E I Addio

Stop It !

We are discussing man management skills. Buster is the employer, the one who hires and fires. Do you seriously think someone like Matt Ford never speaks to his riders ? If he walks around never speaking to his men , not even "well done tonight" or "how's it going" or any general conversation like that then its no wonder there is a lack of dialogue and riders feel distant and tempers get frayed.

Because Chapman is self opinionated and his man management skills are zero. You only have to look at what J. Chapman has said on here, quite apart from some of his behaviour over the years when things don't go his way. EDIT : Just read Batch's statement in which he says the only time Chapman spoke to him this year was to sack him. If that's true it tells you all you need to know about Chapmans man management skills.

​ Well I am not a Poole fan (in fact I have on ocasion be accused of being a Poole hater) but I think Chapman is out of order. We can argue about the merits or otherwise of the sacking but to to it in a vindictive way that stops their potential for earning a living does Chapman no credit as a promoter and even less as BSPA chairman. His lack of man management or comunication skills are legendary. His behaviour when things don't go his way is beyond the pale. I still remember him kicking in the door of the ref's box because he disagreed with a referee's decision while an injured rider was laying on the track with a broken back. That's what he thinks of riders. SCB's thread about Chapman in the Discussions section is not without merit. this is a cloud that will hang over him for a log time. At a time when the sport cant afford to lose a single fan he will be driving a few more away.

One might also ask whether they would be faced with a track in Poland with heavy shale prepared for sidecar speedway ? I doubt it.

As are promoters with the attitude of Chapman.

That is a fair point. Unfortunately engaging with the customer base has never been Cooks strong point but he seems to have got worse over the last two or three years. There was a time, not so long ago when he was at least very candid with the fans in his programme notes and I used to enjoy reading them, but we don't even get that now. It seems to be a disease that a lot of promoters suffer from. I actually think that apart from his reluctance to engage with the fans he is a good promoter in many ways but for whatever reason, he doesn't seem to have the drive and enthusiasm he had a few years ago. Anyone can have an opinion but it's a good idea to have an opinion based on fact.

What an utterly stupid comment from someone that can never wait to put the knife in. What is a "proper " track curator ? As long as the track gets done properly it doesn't matter who does it. Len Silver used drive the tractor for all the tracks he promoted at for years. Buster Chapman drives the tractor at Kings Lynn and Bob Dugard has driven the tractor at Eastbourne for years. What on earth is wrong with a promoter driving a tractor at his own track ?

Who knows ? This is speedway we are talking about. ? I used to like the KO cups in the past in the Elite league but they abandoned it. That was really seemed to be the start of great gaps between meetings,

I thinks that's a fair comment. Brum are a pretty good side though, with mist of them chipping in with some points on a track most were unfamiliar with. I thought Jack Parkinson Blackburn was a massive talent. He couldn't match the home track experience of Morely and Hurry but to ride like a genuine No1 on an away track at only 16 years old was really outstanding, so well done to him. Liam Carr and Tom Bacon looked very stylish but couldn't find consistency. Nice to watch though. Conor Locke has improved massively since joining Lakeside, but has reached the stage where his determination is outstripping his ability. With more experience he will make the 1-5 by next year.

Second in the averages means three rides can be taken by Paul, Ben and Alfie. As long as Alfie's confidence has not been shot by his torrid time at Newcastle, that might be enough to get us through

i The irony is that we, the fans, were told that one of the reasons for dropping down was that we woukd get regular meetings. Stuart is still the owner but the problem is that for business reasons he I'd based in thecUSA and very rarely gets to meetings. Things have undoubtedly unravelled though. It is both ironic and sad that Jon Cook who did so much to turn the clubs fortunes round and double the attendance when he took over from Ronnie Russell is also the one presiding over dsuch a dramatic decline. Virtually everyone I speak to feels that Cook has lost interest and it's difficult to disagree with that opinion. Unless had starts trying to re-connect with the fans instead of going through the motions I can't see things changing.

A few details on the clubs website would be helpful. 48 hours before the match we still haven't been given the line ups. Maybe they are just not bothered whether fans turn up or not.

I was taking to Olle Nygren a couple of years ago and he was saying that when he was riding he reckoned to do about 100 meetings a year and usually fell off about once in a season, and also that Mauger, Briggs and the other top men were more or less the same. I must say that looking back I can't remember many falls by the top men of yesteryear. Olle was saying it's all due to the bikes and throttle control hardly comes into it anymore. Can anybody remember people like Kilby, Ashby, Collins, Wilson, Betts, Simmo etc going down much ? I can't, At that was the era when GB was a real force in world Speedwáy. , In more modern times, I don't remember Lindgren crashing very much, but the rest seem to be off at least once a month.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We'll have to see how it pans out in the long run. Rye House are getting big crowds but have an expensive team to pay for. Lakeside have smaller crowds but their meetings are much cheaper to put on. Only those who see the accounts know how things are going financially. Lakeside have still have their EL / Premier licence for the time being which means they can keep their assets for now. This means that if we move towards one larger league next year ( which seems to be the way things are going) it would be very easy for Lakeside to slip back into the new league. If, as seems to be the case we are looking at a bigger league next without the really top (I.e expensive ) stars Lakeside could quite easily slip back with a team based around assets like Kim Nilsson, Zach Wajnecht, Adam Ellis and Stuart Robson. Lewis Bridger and Ed Kennett and Lewi Kerr would very likely want to come back ( these are just examples ), so a team could easily be put together. We don't know of course, and this is a very unpredictable sport but I don't think the crowd level overall are going to spell the end of the club even though the Hitmen didn't pull many in. One big league with local derbies against Rye, Ipswich, and possibly Eastbourne and /or Kent would certainly be good financially for all of those clubs, so we'll have to wait and see how it turns out. I can't say I am enamoured with NL racing though and I think a lot of fans will be lost next year if their are not changes to the set up

We are getting into two separate things now. Under Regulation14.9.2 it is the referees job to ensure that all riders programmed to participate remain until the close of the meeting unless declared unfit to ride by the Medicsl Officer ( which presumably covers Batchelor) or upon a specific request from the Clerk of the Course to allow the rider to leave earlier. Now, the referee, from his box won't necessarily know who is coming and going unless someone tells him, so that begs the question did the Clerk of the Course get permission from the ref for Holder to leave before the end of the meeting (assumming you are right in saying he left early) or did the Clerk of the Course and indeed Chapman watch him go and do nothing about it ? One presumes the BSPA Chairman knows his own organisations rules about riders leaving before the meeting was concluded, so what really is going on ?If Chapman was that upset at the time why didn't he do something about Holder leaving early? Did he tell the ref or not ? No good complaining if he stood by and let it happen.That really seems to support my point that the fans don't know the half of it from the press reports. Quite apart from riders leaving early they have not been given a platform to express their version of it. It's Chapmans track, it would be easy for him to say to the fans "Look we had this or that problem preparing the track we did this to try to fix it and most riders were happy with that." Fans are not stupid. They know when a promoter is being straight and will understand unforeseen problems if there were any, but simply running off crying to the press blaming the riders but leaving other questions unanswered is not the way to go about things.

I put the information out for what it's worth as a discussion point. It's not beyond the realms of possibly but the fact is that both promotions blame the riders on a limited amoun of fact made public. We don't gave the riders version of it, and Chapman hasn't said specifically what was wrong with it. Either they should give the full facts or just apologise to the dAnd and move on. Just blaming the riders on one side of the story is a very old fashioned and amateurish way of dealing with it. People are bound to speculate. This is part of th problem with most promoters. Whatever goes wrong is everybody else's fault except theirs. They have too face up to the fact that the buck stops with them.

The M25 had been shut from 11.30 am due to an accident and I understand was shut for quite sometime which caused the massive traffic jam. That sort of thing can happen any day of the week. Although the crowd was exceptionally poor last night, they have not been too bad in general for this level of racing, with some fair size crowds for the local derbies against Kent and Eastlie. Overall they are probably ahead of the game financially and able to cope with poor crowds sometimes, especially as they haven't lost anything due to rain offs. Brum should bring in a bigger crowd in two weeks time.

How do you know what the problem was? Once again the promoters put out press releases blaming the riders and nobody asks the riders themselves what was wrong. The story going round Lakeside tonight from a couple of sources was that because the sidecar championship was being held tonight Capman tried to get away with one track prep instead of two, and prepared it for sidecars in a way totally unsuitable for solos. I don't know how much truth there is in that but it ill becomes the chairman of the BSPA to try to bad mouth the riders when it's his track and he must know exactly what the problem was, but didnt say. This could be the cumination of complaints by riders about the track over a period of time that just erupted. Unless and until someone asks the riders we won't have the full picture. As for Muddlo he has made a career out of sneering at other teams riders when problems like this arise. As Andrew. silver once saiid many years ago, the promoters risk their money, the riders risk their lives-so deal with it. Bottom line is not only are these things an indictment of the way the sport is run the problem is compounded by the totally amateurish way they wash their dirty linen in public.

Not the most memorable of matches but it was a nice evening to be out so on balance glad I went. Morely was so far in front in most races he was almost in a different post code. Even when he didn't make the gate he had the race in the bag by the end of lap one.. I can't remember the last time anyone scored an 18 point maximum at Lakeside. It must be a good few years ago, so we'll done Ben.

Well , as of the time of this post, 3days before the meeting, there is nothing on the website. Teams have to be submitted by now so they must know what the line ups are. We were told that Nigel Pearsons company had taken over resposibilty for the website so things would be more professionally done, but like a lot of other things it hasn't happened.

I don't suggest any alternative other than a bit of common sense. If this was one example in isolation the fans woukd probably stand it but how long have fans been complaining about missing riders, guests and r/r and the promoters being deaf to their complaints? As I said before, nothing against Zach and Alfie but the bottom line is fans pay their money and are entitled to s full squad, not a parched up side sad on after season. It's one of the things killing the sport.

In essence you are right , young riders should be allowed to progress, but Lakeside like most other clubs have had years, and years, and years of guests for all kinds of flimsy reasons some genuine, some not, and the fans are just about sick and tired of it. To put it another way round, Zak and Alfie are two of the most exciting riders in the team., if they are missing the entertainment value is diminished, and more and more people will get fed up and walk. Its that simple. Its been going on far too long.

That doesn't surprise me. He is not short of bottle. I can't remember who it was against but a few weeks ago two opponents made gThe gate and were team riding, keeping Alfie out. 90% of riders, especially those with limited experience like Alfie ve settled for third but Alfie kept on trying to split them in the gutsiest ride I've seen for a long time, riding really close. Eventually one of the others fell off and Alfie got excluded on a near 50/50 call by the ref, but far better someone goes down fighting than settling for a safe third. But, as I said before, keep in mind that he is young and inexperienced, and don't expect miracles every meeting

I agree. I hope the Diamonds fans don't expect too much too soon. Alfie is young and inexperienced and still has a lot too learn. He is still inconsistent but the great thing, as others have said, is that he is dead keen and wants to learn. He came to the Lakeside track which didn't suit his style but he has impressed everyone with the way he has buckled down and learnt to ride it. Given time I am sure he will prove to be a good signing for the Diamonds.