I applaud those clubs who run both PL & NL (or indeed EL & NL) and back in the day when Stoke ran the "Potters" at PL level and the "Spitfires" at NL level I did indeed watch both.

I have no idea what Stoke charge now (without looking it up), nor do I remember precisely what they were charging for PL in 2010. However, I do recall being shocked and appalled that they were going to charge prices that were very similar to the PL levels. Compared to quality of offering from most clubs around the country (and I don't just mean the speedway itself) Stoke was already poor. It is a very valid point you make that Eastbourne has a very different promotion. I think it would be churlish of anyone to accuse the Dugards of not having been fully committed to their set up over the many years of their involvement and if I lived on the south coast and was a regular visitor to Eastbourne speedway then my attitude may well be quite different. I am still very much a speedway customer - I just don't buy the Stoke brand any more, because there are plenty of other brands offering better value for money products.

Rob Branford's record at Foxhall is poor. Across 3 meetings he has averaged only 1,43. As far as I am aware it will be Alex Edberg's first time around the track.

I haven't put a penny through Stoke's coffers since the promotion took the decision to drop down into the NL without there being an equivalent drop in the costs to attend. I am certainly not opposed to NL per se and have watched NL fixtures at various venues other than Stoke over the past four seasons. However, as far as the Stoke promotion is concerned this was one liberty too many, as several hundred others seem to have agreed by no longer attending at Loomer Road. The Stoke promotion seem to depend on those who will pay for an any speedway at any price, no matter what the quality of the overall product on offer. No other business would realistically expect to retain its customer base with that approach. As the new promotion at Glasgow are demonstrating, if you want to attract more custom, then it is up to you as the brand owner to make the effort and give people a reason buy into your offering. If the Stoke promotion isn't true to its word and doesn't return to the PL in 2016, then it will really just be yet another instance of them leading their long-suffering supporters down the garden path.

I dare say you're right - and he is certainly not without talent. I was just making the point that he may not necessarily rip up trees from the word go.

He doesn't have the best of records around Owlerton though ... only 9 points (plus 2 bonus) from 9 previous rides.

I'm not sure that Sheffield have found a replacement for Simon Stead. They have booked Craig Cook as a guest for Thursday, which would suggest that the short term replacement they have found (according to Nigel Pearson's comments last night) will be for David Bellego.

History suggest he will fall somewhere between those two extremes! ;-) From 23 rides at Plymouth Doolan has accumulated 40 "real" points and only 6 bonus points.

Or some people might suggest that there was never any intention to return to the Premier league, in spite of the so-called '5-year plan'.

It was the decision to move down out of the Premier League that led to most people finally deciding not to go to Stoke any more.

As I recall, when the current Stoke promotion took the decision to withdraw from the Premier League and to join the National League instead, it was stated that the move was part of a '5-year plan' that would then see a return to the Premier League. That announcement and move took place prior to the start of the 2011 season and this season marks the fifth consecutive year of Stoke competing in the National League. If the promotion is true to its word, then this should also be the club's final season in the National League before returning to the Premier League. I am very much looking forward to seeing the Stoke Potters back in the Premier League in 2016, but have not heard any more on the matter. Has anyone else?

Hynek's last active average was 4.56 in the 2013 season, so as a best guess, it would be that I should think.

From 5 meetings at Plymouth he averages 6.96 (excluding bonus points) and 8.00 (including bonus points). By comparison Danny King averages 8.00 and 8.80 respectively.

Would Peter Ljung not potentially be in the reckoning for either yourselves or Sheffield?

Would Peter Ljung not potentially be in the reckoning for either yourselves or Peterborough?

Berwick look like the value bet to me on those odds.

Essentially other sports are already treated in the same way and I suspect have been policed somewhat more strictly than speedway has over the years. Those who do not qualify for EU citizenship need to have a visa in order for them to ply their trade here. Although others sports do not have the "rider average system" that speedway employs, they do often have other mechanisms which are designed to achieve a similar aim (in theory, at least). Where speedway uses rider averages to try to ensure that no one team can be excessively dominant, other sports have used mechanisms such as wage caps and restrictions on squad size to try to achieve a similar "levelling of the playing field".

Grachan - Your former English teachers will be very disappointed that you attended grammar school and then used an upper case "G" in the word "grammar", which is totally incorrect unless it is the first word of the sentence. ;-) Having not only attended grammar school, but left with an "A" level in English before going on to gain an honours degree in linguistics at university, I can tell you that I really do know this stuff and as I indicated in my earlier post, both "an hotel" and "a hotel" are now perfectly acceptable and grammatically correct.

Actually, historically "an hotel" is the correct British English form, but over time "a hotel" has become not only accepted, but also the more prevalent. So both "an hotel" and "a hotel" are grammatically correct these days, but with "a hotel" being the the more commonplace in modern parlance.

I imagine Peterborough fans will be gutted whatever the final outcome. I have always enjoyed my visits to the Showground to watch speedway. Hopefully this will only be a brief hiatus before things are sorted in a satisfactory manner.