uk_martin

It'd be interesting to know what date Eastbourne proposes for their leg of the KO Cup final. is the season going to drag on til the 30th October, and what if that day is washed out? Best fill the fuel tanks of your cars up now before the impact of the post-Brexit currency collapse shoves the price of fuel up much higher than it is already...there's a lot of miles to be covered this month for the committed.

Any news on the Arlington date for the KO Cup Final? What options are open for it?

Just looked and not even a mention about a future preview...that away loss by the Young Stars at Buxton must really have been a shock to the system. 3 days now... Is it or isn't it actually on? Pathetic (total lack of) organisation and (total lack of) promotion going on here. And this at the track of the BSPA supremo himself. Has anyone heard anything mentioned about this event at their local tracks? Don't recall anything being said last time at Perry Barr.

Made offers that they could not accept on the back of the BSPA policy of imposing a 28 day ban if a league meeting was missed to ride in an SEC meeting, on the grounds of "rider withholding his services".

You're just getting old! Something to do with the referred to "powers that be", perhaps?

Don't think that Cook's heart was really in it. It got in the way of his bread and butter at Edinburgh at the time.

OR...you do what BSI do at some of their events. You ditch the stadium sound system for inter-heat music, and use it for announcements only. Leave the music to some "name" DJ's who can be pulled-in from local nightspots, with their own mobile DJ rigs, playing the music that kids actually listen too. I recall at the SWC in Prague, they had a different DJ doing his thing on each bend of the stadium. Too bad if you are Perry Como's #1 fan, or if Roy Orbison is what floats your boat. You can listen to them whilst supping your cocoa at the Derby & Joan Club after the meeting. Or you can tune into Classic FM on your car wireless on your way home. Birmingham's toilets are spotless (or they are before people start using them lol) - and yet we still have one of the oldest average crowd ages in the country.

Most of them old enough to remember the 1970's and 1980's, therefore having a quiet and warm feeling of belated satisfaction in their minds, that fortunes have smiled on them for a change.

Not sure. Memories of 2010 plague me. Remember when "Team Australia" ran rings around all that came before them? Until we bumped into Newcastle in the cup final and in the play-off's? And the Brummies were blown away in both, by the same team? Got a nasty feeling that Eastbourne will be the Newcastle of 2016.

Where's Mulder & Scully when you need them?

After the away win by Eastbourne at Kent, I'd say it was as certain as night following day. Eastbourne would have to have a bigger give-away than 12 months worth of DFS sofa sales for Kent to overcome thier deficit.

You're going to do brummies_ste out of a job!

A bit of female logic going on there if you think that I've come round to your way of thinking on this, however, how about this for a solution?... How about you arrange for your mate, Nigel Farage, to build an Iron Curtain to keep all things Polish in Poland, so that we British can get back to running our empire?

Or how about if the BSPA put up it's 3 prime promoters to front-up a "Speedway Apprentice" type competition, with real life speedway management problems like arranging sponsorship, dealing with a rider who's got tooth ache, someone stealing the water bowser from the track on the day of the meeting, etc etc... see how people get on, and see who gets the Dick Dastardly finger pointing at him at the end with those immortal words, "you're fired"? I think that the prototype game should feature prime wags off BSF, just to iron out any bugs in the system, and then unleash the game nationwide.

There you go, you've answered your own argument.

Joe Lawlor is a Belle Vue MDL rider. Stephen Whitehouse is a Kings Lynn MDL rider. That makes them look like "guests" to me. Whatever happened to Emerson Jones who was signed as a "squad rider / #8" at the start of the season?

And if they get themselves injured fulfilling a guest booking or some individual meeting in Britain, is that any better?

More like 3 guests and Rider Replacement. It's back to 2007 all over again. No wonder outsiders can't take this sport seriously.

Yes, you naughty naughty Polish people...how dare you look after your own interests. We British, who won the war, remember (and the World Cup in 1966) and who are just too good for you EU types, who can race on any day of the week that suits us, and even on Wednesdays, just to keep the riders flying backwards and forwards all week long, INSIST that you restrict yourselves to one day a week only. So there. Ner!

The idea would be for schools to get their media / arts students to use their school equipment at the tracks, during race nights during the season. Someone said that kids are like sheep, so if you get a team of 8 or 9 involved with the production, their mates will probably come into the stands, some parents and teachers will be there, interest will grow amongst the peers of the kids involved. On the video production / education side of it, It'll be up to the students to work out their angles, their footage, who does the camerawork, etc, they can do their own interviews, see what goes on from the moment a rider unloads his van to the moment the lights go down. One school one week, another school another week and so on til everyone has had a turn, then they can see what they do with their endeavours. Getting under the skin of the sport is what is most likely to get them hooked in after their video project is over. Much better than getting young people bored listening to Abba for 10 minutes between races like most other promotions inflict on them. And if some of these kids develop into long term speedway fans, they are at an age when they will be coming into the stadiums at full prices, not concessions. That's a top consideration to the promotions who currently have 60% - 70% of their crowd paying their concessionary admission prices.

And when the BSPA effectively tell British riders "thou shallt not ride in the very lucrative SEC" - that's somehow different?

I'm glad that you have had an encouraging response...let the proof of the pudding be in the eating. Like you, I envisaged that individual competitions could be done in the locality of each of the clubs, on a scale managable at club level, involving several schools/colleges local to each club, but that's not to dismiss the possibility of local winners going on to a national competition too.

Won't it come down to if a Polish rider wants to ride in Poland under a Polish licence, then he is subject to the terms and conditions of that license? "Exclusivity" restrictions occur everywhere. If you want to sell Coca Cola, you'll know that you'll only get the contract from Coca Cola on the condition that you don't sell Pepsi. Those are the terms and conditions, and you have to live with them and get on with it.

Trains run regularly, but an even faster service is offered by Polski Bus Their coaches are very modern, run every few hours and if memory serves me correctly, the journey time is about an hour less. Have a look at their web site. If timings suit, then give them a try.

Rumours from a weekend in Gorzow include: Matej Zagar will be released by Stal Gorzow Piotr Pawlicki will be signed by Stal Gorzow Jepsen Jensen will be released by Stal Gorzow Adrian Cyfer will be released by Stal Gorzow Rafał Karczmarz to become one of the Stal Gorzow juniors Marek Cheescake and Jarek Hampel will both move from Mickey Mouse to Sparta Wroclaw.