BarracudaAce

I followed Phil's advice in his reply last week, but nothing has changed. I emailed Pinegen as advised, but have received neither a replacement copy of last week's Speedway Star nor a link to the digital version. If NewsTeam were made aware of my displeasure then, judging by today’s delivery, they are just being idiots. The lazy ignorant person making the delivery didn’t push the magazine fully through the letterbox again, infact there was more of the magazine on the outside of the letterbox (about 75%) this morning than there had been the last two weeks (about 50%). And it was all creased and torn again!! Ironically, I had to use some sellotape in order to read Phil’s 'Subscription Changes' article about the NewsTeam deliveries!!

You know Noaksey I didn't exactly as you suggested. Guess what? The lazy ignorant person making the delivery took no notice whatsoever and, infact, there was more of the magazine in the letterbox on the outside (about 75%) this morning than there had been the last two weeks (about 50%). And it was all creased and torn again!! Ironically I had to use some sellotape in order to read Philip Rising's 'Subscription Changes' article about the NewsTeam deliveries.

I see that Dave Goddard, in his Speedway Star interview this week, has confirmed that Premier Sports will only be showing the Sunday matches from the Ekstraliga in 2021. He talks about the fact that other sports were not operating last year and “so we were able to show everything”. Dave himself often used the term ‘delayed coverage’ last year when Premier Sports had ‘clashes’ of live fixtures between speedway and another sport. We then had these matches broadcast later - often at an ungodly hour – but at least they were broadcast. Why then can’t Premier Sports show the Friday matches in this same way in 2021? I, for one, really wouldn’t mind setting a recording for a Friday night match being broadcast e.g., at 2.00am on the Saturday morning. Surely, they must have room on the schedules to do this? After all, over the next 3 days, they have THREE ‘delayed coverage’ showings of the SAME Italian football match!! Whatever ‘reason’ they might have for not showing all of the matches, it really does demonstrate how low speedway is on Premier Sports' ‘pecking order’.

Thank you Philip, I have now sent an email. I think the Speedway Star team has done a fantastic job through these difficult times to enable us all to enjoy our weekly speedway reading fix. My anger yesterday was fairly and squarely aimed at the delivery person. Probably exacerbated by the fact that on Wednesday there had been a huge bunch of junk mail fully posted through my letterbox and laid there on the doormat in pristine condition!!

I trust other subscribers are getting a better delivery service than I am since this switch to this ‘personal delivery’ service. If mine doesn’t improve next week I will be cancelling my subscription. WEEK 1 The magazine was half inside / half outside the letter box. It was all creased and the front cover had been damaged such that the pages ‘caught’ each other as you turned from page to page. Had to place the magazine under a very heavy box for a day to ‘flatten’ it out. WEEK 2 The magazine delivered today is now in the bin!! It again was half inside / half outside the letter box. The half inside was torn around 2 inches across and the half outside sodden wet – it had rained sometime before I was up and about this morning at 7.00am. As I tried carefully to remove it from the letter box the sodden half just turned to a squelchy messy pulp. Just why the person delivering the magazine cannot push it carefully and fully through the letter box so that it drops inside the house is beyond me – other than him/her being lazy and not giving a damn.

Thank you R & R - much appreciated!!

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere or I've missed something obvious. The abandoned Gorzow v Czestochowa Rd 4 match is being rerun - but is it correct that the result will stand from the Grudziadz v Gorzow 9-heat Rd 7 match yesterday? If so, could one of our knowledgable posters help please, and explain the 'rules and regs' that govern why one is being restaged and the other not? Cheers.

Looks like Jack Holder has signed for Gorzow as their 'guest rider' for 2020.

Premier Sports at it again - unless they announced an extremely late change to their TV schedule after midnight last night and too late to be reflected on the Sky EPG. I double-checked around midnight last night before going to bed, and both the Premiers Sports Website TV Schedule and Sky EPG showed 1.00am - 3.00am Czestochowa v Wroclaw and then starting at 3.00am Polish Football. I set both programmes to record, as I know from experience Premier can have a tendency not to stick to their schedules - and again, it was a good job I did. The first hour of the 1.00am recording (still described as Czestochowa v Wroclaw) was some form of car racing before the speedway started. The 1.00am - 3.00am recording then stopped at heat 11. The 3.00am recording (still described as the Polish football match) then started with the remaining heats of the speedway, and Dave Goddard signed-off about 30 mins or so into this recording. So the speedway must have been broadcast at 2.00am - 3.30am. For anyone that might have missed the end of the match due to this, the Premier Sports TV schedule has both Sunday matches being shown again tomorrow from 2.00pm & 4.00pm (if they can be believed that is!!) Meantime, here is a link to youtube for the Czestochowa v Wroclaw match with Polish commentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_iczE91uzc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4zLasryu4Y Here's a youtube link.

Good point - I obviously hadn't thought that through fully!! Just watched it on Youtube. For those watching on PREMIER this seems to be the schedule for the matches this coming weekend:- PREMIER 2 – first showings of the four matches are:- FRI 26 JUN 5.00pm : LIVE coverage of LESZNO v LUBLIN FRI 26 JUN 7.30pm : LIVE coverage of ZIELONA GORA v GRUDZIADZ SUN 28 JUN 3.30pm : LIVE coverage of RYBNIK v GORZOW MON 29 JUN 1.00am : DELAYED coverage of CZESTOCHOWA v WROCLAW PREMIER 2 - other showings:- SAT 27 JUN 10.00am LESZNO v LUBLIN SAT 27 JUN NOON ZIELONA GORA v GRUDZIADZ TUES 30 JUN 2.00pm RYBNIK v GORZOW TUES 30 JUN 4.00pm CZESTOCHOWA v WROCLAW

Thanks for the info R&R. The situation of which matches are being shown isn't helped by the fact that the Premier Sports TV Guide and my TV EPG don't match for the same timeslot. The Premier Sports 2 Thursday 25 June 5.30 pm slot, for instance, shows Leszno v Wroclaw and Zielona Gora v Czestochowa respectively.

I wonder Dave if you would be able to ask a question of Premier Sports on behalf of Premier subscribers? Maybe they might take more note of something you bring to their attention rather than a subscriber sending an email? You mentioned on more than once occasion in commentary on Sunday - and again in your post - that there is no room on the schedule to show the Tuesday match Grudziadz v Rybnik. I wonder if you might be able to enquire of Premier Sports if they could use the Wednesday 12 midnight broadcast slot on Premier Sports 2 to show a different match? It is scheduled to be Lublin v Gorzow, which has already been shown live on Sunday afternoon and was repeated on Sunday night at 10.45pm. Even if we have to watch it just with graphics and no commentary (or even with Polish commentary) could they show either today's Zielona Gora v Czestochowa or tomorrow's Grudziadz v Rybnik in the Wednesday 12 midnight broadcast slot on Premier Sports 2 rather than showing Lublin v Gorzow for a third time? Thank you if you can bring this to Premier Sports' attention.

The Premier Sports website's TV Schedule displays Premier Sports 2 showing a repeat of Lublin v Gorzow on Wed 24/6 12 midnight going into Thurs 25/6. Yet, when I search 'Polish Speedway' on Sky Q it shows under 'On This Week', it displays Premier Sports 2 showing Grudziaz v Rybnik on Wed 24/6 12 midnight going into Thurs 25/6 !! So I wonder which match it will actually be? I'll record the programme to see if it is Grudziadz v Rybnik or, indeed, whether it turns out to be a completely different sport altogether !!

You're right about Handball and Volleyball Mike. The last time I was at Wroclaw coach station there were two huge posters on one of the walls. One was Maciej Janowski, but I didn't recognise the other. On asking someone they told me his name (must say I can't remember it) but I do remember being told he was a handball player and he was 'very famous'. And in a hotel I once stayed in Poznan, the foyer had photos of both the Poznan football team and the Poznan volleyball team. And Poznan has lots of interest in rowing with the Lake Malta complex which, I believe, has hosted World and European Rowing Championships.

I may have missed an announcement on this elsewhere - our friend Dave Goddard posted something maybe? - but is Premier Sports showing the rearranged Czestochowa v Grudziadz match tomorrow night do we know?

Mine hasn't arrived either - the first time for over two years that it hasn't arrived on either Thurday or Friday. Back then I 'phoned the Pinegen office on the Monday afternoon and they kindly posted out another copy. On the Tuesday morning, of course, both the original and replacement copies arrived!!

We had a trip on a different weekend to Wroclaw booked for the summer with Ryanair (the usual annual trip there to take in an Ekstraliga match from the original fixture list) and have just been informed that our inbound flight has now been cancelled. So that looks like a second refund claim from us that won’t exactly be as simple as it ought to be. Do be aware that if you go for the refund on your flights, you might end up as we have done for our first refund claim - our planned trip for the Warsaw GP. As soon as Ryanair confirmed the flights had been cancelled, we applied for the refund – we didn’t change flights as couldn’t make the current proposed restaging date fort the GP. We received an auto-email confirmation that the refund would be with us within 14 days, but 10 days later received a voucher instead. The voucher states that it is valid for 12 months from the date of issue but, if unused by the expiry date, can then be exchanged for a cash refund. Within the voucher there’s a link to where you can apply for the refund immediately, but it just puts you into a loop on the website with no way of progressing it any further. So, I did try the Ryanair ‘phone line and – amazingly I got through – and was told that refunds would not be paid until either (a) after the coronavirus crisis is over or (b) the expiry date of the voucher. If (a) is declared sooner than the date of (b) you can apply (again) for your refund then. They did say, though, it is likely to be done in chronological order of flight cancellations. So, August flight cancellation refunds will be quite a long way back in the queue anyway!!

I was just discussing some of this with friends in our WhatsApp group. Is it something that would help put things into more perspective, and show us how many ‘extra’ deaths there are each day due to the virus? Using the 500,000 total, that’s an average number of deaths per day of 1,370. They are announcing the number of Covid-19 related deaths at e.g. 900 each day – but what is that in relation to the overall total of that particular day? Was the number of deaths that day 1,370 + 900 = 2,270? Probably not, but neither is it likely that the number of people passing away from a condition not Covid-19 related will have fallen considerably too much lower than 1,370. (is there a figure to hand of by how many the average had fallen before 5 April this year v. the last 5 years?) So it is most likely somewhere between the two, but where between? However, given that we are being told many of those passing away had underlying conditions, would it be fair to assume that some of those 900 people who sadly died that day from or associated with Covid-19 would have died anyway from another condition. Not necessarily on that particular day, but not too far into the future. Maybe the talk of the ‘underlying conditions’ is giving some folks a false sense of security – those flouting the social distancing advice for instance. Would it, then, help hammer home the point of how this affecting us all also releasing the overall total of deaths, and how many higher this is than the average number of deaths ‘expected’ each day based on the 1,370 figure?

There's no doubt that this PK is a very exciting rider to watch when he's on-form and actually stays on his machine. My concern is that when I've seen him in Poland over the last few seasons he's fallen off almost as many times as he's completed a race!!

We're doing Wednesday - Monday flying out of Manchester. Like you, I love going to Poland and this will be my 17th visit. Our previous trips have taken us all over the country. Provided there are no delays to the flight's scheduled arrival time back on the Monday, I should just have enough time to get to the NSS if the Aces/Colts have a home match that evening!!

I bought my tickets a little earlier this morning with a virtually identical experience. It took a while to navigate through the process, but the site was probably being bombarded at the time. I've booked flights and reserved a hotel too. This will be my first time to the Warsaw GP, but not to Warsaw itself. We spent a weekend there a couple of years ago, but it rained on-and-off throughout and so we didn't get to do as much sightseeing as intended. We did, though, do a stadium tour and a river cruise. Looking forward to going back.

I wasn’t able to see the Wroclaw v Leszno match on Friday night, so can’t comment on the track conditions or the quality of the racing, but these reports are hardly glowing. I was at the 55-35 match three weeks ago, though, and saw some excellent racing. Looking at the individual riders score charts between the two matches, however, it would seem any changes to the usual track preparation didn’t make that much difference to the Wroclaw riders' scoring ability. There was, though, some notable differences in the Leszno team. For Wroclaw, there was really only Gleb Chugunov that had a notable difference, increasing his score from 1 point to 6 points. The others didn’t fare that much differently: Woffy 9 and 5+2; Max Fricke 6+1 and 8+1; Magic Janowski 5+2 and 7+1; Premyslaw Liszka 0 and 1+1 and Maksym Drabik 12 and 13. But the difference in some of the Leszno riders’ scores was far more dramatic, and the track conditions on Friday obviously affected these four very differently:- Emil Sayfutdinov UP from 7+1 to 13+1 Dominic Kubera UP from 3+1 to 8+1 Brady Kurtz DOWN from 11+1 to ZERO Bartosz Smektala DOWN from 11+1 (paid maximum) to 2+1 And, no matter how different it was, Janusz Kolodziej spiced up his 13 in August to a 15 points maximum. So, IF there was any intentional track ‘doctoring’ going on to flummox the Leszno team, it was far from an overall success – yes the 20-points winning margin last time was reduced to 4 this time around but, of course, Leszno themselves only scored 8 less points. It is just a huge shame if paying spectators were denied watching the usual high-quality racing and the Final not produce the excitement it was capable of doing.

Maybe we could have won by a bigger margin with Kenneth in the team but:- 1. His four programmed rides scored paid 10 - and Kenneth would probably have scored about the same? 2. Even if Kenneth had scored 10 (rather than the 6+4 gained from R/R) he couldn't have bettered the 2 x 5-1s in his heat 9 and 13 rides and, had he finished second to Musielak and Doyley (both quite possible) in heats 3 and 5, then Jaimon Lidsey would have been third, so still 3-3s. Yes, we could have won 51-39 if Kenneth had been nominated in and won heat 15, and so turning the Robins 4-2 into an Aces 4-2. Yes, we could have won 51-39 had Kenneth scored a 12 point maximum from his four programmed rides and then been last in heat 15 as Stevie Worrall was. Yes, we could have even won 53-37 had Kenneth done both - scored a 12 point max from his programmed rides and then won heat 15. Not impossible, of course, but given how Dan Bewley stated after the match how the track had changed through the night, and that Swindon's top 5 all won at least one race (as did one of their reserves) realistically was any individual rider going to put 5 winning rides together? Of course Aces supporters would have loved to have seen a 51-39 or 53-37 scoreline, but on the night (and remember Ellis Perks lost a point (and Aces gained one) with his last bend engine failure in heat 2) the 49-41 scoreline most probably would have been the same even if Kenneth had been riding. I would imagine too that is not very often you see:- 1. A home team win the match after having only one heat winner prior to heat 9. 2. An away team have six of its' seven riders win a heat. 3. And then that away team lose the match.

Was he? That is something that had gone completely of that batch of memories then!! (A joy of getting older I suppose!! LOL!!) And I was getting my miles and kms mixed up too....the two are around 140 kms apart (around 88 miles).