brianbuck

As will be noted, the latest planning application for the Rye House site is the second one to be submitted, with the original application having been withdrawn. This means that we need all those good speedway people who objected to application one to resubmit their objection. It would be a mistake to assume that objections to the first application will automatically be carried over to the second one - it is clear from an examination of the numbers of objections and supporting messages showing on the Council's website, that this is not going to be the case. Over 1,900 objections/messages of support were logged for the first application, but only 243 for the second.

I could just about put up with him if he would only stop bawling in the middle of the races. Fair enough if there is something exciting going on, but it doesn't have to be every single race. Does he think people can't see for themselves what's happening?

As a neutral, it was good to be back at Monmore and to see some action last night. The track was obviously prepared with the probability of rain in mind, so didn't seem to ride as well as usual, but the promotion are to be congratulated on getting through the proceedings just in time to miss the downpour. Downside for me though was the appalling so-called music played at a deafeningly high volume - do they really need to blast everyone's ear drums like this? Plus of course, the irritating performance of the centre green presenter which was as always, way over the top.

Some years ago, the potential promotors of Bristol did seem to be making slow and steady progress after identifying a possible site for a new track in Avonmouth, but perhaps the development at Somerset was part of the reason why this was not persued. I'm not sure how far apart Highbridge and Avonmouth are, but I'd image that speedway at Somerset relied a good deal of support from the Bristol area? Perhaps now that Somerset has sadly been lost, this might be a good time for those who were working to revive Bristol to have another go?

Fair comment there apart from the knock at Birmingham where we would have considered it utopia had we been allowed to spend the whole of the previous day preparing the track!

Track preparation is always going to be more of a problem for those clubs who are of necessity, subserviant to Greyhound racing. No disrespect at all to Redcar, but they are one of the fortunate clubs who do not have this problem. The GRA who until recently, were the landlords at Birmingham, were always co-operative, providing whatever was planned had no detrimental effect on greyhound racing - just as an example, numerous visiting supporters have queried why there is no roof on one section of the temporary stand on the first bend. The reason is, that the roof obstructed the view of part of a small part of the dog track, so it had to be removed. The stadium's new owners (so I am told) are less knowledgeable about speedway, so can be expected to be more cautious on what they will allow and what they won't, at least until they are more familiar with the speedway operation, but certainly as far as Perry Barr is concerned, there is never likely to be a situation whereby the speedway people would be allowed unlimited access on any day and at any time.

Hope everyone will see a good competitive match which would make up for the unhappy events of last Wednesday. Would be good if both sets of supporters could put the problems of last Wednesday behind them and enjoy some really good racing. My best wishes to the two injured riders for a speedy recovery.

The stadium's planning consent allows them to stage Greyhound Racing on any day of any week apart from Good Friday (which I believe was a condition laid down by Lord Alexander who donated the site to the City in 1877). All other motor sport except speedway is not allowed, and speedway is confined to one specific night of the week which is currently Wednesday. An alternative week night (Thursday) is allowed in exceptional circumstances and at the Planning Officer's sole discretion.

Replying to BigCatDiary - Birmingham's very restrictive planning consent stipulates that racing may only take place on Wednesday's, Bank Holiday Sundays and Good Friday. The "Wednesday's" was changed to "Thursday's" for one season in about 2010, before reverting to Wednesday's. Thursday has been retained as an emergency race night (to accomodate rain-off's etc) but is obviously no longer an option now that Premiership clubs are using this night. Bank Holiday Sundays are also not possible now that the stadium uses this day for greyhound racing. Speedway is very much the secondary activity to greyhound racing at Perry Barr is indeed is the case at most other stadia.

There's no point in trying to deny that last night's meeting was a complete disaster and has done no good at all to the image of Birmingham Speedway or speedway in general for that matter, but this was the kind of night that all tracks in their turn do experience occasionally, and it doesn't make Birmingham a poorly run club and nor does it make Redcar villanous opportunists! Unfortunately, when these things do happen, there will be a hard core of supporters who must have someone to pin all of the blame on - and for many of these, the regular target is Laurence Rogers, who like him or not, is actually one of the hardest working people in speedway. When I arrived at the stadium in the early afternoon, Laurence was surrounded by a posse of officials from Birmingham City Council who were obviously grilling him for detailed information regarding the covid rules, and he was still with them over an hour later, and when I looked in at the speedway office, he was wading through the mountain of paperwork that had been left for him to complete. I admit was surprised at how dry the track looked, but I could understand the reasoning for delaying putting more water on. When I rang my wife at 5.30-ish, she informed me that it was pouring with rain in Brierley Hill (only about 10 miles away) and the gathering of black clouds above the stadium seemed to indicate that we were going to get the heavy shower that had been forecast for Perry Barr. In the event, all we had were a few spots, so although the decision not to water, was obviously the wrong one in hindsight. Regardless of that though, the track was not in very good condition having only been used once for practice since 2019, and I wouldn't dispute that both sets of riders were not particularly happy with it. I thought we were in a similar situation to Wolverhampton's a couple of weeks back when their opening meeting had to be called off after only two heats - the track staff did their best to put the surface right, but only succeeded in making it worse. The injury to Jordan Stewart just about put the seal on an unhappy evening, and I sincerely hope that his injuries aren't as bad as have been reported. I don't feel that the condition of the track was in any way the cause of the crash, but very few people I think, would disagree that the abandonment of the meeting through lack of medical cover, wasn't the correct one. The old system of two first aid men picking up an injured rider by the arms and legs, and just throwing him onto the centre green, went out of the window 30-odd years ago! As far as the match score is concerned, Redcar were well on top at the time of the abandonment, and I doubt whether the Brummies would have been able to pull back the deficit, and a fair outcome would be for Redcar to be awarded the match. I know that the referee was asked to do this, but this is a decision which no referee has the authority to make - as those who were asking this referee would know perfectly well. If the BSPL do decide that the scoreline should stand though, this would be a wholly just conclusion and one which I don't think many Birmingham supporters would disagree with. In conclusion, yes, it was a disaster of a meeting, but they do happen occasionally, and I for one am not put off my chosen sport through one bad night. I'm not asking anyone to agree or disagree with me. I'm just offering my own take on an unhappy evening.

Unfortunately, there isn't an answer to the problem of riders missing meetings, and this is not just confined to foreigners - British based riders also miss their club matches when they have a preference for more financially lucrative continental bookings, and they will come up with the same excuses (and more often not, will get away with them!) Even if all clubs only employed British riders, the same situation would inevitably arise. What is needed is a complete re-evaulation of how speedway is run - with only British or British-based riders employed with watertight contracts compelling them to ride exclusively for their British team, but can anyone see that ever happening? We would all like to see our teams contain only our own contracted riders who only ride for us, like football clubs do, but speedway has gone too far away from this to ever be able to contemplate doing this. What I am saying is that there really is no answer but to try to make the best of an impossible situation.

Perry Barr Rail Station is closed for a year for renovation, but I'm told that there will be a bus service to transport passengers to and from Perry Barr Bus Station from the two closest alternative stations Witton and Hamstead.

Going some way further back (to the 1940's and early 1950's) any rider who had scored less that 50% of possible points over the previous six matches could be named as reserve, and most clubs used that rule to best advantage, especially for away matches. There was never any kind of restriction on how the top six of a team could be listed, so there was consequently, a lot more scope for the more astute team managers in those days.

Very grateful thanks to the lads at Iwade Garage who along with many supporters from rival clubs, have made generous donations to the fund set up to try to help Birmingham overcome the disgusting spate of vandalism which has taken place at Perry Barr last weekend. This is really appreciated - thank you so much. The very best of luck to your team for the forthcoming season.

It's a sad reflection on how modern society has regressed to a point where we can excuse the actions of such scum as being due to "boredom" because of coronavirus frustration, and that we now have no effective method of dealing with people who care nothing about the after effect of their actions. As a lifelong Birmingham Supporter and ardent speedway enthusiast, I am cheered by the positive response to this devastating news - especially from those generous people who are followers of other clubs but still care enough about Birmingham's predicament to donate to the fund. Thank you - all of you.

The interesting thing about this development is that there appears to be an alternative organisation to the BSPA, and one which is acceptable to the FIM so clubs who feel disgruntled about having no say in how their league is being run or who disagree with the imposition of rules which they think are wrong, seem to be free to give their alliegance to this organisation without any of their riders incurring any penalties. I certainly can't see the BSPA being in any way happy about this!

Seems from what I am reading that the chances of Workington coming back are quite bright, so as someone who knows what it is like to lose their club, I wish them and their supporters every possible success.

It's just the old, old situation - put a 10 point man and a 2 point man out in a race against two 6 point men and the result will be a 3-3. Do this all evening and you will certainly get a close result - but you will never get close racing. And as far as the fans are concerned, it's close racing that really matters for speedway isn't a results-based sport. If the racing isn't competitive then the spectators will stop coming. The 10 pointer and 2 pointer against two 6 pointers looks set to become more prevalent in the coming season, which isn't good news.

Humble apologies Phil - I thought today was Thursday! Either old age or Covid confusion!!!

Is there a holdup with the latest Speedway Star (dated 20th February). My on-line edition isn't showing this morning?

This is a bit of a long shot, but I recently came across a Facebook message asking for my help, from a gentleman who was researching a history of Bristol v Birmingham Speedway meetings. Unfortunately, I managed to inadvertantly delete this message so I haven't been able to reply to it, so if the person who sent it happens to read this, could he contact me at brianbuck3@hotmail.co.uk and I'll be happy to help him if I can. Many thanks

With so much uncertainty about the forthcoming season, it would make sense to me for the Championship to be split into Northern and Southern sections (this is assuming Plymouth are accepted). This would give all the clubs a 10 match season and would ensure that the league season is completed, even if the season was delayed from the planned late May start. If things do go rather better than expected, matches against opposition from the other geographical section could then be slotted in (either as part of an official competition or challenge matches, and the season could end with a play-off between the winners of each section to decide the overall champions., but the basic 10 match season would at least ensure that the season is officially completed. The very worst scenario would be if the main league season started and then had to be abandoned because of the lack of dates. All being well, things could then revert to the normal 12 club competition for the 2022 season.

Sent off my objection yesterday. To anyone feeling that they are not very articulate, be aware that there is no need to give a reason for your objection. It is enough to just say "I object to this application and urge your committee to reject it." That's what we advised people to do in respect of the planning application to get Birmingham up and running again in 2007. When the application came up for discussion all that the planning officer stated at the meeting was that x-number of objections and x-number of letters of support had been received. His written report mentioned a few of the reasons for both objections and supports - but only a few. We (Birmingham Supporters' Club) printed several hundred blanks which included just the Planning Application reference number, and asked everyone to just write in their name and address and then write in the space below "I support this application, and ask the Planning Committee to please approve it." We then placed them all in individual envelopes and delivered them to the Planning Office. (If they had all gone into the same envelope then the Planning Officer would have treated them as a petition which only counts as one supporting letter.) That's all that was needed to get it recorded.

Saddened to hear of the passing of Ken Middleditch. He was a fine rider and showed great loyalty to Poole for whom he was the leading scorer for many years. Most of these years were as a Second Division man but when Poole were promoted to Division One in 1956, he soon showed thast he was well capable to matching and beating most of the established First Division men. In addition to being a very good rider, Ken was widely regarded as a gentleman and a sportsman and was highly thought of by those of us who had the pleasure of watching him ride. His death, whilst not unexpected for he was well into his 90's, ends another link with speedway's illustrious past. Rest in the peace of the Lord Ken.

I can supply you with a variety of facts about Graham Warren's career if you can contact me with an E-Mail address.