uk_martin

What's the criteria for qualification/appearance? Semi-finals? Averages? Nominations? Puzzled as to why Stal Gorzow, Leszno and Torun have 3 riders in it when Tarnow, Grudziadz and Mickey Mouse only have one each.

It seems that the Warsaw experience is starting to develop a long term sour after-taste....Ole Olsen / BSI / etc keep shooting themselves in the foot and Gorzow don't want any blood on their carpets, thank you very much. Next thing to watch out for is whether there may be any future rounds of the SEC or other OneSport events held at the Edward Jancarz Stadium. I wonder in fact if there was enough animosity at Warsaw for there to be a mutual parting of the ways there, and if that could leave Torun as the only GP in Poland next year?

That's what you'll get...other than of course those areas that get seated temporary stands.

I wonder if there is an internet forum for lawyers? And I wonder what their verdict on the running of speedway in Great Britain would be...??? Would they also come to the conclusion that British speedway was a joke and run by buffoons?

Then I think there will have to be some kind of action for liquidation / bankruptcy. Where individual persons are concerned, then they stand to be responsible for their share of the costs according to what their personal wealth can afford. Anyone trading as a limited company will be responsible as far as the net asset worth of the liquidated company can bring to the table (probably about £100 share capital and the net value of the assets of that company, if they need to be liquidated) It could well be that the land, the stadium and all the equipment in it will need to be sold to raise the money needed. Some individuals may find their personal circumstances (and that of their families) changing dramatically before too long. Also worrying is the statement on page 27 of the report "The planning permission was renewed on a permanent basis in 1985, although it was made personal to Mr Waters." - so if Mr Waters is no longer able to continue, the planning permission to use the stadium expires with him. The fact that the local council (as described in the Case Summary) took action against the stadium owners for "Statutory Nuisance" and that this court case will forever hang over the operation will make it difficult for anyone else who acquires the assets ever to get planning permission again to do anything that will cause noise nuisance there again, should they be minded to do so.

I don't suppose it helped show the stadium owners in a good light when it was shown that they ran Stock Cars for 10 years WITHOUT Planning Permission, and only afterwards went back to the Council to hold them over a barrel and say "no-one's objected in the last 10 years so give us retrospective planning consent please". It may indeed be possible even then to run a NL team on 12 "events" a year - as long as every event is a league meeting...however one thing has been overlooked here. Whether or not the injunction ever takes force, the costs still have to be met. The lawyers want paying. That £500,000 bill from NoiseLaywers4U has to be stumped up from somewhere or the whole shooting match goes down in flames. Blame the house owners for starting the action. Blame the lawyers for finishing it all off.

Not to mention the banana skins waiting for us at Buxton and Mildenhall (assuming that it will still be running by the time our fixture eventually gets rearranged there)...

You're forgetting the legal principle which I quoted in post #24 Move in to an industrial area and you'll have problems in convincing the judges that the smell from a cat factory is a nuisance, because in an industrial area, that's what you get. On the other hand, try putting a cat food factory in the middle of leafy Richmond on Thames or somewhere like that and the objections to the smell will probably stop it ever getting built, let alone anyone putting in an action for nuisance. The problem as I see it is that the judges looked at Mildenhall as a quaint little Olde English town in the rolling Suffolk countryside, and thought that something that creates noise doesn't belong there and is a nuisance to the local residents. The Counsel for the Stadium owners obviously didn't do a very good job of convincing the "learned colleagues" differently.

It really doesn't matter what I think what's "the environment" and what isn't. What matters is what the judges thought. They didn't think that the airbase formed part of the environment, so that's all that matters in this case.

Not necessarily so... As it states in the judgement, and with reference to established case law... So in your case a farmyard smell that would be a nuisance in the suburbs may not be considered a nuisance in the countryside. Music played at top volume in the "bright lights" parts of city centres are less likely to be a nuisance compared to music being pumped out at full volume from someone's bedroom in a residential street. You have to consider what is "natural" for the environment, and then ask where speedway fits in as a "natural" contributor to the environment. This thing about the USAF base is such a red herring too. OK, so the planes are loud, but in this case that doesn't matter. It was a case between A v B, and was judged on the merits of A and B. Nothing else mattered really. How loud C, D or the USAF are in comparison does not form part of this judgement. This was a nuisance case between plaintiff and defendant. It wasn't an exercise in social justice. A major irony here though is that the "Swedish Model" of planting speedway tracks in the middle of forests to alleviate the noise problem now comes into question. If speedway is an "unnatural" contributor to the forest environment, if the Swedish teams ever had grumpy neighbours and followed UK case law, then they would be in deep doo-doo as well.

Prices for Poznan for this August have been crazy. I've had flights as low as £55 in the past. The price in a month's time is near to £180 at the moment. I'll be flying to Berlin for the SGP in Gorzow as well next month just for a change, then going by train on the Saturday morning. Flying out on the Thursday and back on the Tuesday got me the flight for £60. Nice chance to catch up on a bit of tourism in Berlin as I've not been there for a few years. The difference is the price of the train from Berlin to Gorzow is something in the order of €55 return (= £40isn?) for the 3 hour journey whereas the Poznan to Gorzow train (also 3 hours) is about PLN24 return (=£5 !!!) That's a few beers difference if you can get a good flight into Poznan. Are you flying straight back or are you taking in the Polish Silver Helmet in Pila on the Sunday?

Can't wait to be there...counting down the sleeps already. Glad I bought the flight tickets when I did too...£85 return to/from Poznan seems a bargain compared to the £179 that the flights are fetching today... Just over 3000 tickets for sale which will probably be sold sooner rather than later, so if you want to go, get in quick. Team news seems to be along the lines of Pepe P being out with a busted collarbone, and Aleksander Łoktajev suspended after his drugs spree, but Patryk Dudek may return.

I doubt whether the "costs and expenses" will "go away" whether the people move back in or not. Those alone will cripple the stadium owners and speedway promotion. Next issue is the planning permission which the verdict indicated was "personal" to the current people. So if these people bow out through bankruptcy then does the planning permission to run speedway etc expire as well?

Seems to me that the only hope would be if the Secretary of State for the Environment (I think that's the right government department, but I may be wrong) over-rules the court judgement and decrees that the stadium can continue to do what it's always done. Short of a Government minister playing god, I can't see any hope for Mildenhall. Maybe the people who brought the action will have their home address in the public domain now. Anyone made redundant by the closure of the stadium could pop round their place and ask that couple if they have got any spare change please. Make them really proud of their actions.

The power of BSF eh?

Hey, come on...the fish'n'chips at Rye House are legendary. It's not all that bad.

Birmingham's new riders may find things tricky with some of the adverse camber and sandy surface on the corners...I suspect there may be some fallers. Exactly how many may determine the outcome of this meeting. Do Deano90125 and "Silly Wilfred" still attend? George Hunter eh? Now there's a name from the past. Any relation to the late George Hunter - the former Edinburgh & Wolves rider?

May save these quotes for another time. People like faulty speedway, shock!. I wonder if this is the attitude that stops Cardiff ever attracting a full house like it does for the rugby? i.e. people who won't go because it's too rowdy, with all these noisy Poles and stuff... and there's nowhere to unfold their blanket on the floor and to put the deck chairs? Well as long as a faulty sport has people that are satisfied with it, what incentive is there to improve on it? I shall expect a call from the Politically Correct Thought Police in the morning then...I'm quaking in my boots as I type!

Yep, speedway in Poland is no place for deck chairs, Adidas bags, flasks of tea and sandwiches in Tupperware boxes. Sadly you get the morons from Zielona Gora who are quite happy to pour glory on murderers, and to act disgracefully towards their riders and visiting supporters (see the corresponding thread in the International Section). Thankfully I've not met any other Polish speedway fans like that at any of the other 7 tracks over there that I've been to so far, nor do I anticipate meeting any like them at any of the other tracks over there that I'm planning on visiting in the future.

I was in "the cage" for Mickey Mouse v Stal Gorzow earlier this year, and the meeting passed off without a hitch. Great experience. That said in previous years, I've gone "under cover" in the ZG parts of the stadium too...mind you, I had the advantage of wearing a Birmingham Brummies shirt, which served to confuse the hell out of the locals. lol

Has he done a Haka during a pre-meeting presentation yet?

This coming from the fans that showered hero worship on a murderer. And in the victim's own back yard at that?

OK, sorry, I got it wrong.

If that's the case then maybe I'm wrong, but in the murky business of British speedway management, nothing would surprise me any more.

Makes you wonder if Josh Bates was signed specifically for the Kings Lynn meeting only as a "disguised guest"? The fixture clashes on Wednesday and Friday would have been known about in advance, so there must have been knowledge that in the first 2 weeks, of the 3 Brummies fixtures he could only have taken part in one of them. By the time the Brummies get to Rye House, let alone the home fixture against Kings Lynn on the 29th, it sounds like Tom Perry will be fit enough to resume duties again, so the guy that "signed for the Brummies" won't ever get a "home" meeting under his belt. What a shame that the sort of shenanigans that Poole get up to in the EL have to trickle down into the NL. Not one of the "Big Club's" prouder moments I'm ashamed to say. As we saw yesterday, RR for Perry/Bates may only be worth 5 or 6 points, so add that to the 25 points that I guess Adam Ellis and Zach Watjknecht will get between them, will leave a big ask of the remainder of the team to get. Let's see how they get on, but I'd have said that with Perry or Bates in the team, this was a winnable fixture for the Brummies, but with R/R, this will see the Brummies lose their first points of the season.