stewmac

So inconsistent that he couldn't even be bothered to appear for Edinburgh's final meeting last year. I'm sure he was only brought back because no other Brit could be found to fill the position. And as for Davey? That may well be a nice lad, but nice lads don't win matches and he should never ever have been handed a racejacket.

Fact is Monarchs have flattered to deceive from the very first match this season. The back up to the heat leaders has been weak all along but has been ignored by the faithful in the hope that they'd eventually come good. They haven't. Too many inconsistencies even from the heat leaders, with only Sam Masters excepted. I'm afraid the bottom end of the team has (even though some will hate me for saying it) been nothing short of pathetic on far too many occasions.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Agreed. I was in Krakow last September - found it to be one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited - but it was totally spoiled by one thing. Drunk Brits on stag weekends.

Is there any good reason why the GP start time couldn't be further brought forward, to say 2pm? That might be the way to put the hotels in their place and boost the attendance. If there was an early flight down from Scotland, that would certainly perhaps entice me to return.

Sadly,if nothing else, it proved beyond doubt that being a big fish in the weakest leagues in so-called major speedway countries of Europe won't make you a world class rider.Maybe it's already too late, but if Cook really does have any serious ambition to go further, he has to stop riding against the riders he races week in week out and concentrate on getting into Poland and Sweden full-time.

Not sure how Kildemand managed to win heat 19!

Fabulous race from Emil there in heat 18 :-)

True, you were that guy. PM sent.

Perhaps he finally realised the stats he was comparing were the wrong ones!

There are always exceptions to any rule. Darcy in speedway, George Best and Gazza in football. But let's please not pretend they make it OK to ignore the most important things such as healthy eating, fitness and the correct head and mind. It's all important. If one aspect is missing, whichever one, the chances of succeeding (and staying at the top for anu length of time) are drastically reduced.

Iris123: As promised, please check the timings of each of these posts: Then you replied: Then I replied to your post: From your subsequent posts yesterday, I can only assume you thought that my highlighted quote at 2.40pm was referring to what I went on to talk about afterwards, when in fact it was clearly referring to the two posts previously. I even included a link yesterday from the BBC to back up what I was talking about. I hope I have managed to lay things out now in a way that illustrates for you what I was referring to. I am about to head to Varkaus, to see teacher friends there who can back up what I said about their primary school children doing an hour of PE every day as I went on to say at the end of the third quote. While I'm not arguing with your official stats, I have many primary school teacher friends all over Finland and they all have confirmed that their classes do much more PE than Scottish children do. This evening I'm watching the speedway match at Varkaus. But I'm not expecting to see any future world champs there ;-)

Iris123, I've no axe to grind with you, and I am not disputing what you have just been writing about. However, I repeat, you are misquoting me as I when I mentioned statistics, I was talking NOT about time spent on PE (which IS what the discussion went on to in further posts) but on the proportion of medals won at Olympics! I'm standing on a train platform right now in Lahti, Finland about to wave off my in-laws who are returning to Russia shortly, so I don't have time to go back and quote the posts directly to show you, but rest assured, if you are unable or unwilling to go back and read them, then once I have driven back to where I'm staying 100 odd miles north again, and had a sleep, I will certainly quote them tomorrow. You,and all others who read that post tomorrow will then see you are due me an apology for misquoting.

No, I was talking about the stats relating to medal winners. You clearly either haven't gone back and read the posts again, or you are unable to comprehend the thread. Which is it?

Well, while I must commend your detective skills iris123, and I'm delighted you went to so much trouble to try to disprove what you thought I was saying. However, if you go back and read these posts once more, slowly, you will see clearly that you have made a complete cock-up of what you were trying to disprove. The stats that I was talking about were the proportion of medals won by UK olympians, not the stats of how much time primary school children here in the UK spend on PE. Thanks for taking my quote out of context to try to make me look like a fool. I'll accept your apology any time you please. This article shows what I was on about. Granted, things have improved a little since 2012, so please don't waste your time researching to try to disprove me again. Because to try to do that, you do need to remember that only 7% of the UK population can access private schooling, which skews the figures you might quote quite drastically! http://www.bbc.com/news/education-19109724

I'm meeting some Finnish teachers tomorrow in Varkaus before heading to the speedway there. I'll ask them about it all ;-)

Oh dear :-( I'm in Finland on holiday right now and I haven't read the new curriculum guidelines yet. Sounds ominous...

Yes, so Finland is going down the same route as the UK. Fair enough. But my point was simply that kids in Scotland should be taught that sport is by its very nature competitive. To pretend otherwise seems to me to be cheating them.

What I said a few posts back was that most of this nonsense starts at primary school where the ethos is on taking part rather than winning at sports days. If you don't believe me I suggest you take a tour round some school sports days and you will witness it for yourself. As for the Slavic brothers quote you regurgitated, that was taken directly from a Russian relative of mine. My wife!

Despite what you say though, we do lack the mentality to win big in speedway. The SWC facts speak for themselves. While I don't wish to get into a debate about Tai, it seems almost unbelievable that our one world class rider, for whatever reasons, chooses not to participate. I'd imagine that in almost any other sport in almost any other country that situation simply would not be allowed to happen.

No. All I'm saying is that we have to adopt a more serious attitude to sport, fitness and crucially, winning.And in order for that to happen, we need far, far more money in schools for specialists and an end to the relentless cutbacks and austerity.

That's great that they proved to be winners. But you should check the stats. They tell the story quite plainly, unfortunately.In Scotland where I teach, primary school pupils are supposed to have 2 hours PE per week. Many don't, simply because PE is still by many seen as not one of the crucial subjects. Compare that to Finland, where I'm on holiday right now, where primary school pupils do an hour of PE every day! There's a huge difference in attitude right away!

The difference is that the vast majority of these medals you talk about were won by athletes who went to private schools. There the ethos is different.I hate private schooling myself, where the only reason for these places to exist in my eyes is to buy privilege. But with far more money and resources they get the idea of breeding winning sportspeople. I'm a primary school teacher in a state school and I can assure you that it's there that the problem starts from. The majority of teachers follow this politically correct bull that states we can't humiliate those who might not win. It bugs me to the hilt. Nobody is talking about humiliating them, but we simply have to instill the idea that if we want to succeed we have to accept that for all the tiny number of winners there will be many more losers. Going back to your post about the medals in Olympics, unfortunately not many speedway riders come through the private school system. I can only think of one in my 41 years supporting that has been any good, Mr Tatum himself.

Most of this nonsense starts at primary school where it's "the taking part that counts" at many sports days.

Every single word you say is correct. To answer your initial question, likely there is no plan.