Grachan

What's gong on here? Haven't these riders heard the phrase 'stay down'?

Very sporting of Simon to clear the track there. Silly Simon!!

I know what you mean. Can't help wishing we'd never had that big win against Coventry. It's given them an "underdog" status that they seem to be revelling in and also given their side a lot of motivation. I think it will turn out fairly even over the two legs, and have a nasty feeling that Chris Harris is going to go all world class on us and tip it Coventry's way. A lot depends on Bachelor and Kildermand I guess.They can both be a bit hit or miss.

Nathan Greaves. Barely scored a point all year. Borrows a bike from Simon Gustafsson. Wins heat 2 and scores paid 8 from his 3 completed rides.

What's being missed out here is that Swindon's other reserve is 16 years old and struggles to score in many matches. Worral has scored well but Swindon haven't had much advantage all year at reserve. The reason Swindon reached the play offs was through improvement in their second strings.

Facebook groups are what you make them. I've been loving the old pictures that have been put up lately. Anything that gets silly on there I just ignore.

I don't think the return of second halves would solve anything. Second halves weren't popular even when the sport was in it's heyday. I remember once they actually introduced some sort of competition for second halves (was it the Golden Sash or something like that?), with points being added up and so on, just to get people to hang around and watch, but most people still went home after the main match.

I like the idea of the leagues amalgamating an splitting into divisions with promotion and relegation. One problem with that might be the lack of riders to go round though. This is one reason we need double up riders, fast track riders and so on. If you were to make a league of 18 teams - as it once was - and then start putting the riders that currently ride in the UK into those teams, you are down to National League riders by the time you get to the reserves. But I say if there are enough riders to go round then amalgamate the leagues and have promotion and relegation. Have the same points limit in all leagues but have a rider average conversion between the leagues, so that if a rider drops down his average goes up or if he goes up a league his average drops. Same as now. Any rider from a relegated team can keep his higher league average if he stays with the same team so that it gives an incentive the better teams to be a "glamour" club in the higher league and give them a good chance of going back up. Not sure where the extra riders come from though! Maybe we should go back to fat old blokes with moustaches riding at reserve like we had in them there good old days.

You give up on speedway because Chris Harris qualified from the GP Challenge? Bit of a drastic decision that, isn't it?

Mads rode for them again afterwards.

Not so different to Renat Gafurov in 2006, when he was at Swindon. Gafurov failed to turn up at Reading and Swindon opted to use rider replacement - effectively sacking Gafurov in the process as it was near the end of the season. I don't know the exact situation with Pawlicki, but it's always a bit of a grey area when you get to the "did he fall or was he pushed" scenario. I guess Mads can't be seen as withholding his services because he rode again after the meeting he failed to turn up to.

Q: What's more boring than watching a tractor going round a speedway track? A: Watching 2 tractors going round a speedway track while Phil Collins is being played.

Just trying to get my head round this. We're talking of Belle Vue v Leicester here, is that correct? Mads was not in the side, and Leicester used a guest. If Leicester used a guest then either Mads was witholding his services or his absence was legitimate. If Mads was witholding his services then that's an automatic ban for 28 days. But he rode for Leicester against King's Lynn after this. Therefore he's not banned. Therefore he wasn't witholding his services. Therefore his absence was legitimate. See you in the play-offs Mads!!

Remember the Champs Are Back meeting? Out comes Bob for his first race. Green light goes on. 1-2-3 and straight through the tapes he goes. It got the biggest cheer of the night! Then they let him back in anyway and he was about 5 yards clear by the time he got to the first bend. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjbA23ACtsw

Bob never rolled? Seriously? He used to go straight through the tapes every other match. Rolling starts were part of the game back then.

Bearing in mind who this meeting is remembrance of I hope they allow tape touching and blinding rollers!

Ha ha. I dunno who posts what half the time. It does seem a bit mental to invent several identities and have conversations with oneself, but we are talking speedway fans here so maybe we're all crazy anyway!

This talk of Coventry throwing the match on Monday is well wide of the mark I think. I've seen teams throw matches at Swindon and Oxford (the same team, coincidentally) and it didn't look lie that. I think Coventry just got caught on the hop by a Swindon side who went into the match extremely fired up, while Coventry were possibly somewhat complacent having been named "the form team". It just shows how much we all trust how genuine speedway is, however, with all this talk of Coventry possibly manouvering into a position where Eastbourne might get in in place of Swindon as it gives easier semi finals. But it would be far too risky for them to do that as their place is not secure yet. Truth is though, I think an awful lot of us are *concerned/hoping (*delete as applicable) that these final matched could be fixed to a certain degree. Here we are in speedway, as Bobby Schwartz said. (Quite often).

Disappointing not to win and make a play off place more secure, but in general not a bad result. It's clear where the points were dropped. A bad performance from PK and a disastrous heat 2 cost us, but nothing there that can't be resolved should we make it through. Apparently there was a bit of handbags in the pits between Nick Morris and Richie Worrall. What was all that about?

Let's hope we will. Your lot had better do more than you did on Monday!

Yeah. It depends where you look. I looked on Eurosport player and it wasn't showing. Looked on the actual Eurosport site and it was showing there. So I got rid of my post, but you quoted me damn you

One of the top 3 in the league doesn't have any home meetings left.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the price of fish. What it does have to do with is this. You decided to come onto here and have a pop at the Elite League, stating that the standard of the teams is not Elite. You support a Premier League side. Premier, in the dictionary link provided, means "first in importance, order, or position; leading". One would expect, therefore, that teams in the Premier League would be the strongest sides in the country. The fact that the Peterborough side is a lot weaker in strength than an Elite League side (and that one of Swindon's fast track reserves would actually be a heatleader in your side) is what it has to do with.

Some people prefer one. Some prefer the other. Personally I've always preferred Swindon to be in the top flight. The difference is that I don't feel the need to go onto PL topics and randomly claim that our league is better than your league nyah nyah nyahhhh.