PE7Panther

Good post. I agree with all that - with one exception: I'm not so sure a Harris + Ostergaard pairing would be a good idea. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but even before the season started many fans had doubts about Lambert & Ostergaard. It's hard to be critical of Ged, but he got this very wrong - and for the 'wrong' reasons. And I was staggered to hear that we'd signed Richard Hall - again. We might as well have phoned Henning Bager!

Ah.... so not No. 5 then. "5th in averages" and "No. 5" are different things. Anyway, cheers for lifting the fog

So do you mean that Holder isn't going to be at no. 5 ?

Ah well, that makes it definitive and truly representative of Panthers fans as a whole.

"... has to start at..." ??? Funny how you ignore the fact that other meetings often start late. Take, for example, the Leicester meeting today - which delayed by an hour or so.

Outrageous and totally unacceptable.

Tell you what; maybe Ged can leave Holder & Starke out, tell Bomber not to bother travelling over from Leicester, then replace them with a combo of R/R + NL guests.... then you can watch a 15-75 bore-fest and todde off back to Cumbria with your poxy 4 points. Or do we all want to watch the ding-dong meeting it promises to be?

And where do you get that from?

Spot on! There's a lot of childish and unintelligent posts on here motivated by envy.

yeah, it's been raining steadily again here (about 2 miles away as the crow flies) for the past hour or so. So my earlier optimism is gradually waning Even if it starts, I'll be surprised if we see 15 heats.

I'm about 2 miles from the EoES as the crow flies; it's been brightening up, no rain, for the last hour or so. And the BBC weather forecast says no rain this afternoon. So my guess (for what it's worth) is that it'll be on.

erm... BW-D outscored Shanes 9-8. And Bacon v Coles was 2-0. So Panthers' reserves out-scored Newcastle's reserves 11-8. That wasn't "what happened" in terms of how the meeting panned out.

It was a terrific meeting, Newc deserved the win, and any speedway fan would've enjoyed it. Newc fans are entitled to be happy and to rejoice - but just for the record, nobody ever said that R.Lambert was "no good". Where do you get that from? On the contrary, the Panthers management and the vast majority of Panthers fans always acknowledged that RL is a huge talent and with the potential to become a top, top rider. That wasn't the issue We wish we had a rider with his ability in our team, but - sorry to burst your bubble - there are no "regrets". Panthers wouldn't have "Mummy's Boy" back no matter how many points he racks up every week. Enjoy your victory - but when the giddiness calms down you might, if you have any class, retract that OTT gloating. spot on! They must, surely, be thinking about making changes....

The lock broke and flew into the air so that'll need replacing - but it was a cheapo thing, about a tenner max. The gate/s were ok but one of the vertical bars got a bit bent. So Ged shouldn't have any real probs. So I was told by, erm, a mate who led the break-out.... The Showground elf 'n safety numpties worry about people standing at the back (ridiculous!) and yet they let something like this happen

Good summaries by Mildenhall1965 and Panthers89. To read some of the other comments on here you'd think there was no passing. But there was, and it was a much more entertaining meeting than at Ipswich. By the way, those fans who got away smartish after heat 15 were shocked to find the big exit gates to the car-park closed AND locked! Ged needs to look into it and make sure it never happens again. It was just a well that a few burly blokes at the front had the nous to rock the gates to break the lock before a crush built up. It got an even bigger cheer than Holder got for winning the last race!

Big crowd; must have been 3,000+. Really happy for Panthers and especially for Ged. It will give the club a nice financial boost at the start of the new season. I usually rock up about 5 minutes before the start and there's only half-a-dozen or so waiting to pay. I figured it'd be wise to be earlier today and so I arrived about half an hour before the start. Jeez, it was a real shock to see a truly massive queue! It was several deep and stretched almost the the far end of the car-park. There were loads of Cov fans at the EoES today, probably about half the crowd. Good for them And it was great to hear the positive vibes coming across in all the interviews. TBH, there wasn't much excitement on the track, although it did warm up a bit in the closing heats. Cov were too good for Panthers and let's be honest, with King & K.Bjerre they were always favourites to win it. But the result wasn't the important thing; the main thing is that Cov are still alive & kicking. And for Panthers it was about giving the riders competitive track-time, especially the new ones. Up The Panthers..... and all the best to the Bees!

Nope, but it's a good question. And it's refreshing to see a sensible post that's actually about P'boro Panthers instead of the usual inane chit-chat. Ged (or maybe it was TS...?) did mention at the fans forum that the track was going to be laser-levelled; hopefully somebody will be able to update us.

and so the Panthers thread goes stone-cold dead..... Maybe it's time to grasp the fact that not many people in Panthers-land are interested in, or amused by, your feeble humour/banter (or 'craic' as you call it)

nothing. Just do us all a favour and STFU yeah, but that a big "if" though...

Why do you insist on referring to Panthers as "borrowers" over and over and over again? Is it because you think the phonetic similarity of "borough/borrow" is witty and clever? (It's neither!). Maybe you get a kick out of using a thinly-veiled derogatory term for our club - which, if challenged, you try to pass off as mere banter. Once or twice might be taken as banter (just) but after the umpteenth time it really begins to grate. Yes, Ged chopped and changed the line-up quite a lot last season. The injury to Simon Lambert triggered the whole chain of events - and it's inevitable that when you replace riders some of the replacement signings will be "on loan" from somewhere or other. That's just the way it is. The biggest furore arose when Cook came in, but he was mad-keen to get rides, so how does that fit with the "borrowers" jibe? It doesn't stack up at all. Let's have it right; Panthers' history of using riders on loan is no different to any other club. In fact, it wasn't so long ago that we had a fairly big list of riders on the books, and most of them were away on loan at other clubs. Did we moan or make barely concealed snide remarks about them using 'our' riders? Nope; it's just part and parcel of speedway. "Borrowers" my ar5e!

I dunno whether the rumours on here about BWD not signing for Panthers have any legs. Maybe it's just a wind-up, but if (IF) it's true then f*ck knows who it'd be instead of him. Anyway, I'd risk a fairly hefty bet that Starke & BWD will be the names announced.......

which, sadly, is what speedway often is...... as most of us realise surely?

The Panthers fans in this thread have all had a bit of fun playing the guess-the-line-up" game. A few of the 'interlopers' have contributed some interesting stuff - and the usual suspects have done their best to suffocate the interesting stuff with a mish-mash of wind-ups and inane dross. But now that it's looking almost certain which two riders are going to complete our line-up for next season, and even if the team is not quite what we were hoping for (me personally, I was secretly wishing for a miracle that Hans Andersen would somehow be back!) let's just be H-A-P-P-Y that Panthers are still there. And despite some of the negativity, it just could be our season..... UTP!

Fair enough. You're probably right that 0.6 or 0.7 wouldn't make all that much difference - and, as we all know only too well, the averages are no guarantee anyway. I personally don't know who's a better bet: Starke or Allen - but my gut feeling is it'll be Starke (+ BWD). I guess we'll soon find out - maybe as soon as Somerset have announced their line up. Hmmm...that is the big worry, I must admit....

lesson learned?