Terrace Grumbler

I hope you're right...but look at the words of the statement: "there is now every intention to take our club forward into the second half-century of their existence”.

I hadn't given much credence to the "team of second strings" line of argument until last night, when our no. 1 and no. 5 could not lay a glove on the opposition and as a result we were completely outgunned. I do wonder whether some of our team may have thought it was a hopeless cause and were beaten before a wheel was turned. I thought Ludde did a great Rene Aas impression, looking down at his motor. Great stuff from Tero though, a real fighting win in heat 19 which spared us a few blushes, stood as we were with the Somerset massive. Anyhow...no more speedway this year* so let's have some fun picking next year's team * I can't find anything on the Redcar website about amateur meetings., #2 daughter is at that stage where she can recite team averages and in search of speedway would want me to take her to Outer Mongolia if the Ulan Bator Golden Helmet was being contested. As Teesside is rather closer, taking her there may be more practical!

Well, I enjoy watching Ludde in full flight around the boards, as we saw a couple of times yesterday, and I very much hope we see him in our colours next season as well. (Oh, and he's good value on Twitter). As for his away form, try a reality check - the days of riders of the standard of Eriksson, Walsh and Olsen as heat leaders are long gone as (at PL level) are the guys who can ride any track in any condition. I'll be happy with Steve and Lud in the team next year but I won't be holding my breath at some away circuits. I wouldn't say that if you choose not to go, you're not entitled to express an opinion on the team, but it helps to see the riders week in week out. For instance, to pluck a name from the air, I saw enough of a certain Manx rider to form the view that while he may have known about team riding (I believe that this might have been mentioned on here before), he rarely finished a race in a better position than he held coming out of the second bend. For what it's worth, and without knowledge of what the rules on reserves will be, I would like - if affordable - to see us keep Steve, Lud, Tero, Simon and Lewis R and build around them. if Lewi K is fit (and it was great to hear him being so optimistic yesterday) I would try to fit him in as well. That said I have great faith in George's ability to build a team and I'm sure he'll do us proud.

A move to the National League would surely be unsustainable financially as the number of meetings would fall as would supporter numbers, and that may make paying the rent problematic to say the least. While I thoroughly enjoyed the Conference when we were in it, the thought of watching wobblers on dud equipment and away teams turning up with 4 riders would probably rule me out, certainly as a season ticket holder. Oh, and I thought I had seen the last of the all-action style of Tony Atkin.

Well that would suit me, but from memory the dog track at Boldon is different from how it was in the 70's - if I'm right there is no open terracing at all now, anf if so it would be watching speedway from a goldfish bowl I recall someone saying (years ago) that the rental would be very high, and there's also the question of planning permission. I wouldn't much fancy going back to Monday nights, either.

It was revealed tonight that an announcement about Newcastle speedway will be made at the meeting on 27 September and will not be leaked to the press beforehand. Ruffdiamond says he doesn't know what it is ; Dantodan probably reckons he'll become in the know in the next fortnight but isn't yet ;-) ; Tsunami probably knows but ain't saying...and I have no idea at all. Idle speculation on the terraces that it is curtains made my daughter cry. To cheer her up we speculated that it may be : 1. We're going EL next year with Nicki P at No. 1; 2. We're going NL and Banger is coming out of retirement to ride No. 1; 3. The club will become a public company and will have to raise £x to ensure its future 4. William Hill are to take over, the club will be called Newcastle Dogs and Golden Miller will come out of retirement to ride at No. 1. Haway boys and girls. Can you second guess George?

Disappointing. Terry Lindon?

Er...aren't we rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, gentlemen? On the basis that Sunday will very probably be the last meeting of the season, I have some important questions: 1. What happened to the George English Snr Memorial Trophy? It was always a good way to bring the curtain down; 2. Why isn't there a riders v. mechanics tug of war on the centre green? 3. Will the Key Draw ever be back? Seriously...I know money is very short, but on the basis they all bring decent travelling support, next season how about a Northern 4TT with Berwick, Glasgow, Workington and ourselves?

I wonder if Peter W is feeling the six-year itch...and perhaps Wesley could fit in at No. 7?

I have missed a couple of meetings this season but yesterday's was about as good as I have seen. Hard, fair racing and passing, top stuff. it was hard to judge Andersen - is he Bjerre or Knudsen? On the evidence of yesterday I don't think he's Kenneth but he improved and was competitive in heat 15. Good luck to him, anyway. I think that appreciation is due again for Newcastle's (George's?) ability to give confidence to riders - I really didn't think we would see a great deal from Simon N but (to borrow one of Roy's favourites) he put in some cracking rides yesterday.

White Knight, while I normally agree with a lot of what you say, I don't think that there is a real comparison to be made between the Worralls and the Owens - Tom and Joe simply bossed the NL, home and away I have brilliant memories of both, and especially of Tom. Don't get me wrong, I love watching the Worralls as well, but they don't dominate the way the Owen boys did. Something that mystifies me is how the team drew such big crowds when so many of the meetings were to all intents and purposes walkovers - but we all came to BP, week in week out. PS sorry not to reply to your post direct but I am on my mobile and for some great it won't let me do that.

What concerns me is how people would get to know if we had a stronger team - Barry W's pages in the Pink were always excellent, and he also contributed to the Chronicle...the Pink is of course now only a memory, and the Chron gets more football-fixated by the day. People who stop coming to BP presumably also stop buying the Speedway Star (if they ever did) and with the dedicated Ceefax pages also long gone, what is left other than (intermittent) reports on home matches in the Journal and, I guess - though I don't read it any more - the Chronicle. (Do we still get on Look North? I'm never in the house when it's on).

On a track set up for gate-and-go riders Newcastle came a cropper when they didn't. The problems are epitomised by Henry (who is the mirror image of Garrity) and Kerr - I thought that he couldn't be bothered unless he gates, but it seems I was wrong; in heat 15 he gated but didn't try to hold his position. I don't mind if we lose : the trophies are meaningless in this league. But I don't like it when members of the team don't appear to be bothered. Until now I hadn't thought that it would be worth changing the team, but I have changed my mind : let's give Dimitri Berge a go, if he's available and willing to come (and he is affordable). One last word about the track: the amount of track work seems far more than we had in the past - I wouldn't mind if it created a good rack surface, but it doesn't. Is the season over?

A few chickens may be coming home to roost this evening, I fancy.

I was just wondering who has that accolade at present. I ask only because now and again the rabble who come to Brough Park with me [ok, my family] award the title "Master of Brough", - the subject happened to come up while watching the Sky match from Wednesday and I recalled that a relatively recent "holder" was James Grieves (in his first season)

Well, look on the bright side - the season will now finish in late August instead of mid-August...

I don't know any riders socially and do not claim to be "in the know", but I do know a ranking bad performance when I see one, and that is what we had this evening. Oh, and quite what a "purist" (= speedway snob?) could take from the efforts of most of the Scunthorpe team, I do not know. To the non-purist, they stank for place out.

On a much lighter note than yesterday, if my hearing wasn't playing up, didn't I hear Roy mention that Ludde's girlfriend is selling t-shirts? I'd buy a couple if I knew where to ask.. Can anyone help, please?

Mr. Blobby, sorry I can't get my phone to quote, but to reply to your post, the point isn't why Benko is not here (everyone will have nothing but sympathy for him and his family)but the Plymouth promotion's failure to replace him. I wouldn't have commented if it were not for the history of Plymouth no-shows (i don't remember Ben Barker ever turning up). Lewy, why would the position have been different if, God forbid, Benko had been injured? My point is that turning up without a full team is poor. Possibly an unworthy thought, but I wonder if more effort might have been put in if this meeting had been at Plymouth.

Yes, the latest example of Plymouth's disrespect for the paying public of Tyneside: will the BSPA coffers be swelled by a fine? 15-9 and 4 heats, incidentally.

I don't quite "get" Rosen - lots of people whose opinions I respect are full of how good he is but it seems to me that most of his points are won from the gate, and he's not particularly quick anyway. Funny how different people see riders in different ways : Ludde would always be the first name on my team sheet, but I guess he's like Marmite. (But please can we have an outside line for him?)

I think we're too far into the season for changes to have much effect. The position is not surprising but still disappointing; it looks like another season as also-rans and we're getting close to the time when you look at the fixture list in the programme and think that there aren't many meetings left...but it seems the season only started a few weeks ago. Such is life.

Although we've pretty much stopped going to away fixtures, I'll be in Yorkshire this afternoon and will go if I can - I love Owlerton, it's so different from Brough Park...and the chance to see Wilko in a Diamonds race jacket again!

I'll look forward to seeing Newman again but think that how competitive the meeting will be depends on which Ryan Fisher turns up (I hope it's the take-no-prisoners panto villain one). None of the other Plymouth riders has any great rep (or any at all) around BP...remember when Morten Risager was the next big thing - what happened?