Grachan

Not necessarily. Just saying that as people are saying rules have been brought in to benefit Poole it would be nice to be provided with details of the actual rules and how they benefited Poole. Then the claims would have some foundation.

Draft riders didn't get an EL average so how could they use EL averages? That was decided at the start so it wasn't done to benefit Poole. Using assets is fair enough. Encourages clubs to sign. If riders using assets get a high pick in the second stage then that, maybe, is one that would benefit clubs who use their own assets, but what's to stop all other clubs doing it?

People say that the rules are there to benefit Poole. Interested to know which rules are voted in that benefit Poole and how Poole benefit from them. Perhaps someone could list these.

Don't worry. I'm sure Matt Ford has no intention of riding in your beloved Premier League in front of 500 fans. What do you suggest? Poole deliberately picking a weak side to give the others a chance? If the promoters are daft enough to have a system that gives riders of heatleader quality an average akin to a second string then don't be surprised if the most successful side snaps them up. As for the heatleader list, my guess is he analysed the list, looked for the best rider that wasn't on it, and signed him too. Your anti-EL rants are always entertaining but invariably well wide of the mark.

Which will take us back to the days of on form reserves coming in to beat heatleaders. I really don't understand why they didn't revert to the old race formula now that reserves can move up into the side. The averages are all over the place at the moment.

According to this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage Average monthly earning in Poland are 756 Euro Average earnings in UK are 2337 Euros. So if stuff there is 50% cheaper they are worse off. Someone posted earlier that it's about 8 quid to get into Speedway in Poland. That like paying about 24 quid here.

And don't forget you're only there for 15 minutes. The rest of the time you are in a coma.

I agree. They should have a proper scoreboard up. It's very difficult to keep track of the score without a scoresheet otherwise. I'm sure this is a ploy to make people buy a programme, but I don't approve of it. As for the online scoreboard. There is one. It's called Speedway Updates.

Swindon is £17. It depends where you go obviously. Where do you go? Leicester maybe? You should support a better side! It's easy to make up a sheet to follow the scores. I used to do that all the time, but I get a programme now because my son likes to have one and fill it in. They definitely try to make you buy a programme. At Swindon they have a big score board, but it gives mainly race times and heat line-ups and results. It rarely gives the match score. Match score should be on display at all times, like it is in Basketball and Ice Hockey. It makes it more of a "match" atmosphere. Otherwise you just get 4 blokes going round a track on motorbikes - which some people on here think that is how it should be. But I personally don't.

Yes. You do need to pay fuel. Very true. And car park. I forgot about car park. That's another £1.50 at Swindon these days. I would probably go more often if it was cheaper but that's partly because I live 25 miles away from Swindon anyway so it's a bit of an effort to go, and years of experience has taught me not to bother leaving the house if there is even a slight hint of rain. I don't think £17 is too expensive for a live sporting event, but I do think they should make more effort to make it worth the effort. So I want to see top quality riders and top quality presentation - and both are lacking these days.

You don't have to buy a programme either. It's £17.

It's not £21. It's £17. Food has notihng to do with it. You're going to eat whether you go or not. Nothing to stop you having dinner before hand. I'm one of those people who has been going to speedway for many years. Originally as a die-hard fan. Nowadays as a more casual fan. Some times in between I had years where I never went at all. For me it's always been whether or not it is appealing at that time. I remember Swindon dropping down to the Premier League (or whatever it was then) in the early 1990s. We signed Jason Crump. I was interested. The following season Crump wasn't there. I lost interest. Even at a lower level you need exciting or interesting riders to keep you interested. For me this is especially true at the lower level. I went to a Swindon v Gasgow match a few years later and I was shocked at the low crowd and lack of atmosphere. I know a lot of Swindon fans liked the PL era, but it never interested me at all once Crump was gone. It's nonsense to say that the standard of rider has no effect on the crowd. It has been plain to see at Swindon. Once we came back up, crowds gradually increased with the strength of the side. Then decreased again as sides became weaker. When the sport was held to ransom by lower clubs demanding low points limits and tactical rides, crowds visibly dropped the following season. That was the one time for me when it was more than just a gradual decrease. It was quite an exodus. People DO care about who is riding and what is going on off the track. It is a pet hate of mine that people thing speedway should only exist at the lower levels in this country. How can making the sport appealling to less people be the answer. If EL sides are run well, they will get decent crowds. Poole are run well. They get good crowds. I think Swindon is run pretty well compared to other clubs, and their crowds remain reasonable in the current climate.

Personally I think Dudek should have been excluded. But... If you are in your car out on the road, the car ahead of you stops suddenly and you drive into the back of them, who is legally seen to be at fault? The car behind, that's who.

Every club must be as strong as the weakest club is part of speedway's problem in recent times, in my opinion. Constant dumbing down of team strengths year after result in constant desertions from supporters. The idea of making all the sides of Premier League strength just further drags speedway further down into the depths. Of course, Imm saying this from a supporter's perspective rather thn that of someone who has to run a club, but it seems to me that as crowds get smaller, so attending a meeting becomes less enjoyable due to less atmosphere and you get into the downward spiral which seems to have been here since around the time the Tactical Ride and 40.75 points limit were introduced a few years back. As EL teams get made weaker and weaker every year, so they get nearer to PL in standard and, as a result, crowds also get nearer to PL size crowds. A lot of the problem with Leicester not having riders available is, I reckon, due to the new race format. This has seen averages equalling out somewhat. Smart teams, such as Poole, have capitalised on this by signing riders of heatleader standard who have second string averages. Teams who are not so dynamic then have to sign up the riders on similar averages who are nowhere near the same standard. I don't know the answer, but having an entire country of teams of PL strength is not it. Die hard fans may well like having lower standard teams that provide good, close racing. But that doesn't bring casual fans in.

Phil and Jason Crump would surely be favourites for this.

As already said, Sky now want 48 hours reassurance that a meeting will go ahead. Is it possible King's Lynn failed to give them that reassurance?

He would have had to ride as British to get it. Had he just ridden as an Australian he would not have been assessed at 2.00 or 3.00 or whatever it was, regardless of where he was born.

Crump also had 2 years in the bottom tier. Peterborough in 1992 and Swindon in 1993. I remember Woffinden riding at Sheffield in his first season and he was like a little ball of dynamite! I'd never heard of him. He came in at reserve (I can't remember if it was for or against Sheffield) and looked very impressive for a 16 year old. When he first appeared he looked every inch a future World Champion to me. Then he rather dropped off the radar for a bit - possibly due to the problems in his family - and was very much a shock winner in 2014. And this too I guess.

I remember when Woffinden first came onto the scene. He was every bit as Jason Crump was at that age. I even made the effort to go to Scunthorpe once just to see him because I was so impressed. No. But he could have done what Crump did. Start as a British rider and then switch. Nick Morris may well have done the same, but I don't know.

Crump claimed to be British too when he started, coming in as a British junior. So those two both used their British roots to their advantage, before becoming Australian once it suited. Woffinden never. He remained British. So either he saw himsef as more British than Australian, or he wasn't eligible to be Australian. I agree with Orion that he almost certainly wouldn't have been World Champion in 2014 had he been Australian, but I don't really see that this would have had a bearing on any decisions he or his family made earlier in his career if such choices were there to be made. Woffinden is a double Wotld Champion. He's good enough by now to have got in the World Championship without the Wild Cards. Anyone who can win World titles would have enough faith in their own ability not to be too bothered about wild cards and the like, I'm sure.

It's strange how so many people get so stroppy about British sportsmen links to another coutry. I remember the same sort of comments about 'choosing Britain for his own advantage' being directed towards Lennox Lewis. If it's such an advantage, how come Jason Crump and Nick Morris never chose it?

King's Lynn's side is ok. It's as good as most. Everyone knows Belle Vue and Poole are streets ahead of the others and early results indicate that.

Enjoyed the match. Good win for Swindon, but Coventry were surprisingly poor. I think they will have better nights and Swindon will have tougher matches. The Coventry Pole looked quite an exciting rider. I think he will do well. Doyle was excellent for Swindon, but everyone rode well. Even Sedgy was unlucky after leading his last race for a while before getting Harrissed. Some good races tonight. Enjoyed it.

He was a 15 year old kid at the time. I'm sure any decisions were made by his parents. By coming back to the UK at that time he effectively would have waived his right to Australian citizenship. I'm sure all the decisions taken from his family would have been speedway rather than citizenship based.

Surely that, in itself, indicates that winning the British title isn't as significant as some people are trying to make us believe. The reason for the seeding would, presumably, have been to give a British rider a better chance of being World Champion. The thinking is not so different really.