spanner47

No real need for awarding fixtures, just make them ride in the first place. Surely the promoters must see the problems we do, but we know the solution, but they do nothing about it. The K.O. cup is the one that always gets me, bloody obvious the teams in the play offs are likely to be the same as the ones in the latter stages of the cup, but still we wait and wait for the cup to be sorted every year.

There isn't really a curfew at most tracks that must be adhered to, it's just there so a promoter can save money when he wants too. At Ipswich there's been a few occasions when the music and talking has stopped but the racing continued. If 10 heats have been concluded by 22-00 the curfew will kick in, but guess what will happen if only 8 heats have been completed?

Well done to all those involved for getting 30 heats done in such quick time, shows it can be done, but most promoters just use the old curfew excuse to save a few quid.

Fair comment, but Edinburgh haven't been able to ride for the past few weeks due to the unavailability of the opposition, so they'd have only had one meeting anyway.

Monarchs website says 20-30 for the 2nd meeting, SpeedwayGb states 20-45. Let's guess sometime later than advetised.

I've been spouting on about having a fixture coordinator for years, I never realised we had one. Problem is, Mr Vatcher isn't given enough power. Clubs should not be allowed to say no once, let alone twice. Surely it's better to ride with one rider missing in July than have the current mess we have at the moment. We all want to see our own 7 riders, but in the current climate most fans would accept 6, or maybe even 5, certainly better than some of the joke teams that have been put out lately. Either that or move all Speedway to Ipswich where it only rains once a year when speedway is due.

Edinburgh must be the only team that would rather run a double header that ride on an off night. Obviously at £30 a head they deem it financially viable, just hope the handful of Ipswich fans actually get to see 15 heats for their money. If memory serves the only double header that has run the full course this season was the bank Holiday one at Swindon, in all other cases fans have been short changed.

Kevin is just what more tracks need, so much time hanging around at speedway you need someone to amuse the crowd though the "nothing" minutes. Sorry Cookie, you're in a very small minority if you don't appreciate the good work that Kevin does.

More chance of the BSPA turning into a transparent organisation that puts the sport and it's future ahead of themselves and the next few months. But it would be nice if all threads weren't ruined by these morons. Thankfully in the 2nd Division most threads are free of this crap, except for one sad creep that hasn't got a life. When Ipswich were in the 1st Division Belle Vue threads were usually moron free, but I notice they've even got one paininthearse these days. He's probably a normal person, but he obviously can't accept that others might have a different opinion to his.

On the assumption they'll be no TV money in the future, the top riders wont be here. North and South would be the obvious thing to do, but riders would still have to ride in both leagues to make up the numbers. But clubs wont change their race night, it would be financial suicide for most to do so. So put the Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday clubs into one league and the Thursday and Saturday clubs into another. Luckily that's also two equal leagues, but would the handful of clubs in the 1st division that can get crowds of 1,500 to fund a half decent side want to weaken their teams to comply with the poor relations that only get a few hundred? Will they try and improve the product for the few? Of course they bloody wont, they've been diluting the sport for years, and will continue to do so.

This is the problem when the sport is run by those who were going to gain out of the deal. Other sports that got TV deals spent some of the money on improving their product, and insisted that some of the money given to the clubs had to be spent on youth development and stadia improvements. Such a shame that most of the money ended up in the bank accounts of foreign riders and some of it wasn't put aside to help our youngsters improve, as we witnessed over the weekend, our boys need some help.

Sorry if this has been mentioned earlier, but I've brought it up on various threads and never got an answer. If you google "Sky TV deal" it states a 5 year deal signed in 2014, this would mean the clubs still have got one more year of the cash to come, or was there a clause that they could bail out after 4 years?

Just the same with the ELRC fiasco at Coventry a few years ago. The BSPA Chairman told us there would be a "full investigation". There was, but as usual the BSPA never released details of the outcome. As it transpired Mr Horton was found "most culpable" and ordered to compensate Sky (rumours at the time suggested £20,000ish). I suppose if it had been released that he was "totally guilty" (like he was) then the poor punters that had a wasted day out would have been in a position to claim as well. The only good thing I can say about the BSPA is, they aren't as corrupt as FIFA.

I'm only being realistic, I fully understand as a panthers fan you are currently worried. Any club that's being kept afloat by a sugar daddy/mummy can't go on forever as eventually the wallet/purse gets closed. Sad, but true.

Yes Cookie, we can all do the maths, so the two divisions must ride on different nights. But losing a track or two wouldn't be the end of the world, as the shortage of riders is only going to get worse.

I'll wait until the play offs before going again this season, totally hacked off with the whole sport at the moment. I've met a few promoters and they seem intelligent people, why do they always leave their brains at home when they go to the conference each year? Unless they sort out the mess the sport is currently in, then I wont be going again next season. If they cant do it, then let some of us have a go, it's quite simple, either have separate race nights for the 2 leagues or abolish doubling up, and also don't forget to employ an independent fixture co-ordinator, so we don't have this end of season crap currently happening around the Country.

Has Ged finally given up? Just hope for the fans there's another fairy godfather prepared to come along and keep the club afloat for another year, but surely there's only so many people with deep pockets prepared to keep this club going. Meetings like this should never happen in our league, par for the course in the joke that is division one, but not ours.

Obviously the crowd levels at Foxhall have been acceptable for a few years, as I'm sure John or Chris wouldn't have funded it out of their back pockets like successive Peterboro promoters have had to. For some reason Peterboro has been beset with problems in the past few years, I suppose a lot of this is down to not having a regular raceday/night. Let's just hope Ged carries on funding it, or another promoter can be found to keep it alive, I'm not one of these that doesn't want tracks to close, but I want to see the good ones stay open. When posters mention about a track closing down on here they get jumped on, but they all hate doubling up, do the maths.

Atmosphere as expected against pointless opposition was dead. As for an awful turn out???? Most clubs in our division can only dream of a crowd half that size. You have to take into account it's easily the biggest Speedway stadium in the country, so even a crowd of 1500 looks lost in there.

He so nearly blew it. Really only needed 3rd after killer blew it, but 2nd to be sure. So close to going through the tapes, did a double jump but just missed them, all four back then no problem. After the worries in the pits at lunchtime saying that the track was going to be just the white line, it wasn't too bad. Someone mentioned earlier how the Russians love a track grade, but this appeared to be mainly down to Phil Morris insisting they got it right,but the Russians needed plenty of breaks due to the fact that they all smoke and wanted to out for a fag. But one has to question the point of track grades at certain tracks and this one in particular. The racing was much better 2 heats after a grade, so why have so many? I know they have to have a break to allow the riders in 4,8 etc to have a break, but I honestly think this track might have been better without so much grading, but that's just my untrained thoughts. Is this p!ace ready for a GP, can't imagine many places would let someone like me into the pits and into the jury room without any wristband or accreditation, but as soon as I spoke English I was just waved through, I only wanted a yarn with some riders and a free programme pack, mission accomplished, I'm sure if they get a GP they'll tighten things up a bit.

When you look at a map it's bad enough, but speaking to lads that had to drive it this morning it's worse than I thought. As driving through Ukraine or Belarus is a no no, you have to head north and go via Lithuania and Latvia, thus putting a lot more mileage on your journey. Kai Huckenbreck's van left on Tuesday. On the plus side I would imagine most of the others do have set ups in Poland, so not too bad for them, but still a very long drive. As my bus pulled into town last night the sign read "Moscow 980km".

Half way through practice and messrs Morris, Castagna and Durno are having problems communicating. They've been asking for the track to be ripped up, but so far all they did was rip a small section up. Phil Morris even showed them what he meant by ripping it up, no one wants a white line meeting and unless they improve the track this afternoon, that's what we'll get. Last words I heard from Armando when leaving the jury room were " you've had two days to sort out this rubbish", he wasn't a happy man. Apart from the VIP section seats are £5-8, programmes £1-30. The riders weren't the only ones Having problems getting here, but in a way that was a blessing, as there's sod all to do here anyway, except drink drink or drink.

Agree with Rosco but you won't get 2nd div clubs to change their night. So could all 1st Division clubs ride Monday or Wednesday? I very much doubt Belle Vue would want to switch, nor would Leicester, let's face it, they've stuck with Saturdays even though most of their meetings are a joke, and they know that before the season starts. Sorry, but we've got one more year of this crap, then the Sky money ends and we can have one realistic league of 12/13 clubs, and the rest in a much weaker competition. Just hope we can keep the fans interested for another year.

Practice not until Saturday at midday, so it all depends if he can be bothered or not. I said before that I'll watch each team once unless they entertain me, the previous meeting was easily the best of the season, but I'll be at LHR waiting for my flight to Togliatti. I'm sure the lads will get another easy win.

When I booked 3 weeks ago Finnair was the best option, now appears to be Aeroflot if flying from London, about £300. Times aren't great, but who needs sleep?