E I Addio

Not sure it works like that with Sky. How many times do they miss the attractive fixtures (unless it involves Poole ) and put a less significant one on. Take for example the last Lakeside broadcast. Lakeside had had on meeting in five weeks. Thanks to SWC etc, then when they finally got to two meetings on consecutive Friday's Sky decide to put Lakeside -v- Wolves on in the same week which is not only too much for the average supporter with a consequential affect on attendance , but it was of little interest to anyone except fans of the two clubs concerned. Worse still it had originally been an August fixture which in school holidays would have brought in a decent crowd . On top of that the next Sky fixture is Lakeside -v-Coventry, one side nailed on for the play offs , the other side out if it so again no interest to anyone except fans of the two clubs concerned, yet once again Sky in their wisdom are pulling th meeting from an August fixture when it is guaranteed a good crowd and putting it on in the same week as the Swindon visit, a lot won't bother to come twice in the snanme week. So, to be honest I am beginning to think Sky are more trouble than they are worth unless your name is Ford or Russell. Not alright now at all . Lakeside fans have been moaning about the EDR system all season. The fact that Adam Ellis has suddenly started doing well on it doesn't make a flawed system right. I have said on here several times that the disparity between the highest and the lowest is too great, and the picks are not equal. Ashley Birks injury highlights another problem . When a rider of his calibre gets injured there is no chance of getting a comparable guest. In short the Fast track has become the Farce Track, and the fact the Adam Ellis has suddenly stated going well in no way changes the fundamental flaw in the system.

I take your point but when you factor in GP weekends and the SWC that is a big chunk missing for teams with GP riders. I am not defending it but it is an example of how all these continental meetings we never used to have are messing up the domestic calendar plus of course have D/u riders. It's obviously not a desirable situation but the causes go much deeper than simply saying it bad fixture planning. You only have to go back two months to the A fixture when BV turned up with four guests. The difference then was Adam Ellis scored two points and BV won so nobody complained . This time Adam scored 12 +2 and Lakeside won, so suddenly it's all the fault of the fixture list. The vast majority of matches these days seem to be won and lost at EDR reserve. I think we have only had one meeting at Lakeside this year where neither team had a guest so it's not a problem unique to Bell Vue.

Hang on a minute before you go OTT. W hen the EL fixture list I s prepared the draw for the world U/21 's had not been made so nobody's knows who is riding where. Secondly nobody had a crystal ball so it's not possible to see in advance that Fricke and Neilson would have qualified this far. Belle Vue must have said their team where available on this date when the fixtures where set out. Since you raise the point let's look at Belle Vues conduct in this. They knew from day one that Cook and Grajzonek were at PL meetings on this date. They have had the whole season to line up suitable guests.. If they bothered to check they would have seen Zengota scored six points from six rides when he came with Swindon and was probably the worst possible choice of guest. They knew before Ashley Birks was injured that they would need an EDR guest and could have booked track specialist Ben Morely who scored 5+2.for them last time but instead went for Kyle Howarth, who scored 1, leaving Lakeside to get Ben this time round. I agree fixture clashes are a pain in the posterior but they are a feature of modern speedway, and the fixture list is erratic enough as it is its out juggling round on the basis that a rider MIGHT be drawn in a particular round and MIGHT qualify for the next round. Bottom line is that Belle Vue must have known their two D/u riders were unavailable when they agreed to the fixture and despite having fou,r months to sort guests out they made just about the worst choice of guests they could have made. That is a BeLle Vue management problem not a fixture list issue. Zengota was hopeless. Even got beat by Adam Ellis When Nicholls comes to Lakeside he is either very good or very bad with nothing in between. This time he was very good. Made a stunning pass between Kennett and Lawson who were team riding and generally rode like someone ten years younger. He is certainly having an Indian Summer in his career this year, but whether he can keep it up next year when he is a year older remains to be seen. Probably the outstanding rider of the night though , this time.

Accor,ding to today's Speedwáy Star Jonsson is fifth in the averages based on this years EL meetings, and is in fact one place above Chris Holder. AJ is only half a point behind Jason Doyle who is second in the SS averages, Magic is the only stand out rider in the top six or seven the rest are all pretty close to each other. Considering AJ has been carrying a pretty bad knee injury for the first few months of the season it a bit premature to write him off.He is currently tenth in the GP standings despite the knee injury. Vituallly all the number one riders except Magic have had some pretty dire meetings this year. Didn't a Holder drop to a second string role a while back ? All riders fluctuate. Age is not on his side but 34 is not old by today's standards.

That would be robbing the public who pay to see four riders in a race. I would say a warning the first time they do it, fine them £150'the second time then £300 the third time.

Confirms Rosco made the right choice. As for the rest of them this is the team that Jon Cook told us in his programme notes w as built for points on the road . This is bound to affect home crowds.

Not sure. I think legally that's a bit of a grey area.

I recently saw an advertisement in a shop window in Forest Gate, East London that said "Room to Let - Ghanains Only" which in essence seems to be the same thing as others that have said no blacks etc. Does this mean the law applies to some sections of society but not others, depending on where you come from? This of course is the same Forest Gate where other shops face prosecution by the local council if they advertise "black bags" or "black "rubbish bags". I don't agree entirely with TWK but I can see where he is coming from.

If he was the ultimate professional he wouldn't be sitting out a. ban in the first place

Next month on Crimewatch

I don't disagree with any of that, but there is a difference between nostalgia and moaning for the sake of moaning, there are certain ones that invariably make the same disparaging comments after every TV meetingirrespective of whether it was good or bad. One wonders why they bother.

So when they move into the 1-5 are you still going to pay them £40 a point ? The point if the original Fast Track scheme was to save money. You can sort of get by with having protected heats but the majority are not going to be able to compete most if the time with bona fide second strings. I am with you in principle but I can't see the finances working and there are not really sufficient quality youngsters coming through. I am beginning to wonder if any scheme is going to work until more quality riders start coming through.

On the contrary , I think it gives you great pleasure to have a dig.. Nobody has said that the state of the sport is ideal, or that the rules are perfect, but most agree there are few experiences like the smell of methanol,, the noise of tortured Jawa's and GM's , the moment of tension as they come under starters orders, or the spectacle of 4 riders in bucking speed irons with no brakes on an unstable surface for One hot Minute. Unfortunately the best you can come up with for not attending a sport you are purportedly passionate about is you don't like the double points rule. As has been pointed out endless times on here the double points rule is less unfair than the tactical substitute rule that preceded it for decades and you must have been going to speedway for years and years under the old TS rule. TBH I loathe the TR rule but some people like it and any mature person would have to accept that when there are a thousand or more other people attending any event there will be differing opinions and you cant have everything your own way. You have to get along with people.As much as I hate the TR rule myself I have to admit that in its present form its probably less unfair than its ever been and if you are going to let that keep you away fair enough but moaning on a forum is not going to change it. I doubt you have advised the SCB of you views. As Halifax Tiger said most of the constant complainers are those who never go anymore, but my original comment was really aimed at those who come on here after virtually every TV and whose command of the ENGLISH language is limited to " It was crap!", which as I said before leads on to wonder why they don't flick mover to another channel if its that bad.

Yes we would all like to go back to the days when we were younger, the summers were longer, and the music was better. From what I remember about those days though there were always old boys in the crowd at every stadium telling us it was better when they were young and there were real men like Jack Parker and Split Waterman on the track.. I have books that tell me how great the sport was when Cyclone Billy Lamont and Cordy Milne wee riding so maybe we ought to get rid of GM's and have everyone leg trailing Douglases an and Scotts to see if that brings the crowds back. The fact is that nostalgia aint what it used to be and the central theme of perennial moaners, not just in speedway but in every walk of life is that whatever they are moaning about was better in the past. Unless you can invent a time machine the past wont be coming back so we have deal with the present which, incidental is what the thread is about, otherwise it would be in the years gone by section.

Hi Hammer, you have to throw into the equation the fact that some people just enjoy a good moan. If you haven't worked it out already you'll soon work out that it's the same ones that never have anything good to say. Makes you wonder why they have anything to do with them sport if it upsets them so much and the only conclusion you can draw is they are sad dos that enjoy a good moan. For he rest us I gues we are on an addictive roll or coaster that makes you feel you want to throw yourself of a cliff when your team is doing badly and has you walking on air for days after a good win. Apart from the chronic complainers the rest of the banter should be taken wit.h a large shovel of salt. Most fans my arem ok when You meet up with them.

She was only a Wimbledon supporter, but she showed Ron Howe !

Tich Read Wally Green Tiger Stevenson Dent Oliver Wally Trumble Alby Golden Bo Wirebrand Bluey Wilkinson

Ok I admit I am CVS . Can't let you have the fiver just now though, too busy planning our next move with Peter Adams to get our season back on track and secure our place in the play offs. The boys are all up for it and determined to give 110% to out play off bid. The team are all totally focussed and I have every confidence in the them and I know how much you and all the other fans appreciate me being honest with you.

The trouble is all the guests except Davey have had howlers this year......Doyle 6, Lindgren 5 ,Rory 4. What next ? Let's just hope K. Bear Esq, has someting else booked next week !

Ashley was going to miss the next home meeting anyway and Ben Morely had already been booked. This does expose the weakness of the EDR draft once again . The difference in ability is so great that when a top tier rider is injured/unavailable it is almost impossible to find a suitable guest. If Kim is out for long it will be a massive blow, not just because of his improved average this year but also because of his riding style. He is probably the best rider since Jonas Davidsson at his peak around the white line at Lakeside which means he can go out with any othe member of the team and leave them plenty of room round the outside, whereas some of the others tend to like the same piece of track. Dave Watt is probably the best choice of guest if available and if Belle Vue have not already grabbed him in place of Craig Cook.

The object of the exercise was to save money. If you don't have protected heats and reserves are expected to go against heatleaders then its no good expecting them to ride for £40 per point. . Not disagreeing in principle with what you say but finances rule it out.

You don't know whether CVS knew about it or not. All we know is what Ged Rathbone says. You have been following speedway long enough to know that unless you are actually present when a conversation takes place you can never really be sure exactly who said what. I am sure if you spoke to CVS whoever Rathbone says he spoke to you would get an entirely different account. The fact remains that as others have said the rule is clear enough in this case. Unfortunately the sport has a history of people making wrong decisions based on what someone else told them instead of bothering to check the rule themselves.

As an outsider I can see the complacency point. I used to love Wolves coming to Lakeside, you always got an entertaining meeting whatever the result, but as we all saw last week it was a shadow of the old Wolves. I used to put it Wolves fighting style down to Peter Adams who I always thought was a good team manager, but maybe Wolfsbane is right, maybe Adams has indeed reached his sell by date.

But seriously who is there available of suitable calibre to replace any if the Wolves 1-5. Certain fans of various clubs have posted on here calling for their clubs to makes changes but the problem for British Speedwáy these days is that most of the foreign riders who want to ride here are here already and British season is now so short for those not making the play offs that many riders don't see it as worthwhile to come mid-season or later for a relatively small number of matches. Ok , so Leicestef have managed to get Swiderski but he has had a rough deal in Poland and wanted to ride over here from the start of the season. Some foreign riders will be phoning up looking for a bit more money when their Swedish/Polish clubs go out of the play offs but it's a bit late in the year to make much difference to Wolves. I can understand the logic of getting someone now to get the hang of the track ready for next year but Wolves policy has always been to try to persevere with their riders and often it has worked. For all Freddie's lack of form now is is a class act at his best and it's a big decision to boot him out, when the risk is he will start scoring big time again for someone else. Who is there that can come in and make a difference and is likely to be prepared to come ? I can't think of anyone but the opinions of others would be interesting.

I enjoyed that meeting. Pity Leicester had such a long tail but there was some good racing with a fair bit of passing and re-passing. Heat 1 was probably the race of the season : Doyle took the lead in bend 1 , first AJ then Bech passed him , then Doyle regained the lead with a swoop round the inside, then AJ and Bech passed him again, to take the 5-1. Great commitment from all of them. Big cheers on parade for Watt and Swiderski , who are both still very popular at Lakeside. It took Swidders a while to get properly dialled in but his heat 15 swoop off bend 4 to pass AJ was his classic move that made him so popular when he was a Hammer . No problems getting dialled in for Watty though. He was involved in the thick of the action in his paid 10, and one of the best races of the night was the way he hunted down and passed Doyle in heat 10 with Doyle on a tactical, although Jason repaid the compliment in heat 13 to spoil Davey's paid max. Jason Doyle was very entertaining. So much improvement from him in a space of 4 or five years. Richard Lawson slipped smoothly and almost unnoticed to 11 points from his first 4 rides but struggled in heat 15, but a competent performance from him. Kennett and Bech were better than their scores suggest. Ben Morley had a point to prove and did it with a terrific ride to win the last reserves race from the back. Adam Ellis looked light years better than a couple of months ago, managed to stay on his bike and was riding good racing lines instead of getting stuck in no mans land, so well done to him Richie Worrall was a reasonable guest but I feel he needs to be given a regular EL place next year if he is to reach is potential. I was looking forward to seeing Simon Lambert but he still hasn't worked the track out, but then again nor has the more experienced Walasek, and Wosniak. . I was quite impressed by Adam Roynon though. There were a few flashes of what might have been if his career had not been plagued by injury. There is a certain amount of talent there but whether he can now reach his potential is perhaps doubtful; And finally the announcement from Jon Cook on the mic that the fans wanted to hear "A certain Mr Jonsson has just said he will be back next year ".Next year is a of course a long way off but if things work out and AJ is back I suspect Mikkel Bech will be back as well as both will be on decent team building averages this time and given Kim Nilsson's improvement this year and the fact he is an asset maybe we can see the sort of team that is taking shape. Dave Watt also said on the mic that the only two clubs he is interested in riding for in Britain are Poole and Lakeside so does he know something or am I reading too much into it ? He has his critics but on last nights performance of paid 10 you could do a lot worse than Davey with the others mentioned . We shall have to wait and see.