van wolfswinkel

Go on get over there to this friendly club on this lovely isle, hardly changed since the 60s!

Comfortable home win if it's on, not The Roobins fav track...Wolves have a decent line-up this year.

Another Abbey battering for Coventry. Only two last places... from Sedgy, solid all-round display from the Roobins, onwards and upwards for those Blunsdon Budgie Boys.

Thanks Bryn...will pop over for a chat.

Even those back-straight bogs could freeze-up tonight. Remember watching Swindon v. Rosco's Coventry on Sky a few hundred yards from the stadium in Mad Wellie's pub The Jovial Monk. Much warmer and saved 34 quid. Must have been 2010 when Rosco's Bees were stone bottom, then won at the Abbey and roared up the table to beat Poole in the play-offs.

You mean only 4 will be riding...if that's the case I'm not going.

Speedway is better when its dark, and there's always a poor turnout unless Poole are in town. it's always cold on Blunsdon Hill, apart from about 6/7 meetings in 2014, t-shirt weather..luvverly jubbly. I will have to take me own chair though as we haven't got that shiny new arena yet.

Don't mind paying 17 quid to watch Poole, Belle Vue, and Cov twice a season but with only 8 teams a lot of people wont be enticed to watch the likes of Leicester and Lakeside twice. Would like to see a big league of say 18/19 teams as they had in the British League heydays, when you had different teams such as Belle Vue, Coventry, Oxford, Ipswich, Reading, Swindon, Poole, West Am, Cradley Heath, Halifax, White City, Exeter, taking it in turns to win the league between 1965-85, much more interesting and competitive, with nearly 40 teams competing in the 2 divisions. There were at least 20 meetings nearly every Saturday throughout the season, with league, cup, and individual meetings, with Golden Helmets etc.,. Too many blank Thursdays now and people lose interest. Have more racing on the warmer summer evenings June, July, August, perhaps bring back Cup matches. This one-team dominance by Poole wont attract fans, harks back to the late 50s when speedway was also at a low-ebb, with Wimbledon winning it every year(apart from when those provincial upstarts from Swindon won it in 57), with very low crowds. More people watch the GPs now, league interest is on the wane.

Dry cold and sunny forecast for this evening's special "Return to the Abbey" extravaganza, Hans will do well at his former club....50-42 to The Roobins. Wrap up well up on The Hill tonight folks!

Where can I see this year's fixtures?...looking forward to visiting The lovely White Isle again this summer with my bruv. Do Wightlink still do the special deals? Last visited Smallbrook about 5 years ago when they beat Newport. Was less than 200 peeps there, friendly atmosphere compared to the more serious side of speedway at my local track Swindon.Tidy stadium, huge track, hope they can generate better crowds this time round. Was very processional racing though on my last visit. Is it right they had 3000 there once, as someone said, and they used to get about 600 in PL days up to 1000 holiday times? Good Luck to the Whites, and good to see Swindon's Lee Smart in the line-up, as local lad Chessell was riding on our last visit.

Decent weather forecast...will go for Budgies...50 Bees.. 42

Good Luck to Reading''..last visited with Swindon in 2007. Sad to see the derelict site when I drive past every month. Always one of the better supported clubs in 80s/90s...got bigger crowds than the football club sometimes when they played at Elm Park.

New world record

Three cheers for Rosco, Morra, and Sedgey, off to the Great Western Hospital in Swindon this arvo to hand out the 300 Easter eggs to kids that weren't used at yesterday's rained-off meeting.

Christ, Morra's clothes will be getting thrown out of the window when they get home!

I wasn't too far out...what a roobish Roobins team this will be with probably only The Doylemeister gonna be top-notch, like the old Leigh Adams days.. Morra needs to step up to the plate. Can only see a boring Elite League with Poole dominant, if Swindon, who were the last team to beat them in a Grand Final, get beaten by such a margin it's ominous for the rest. Hope Belle Vue have a good season. Must be like watching football in places such as Scotland, France, Germany, when you have Celtic, PSG, and Bayern Munich runaway leaders. Perhaps a good thing Sunday's match could be called off, and if Swindon have a bad year, and with no new stadium, crowds will surely tumble, with even some of the 1200 diehards deserting them.

The Roobins are normally roobish at Poole so will go 68-24 to The Knobs.

Wouldn't have thought Arry and Derek knew what fruit was, just a plate of pre-match pie n' mash. Remember Billy Bonds saying when he signed for West Am from Charlton had pie and chips at home in Woolwich then walked miles to Upton Park smoking a fag. Probably carrying a pint as well!

I remember riders used to ride on some crap tracks years ago, but times have changed. Witnessed a few bad accidents at Swindon with riders getting badly injured smashing into lamp standards, thankfully we now have air-fences. Footballers and rugger buggers don't have to play on muddy fields now, and we have more elf and safety awareness in sport and life in general thank christ. Even pro footballers complain if there's not the right kind of fruit in the bowl, or the temperature isn't right, couldn't imagine the likes of Charlton, Best, Moore, Greaves, etc., doing that. Workers quite rightly today wouldn't put up with some of the poor and dangerous working conditions of years ago. It's not the 60's/70s/80s now, and I cant blame the riders for not wanting to risk their necks on powerful machines with no brakes in the name of entertainment. I started watching speedway in the "old days"(sadly the year my hero Peter Craven was killed), and we old gits sometimes look through rose-tinted specs.

What a joke speedway can be...6000 people turn up for a Grand Opening that is called off because the track is unfit to ride, and 2500 turned-up for a farewell meeting at Swindon that wasn't. Farcical for a sport that is losing fans on a monthly basis. The fans are being treated like mugs, and will just vote with their feet and spend their hard-earned money watching some other form of entertainment. There are better things to do than stand around in the bloody freezing cold.

Swindon Town average around 7000...Robins around 1400, Wildcats ice-hockey around 1000. Sure Newcastle would love to average 1500, and if Belle Vue don't sort their new track out wont be getting anywhere near 2000!

What's the capacity of the stadium?

Sounds like a bit of a balls-up at Somerset and Belle Vue, where 6000 turned-up at the new stadium. Hope there weren't too many Roobins fans wasting money travelling down to Zummerrzet. The season has hardly started and the sport is already shooting itself in the foot. Hoping for 2 decent matches against The Knobs over Easter with ok weather to get the fans in.

Strewth bloody gnats pee mate,nobody drinks it Down Under. Perhaps roo and croc will be on the menu there now. There is loads of workshop space at the farm.

Good to see Mike Sykes of M&S Van and Truck Rental renewing their main team sponsorship of The Roobins. Was chatting to him the other day at their Cheney Manor base...discounts for speedway fans. Team Australia based at Stonehouse Farm, Lydiard Millicent now.