PE7Panther

Yep, but those two could well perform better if/when this meeting gets re-staged And it'd be a whole different story with better (track specialist) guests. Garritty would be ideal; apparently he was originally pencilled in for today. Maybe the rules will get changed/twisted again, but this time in Panthers' favour.

Hey, calling JeremyCorbynFan (KKS or whatever): This farce should be meat 'n drink for ya. Liven yerself up!

Agree about the guests being a big let down - as is often the case. But Grondal & Lambert have scored 8 from a possible 23 points from their rides. So even they haven't been doing all that well.

Oh-ho-hoo....what's this, floodlight failures?!!! It has to be called off, surely? That's what Lakeside were screaming for at the EoES (what goes around, comes around!) Then maybe Panthers can go back to Rye House with a stronger line-up. It wouldn't be such a one-sided meeting and better entertainment for everybody there. And the team that finished top of the league could end up in the play-off final after all. It's a joke; sticking tractors and vans on the bends with their headlights on! Off, off, off, OFF....!

That's all very well, but what about clubs like Panthers who don't own their stadium and have to fit in with dates made available to them (in Panthers' case, by the EoES management)

Yes, value for money is a key factor. I personally am in the fortunate position of being able to comfortably afford it and will go to watch Panthers even if there's 3 meetings in a week. But for most people cost is always going to be an issue. Then it becomes a question of "is it worth it?". And it's not just about is it worth the money that needs to be forked out; it's people's time. We nearly always end up sitting through two hours just for about 15 minutes of actual racing! (Ok, ok, maybe 20 minutes including re-runs etc.) And the answer in many cases is clearly "no". It all takes far too long to get a meeting done and dusted. We had a classic example recently; a rider touched the tapes and they all disappeared back to the pits, and after a few minutes the 2 minutes warning sounded, and it was double that before the race actually got underway. It drives you nuts! Is it really thinking outside the box too much to wonder why we have only 15 heats for our hard-earned AND for the precious two-plus hours of our lives? If they made it snappier we could have 20+ or maybe even 30 races in the same amount of time. Organise it better and as one heat finishes, those four riders exit the pit gates and the next four enter the track straightaway. And so on. It'd be action followed by more action. The whole experience of going to speedway is just not good enough. Noodles is spot on in his post (qv). Something needs to be done to make it a better experience.

Spot on, on all counts. Sad to say, this was a big failing on Ged's part. Maybe he didn't have the time personally - fair enough - but it's something that could have, and should have, been delegated. Then again, it's not just Ged; Frosty was no better really - but at least he wasn't so worried or pressured by finances. I'd guess that many people were a bit offended by his recent outburst, having a snidey little pop at the fans. Ok, so the recent low crowds have been disappointing, but can anybody really say they're surprised? Same opposition, so many injured riders, R/R every meeting, guests who were very hit and miss. And then we had that appalling fandango when it took over an hour to get the lights sorted, and it was noticeable that all he seemed bothered about was having a little rant against Lakeside. What it amounted to was "Sorry about the lights failing, but at least we... blah blah blah... and we don't carryon like... blah blah blah". Just get the feckin lights sorted and ffs get a move on!!! Anyway, it would've been nice if he had focused more on the fact that attendances have been pretty good overall.

Again.. what?!! Who hasn't? Maybe it wasn't actually meant to be in reply to my post earlier. Either way, I honestly don't understand what point you're trying to make.

eh?

Like all Panthers fans, I'm disappointed by the way things have gone at the tail end of the season, and worried about Ged's bombshell news. But I'll be there as usual - with at least one of the two people who often come with me. And I'd urge all Panthers fans to go, irrespective of how unappealing it is in many respects. Just hoping and praying it won't be the last-ever meeting at the EoES......

Hodgy's quite right when he says we're not locked in, and yeah of course we're all free to go home at any time. But where do you draw the line? I don't think I'm the only one who, once the lights failed, never expected it'd take as long as it did to sort of out. It's like waiting for a bus that never seems to come; when do you start walking? You just *know* that it will appear around the corner just as you've walked too far to run back! Let's not forget they they seemed to get one set of lights working again quite quickly. So people would be thinking, as I did, that they'd soon get the other one working and the delay wouldn't be too long. Then one set went off again. Then Fred Karno appeared with his van and set up a temp set of lights....delay... then another set appeared. So surely it'd start again soon. But there were no clear announcements either way, just that they were hoping. And no doubt there were a lot of "discussions" going on behind the scenes. More delay. Then they told us that another, third, set of temp lights were going to be fetched and that it would be put on the centre green to add more light to the still dark turn 3, and they it'd get going again. But Fred K took it to the outside with the other two sets. Then when he finally did take it to the infield, it was set at half-height with most of the light illuminating the flippin' grass, not the track. With every minute that this farce was going on, more and more people left to go home. And, since you ask, I was on the point of going home several times. I turned back when Fred K raised that third set to full height and directed more light to the track itself. And yet we were still left waiting. I had just started to leave once again when the bikes started up - so I returned to my seat and stayed to the bitter end. As for that bit about "some of us wanted to see the whole meeting". Nope; EVERYBODY wanted to see the whole meeting. Very few want, or expect, 15 minutes of actual racing to be dragged out for three hours. Hodgy is right when he says were not locked in We all know that 5h*t sometimes happens in speedway; it's usually crashes, air-fence repairs, ambulance delays. But this was something that could have, and should have, been sorted out much, much quicker - for everybody's sake. That means those who gave up and went home and those who stayed on. If anybody is thinking it was so people would get to see the full 15 heats, and then the juniors races, they're being a bit naieve. As Crump99 says, that'd be very noble. But I tend to agree with Wealdstone; it was more to do with face-saving, after the petty scorn that Panthers had aimed at Lakeside.

2. Nobody's talking about expecting miracles ffs! 1. And if, for whatever reason, you can't get the lights sorted fairly swiftly, call it off and let everybody go home. It was, like I said in a previous post, like watching Fred Karno's Army! Did you not see how many (how few!) people were left once Heat 12 finally got underway? Almost no kids. Only the usual die-hards who'd stay until midnight if necessary.

ok, so call it off and let us all go home!!!! It wouldn't be the first time that a junior meeting didn't go ahead as planned.

Yeah, the Juniors thing is a very handy thing to hang their hats on afterwards. I stand by my contention in a previous post (qv) about what was uppermost in their thoughts at the time. Ged gave the game away when he was 'venting' on the mike. I didn't hear him mention the Juniors meeting; it was all about petty point-scoring (no pun intended)against Lakeside. Surely nobody can argue against my criticism that it took far too long to get the temp lights sorted, and that it was an embarrassing f**k-up.

Two points in response: 1. They could have called off the main meeting, and those (few) who wanted to stay on and wait for the Juniors could have done so. 2. My main point, my main criticism, is how long it took to get the temp lights sorted.

"rush" ???? What rush?! The central point of the criticisms I've been making is that it took far too long. You keep swerving that By the way, where do you get fourteen from? Unless my memory is playing tricks, the floodlights failed after Heat 11. So still to go were heats 12, 13,14 & 15. I make that FOUR. And we were 32-34 down at that point, which was 12 down (72-84) on aggregate. And that, in turn, left us with only a very remote chance of going through. It'd take three 5-1 wins on the trot to make it a last heat decider. Now you may well argue that it was "all still to race for" but that I'd say you'd be in la-la land! Let's not forget that Panthers had only four heat winners and just ONE heat advantage up to that point -and that was in Heat 2 against their reserve pair. Even then it was only because Kasper Andersen overdid it on the 4th bend when miles ahead of our pair. So you can call it "all still to race for" if you want, but I doubt if anybody else sees it that way, and certainly not the hundreds who went home. I tend to agree with Wealdstone when he suggests it maybe had more to do with point-scoring of a different kind. I reckon that uppermost in the thoughts of Ged & Co were along the lines of: "We ain't gonna win this, but if it's called off now they'll be pointing the finger back at us and we'll be a larfing stock, so get the effing lights sorted and let's get the meeting completed".

spot on.

So having to sit through nearly 3 hours to watch just 15 minutes or so of actual racing is ok? I'd argue that that should be filed under "Ripping Off The Paying Public" ..... and at least half the crowd thought so, judging by how many went home.

You're missing the point. Again If every other track wouldn't have had access to back up floodlighting - so what?!! There's little point having it if it can't be set up quickly and efficiently. I'd argue that it makes the situation even worse. How many people would say that it was ok that it took so long and was such a shambles? Not the hundreds who went home, that's for sure. They effectively lost out because they gave up on the final 4 heats. Nobody can blame them either. And judging by the comments and moans going on around me, very few of the die-hards who stayed on to the bitter end thought it was all ok or acceptable either. If it had been called off promptly everybody would've been disappointed, and there might have been some moans. But the vast majority would've accepted it as being just one of those things and beyond Panthers' control. And given the fact that we were staring defeat down both barrels, it's not as if there was any realistic chance of going through.

Damn! Pity it's not the following week ..... Posh are away at Scunthorpe United on Sat 13th. That wudda been handy.

How is that relevant? It's avoiding the issue of how long it took, and what an embarrassing shambles it was. It was like watching Fred Karno's Army

I wouldn't say it was a "great" score. Ok, chalking up 13 points is always good..... on paper. But it took him 7 rides. He deserves credit for beating Ellis in heat 11, but the rest of his points were taken off their two reserves who did naff-all in the whole meeting. And 5 of them came by virtue of finishing ahead of team-mates (Wilko twice, Tofty, TJ & Grondal). So I'd say that 13 points flattered him somewhat.

At best, that's disingenuous. If the two teams - riders & management - don't want to continue, and after discussions with all parties concerned, the ref will almost always go along with it. There have been countless examples. You may well say that it's the ref that has ultimately made the decision, and strictly speaking you'd be correct. But trying to say, as you are doing here, that it's purely down to the ref "alone" is bull5h*t.

I agree with you 100% on all the points you make here. Everybody around me was staggered when the red light came on to exclude Tofty. It should have been white! And, like you, I thought Newman had pipped Wilko on the line. Yep, good luck to Lakeside against Worky - I think they may need it.

I don't know what those regulations are, so I'm happy to bow to your greater knowledge and say "fair enough". But they were not set up at the max height or directed onto the track enough when they set them up initially. There is no argument against that.