buckie

I second the previous comment and would also like to wish Jack all the very best for the coming season. The Parkinson-Blackburns are a lovely close-knit family and will be very much missed at Perry Barr and will always received a royal welcome from Birmingham supporters when they come back - no doubt to make us fervently wish that they were still with us! Like most others, I am very sorry to lose Jack's services, but thank him sincerely for all of his efforts whilst he was in the yellow and red. Best of luck for the future Jack.

So I have been told, Taylor Hampshire has secured a University place somewhere in the South of England so would have had difficulty in getting to Perry Barr on a Wednesday night - hence the necessity for him to ride for a Southern club. He did make very good progress last season despite his equipment sometimes being iffy and I wish him well at Kent where he will be a useful acquisition.

I think this would have been Marshall Pugh - but I'm not sure he was a Spaniard. He did well in meetings held in Majorca but struggled at Canterbury and soon disappeared.

Unfortunately, Guest Riders remain a necessary evil for speedway, and as much as I dislike the system I have to admit that I can't think of a workable alternative which would do away with the need for them. As many people point of, comparisons with football have no relevance. A less talented footballer replacing an injured colleague can be adequately covered by his team-mates with a slight change of playing style. If he isn't up to scratch, then his team-mates try to keep the ball away from him or position him were he can't do too much damage! Football is a resuts orientated sport - for most supporters the final score is all that matters. Whether the match they have watched was entertaining or not matters nothing, but speedway is nothing if it is not competitive and the teams need to be reasonably well balanced to achieve this. My gripe with guest riders is really the way that promoters seem to regard it as the first option and not the last. Both guest rider and rider-replacement rules seem to favour the already strong teams and handicap the weaker ones, so a possible solution might be for a guest rider's average to be only enough to take the overall average of the team for whom he is guesting, up to the points limit instead of as at present, allowing a guest with an average up to that of the rider he is replacing. This would create a situation in which rider-replacement would be a better option in many cases, and although rider-replacement isn't a favourite rule for many supporters (including myself) I still prefer it to guests.

May I as a lifelong supporter of Birmingham, add my congratulations to all those who have worked so hard and for so long to bring this project to fruition. It is great news for Belle Vue and for speedway that this new stadium is now on the brink of being started. Clearly the project will have to be approved by the planning committee and I know from experience that this can be an involved and frustrating obstacle, but my belief is that in Belle Vue's case this is just a formality as it appears that it will be Manchester City Council and not Belle Vue Speedway who will be lodging the planning application. During the battle to get planning permission for Birmingham, we made enquiries about two major events which had sailed through the planning process, namely the Superprix Road Race and two pop concerts staged at Villa Park. The Superprix could be heard clearly from Walsall (10 miles away from Birmingham) and the pop concerts could be heard at Lichfield (15 miles away). Both events were promoted by the City Council whose members had full access to the planning committee members and they had a unique method of dismissing any potential noise issues by not asking Environmental Services to conduct any noise testing. The first of the pop concerts produced a horrendous level of noise and prompted both the Aston Councillors and the Aston MP to object strongly to another one being staged, but the Council's line was that the promoters (themselves!) had complied with all the conditions, so there were no grounds for refusing permission. I wish Belle Vue and their long suffering supporters every success in the future and look forward to making an early visit to the new stadium.