E I Addio

Well, now you come to mention it, I have assumed it to be the case. Surely he can't beat Old Father Time for another year can he ?

For me the most pleasing thing about the result is that Peter Karlsson will bring down the curtain on a glittering British career in a Play off final. He is obviously not the man he once was, and I would have preferred to have remembered him as he was, rather than how he now is, but he has been such a great servant to British speedway it will be a fantastic way for him to bow out. Hope he scores a few and we see few last flashes of the Old Master. A man after my own heart. It needs to be sorted out but I am not holding my breath.

All that is true. Agreed the system works for the benefit of riders with ability but the problem is that it is manipulated to the benefit of certain clubs. No way should Newman be at Poole year after year as an EDR reserve. There should be more moving between clubs so that the bottom clubs one year get a clear first choice of reserves the following year. Of course , the system will never operate to its full potential while the PL numpties refuse to have anything to do with it. There needs to be graduated progress from NL to PL reserve then PL to EL reserve, in order to give the widest possible opportunities to riders and the widest pool of riders gaining experience for clubs to choose from. The fact that a high scoring reserve like Newman has spent three years with the same club is an indictment of the system.

One of the things about any sport is that the closer you get to victory the harder the competition gets. Sometimes it takes a bit of backbone to go out and do your best when circumstances conspire against you and your best laid plans unravel. Sometimes you just have to take it on the chin , as Lakeside will probably have to tonight. Unfortunately, Lakeside, like most other clubs have a vocal minority that have obviously never done any serious sport in their lives, probably never even run for a bus, some of them and don't realise how bloody difficult and soul destroying it can be at times. You just have to breathe in breathe out and move on to next year, trying again and ignore the damn silly comments that people make, e.g. Joe Beevors stupid comment above, about them not being good enough to beat Plymouth . Lakeside are only going through what Leicester, Coventry , Kings Lynn, and eventually Swindon have already had to deal with. Having said that, the communication from the management has not exactly been all it could be this year. I thought Cookie said at the Fans forum in Feb that Nigel Pearson's company had taken all that side of things over. If they have they haven't exactly made a roaring success of it.

Doubt if Ben Morley or Robrt Branford will beat a BV rider but I am delighted to see Robert being given a run out in the hope that as a British Passport holder Lakeside might be able to form an opinion of him as a possible EDR reserve next year. He has guested against Lakeside a couple of times this year and although he didnt score well I was super impressed with his attitude. He really got stuck in on a track he was having difficulty with. I think he coukd we'll be one of the big improvers of 2017. Love to have him at Lakeside.

Like a lot of Speedwáy meetings it could be determined by gate positions that set th scene for a heat one advantage and a psycological advantage, especially if that advantage is held in heat two. If it's 2-4 to Poole after heat one and 5-7 after heat two Wolves have a mountain to climb. If Wolves are four points up after heat two anything is possible

Except that when Andreas Jonsson was brought back to Lakeside he was assessed at 9.03. This is the root of the problem. They are incapable of making a decision and sticking to it. First it's an 8 then it's a 9 then it's a 7. If there was a specific formula, set in the rules like the EL/PL conversion everyone would know what's going on. If 7 is the correct figure then by definition they got AJ completely wrong, if AJ was correctly assessed then they clearly messed up big time with Lindback Even by the usual BSPA standards they have made a complete dogs breakfast of this one.

It doesn't need many. A few here and a few there is still reducing clubs income, even if it only adds up to a few hundred pounds a year I.e. The value of one season ticket per club it is still a few hundred pounds a year that hard pressed clubs can't afford, especially on top of fans drifting away for othe reasons and not being replaced.

Sort out the EDR system so we don't have the farce of the teams that finish top getting the best resrves the following year and the team that finish bottom getting the weakest reserve pairings.

A "high pain freshold "? Good ol' Starman, always ready to expand the English language ! You must be great to play scrabble with. As for level of pain freehold/threshold a lot must be governed by what Matt tells them to do ,

Ed Kennett has knee damage, that is bad enough to need an operation but he still rode in the Play off semi. Loads of riders get knee damage and still see the season out. Can Bjarne not wear a knee brace like most of the others ? We had all this in the past with Joe Screens shoulder. Unfit to ride when it suited Ford then scored a 15 point maximum the following night. Loads of riders from Ove Fundin to Tai Woffinden have won world titles with far worse injuries that that, and of course we all remember Kenny Carter having to be physically lifted onto his bike to race with a broken leg. #prayforbjarne

Or it gives him another 48hrs to injure it again, falling off his lawn mower or something, depending how you look at it.

Nutters or not, the sport cannot afford to,lose any more support. For every fan that walks away it's another few hundred quid that's lost through the turnstiles in a sport that's struggling to pay the bills already. Whichever way you break it down it's always Poole at the bottom of it. Joe Screens dodgy shoulder injury that stopped him getting a new average so they coukd get Hans Andersen in, then he comes back the next night and gets a 15 point maximum, the dodgy abandoned meetings after 10 heats, THJ, Dakota North, Hans Andersen again, and all the rest, round and round and round it goes, one thing after another year after year, always with Poole at the centre of it.

There is a sort of precedent for that . A couple of seasons ago Lakeside against Birmingham or Kings Lynn, can't remember which, Kevin Doolan turned up not knowing who he was riding for , having apparently been booked, unbooked then re-booked by both teams or something like that. Lakeside eventually had him and the others had r/r. S Sorry to hear about Bjarnes knee injury. Let's hope it's nothing long term and he makes a speedy recovery

Playing devils advocate, is there any specific definition of what "long term injury " means in Speedwáy terms? In normal English I would say perhaps a couple of months at least but knowing the way these things work in Speedwáy is there room for Ford to argue that it can be interpreted as a couple of weeks ? In other words, could this be another case of Ford finding a loophole in a poorly drafted rule?

Just seen the website now updated. Hardly surrendering, he is about the most expensive rider to get in, so hardly first choice. They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel though. No explanation on the website of course of why KK is suddenly not coming. A lot of Lakeside fans now complaining they can't rely on anything Jon Cook says and this isn't helping. Maybe Lakeside is where Bomber is heading next year and they are giving him a try out now (yes I was joking ). What a shambles.

According to the website it is still KK. Where do you get Harris from ?

Its not in dispute that Jon Cook has said several things over the years that have not come to fruition, and some of those things would have been better left unsaid. However , I don't think its in dispute either that Old Bob at Herne Bay is always over-egging the pudding when it comes to jumping in with his attempts at sarcasm. That's why among a lot of Lakeside fans he is known as Old Knob at Herne Bay . The point is that when you go round criticising others you need to be accurate yourself. As Bryn has already pointed out nothing was said about AJ making a "rapid" recovery. That was something O.B. made up himself. Criticism is fine but it needs to be fair. I think what people are choosing to ignore is that yesterday was effectively AJ's home GP and he would have all his sponsors there and would naturally want to put on a good show for them especially with next year in mind, so of course he would be moving heaven and earth to try to get fit, but as we now know he didn't make it . Nothing was ever said by Cook or anyone else about a rapid recovery though.. I agree he said something about a complete revamp though, but I wouldn't stake my life on it happening, and if it did I am not sure it would necessarily be for the better. Hope it doesn't mean Paul Hurry coming in as team manager after last Wednesdays shambles. Kelvin needs to stay IMO.

I was there and as Stevebrum says it was Steve Worrall

Brain dead at the Appollo would be more like it

I don't know about couldn't make it up but you have done a pretty good job of twisting the facts by throwing in some half truths and exaggerations as usual.

Crowd patterns are very likely different at Lakeside to Belle Vue. At Lakeside Sky broadcasts always seem to knock the crowds down a bit. Apart from the obvious attraction of sitting indoors watching it, the move from a Friday race night has an effect but mostly I think it's people unable to make the 7.30 start. On normal Friday race night with 8 pm start the crowd seems to almost double in size between 7.45 and 8 pm. When Sky come this late influx doesn't seem to happen. I don't know why but I assume it is because a lot coming up from Kent don't have time to get home from work and que up to get across Dartford Crossing in time. Conversely the Saturday meetings against Coventry start at 7.30 or 7.45 and are always well supported irrespective of the P.O. situation. Jon Cook said that he wants to try to get more Saturday meetings next year because crowds are better, assuming it can be fitted around the Stock cars.

Not sure on what basis you think the Lakeside crowd was poor. I have heard some say it was good and some say it was poor, but I was there I don't know how people think they can tell. It's dark soon after 7 o clock these days and once the track lights come on at around 7 it's very difficult to see anything off track. Historically Lakeside crowds, and presumably mist others drop when Sky are there especially when it's not normal race night. However for some time now the Lakeside promotion have been pushing the "must win " aspect as the play offs draw closer and attendances have generally been quite good, except when a patched up Kings Lynn side came and people stayed away. Personally I woukd say attendances have more to do with the quality of the visiting team. rather than the play offs. Certainly that seems to be the case at Lakeside.

Exactly what I have been hearing re Rye and Glasgow. Take everything you hear in Speedwáy with a pinch of salt of course but it's interesting that although 150 miles apart we have heard the same things, although I have heard the possibility of Ippo as well, and it was from a fairly good source, not the proverbial bloke in a pub.

If you could turn the clock back 30 or 40 years you would find plenty of older fans in the crowd moaning because in their opinion it was better 30 or 40 years before that.