RobMcCaffery

I think there are Monday TV events for a while now. There was a piece a while back which quoted a Polish source as talking about the new Friday-Monday TV service and saying how Saturday 'used to belong to the Grands Prix'. It could have lost something in translation but it is something to be carefully noted if true.

You do wonder if this isn't just a Covid crisis development, and this regular schedule of televised Monday meetings is an attempt to take Mondays off British speedway long-term. If this meeting was being staged in normal times with Britain properly up and running I can see quite a few names that would be expected to be in Britain on a Monday. It's a question of trust.......and I've lost mine where Polish speedway's concerned ;-)

"Today's meeting is decided on points over 15 rounds, unless we have a submission or knockout". Just like being at Eastbourne in the old days!

I wonder if the awful track preparation is a result of Torun's relegation from the Ekstraliga and a big reduction in budgets, including track curation. On a happier theme, how many ways can we pronounce Ermolenko?

Just waiting for the Box Nation audience to be wondering how the competitors can land punches on each other while riding bikes. Is Nicki P riding?

Join the club. It doesn't answer the minor point about the helmet colour revision where heat leaders/senior rider appear to be going mainly in yellow, Polish-style, instead of white.

Yes, the ideal source and typical of the Star's excellence in this troubled year.

Yes, we've fallen into an appalling gap between two extremes, that of a free for all and near-total discipline. I've watched over a hundred old meetings during lockdown and the free for all days resulted in far fewer delays than now. Yes you had to wait a few seconds while riders rolled into the tapes and rolled back. Even half a dozen such incidents would take at most 20-30 seconds until a clear start resulted. Take today. One less than perfect start and it's all back to the pits for a five to ten minute delay. The Polish answer IS the way and the cost of setting up any technology required will pay itself back in preventing the reaction "Not AGAIN, to hell with all this, what's on TV". ;-)

I visited Charles in his office once. Alongside being in a business meeting with Ivan Mauger it counts as one of my most memorable moments in the sport. I can't bring myself to watch the drone footage. I lost my track at the age of 16. It still stings. Keep fighting while you still have one brick to save. Once lost they don't come back.

One of my strongest memories of speedway at Eastville Stdium in Bristol was seeing Maurice touring the track by tractor, after racing had finished, taking up the shale to expose the sand for the next dog meeting.

"Coventry Drone" ? That's no way to talk about Peter York!

I'd be very surprised if it differs from the standard Premier/Freesports coverage, just with a different logo in the top right of the screen. With Eurosport only having two channels I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of 'overflow' on the likes of Quest when the speedway conflicts with the major events that Eurosport are acquiring rights to, notably the Olympics. At least with Sky and BT there were plenty of sports channels for us to fit into, even though we still ended up on the dreaded red button at times.

It's a marketing deal where Box Nation is included in Premier Sports packages on various TV platforms and on the online Premier Sports Player. Thus, with one notable exception anyone with the full Premier Sports package will have access to Box Nation. Therefore it can be used for "overflow". The exception is Virgin Media where it is still an 'extra'. Not all operating relationships are based on ownership. For example the Murdochs ran Sky for years without ever having anything more than a minority financial stake.

Precisely. At present Sky are showing football on their Pick channel in order to make the games that they are showing for free available on Freeview. There are very few truly independent channels. Most are owned by groups so if the main sports channels are full there are always factual, entertainment or even other sports channels normally dedicated to other sports that can be 'borrowed' within the group. Most aspects of TV can be explained, even if the explanation isn't always what you want to hear. There's too much money at stake for random decision-making. Some of these groups are very powerful multinationals. Not Premier though which was probably better known in its previous existence as Setanta Sports.

Unfortunately I can't access Freesat right now but none of my media sources show it returning. Are you sure you aren't talking about Freeviw rather than Freesat geoff58? They are two completely different services.

It may be back now - I haven't had time to check but it was most definitely pulled from Freesat on Tuesday June 30th due to a dispute over the Freesat epg charge. This is well documented in media sites and forums. This explains. https://rxtvinfo.com/freesports-departs-freesat

Everything about Premier Sports/Freesports is 'on the cheap'. There's only so much income you can get from charging £9.99 a month for the main channels and nothing for Freesports. You get what you pay for. I'm delighted they could be bothered to pay out for the Polish contract. They only picked up Italian and Spanish football when Eleven Sports UK operation failed. In turn they've had to give up much of their ice hockey coverage to BT because they couldn't afford it. Ultimately it is ALL about money. I worked for a channel where the subscription was voluntary! In other words they couldn't afford to pay Sky for their encryption technology. We used to carry ads asking viewers to send money in. I think you can see why it went bust.... As for getting what you pay for - the viewers got me... I occasionally got a co-commentator, but usually only if the producer saw a likely victim in the pits and talked them into doing it. Thankfully I didn't have to talk for twenty minutes while nothing was going on like Dave has to.

This often happens. It may be just temporary. Freesports will still be there, just not visible in the programme guide and should still be available on the "Add channels" feature, if anyone has the tuning details. Re today's schedule the speedway IS starting now. The programmer that Mimmo uses seems not to have been updated. Schedules on the minor sports channels like Premier/Freesports and Eurosport are notoriously flexible and TV/online schedules and programme guides often struggle to keep up.

Sweden has not been included in the UK Government's 'Air Bridges' whereby quarantine restrictions are ended between selected countries, 59 in total, from next Saturday, July 11th. So anyone travelling between Britain and Sweden continues to be required to quarantine for 14 days. Presumably while, for example, Poland to the UK is now open, Sweden remains isolated internationally.

The formula's first nine heats are the first half of the old 18 heat test match formula - and the early league formula in the 1930s in the UK, followed by three 'mixed' heats. It seems like a workable solution. I wonder if a rider will be nominated as a reserve to cover tapes or time exclusions, or will they just go with three rider races when they occur? The other consideration is what happens if a rider has to withdraw through injury? Injured Rider Replacement as in the UK?

Thanks. I wasn't sure. Very cautious posting anything these days. Hope the information helps.

Today's Air Bridge announcement by the UK Government will mean from July 11th people arriving in the England from 59 countries will no longer have an obligation to quarantine for two weeks. This deal is reciprocal so it has an impact on Poland's relationship with England. Poland, Denmark and Germany are on the list so it should now be possible for riders formerly exiled in Poland to be able to travel to England. Poland will no longer be able to claim a monopoly on speedway riders racing there. This excludes Scotland, Wales and Norther Ireland whose devolved governments have yet to follow suit. This does have an admittedly minor effect on the Ekstraliga and far more impact on England's potential to restart racing it would normally be better placed in the main forum section but given the uncontrolled behaviour in that section it's better left alone. It will also have an impact o the two lower Polish leagues in freeing up talent to ride in those leagues as well as any English activity. Unfortunately Sweden is not on the list so their isolation is set to continue for the forseeable future.

Assuming that that grid is in rider order I make it: (Order R-B-Y-W, not the UK system) 1 - 1,2 v 1,2 2- 3,4 v 3,4 3- 5,6 v 5,6 4- 3,4 v 1, 2 5- 5,6 v 3,4 6- 1,2 v 5,6 7- 5,6 v 1,2 8- 1,2 v 3,4 9- 3,4 v 5,6 10- 5,2 v 1,4 11- 1,4 v 3,6 12- 3,6 v 5,2 13-15 Nominated but I suspect based on actual scoring of riders. One other observation from that grid is that the Polish system regarding helmet colours may be in use, with yellow being used by the heat leaders/senior riders rather than white. If not you'll need to swap round the away riders in the above.

Box Nation is not included in the Premier Sports add-on to Virgin Media which is rather annoying. I'll just have to record and watch the two matches in HD on Monday.

Don't worry, with luck there'll be no speedway and you can reflect in the glory of being 'right'. Shame about everybody else.