RobMcCaffery

Unless Polish law is particularly unusual (the deal was between One Sport and Eurosport Poland so presumably Polish law applies) I'd expect that the contract would be easily voidable if the circumstances had been changed by a third party.

Bear in mind while Craig will be facing the best in the GPs his Polish club, Rybnik, were relegated from the Ekstraliga last year so he will be racing in their second tier, League 1. Steve Worrall's Polish club, Rawicz race in the third tier, League 2 by the way.

Thanks, I'm fully aware of the background to the change. However I fail to see why it had to continue, beyond One Sport's own business needs. It's scarcely for the benefit of the sport overall to stage three more meetings of questionable relevance in an already busy international season. Yes we had a moderately entertaining speedway meeting on Sunday but was it really worthwhile beyond the needs of One Sport, the sponsors and a run out for the riders? The attendance figure tells it all and the TV audience figures will have been surely inflated by the long winter break. If it's on I'll watch it because I love speedway and would watch every meeting worldwide if it was humanly possible. I just am very suspicious of why these One Sport events exist, beyond the chance to make a a bit of cash, which after all is the aim of business, but is it the aim of sport?

Hmmm - a little too Zielona Gora-flavoured for my taste. My loyalties are now up for grabs. I can't see there being a queue. It was a reasonably interesting meeting but not a classic by Torun standards. Like many I find the whole sponsored team format questionable and wonder if once Onesport were prevented from using international 'teams' that it might have been wiser to simply close down the pairs. Still, it was a couple of hours' speedway and to me that's a better way to spend a couple of hours, even if the result is pretty irrelevant, but then we live in an era when even league matches are dismissed as 'meaningless' by some elements of the BSF. It was enjoyable but I am still very wary of Onesport, even if the conflict with Britain has been eased by the BSPA agreeing to be corralled into a two night week for their top league. I suspect they won't be happy until they have the SGP contract, at which point I doubt we'll see any more of these events or the SEC.

Bear in mind it used to be Setanta Sports and now broadcasts in Ireland as eir sports where they have a second channel. Currently there is speculation within the industry whether they will focus on Freesports in future.

Not the same without team eport 200.pl (sniff). Congratulations to Onesport for not crashing into the Motocross by three minutes.

Precisely.

Here we go again. New 'name'. same old tired, obsessive argument.... The late Dave Lanning once commented on his lively style that he would get messages in his earpiece from his director "Rave Dave, RAVE!". There seems to be an attitude amongst motor sport producers and directors that the commentators have to snarl like the engines and be extremely over the top, in the style of Murray Walker. If people think that commentators have a free choice then they are deluded. Nigel Pearson has worked extensively for both Sky and Talksport which are associated and both look for the controversial and sensational in the same way a 'red top' tabloid newspaper would. There's a market for it and while it may irritate those who know something about the subject the commentary team is normally focussing on the casual viewer who in a TV broadcast are probably in the majority. Nigel often says "It's all about opinions". Well, I wouldn't agree but then I favour a different form of journalism. It doesn't make him wrong and me right. It's just that different people have different needs. I was rightly criticised for my commentaries that they weren't lively enough, but then I made the mistake of pitching what I said to those who loved and understood the sport instead of simply trying to sensationalise, which to be honest is what most sports commentary tends to be these days outside the BBC. It didn't help in my case that I never got to see or hear my own work. I couldn't receive the channel and everyone was far too busy to let me have copies. Now I realise how I could and should have changed. Returning to the present, the stupid trend to make everything totally black or totally white shows up in the backward majesty's inane claim that Pearson and Tatum just gibber and shout incoherently and is disturbingly familiar and echos the same endless repetition by contributors who seemed to disappear just before another new name took up the 'divine cause'. It's ironic that they all claim that the commentators blabber on incoherently. I'd suggest they look in the mirror. I suspect also it will be one face and one mirror. Endless repetition of attempts to bludgeon their twisted views into others do little for their argument and cause you to be concerned about their mental health. Pearson and Tatum get it wrong sometimes, as did Dave Lanning, as did anyone who dared to try to commentate on speedway. Humans make mistakes. The trick is not to make it your life's cause to keep on repeating it in the stupid hope that others will be browbeaten into joining the divine cause and the loony's tantrum eventually gets his childish way. It's not going to happen.

With a sign on the gate in the electrified fence reading "Beware of the Leopard"?

Virgin Media have updated their epg and show it running from 2-4. Let's hope that there are no delays.

"The anti-Poole mob" translates as "Speedway lovers sick of seeing rules being stretched to the limit by one club in particular and the spirit of them being tramp[led upon". There is a difference between being insightful and being one step ahead and acting on or influencing information or decisions which others are unaware of using inside information. That is the concern of the "Anit-Poole mob". It is a concern and a suspicion, not a fact. Of course the simple-minded will try to dress it up as being "In the best interests of the sport", or "all fair in love or war". Others see it as pettiness and sheer over-loyal ignorance. As long as you win who cares how, eh? Now, I'm pretty careful not to belong to a 'mob' which is a pretty pathetic term to use but rather to be expected from you. There is a rotten smell of corruption which while certainly not proved hangs over Wimborne Road. A stronger sport with integrity would have clamped down years ago. I still remember the remarkable coincidence of Poole riders suffering endless engine failures at Swindon many years back, just when Poole needed to get their riders' averages down. Even Leigh Adams commented on how suspicious it was. That was the start and it's been going on far, far too long.

It may only be the first week, but this surely qualifies as 'post of the season'.

And conflicting. One of the best decisions I ever made was to let others worry about the rules, especially those regarding averages and team building, just know what to look for and try to just enjoy the matches. There was a time when I pored over every rule. One day I sat there trying to see how two rules, either side of a page could possibly co-exist. Any fool could see that they were in direct conflict. I realised it was pointless to try to understand something that was literally 'designed by committee' and was just a series of hole-plugging, knee-jerk reactions. It's a good job team managers have so little to do tactically when just understanding the rule book is more than enough to occupy them. Rather than give the job to ex-riders I'd be hiring a lawyer.... Giving up really helped me enjoy the sport so much more, and there's a few in here who could with learning the same lesson.

Yes it was one of those meetings where the scoring was more interesting than the racing. A highlight for me as a neutral was seeing Mitchell Davey's progress. To see a rider who at one time seemed unable to make the break-through into reliable scoring and had seemed lost to the sport emerging as a real talent, albeit at 28, is a tribute to his determination. I am sure success now tastes very sweet for him. His seven points could be argued to have swung the tie with Swindon scoring 3 more than their target of 49. Of course all played their part in a solid display and I suspect the Robins will not find the loss of Doyle as destructive as they might have feared. Belle Vue's mid-meeting slump was alarming and it was hard not to agree with those Aces fans who think Drozdz and Worrall should swap places. Damian is not an established star in Poland and has no heat-leader experience at the top level. There wasn't enough racing though and the outsidew line, except at the start, was totally useless to riders. It's one of the most frustrating aspects of modern speedway to see riders bravely opening the throttle, going for the outside and just falling further back. Instead the little passing we had beyond the second bend was experienced riders slipping through on the inside of the less experienced. With the recent weather though you have to be grateful that the Robins' track team produced a very suitable circuit for riding, if not racing. Their hard work at least gave us a meeting. Better times will come but if that new stadium ever does get built I do hope it will produce closer racing. I've been very disappointed by the racing at Blunsdon for some time. Putting that all aside, this was the first time I'd been able to get the Abbey, or indeed anywhere other than a one-off at Scunthorpe last year, for a couple of seasons. Thankfully I can now start watching regularly at last and I was just overjoyed to finally get back to watching the sport I love live. As for 'starting in winter', well I've known wintry Marches and superb Marches. Spring starts a few days after the official season start date and we have to get as many meetings in as possible before the May-August 'low season' when we can only run irregular meetings due to international demands and the attraction of other sports ;-) Yet again most tracks are running weekly until the end of April then it's back to the usual mess. Sometimes, you don't really know what you have until it's gone though. Well, when you get it back you realise even more!

There was a case in point at Swindon last night. The only rider to transgress was Dan Bewley in his first ride. After that he ran four dismal lasts except for one race when he made the gate and at Blunsdon last night that was good enough for a win. It does look like yet another well-intentioned but ill thought through rule.

I hadn't realised they still hadn't got a deal. Obviously if nobody is covering the matches there will be nothing for Premier/Freesports to show.

At the end of last year they were promoting the speedway as being on their Freesports channel in 2018. They weren't clear if all would be there or some still on Premier so it's very hard to advise on subscriptions. You could pay then find all the matches being shown free on Freesports, or not bother and find they're using Premier after all. In media circles the speculation is that Freesports is now their main focus so my guess is that's where we'll find the speedway. They are coming in for criticism about their organisation and seem to be 'shooting from the hip' a great deal of the time. Unfortunately it seems like we'll again have to wait and see. It is probably worth talking to them about your possible renewal, pointing out your concerns regarding the speedway. It seems that they are adding coverage deals all the time on Freesports, notably wrestling, cage fighting and pool, alongside the regular 'diet' of ice hockey and minor European football. The concern might be that speedway could get frozen out. There's also talk of an HD service, but not on Freeview due to space and cost constraints - it'd be satellite only. Most importantly it seems the coverage will be there, just a case of whether it'll be on the free channel or Premier. It's constantly changing and they're making Eurosport seem stable ;-)

It appears that Torun have relaid the first bend. Sunday's timings are 1.30 pm parade, 2.05 pm first race, UK time. Bear in mind we switch to BST overnight so the clocks here go forward an hour. I presume CET is also switching the same night. There could be problems with Eurosport who have live cycling scheduled on E1. E2 has recorded motorcycling from Bangkok which could be shifted but are due to show live Motocross at 4 pm. We'll have to wait and see. I'm sure David Rowe can confirm.

Steve Brown was the voice of Track Tapes and covered meetings in the London area, later going on to video work with KM Video and was the Arena Essex correspondent for Essex Radio in the early days of the Hammers. Excellent company and really knew his speedway.

Sadly Sportowe Fakty are casting doubt over Saturday's event. https://sportowefakty.wp.pl/zuzel/744481/get-well-przeklada-sparingi-i-odwoluje-treningi-co-ze-speedway-best-pairs For those unable to follow the link or translate it appears that this week's training match at Torun against Unia Leszno, having already been switched from Wednesday to Thursday is off again due to frost in the track, rescheduled for next Wednesday, and unless temperatures rise there is a risk that the pairs may have to also be rescheduled. They're hoping the track ca be readied for practice on Friday.

May be historic and impressive by modern standards but no competition for the great London stadia like Wimbledon or the old Belle Vue.

The last of the great, historic speedway stadia. Whenever I visited it gave me a taste of those great days of the sport, especially in London, when there was a top class speedway meeting in London five nights a week. The last whisper of those remarkable days has been silenced. Football always gets what it wants. If only it got what it deserved instead......

No, you have stated what your opinions are and as ever try to bludgeon the rest into submission. Most give up because there are far better things to do than deal with you. Who did die and make you god? If "99% of folk agree" you must have spoken to a hell of of a lot of people. That is a breathakingly arrogant comment. Anyway, if the majority of people here genuinely think speedway's just the same as ever and hasn't declined it says a hell of a lot about those posting here.

There is a huge difference between riding and racing standards. The dedicated speedway fan may find a great ride by someone way out in front absorbing and impressive, but I suspect most are more interested in seeing a race. They're the ones we need to get back and please.

Perhaps we're now seeing the real reason why Lakeside went National League :-(