E I Addio

Olle Nygren must be up there with them especially if you include his time in the Swedish League before he came to Britain. In his British career he started maybe a year or two behind the Hurr-Ken, but continued perhaps a year or two longer. I saw Olle a year or two back at Lakeside. He was then 87 years young, but still the same old Olle. Forthright in his opinions and plenty to say for himself. Squibby would easily be the longest but his career was interrupted by the war. I am not sure exactly when he started league racing again after the war but it would probably have been about the same time as McKinlay and finished about the same time. Ken and Olle reached higher levels but Squibby, I would say probably had just about the longest post war career.

It can't be done without help from the local council, as in the case of Belle Vue. I can't reiterate all that has been done so far but it's all in the public domain, or on this forum for those that care to look. In a nut shell, everything seems to be on hold until a decision is taken about where to locate the new Dartford crossing ( or more precisely the Thames crossing ) Until that decision is made, and with what decisions follow on road building et lots of potential investors on all kinds of matters , not just Speedwáy, are biding their time. It looks like Speedwáy will now be at Arena for the short term future, but beyond that nobody really knows.

In a sense they are driven by fans. The days are long gone when the majority of fans would get behind their team come what may. From.early in the season, as soon as a rider has a few bad rides we start getting comments on here like "Get rid of ride x" or "Come on promoter y, get your cheque book out" and teams hit a bad spot and crowds drop much more than they used to. On the one hand some promoters have a very narrow outlook, but the attitude of a lot of fans does not help. We criticise promoters with a "win at all costs attitude, but a big percentage of fans seem to have a similar outlook.

.....and neither are you a paying customer and haven't been through the turnstiles at Lakeside for years. .... but you are apparently the guy who hasn't read the reasons given on the website. ......and you are not the guy who has bought a season ticket, either, so it's very little to do with you. I am sure the season ticket holders can and will speak for themselves at the end of season meeting in the Tavern on 27th October. No, you are just the guy who doesn't attend fans forums, doesn't meetings and therefore doesn't hear the interviews with Cook on race nights and doesn't know what's going on. How about for once you attend the fans meeting on 27th October and put your points to Cook face to face, same as everyone else has to ?

I agree there. A lot of young riders are incredibly naive on things like set ups and having an experienced rider in the team who is out there riding in the same track conditions can bring a lot of benefit to the younger riders and in turn the fans who want to see competitive racing as much as reasonably practicable, not someone trailing round the back because his set ups are all wrong ( although that happens enough anyway) . It should be a young riders league but there is a place for the Paul Hurrys and Jon Armstrongs, to being experience in. Not sure about David Mason though

The trouble is there are not enough riders to go round in one big league, unless there is doubling up with certain riders riding in both leagues, which of course would be a nonsense but doubling up between the two present leagues doesn't make a great deal of sense anyway. In principle I like the idea of two leagues, North and South, with the top two in each league contesting the play offs but there are a lot of details to be sorted out including race nights. It's pretty clear the difference between Premier and Chapionship leagues is getting narrower all the time probably with a view to combining the two, but we'll have to see what happens at the AGM. What is clear is that we have probably seen the end of highly paid foreign stars, not that there were many left anyway

I think Pete Lansdale rode for Exeter whiles still promoter and Trrevor. Redmond ride for somewhere , probabably St Austell while a promoter .i think Len Silver also rode for Hackney. When he was a promoter there but got injured after a couple of seeks so it tend s to get forgotten promoter Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

To give Cousins his due, he has improved a little. His gating is better and he is riding a fairly smooth line, but just not doing it well enough to put him in the points. At least he did look more or less on the pace last night. Laurnce on the other hand didn't seem to even be in the same race as everybody else. It's so soul destroying for the fans when your rider comes to the tapes and you know what's going to happen before the race even starts.

Paid 10 on your debut at age 15 is a dream start , but quite apart from that he looked incredibly stylish on the bike, an dozing talent. All points genuinely earned, none gifted. Very good. Well done Max Clegg with some of the best passes we have seen this season, and well done to the whole Belle Vue team who at e a very well managed professional looking outfit. But the night belonged to Ben Morley. Probably the best I have seen him ride, though he always looks very good but these days is looking very confident in himself and his machinery, coming from third to first twice was outstanding.

Good post. As has been said many times before, half the trouble is people not reading things properly, or not reading them at all then complaining they were never informed. Congratulations though to Mr Alfie Bowtell, seventh in the NL riders championship. Great improvement from him this season.

Not sure where else you can get it, but I promise you for seven quid you won't be disappointed if you like Speedwáy history.

That's the one.

The idiots are those who don't bother tho actually read what he said but would rather listen to those who mis quote him. Cook has his faults and one of them is sometimes speaking without his brain in gear first, but just as bad are those that pluck a few words out of a sentence then twist it to suit their own agenda.

There is a magazine-type book out now called Broadslide, obtainable from W H Smiths, which is one of the best publications on Speedwáy history I have seen for a long time. Well illustrated with some quality photos it traces the development of Speedwáy bikes down the years, Chapters on Briggo and Peter Collns, other riders opinions on Fundin and loads more . Worth getting for the rare pictures of Briggo grass tracking and scrambling alone. Really worth looking out for.

That applies right across Speedwáy, not just Lakeside. To some extent Cook is just a pawn in the game. He has some control over Lakeside but his and Lakeside's fortunes are inextricably linked to a sport whose ruling body simply cannot get that cannot get their act together. In 2010 their was an interview with Stuart Douglas in Speedwáy Star that put forward what I think was an excellent business plan for the sport, which is what you would expect from a level headed bloke like Stuart, and if the others had the sense to adopt it the sport wouldn't be in th dire financial situation it is now, but no, Rick Frost and Allen Trump thought they could buy their way to a Championship and Stuart's Plans were rejected and we had the winter of discontent. Both Trump and Frost are no l onger promoters . Poole and Swindon were not much better . Jon Cook is no angel but he is a better option than some of the cowboys running it, especially Buster Chapman.

I think the bigger problem is the fans who have just gone off and found something else to do. I can think of quite a familiar faces that have just disappeared. Once people go it's very difficult to get them back. The sport is in a very sorry state and a very watered down top league is not helping.

Proof of the pudding is in the eating. If he does confirm they are in the premiership next year and doesn't go up then you can say how right you are. On the other hand if he confirms they are going up,and they actually do then it's egg on the face for you. Best to wait and see before calling people a liar, in case it backfires on you.

They did make a change in bringing in Jamie Couzins to replace the original number 7 whose name escapes me but he has proved to be little or no better, and they have given Alex Spooner a few goes but he is no better either. Problem is there don't seem to be any three point riders around capable of holding down a team spot There is some talent in the Hagon Shocks Academy but they are either not yet old enough or not yet available for leaguer racing.

Perhaps not just because of race nights but with the dire financial situation and falling attendances last year it could be the last straw that breaks the camels back for one or two or more likely prevent others coming up to the Premiership, so again we will be stuck with, at best a bare minimum of teams in the top,league and great gaps between meetings.

I suspect traffic levels might have more to do with it than the quality of the meetings. Road works have been a problem but they seem to be more or less finished now, at least for the time being. Apart from the last Friday meeting when massive jams were caused by an accident earlier in the day I don't recall things being too bad on the roads on a Friday, at least not on the Essex side, but of course it is never good. However, I don't think NL racing has worked for me. I have given it a go all season but it just doesn't give me the same excitement. Maybe it's because the Lakeside bottom three have been so poor all season.,Having said that, the general malaise the sport has got itself into doesn't encourage much enthusiasm generally. I am a life long fan, but when people like me are getting fed up with it the alarms bells should be ringing loud and clear at BSPA towers.

Spot on. Everybody except Jon Cook knew at the start that Laurence was going to be a non improver, and once again the only point he scored was by beating his own team mate Spooner who scored nought. After 10years in the sport he just hasn't got what it takes to be a Speedwáy rider. Couzins and Spooner might one day reach basic NL standard but eventhat's a long way off.

I wouldn't call that logic, it's more like papering over the cracks. I say that because there is nothing remotely like it in any other sport. It means that teams can win meetings on the rule book that they can't win on the track. Almost everyone agrees that the system of league points we have now is as close to the ideal as we can get. It makes the T/R redundant. The interest or excitement comes from how many points a team wins or loses by. All a T/R does is to give a team a chance to get in the league points bracket. It's not just unfair to their opponents it's also unfair to other teams in the race for the play offs that keep the scores close without getting a leg up from a T/R. It's all very well to say Speedwáy is not like any other sport, but football is nothing like badminton and cricket is nothing like golf. All sports have there differences, but none have anything like a T/R. As you say you haven't noticed its absence in the NL, nor have I. In fact I think we are far better off without it. As for the argument that it gives team managers more control over tactics, let them build teams that have strength throughout and pairing that know how to ride with each other rather than relying on one or two highly paid stars to pull their chestnuts out of the fire with a T/R or T/S.

Why do the need more choice over tactics? What's wrong with four riders on the track scoring 3-2-1 ? TM's can do reserve switches and reserve replacements, and be on the ball for what to do if someone touches the tapes, getting riders ready for the next heat so the fans are not left waiting, and chasing up riders when two minutes are on, instead of leaving it to the pit Marshall. As has already been said the tac sub and its variations have no basis in logic whatsoever.

How they came to mess that up I gave no idea, but the 3-2-1 scoring system was tailor made to replace the TR. They ruined it by allowing the TR to continue when with that scoring system it favoured top heavy teams , especially as at that time two TR's were allowed so with for example Holder and Ward, and perhaps Lindgren and Karlsson on the form they were then it almost guaranteed an extra 6 points which made it very difficult for strength in depth teams to gain sufficient advantage to get the full 3 points. Whichever way you look at it the TR is and always has been a disaster, except, arguably if the rider in black and whit goes off 15 metres, but it is still probably the daftest rule the sport has ever known. Alternate gates was fine when it was around but when you have your top men on say £120+ per point or even a fixed wage and his second string on not much over half that the sevond string has no chance to make money if he is put on the unfavourable gates all the time. One start from each of four gates is at least fair if nothing else.

More than just possible the ref did it deliberately. It's on YouTube. Mauger was at the tapes first , Szczakiel came up some several seconds after, stops a good 3 feet from the tapes for a fraction of a second then stars rolling and the ref just let the tapes go as he reached. Difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was a fix, but I suppose with 170,000 Poles in the Stadium almost ready to riot, there was only ever going to be one result.