Steve55

Didn't look any bigger than usual for this fixture to be honest, don't know many who'd pay £90 plus for a hotel to get £5 off admission to a speedway meeting! As for young master Bates all his talk in the programme about how well his 'Ash-Tec' engines are working, if that's so it must be down to him for his recent poor performances, especially last night when he needed to step up when he was really needed. Is he carrying an injury? or was it the disappointment of being dropped from the team GB squad?

Sounds like there'll be tumble weed blowing along the terraces at Owlerton tonight!

You're right about that, those two were really up for it and everybody was on their toes during those races. As for Thursday it depends on what mood the Sheffield riders are in, could be that you will beat us here as well! If Bates is riding anything could happen, and I mean 'anything'.

Without Garrity I forsee Sheffield getting quite a few points behind in the first leg, probably too many to get back, especially after the way the Diamonds rode a few weeks ago at Sheffield!

Got to agree with the above post, some decent riders in the Bears team, if they perform, well it could be close. With Garrity missing that's 14 or 15 points we would probably get, going on his last two home performances, so some fans may be being a little over confident.

Good to see the Sheffield promotion are looking to the future, great signing!

They knew that the NL lad wasn't part of the 'new team' but they were talking about the lad who wasn't there and MPT who was, but wasn't doing very well!

The above post from the 'Outsider' is a reasonable description of the meeting, from the Scunthorpe side of things that is. If Josh Bates hadn't have nearly put himself into the fence on the fourth bend in heat 3 and not had mechanical issues in heat 7, the meeting would have been well beyond the Scorpions by the end of heat 10! Also can any one enlighten me as to how the ref could award heat 11 with Douglas the winner, seeing as he was laid out on the track? The main reason that the Scunny pair ended up colliding was that Stead was putting pressure on them and was more or less alongside Douglas when he collided with Nielsen. Think that one should have been a re-run. Also prior to the Scunthorpe 'comeback', there were quite a few home fans around where I was standing who were voicing their opinions on the 'new team' and they didn't seem very happy. Looking around the crowd last night it appeared that there were as many Sheffield fans there as there were Scunthorpe supporters which doesn't bode well for them when teams from further afield come to the EWR.

Smart move, I didn't travel either and I'm only 20 minutes from the track!

Thought you were working?

Same in North Sheffield, very light rain at present. Looking at the forecast this may cease before 7pm, dependant on how much comes down could be ok! Time now 16.34 hours.

To be fair to Glasgow,one or two of them had some mechanical issues, but apart from Worrall and Ayres the rest looked poor. Barker didn't get going until the end of the meeting and the race between him and Berge in heat 15 was great viewing, pity he didn't start the meeting like that as it would have made Glasgow look a lot better team. Lawson and Summers were particularly disappointing last night!

Best Thursday evening of the year so far and no meeting! Not good especially as last week was rained off. Ok so it was pencilled in for essential stadium maintenance, why couldn't that be done between September and March? No wonder people are losing interest in speedway and it's on its arse!

Looking at the official web page it says Berge and Howarth have been switched around for this meeting, surely at home Bates and Berge should be the changes. Bates has struggled at home this year, he's gating well but being passed coming out of the second bend into the back straight time after time. Berge is flying out of the starts and powering on when hitting the front. Perhaps it's has somebody said when this was suggested before, that Stead doesn't want to ride with him after what happened in the Ben Fund meeting.

Don't hold out much hope of getting anything down there tonight. If your top five ride ok don't think you'll need much of a contribution from your 6 & 7 to win by 10+. Suppose Steady will do his bit, ( with no mechanical issues),plus Garrity and Bates could do better than they did on Thursday. Can't see many points coming from any of the others, but I hope they prove me wrong. I was surprised how poor Paco was on Thursday at Sheffield, thought he'd got the measure of the track by the end of the season, know he only had a few weeks riding it, but he looked ok. From what I've read on here it appears that he struggles at Foxhall, in which case I hate to say it but his days may be numbered there!

Think there was a lack of track prep yesterday due to the weather. They left it late to water it as they had been anticipating the possibility of it raining at some time during the afternoon right up to the start of the meeting. The bloke with the mic said something about it during the team announcements if I'm not mistaken. But then again the track's been poor for the last few years on and off, there's been too many meetings when it's been slick with all the riders taking the inside line for four laps! One or two tried the outside last night with no gain as such when trying to chase the leader.

Who could blame him if he didn't!

After last nights performances if I were the team manager (or one of them), I'd change the riding order. With Stead looking to be well back to his old self I'd swop Berge and Bates. Berge looks like he can handle the bigger tracks better than Bates so I'd have him giving some back up to Howarth at Alwalton and also at home. Berge looked very fast out of the gates last night and once he hit the front he was flying! He couldn't quite get to grips with Ryan Douglas last night, who had a really good evening.

Thanks for that didn't want to make an unnecessary journey especially as I've spoilt the wifes' Easter Sunday plans!

Just been looking at the weather forecast for Scunthorpe, shows rain all morning but ok from 1300 hours on. Is it definitely on this afternoon? Can anyone over that side assist with the conditions?

Think that's why Leicester let us have the 5 - 1 in the next heat!

Where's that track?

Fine, but "meh" not much of an opinion is it?

If your 'apathetic, indifferent or uninterested' in this team, why bother commenting at all!

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