Grachan

With Lindgren, perhaps, but Swindon said when they released Doylebthat they had intended to use both him and Morris. Plus, if Somerset can afford to have Doyle I see no reason why Swindon couldn't have had him too. It's like Tai said in his interview, to be competitive you need Poland and Sweden. The league here is no longer competitive enough. Introducing a blanket 9.00 average on GP riders, then having a one over 8.00 rule, is going to make sure it remains that way. Maybe, in terms of survival, it has to be that way, but, as a supporter, it is very uninspiring.

The rule still led to it happening, though, which is what the post said.

If Thursday's had been approved, why change it? Sheffield and Ipswich should have had two choices if they wanted Thursdays. Ride top league or ride Thursday's but top league sides get priority on riders. Ipswich, in particular, seem to have been holding the top flight to ransom for years. I'm just fed up with speedway seeing the best way forward being to make the good clubs as crap as the poor ones.

Yeah, Swindon chose not to sign the World Champion - a decision that might yet mean I don't even bother going to any matches next year. Why should winning a league title be a means to making fans of that club feel disappointed and deflated and unhappy with the sport they follow? What was the other option? To not sign a rider who has been at Swindon his entire career and might have struggled to find a team place. It was rock and a hard place. We could not win. Why should Swindon fans be made to think like that? It's crazy. And choosing Wednesday's after Thursday's was internationally approved was ridiculous too.

Wow. You're right. So he has. This needs flagging up surely. Last year was based on Second Division averages, so he was assessed as a 7.00 rider in The Championship last year so, therefore, he MUST be one this year.

Always a possibility. I think Jason is a bit of an Anglophile anyway. I've noticed that he has an England flag on his race suit.

I would say that 5 minutes of standing around watching a tractor and listening to "Now that's what I call music volume one" has a more negative impact than any rules anyway.

Why would you need a UK visa to ride in Poland? The two are unconnected - but at least you proved the theory that a lot of people actually believe this to be the case! Incidentally, Jason recently got married and lives in the UK. Is his wife British? If so, he'd no longer need a work permit to ride in the UK as his Leave to Remain would allow him to live and work here. But he would still need a seperate visa to work in Poland. His UK visa would have no effect on this for a further 5 years. Possibly, the visa for Poland would be a Schengen visa, which might also cover Sweden, but it would not be related to the UK. UK visas do not cover anyone from outside the EU to travel or work in the rest of the EU/Schengen region.

Which is why they shouldn't have a say in what the rules are. Until that stops everyone will be voting with a vested interest for their own team building, which is wrong. Personally I have no problem with Poole getting Woryna on his average. Swindon benefitted in a similar way last year with Musielak. But they really need some hard and fast rules, and riders like Woffinden, Kildermand etc should also have been able to retain their averages if others have. I'll bet Somerset voted for the one-over-eight rules, for example, yet they've brought the World Champion in.

He didn't get his average riding in this league. He got his average riding in the Elite League, which was a stronger league than this one. It does seem strange, though, that he is not being reassessed while other riders are. Part of a pay-off to get Poole to vote for the one-over-eight rule perhaps?

Why would they be 8.00? They should either be assessed at 9 (which is the proper level when compared to other riders) or be able to retain their original average because that is their average. Assessing at 8.00 makes to sense when Morris, Thorsell and Kurtz are all over that.

What's his visa for Poland got to do with it?

I think that's a possibility, and I do feel robbed by this. It's like when you split up with your girlfriend and you are just about coping with it, but then they start going out with someone else!! Somerset is well out of reach for me, even if I did want to go, but what I always wanted to see was the World Champion riding for Swindon. Not really bothered about seeing him riding for someone else. I've watched Anders Michanek, Hans Nielsen and Per Jonsson enviously over the years and thought that one day, lad, all this could be ours. But it's not.

He's not our World Champ though, is he.

You wouldn't have been the only one.

Congratulations to Somerset fans on the signing of Jason Doyle. Enjoy welcoming the homecoming World Champion in March. This is something that I, as a Swindon fan, have been waiting for over 40 years for and I'm mighty jealous. I've looked on enviously as Oxford and Reading have welcomed the World Champ and hoped that one day - just one day - we could do this at Swindon. Not to be, yet again. The one thing I've yearned for since seeing Michanek at Reading in 1975, and it's gone. Gone, I tell ya.

Maybe they will in May, when Anders Rowe is 16.

Winning 3 consecutive World titles and finishing on the rostrum 8 years running, for starters. It's pretty well documented that he brought a new level of professionalism to the sport. Those 3 titles show, to me, that for a few years everyone was playing catch up. I don't know much about the pre-Mauger years, but it is the comment from Ove Fundin that tells the story. I reckon he would have done just that in whatever earlier era you put him in. As for what exactly he was doing, I can't help with I'm afraid. Best ask the riders who had to do the same to try and keep up with him.

Possibly, but for me Fundin's comment says it all. Put Mauger in any earlier area and, in my opinion, the same thing would have happened. He would have taken the sport to a new level and become dominant. Greatest of all time, I reckon.

So, basically, only riders from Mauger onwards can really be considered for the greatest of all time as he upped the standard from what had gone before.

I think that maybe Nielsen gets a bit overlooked sometimes when looking at all-time greats because he won his World titles in an era when there was no speedway on television. I remember having to buy a poorly produced video to watch his title win in Poland. Because of this, people tend to remember his losses to Erik Gundersen when looking back, rather than the wins. That's certainly the case with me, anyway.

Nielsen is a strange one. Probably the best rider I've ever seen - even better than Mauger. Yet my memories in World Finals tends to be of him over-riding and messing things up - even in some that he won! It depends how you see it. Nielsen was, in my opinion, a better rider than Rickardsson, but in terms of all time greatness you have to put Rickardsson above him because of his World Final achievements. Plechanov, in particular, seems an unusual choice for one of the greatest of all time. Care to give reasons for his inclusions? He's not a rider I know much about.

Yup. That's it. First match I ever went to, one of the sides was using rider replacement. I had no idea! I just put the scores in where that rider was named.

That's of no relevance to newcomers though. It's hard core, long-standing fans that get fed up with stuff like that. There's part of the problem. Long term fans are alienated, but new fans are few and far between.

That's nonsense. Speedway isn't just about watching the racing and enjoying it for what it is. It's a team sport. I know it can get tiresome for people to keep making football comparisons, but if someone asked you the rules of football, you wouldn't tell them not to worry about it and just enjoy how good everyone is at kicking a ball. This is, basically, what you are advocating. One problem speedway has, I think, if getting outsides to fully understand the team concept. A lack of a scoreboard at most tracks, for example, takes a lot away from this. If a newcomer wants to know the rules, instead of being a smart arse, you tell them about the teams, the scoring and so on. Surely?