DaveWayne

Oh yeah, I forgot, it's Sheffield therefore they must be deliberately cheating. 😴

He isn't 😉

First and second yet to be decided, but on current form it is highly likely that Leicester will finish top. Next week was planned as a blank week for build up and organisation of the semi finals. If they had waited till next Friday to announce the dates and fixtures everyone on here would be moaning about short notice for arranging travel plans. If all 4 teams are in agreement then what is the issue ?

What makes you think Ipswich would have been riding a week later if it was against Sheffield ? The first semi is 1st v 4th and Ipswich finished 4th. The only variable was whether they were against Leicester or Ipswich.

Yes, which was the match I was expecting it to be as the British Speedway twitter account had published the revised screenings nearly 2 months earlier. It wasn't me that had a problem with it. 😉

Agreed it makes no difference to Belle Vue whether fans travel or not from a financial point of view, but surely it makes sense not to pee off your fan base by allowing them to travel on false pretences ? In all honesty, a win was always going to be a tough ask with your full 7 riders, so knowing you were a man short may have seen some of your fans choose to stay at home. Imagine how disappointed they were to turn up and discover the line up change that could have been announced by your own club 4-5 hours earlier.

But probably not as early as Belle Vue did. Football teams don't leave it to the home team to announce both sides, they put their own team sheets on social media. Personally, I didn't care who was riding for you, but I'm sure some of your own fans would have liked to have known before setting off as it was obviously going to have an impact on your chances, so they may have decided to stay home and save the petrol and admission money.

It's all part of a package through Virgin, I don't subscribe to it as a separate entity.

Are you trying to imply that Sheffield knew but chose not to publicise the fact ?

The irony of complaining about the 'tedious trolling' of the Aces, but in the same post having yet another dig at the Sheffield track despite it being completely irrelevant to the rest of your post !!

I can't comment on that as I don't use Discovery, I watch the matches on Eurosport. I got the info from the British Speedway account on twitter and the image on my phone showing last night's match was downloaded on 9th July.

The changes to the televised fixtures were announced about 7 weeks ago.

He is out on track after 4, 7, 11, and 14 every meeting. There are 4 rakers on each bend on track after every race. So many experts on here accusing the track staff of doing nothing, when they have no idea of the facts.

Tractor going round at the minute and 4 rakers on each bend between every race !!

Holder, Woffinden, Musielak, Kerr, Vissing, Gilkes was a pretty bad run for Sheffield last year.

Again, the gamble of having the 'best 2' riders in the league has been a factor in this as they are virtually 'irreplaceable', but the Ipswich management made that choice. It is fantastic to see these riders in our league, but it severely weakens the team if they are missing as there is a compromise in the remaining 5 riders to fit the limits. Not quite the same level, but losing a 1 and 5 at the same time will rip any team apart, so yes Sheffield had a similar situation last year when they lost Holder, then his replacement Woffinden, and then Musielak. The new 75% rule has scuppered Ipswich with Emil, but can't be blamed for not replacing Doyle. He announced at the beginning of June that he was out for 4-6 months. He obviously wasn't coming back this season so why run R/R for so long ? OK, a different rider probably wouldn't have reached the same heights, but a settled team member with a couple of months to get used to the UK tracks prior to the business end of the season would surely have been better ?

Fair enough mate - I just went by what it said on the tin. 😉

The irony of that first sentence bearing in mind the grief your fans dished out to Sheffield for their use of guests in last years playoffs when both their 1 and 5 were injured.

Not much better if you tried to record it in Eurosport on Virgin as the scheduled programme changed to Olympics at 8pm so mine stopped recording. Luckily I had only started watching a few minutes behind actual time and this bit coincided with Picko arguing about the red flag so I didn't miss any races !!

I'm pretty sure we are in agreement as your reply mirrors a lot of what I said. Yes, the promoters need to gamble. The fans want to see the world class riders and a league match containing Doyle, Sayfutdinov, Woffinden, and the Holder brothers is something we could have only dreamed of a few years ago. Sadly, it hasn't worked out for either team this season due to injuries, although so far we haven't suffered quite as badly as last season. As you say, when the gamble fails there is no sympathy from others as everyone wants to see their team win, irrespective of the circumstances.

Isn't that just a case of a gamble taken by the management though ? Your last line sums it up, that your team 100% relied on the top 2 firing on all cylinders. It was the same last year, especially away from home, where the bulk of the points always came from Doyle and Emil. Bringing in Ellis strengthened the 1-5 this season, as has Thompson's performance, but it was a huge gamble to put all your eggs in 2 baskets so to speak. Sheffield in a similar situation in that they chose to run with 2 rising stars this season in order to have a stronger 1-5. Losing Tai has had a massive impact due to the way the team was built and running R/R away from home has been a struggle at times, but what can you do when 6 out of 7 are riding on the same night ? Both managers took a chance with their team structures this season, and both have suffered for it, but without the injuries they would have been way ahead of everyone else.

Completely irrelevant. As per the link, the decision was made several weeks ago and was due to the agreed terms of the contract.

Contractual obligation.... https://britishspeedway.co.uk/rowe-motor-oil-premiership/premiership-fixture-update-5/

Different maybe, but nowhere does he suggest it was dangerous.

No superfan stuff at all. Just don't see the point in walking out on your team when they need you most.