Grand Central

This is usually a term reserved for when one has been forced into something by others. In this case Middleditch tied his own hands.

McDonalds gain is Cambridge University's loss. Or vice versa. Edit: For the benefit of the hard-of-thinking guy. vice versa is latin for 'do you want fries with that?' .

The original post being edited at damn near 9pm to remove all evidence of the losing bets that had been gleefully posted before the match started.

Whatever your politics. You have to admit. Mr Gove is certainly up against it with raw material like this

Quite right. You simply are not good enough if you can't both ride for Newcastle on Sundays AND simultaneously ride in Poland as well. It's always good to put the best brains to work on these matters.

Thanks for that. Extra information is always welcome. Well done. My memories of the seventies at Hyde Road and The Shay are as pink tinged as anyones. They were truly wonderful times. Thankfully. I seem to have aged slightly better than your poor self. The difference between a fine wine and cheap plonk. I suppose. My sympathies are with you.

A rather exceptional day, you would agree. And one that I certainly have looked at. Some Manchester editions went very strongly on PCs win. But from the Express archive Michael Beale (presumably Philip Rising) got seven or eight paras on a side column. As Kent had beaten Somerset to win the Sunday League and that got most of the rest of the back page. We would all agree light years ahead of anything of recent times. But the papers still kept things in THEIR persepective.

This is interesting. Earlier in the year the Express archive on line, which incorporates the Daily Star, did a cheap deal on their archive, so I spent a weekend trawling through and downloading interesting content. I was astonished just how that terribly small amount of column inches I could get on Speedway compared to my memory. Tiny stories and just very occasional page leads. It is worth a look just to see if others memory matches with the archive.

Previous post edited.

This is not really a true reflection of the seventies. I do not believe the 'second most popular sport' tag at all. I'm not sure who first came up with this but the use of hyperbole tends to incriminate Dave Lanning, but I may be wrong. What is more certain is that you have misquoted, as is often done. The correct quote from back in the day is 'second most popular summer spectator sport'. Subtly, but vitally, different. And still, probably, untrue. But who would know? I also think it is an overstatement that Speedway was taken seriously' by the media. The Nationals had Speedway correspondents then, whereas today there are none. So, things are dramatically worse, no doubt. But I don't think that many of those reporters found it easy going to get their editors to go with a Speedway story at all. The Mirror Group sponsored the British events of the World Championship so they gave decent coverage of that. And the other events they supported like the International Tournament As did the other papers like the Express. The London Papers did quite a bit around events at Wembley, too. But the broadsheets did not do anything. Guests have always been a difficult 'sell' to outsiders. And those that always hated the sport anyway eagerly used them against us. But did it have any effect on media coverage, really? I'm not sure as mostly it was the international stuff that got the column inches anyway. The provincial local papers have always reported well in Speedway Towns. This is the only place that has ever gone big on League coverage. And they have never made much fuss about guests. Most of the time (even in the seventies), people in speedway moaned about the lack of coverage. And with quite a few newspaper archives now online you can see just how right they were. Better than now, by miles. But nowhere near as good as we would like to think. And certainly nothing to get excited by. And on TV we got a regular fix on World of Sport. The BBC did their annual joke on us by covering the Internationale in comedy fashion. The prescribing of Rose tints for the spectacles of older folks now appears mandatory.

Talk of track preparation in this context is a little premature. As yet there is no track.

As if the hole wasn't big enough already ...

I don't know if this is relevant. But I had a straw poll among my imaginary friends and they came out 2-1 in favour of tac rides. My therapist, on the other hand, prefers the old system of bonus points.

Oh, the wonder of Apocrypha.

Yes, enormously. It is only the FMN that receives the prize money. And it is only from them that riders are paid. In the case of the Russian team they will be paid by the MFR. And it is them who decide how much they are paid. Emil and the others HAVE to do battle with the MFR. There is no one else.

I told you a fact. About Speedway.

No. They are representing the Russian Federation. The MFR. Not Russia. .

That's fine. Actually having read your subsequent interchange with others. I didn't disagree with any point you made.

It would be if I had done that. But I didn't.

You make is sound as if they are a different species. Like Lippizzaner horses bred for their beauty and grace in the Slovenian countryside. And exported for the delectation of the cognoscenti. Or the Fanzone. As we know it.

The weaker team didn't. This was a two-legged home and away fixture. Belle Vue used tac subs in the first leg as well. If you're going to pick fault. Be accurate. .

And had the SWC been held at the new Belle Vue as planned Team GB were going to make ample use of the ruling. And will, of course, if when it happens.

And it was 39 years ago this very weekend (saddoes remember these things) when PO put Frank Shuter to Number One and Ivan at Number 2 in the Speedway Star Cup second leg Match at The Zoo. An unheard of move at the time. Ivan then came into the very last race as a tac sub and beat PC and Soren for Exeter to win on aggregate. Hyde Road was packed and there was uproar throughout. Still one of my top 5 meetings of all time. .

With Carter the Clown, we are all in Dire Straits.

The three or four paragraphs of that regulation are poorly written, no doubt. And can be read as contradictory. However my decyphoring concurs with Racers and Royals. The Team for your first match (Round 1 or 2) has to be named 14 days in advance and can only be changed due to injury/illness. The team for the Race Off or Final does not have to be named until half-an-hour after the practice for that event. And that team cannot be changed after unless due to injury/illness.