uk_martin

If there's one sport that's used to working in the dark and not knowing, it's speedway.

You're expecting refunds from an organisation that's still selling tickets for SGP's that in all probability won't happen (e.g. German and Czech)??? First thing that's needed is for BSI to get it's head out of the sand can catch up with what's going on in 2020. For as long as they are still living in cloud cuckoo land, you've got no chance.

The SGP web site is STILL selling tickets to Czech SGP as it is for the German SGP on 30th May. No warning of the possibilities of cancellation. In fact nothing to suggest that BSI are even resident on planet Earth with what's going on all around us. How close to the concept of fraudulent trading is this?

Any news about the Pfingstpokal weekend? Nothing from Gustrow on either their web site or Facebook, and BSI are still selling tickets for the Teterow SGP. How realistic are the prospects of these events being staged over there?

I wonder what the advice in Germany is, as BSI are still selling tickets for the German SGP on 30th May :-o

What comes next? Line all the rich gits up against a wall and have them shot like in the Russian Revolution? Or politically re-educate them in forced labour camps, Pol-Pot style? And then what? How does that cure the Coronavirus, which I thought this thread was all about?

UK meetings have either a Red Cross or St Johns Ambulance in attendance, with volunteer crews and one duty paramedic. The ambulance and it's crew are there for riders and the public. Not sure what the equipment levels in these ambulances are, but plenty has been the time when a "county ambulance" has been summoned. (a quaint term when you are in a big city lol) But basically from a lay-perspective, the Ambulance cover seems to be there to basically provide an on-site mobile medical facility. If someone needs taking to hospital it's a 999 call and an NHS ambulance that's called in to do the hospital run. Maybe that's different the further from a hospital you are. Birmingham's track is only 15 minutes from the nearest hospital, arrangements may be different for more remote tracks.

It seems that when a list of everyone who's not signed up is pulled off, and the names are tossed around like it's a game of fantasy speedway, that's exactly what everyone's saying. And I'd say that there are riders in Europe for whom employment in the UK wouldn't be worth their while even if their current working schedule did allow for it. There are plenty of riders who treat the British Leagues like a league of last resort and wouldn't ride here if they could possibly avoid it.

I'm sure that he does what HE considers is in HIS best interests. Just like when a British promoter sacks a foreign rider to facilitate signing someone else and to keep within the averages... you could just as equally say that the British promoter is taking the P*ss out of that foreigner. What's good for the goose, and all that.

There seems to be a huge assumption being made that every rider not currently signed up to a British team actually wants to ride in this country. Consider the possibility that they don't. They certainly don't owe us their presence. And if as an EU national, you are not currently living and working in the EU, what are the hoops that Brexit requires them to jump through to get a job here now? Another factor that makes the UK less than an attractive, possibly. One day when SCB / BSPA get their heads out of the sand and see what's going on in the real world, we'll probably have so much coronavirus related disruption to the league, over and above that which the weather creates, that getting a full league programme completed this year will be such a tall order that the inevitable messing around to a riders timetable might make a forward thinking foreign based rider simply decide that it's all not worth the hassle.

I saw the post that he was back in the UK "for a week", dated 21st February. I asked the question on Facebook, but no answer.

Does anyone know the situation regarding Paco Castagna, bearing in mind all that's going on in Italy with Coronavirus? is he "locked down"? Are the Brummies going to risk flying him to the UK in and out of a Coronavirus hotspot? Will the Brummies get "a facility" if he can't fulfil his obligations?

Yes I was there. A nice 3 hour train journey from Hamburg Haupbahnhof from what I remember. And I seem to have been the only person to take a colour photo of Mike Patrick in his now infamous chequed trousers to prove it. I went there under my own steam, and my views are as equally independent as my mode of transport. All this bleating about how some "unknown" German who dared to win it instead of our favourite British league stars, jeeeezzz...you're as bad as Forest Trump banging on about a South Korean film with subtitles winning the Oscar for best movie.

I don't buy the "set up for Müller" argument. Prior to the World Final, Erik Gundersen held the track record. In the World Final, Gundersen's old track record was beaten in every heat. That means everyone was able to ride quickly. Müller was simply quicker than everyone else. Not a fact that sits comfortably with the "British are best" brigade or those with a grudge against riders who don't ride in the British leagues. But that's not something that's changed from then to now, either.

And was that the same guy who a speedway supporter, working in his day job as a conductor on a train, caught out, not having a ticket for his journey from Rugby to Edinburgh? :-)

Sold out in 5 hours...so maybe not pricey enough? Put into perspective, the Wroclaw grandstand seat tickets are about half the price people paid to stand on the pitch to watch Guns'n'Roses in concert last time they were at the London West Ham Stadium. And I was stood not far from some GnR fans from Poland there too.

RIP Danny and condolences to his family and friends.

Are we talking about the former Premier League Riders Champion, James Wright? Last time I can recall a rider coming in out of the cold after a long lay off like this was Andrew Silver at Rye House in 2009. If I recall, he ended up with an average well above 4.00 and he wasn't half the rider that James Wright was. If "Rizzla" Wright has been allocated a 4.00 average then that's a bargain.

Meanwhile, Kent fans can put the kettle on and make everyone else a cup of tea.

You have to love speedway for the competitions that the sport and its fans come up with that are only fair to half the teams taking part. And then we get the nose thumbing from a fan of a team that was in the 2nd tier for all 10 years but that's now gone top tier. Of the 12 teams in the league, only 7 have been 2nd tier (whatever the league is called) for all 10 years. How many years worth of riders have Eastbourne got to choose from in order to compete fairly with a team that can pick the best rider over 10 years? Mind you, nice to see something unfair to Poole Pirates innit? :-)

I'd like to see the accounts that show that a 40% full Principality Stadium can possibly be more money than "spin".

Well done Dave. Well deserved, and hopefully a stepping stone to greater things and maybe even a gig on a mainstream TV station that some of the older generation with their vacuum tube powered black & white televisions can then also enjoy.

Greyhoundp - would you prefer the Labour alternative? Salma Yaqoob - who famously turned her back on British soldiers parading through Birmingham before leaving the Labour Party to join George Galloway's Respect Party?

Lets get a few facts straight... Birmingham is run by a Labour council, whose decision it was to demolish the flyover in Perry Barr. The driving force were Councillors from wards far away from Perry Barr, who paid no regard to the Liberal Councillors of Perry Barr or to the people of Perry Barr, nor to the objections of Walsall or Sandwell Councils. Such is democracy in a Socialist controlled City. Andy Street is a Tory Mayor of the WEST MIDLANDS, i.e. NOT Birmingham, He has no jurisdiction over Birmingham as was shown by the fact that his opposition to the demolition of the flyover counted for nothing. Labour policy is one of "the motorist is the enemy" and people need to be coerced into using more public transport in order to save the world, or at least to improve the air quality in the inner city where most Labour voters live. As has been said, it's going to be 25 months of hell in Perry Barr, the price that has to be paid for a better future.

Joke about it by all means...that really will solve the problem. Funny that at an event I went to in the Summer, even hotdog vans were accepting "tap & go" payments. So a hotdog seller can afford the costs of business in the 21st Century, but a Speedway club can't??? Great.