E I Addio

I loved them doing "American Girl " and "Free Fallin' "

Well you could have bought Speedwáy Star ! Big Well Done to Alan Jones I think it was who first brought it to our attention. I wouldn't have bothered with SS otherwise. All SCB did was read Alan's Post and then went into one without reading the article himself. Big well done to Jon Cook Says I for saving Lakeside for at least another year, big well done to Starman for doin his best to keep sales of Speedwáy Star going, big well done to you and Grachan for being so reasonable in your posts....er.. that's it I am afraid. P.S. Neasden won 1-0 today.

Or just maybe he subscribes to the fairly widely held opinion that there is no such thing as bad publicity. We have a thread now running to 15 pages about an article might well have not even had a thread if the last 3 lines had not been added. Not a single one has said " Jon Cooks remarks have upset me so I won't go anymore" . Plenty of given other reasons for not going anymore. So who knows ? Except that he didn't highlight it. Another poster on another thread raised it and it was the subject of proper discussion for sometime until SCB decided that abuse and name calling was the way forward and decided to start another thread.

No, never saw him. He died about 100 years ago didn't he? Anyway it's a good job he didn't call them thick or biased or some of them would really have thrown their toys out of the pram ! I hope someone reported him to the IPCC for talking to suspects like that, especially if there were racist undertones.

Douchebags? Well, there's not many words that have me beat but I had to google that one. I thought it might be a small town on the Dutch coast or some sort of EU porter or messenger , but no, it is apparently a rather obscure piece of equipment that men need not concern themselves with, or, in North American slang a contemptible person. Well I never knew that. You learn something every day on the forum. After the fight on the pitch at Neasden last week I'd say that little squirt of a manager Paddy O'Dawes is a douchebag, On the forum I think Jon Cook had it more accurate when he limited it to some being thick and biased. Just an opinion of course. My goodness you must lead a sheltered life.

I know what you mean in the sense that I have had endless trouble over the years by bucking office procedures and doing things my own way, but when the money starts rolling in and my bonus was as big as the rest of the department put together they suddenly realised I knew what I was doing and I wasnt just bring awkward. Moral of the story: keep it simple if you can but don't pre-judge till you know how well it works. As I always say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Bottom line is it will be judged on how it works in practice.

You should know, its your thread, about Jon Cook. Personally I don't think its the format itself that was wrong but more to do with the drafts and the draft pick, but I cant get too exercised about it in the close season. Fine if that's what you think there is already a separate heatleader list thread where you can air your views with anyone who wants to listen . No point in duplicating them on here

Your opinion . Others have said watt for example watt should be on the list. whichever way you prepare the list there will always be anomalies. The list stands or falls by its success or failure in practice, not on personal opinions of those not in possession of a crystal ball. (I was going to say crystal balls but there have been enough innuendos already. That's a different argument nothing to do with Cooks article so I won't go down that road unless you want to start a separate thread.

You must have read a different article to me because in the one I read the word stupid doesn't appear at all. Then again look at Blazeaway's post above this and it seems maybe Cook was not too far off the mark

CLANG ! ! ! That's my fault ! The actual wording is "why "Jacob Thorssell isn't a heatleader while some Wolverhampton team mates who finished on lower averages are. When Karlsson was mentioned later on I took it that he was on the list which of course he isn't ! Makes no difference overall though,

Well, I have at last managed to purloin a copy of SS from Dave Spartt over lunch and having now become one of the very few on here that has actually read the article I am beginning to wonder what all the fuss is about. After all the huffing and puffing from SCB and the rest who hadn't read the thing, I was expecting something outrageous, but to be honest it was a bit of an anti-climax. As I hinted in an earlier post I thought I was going to go into one of my tirades about sloppy journalism at SS but having read it I have to say I think that Peter Oakes has done a really good job with an article that is well prepared, well written, clearly explained and concise so credit where its due and well done to him. In fact if you removed the last three lines that caused all the fuss I doubt if anyone in their right minds could fault it on any level. So to Jon cooks comments. Contrary to what some on here have implied the BSPA have looked at the statistics of the riders concerned in their roles as heatleaders and as second strings. Cook uses Jacob Thorssell and Peter Karlsson to explain why the one with the lower average is a HL and the one on the higher average is a SS. He quotes the number of matches ridden in each role and averages attained at each level, in fact much the same as SCB has already done. However it was difficult, says Cook to get down to a hard a hard and fast formula because of inconsistencies. Of the 19 riders looked at over half scored 25% more as a SS, 7 had amore marginal difference and 2 actually scored more in the HL role than they did as a SS. So for that reason they had to weigh in different factors and look at the situation first as clubs then as a body. That is basically it in summary form although you'll have to buy SS for the whole picture, but I doubt whether anyone other then the usual handful of malcontents on here who will always say the BSPA are wrong, can really find a substantial criticism of the methodology. More particularly its very difficult, I think, to lay claims of manipulation at Matt Fords door although no doubt those who haven't read the article will continue to do so. So we come to Cooks concluding remarks and the reason for them. Loose language perhaps or an injudicious choice of words maybe ? Of course the last three lines about people being thick or biased would have been better unsaid, but lets look at the article as a whole and look at the context. I think you have to look at the second paragraph and then look at the last one. The second paragraph is Peter Oakes referring to critics of the scheme (in other words the keyboard warriors who went into melt down before the method of composing the list had even been explained) from the third paragraph it is Cook explaining what was done, then in the final paragraph he comes back and answers the critics (who apparently don't like being answered). So was Cook wrong ? Shouldn't have said it but it is true. Anyone who didn't understand the method after Peter Oakes set it all down so clearly must be a bit thick and anyone who jumps in with criticism without waiting for an explanation must be a bit biased. Skidder 1 has made two good posts on the subject which nobody has been able to properly contradict if he is wrong So, all in all a storm in a tea cup. The acid test will be whether it results in good racing and avoids too many 70-20 type wins, which Cook says is the objective.

Oh (groan) I can't go through it all again. You have jumped a few posts and missed a few links in the chain, so to speak. I was asking SCB if he had read the report because the summary he posted was different to the summary someone else posted . He now admits he hadn't even read the SS article when he lurched towards the keyboard and went into one. Someone else had already questioned the accuracy of the article. It's all very complicated when people only read half the posts . I hope to read the article itself later.

Since it has not even been mentioned on the Lakeside forum and all the talk is about approving the appointment of top TV presenter Kelvin Tatum I would say if anything King Kel would get a few more through the gate. Doubt if the Lakeside regulars give a toss what Cook said in SS as long as the team do better than last year.

Ah, I see

So you haven't actually read the article yourself then ?

No, it's just the BSF branch of the Plain English Society dangling some bait for a wayward whoosh victim on a closed season slow news day. TWK will be back soon . He just having a few days away at the Cheatford Muddlo Country and Western Festival. Now if it's alright with you, we'll get back to the thread and you can get back to the kitchen. Yes I saw the post but that is not quite the way SCB has summarised it. He claims Cook said fans are stupid for wanting to know about the heatleader list. That is not quite the way you have summarised it. That is why I queried whether he had actually read it.

Hang on is that really what Cook said, that they are stupid for wanting to know about the heatleader list ? Because that is not quite the way it has been summarised on here so far . Have you actually read the article yourself ? If so, please give us a summary of what it says on your reading of it .

Not trying to deflect the issue at all. Sidney was the one that noted the point first and he is no Cook lover. Criticise Cook as much as you like but you are the one that lectures the forum endlessly on the merits of intelligent debate as opposed to name calling and now you seem to be endorsing a slang term of abuse that relates to disability . As I have already said I haven't read the full article yet so I don't have an opinion on it.

Here you are, a medical term now used as a term of abuse. Liam and I didn't use the word as a term of abuse, you did. remeber :- http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/retarded And another one:- http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/retarded

As I said I won't see SS until tomorrow and will look at the context of the remark then. It wouldn't be the first time that the accracy of SS reports has been questioned on here, but that doesn't mean that the report in question is necessarily right or wrong, but if you look at Grachans post in context I do think he was right to raise an eyebrow. Exactly. That is the point SCB chooses to ignore.

Not often I agree with Sidney, and even less with Starman but thinking about it they have IMO made a point. Without wishing to get on a moral high horse mental illness is not a laughing matter. To be mentally retarded refers to a specific medical condition of intellectual impairment. Those afflicted by it can't help it. It is not the same as calling someone stupid. You can do better than that . There is a separate heatleader list thread where the matter could be properly aired intelligently instead of using that sort of term. I am not going to bang on about it but it woukd be a good idea IMO is you deleted this thread and continued the discussion in a more appropriate way on the heatleader list thread.

Fair post Pity you are a Poole fan. I could warm to you otherwise

I haven't seen Speedwáy a Star yet either, and won't see it until tomorrow so I might comment then. In the meantime the following points can be made without seeing the article :- 1. Speedwáy Star has something of a track record of publishing misleading/ half baked information so you raise a good point in questioning the accuracy of the report. 2. Jon Cook is a disastrous PR man. I was listening to him on BBC Essex talking about the signing of Bjarne Pedersen and it was so full of word whiskers (um, ar, you know etc) and jumbled sentences it was virtually incoherent. He is not alone in coming across in that way on radio, of course but when it's a live broadcast it seems common sense to have a few prepared notes as a prompt to get the information out in a coherent way. Anyone not familiar with Speedwáy probably didn't understand what he was talking about. 3. Majority of fans have some degree of bias (including me) as do most fans of competitive sport. 4. I don't know about Speedwáy fans as a whole but the posts on this forum indicate that there are plenty of thick ones around . 5. I don't think Jon Cook is a retard. On SCB's assessment I suppose that makes me thick. My take on on it is that he sometimes speaks before his brain is in gear, and that SCB is given to hyperbole, but like Jon Cook he knows his stuff in some areas but over eggs the pudding when he goes into print. 6. There is an enormous amount of pomposity by some posters on this thread.

Kelvin on BBC Essex http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03c4f06

Isn't he just TM though, or does he have a separate coaching role ? It seems that Kelvins role is with the youngsters on the training school right through to first team.