uk_martin

No, "Mickey Mouse" Zielona Gora aren't in it this year...

Looking forward to being there on Saturday (and at Grudziadz on Sunday) for my first trip to Polska of the year.

I dare say that the War Room at Speedway Star Towers is now a seething hotbed of activity with plans being made to investigate the matter down to the the "n"th degree. The meeting rooms will be busily hosting crash refresher courses for all the journalists on how to ask a searching question. Strategies will be hatched on how to excuse the British Referee, the British Race Director, the British shale supplier and the British Promotions company, and how to blame those pesky Poles for all that is wrong with the world. Can't wait to see what comes of all this.

Interesting comments by Scott Nicholls on the subject of managing Team GB whilst filling in time in the Warsaw SGP show. See how long before he gets asked to explain himself at SCB Supreme Headquarters in Rugby.

No Adam Ellis, Tom Perry, Ellis Perks, or Max Clegg. Coventry after an easy ride then are they? Does Adam Existance speak with a yam yam accent by any chance? I think this fixture is a mistake. I won't be going as it's not a Brummies team. I suspect that other Brummies fans may take the same view. Cradley fans may look at it and think "this ay the Eevuns" and instead of getting two lots of travelling support (undoubtedly the intention) there may be none instead,

The Polish national team has a schedule of fixtures to keep it occupied and the Polish u21's have a schedule of fixtures against the u21 teams of Sweden and Denmark too. Meanwhile, back in Great Britain, home of the "Test Match", and previous hosts of test series against anyone and everyone...erm, well...NOT A LOT! Apart from the SWC Quali at KL (and arguably the Cardiff SGP), International speedway will not be served up to the British public this year. Still, in the eyes of the BSPA, isolationism, disdain at what the Poles are doing to promote the sport, boycots of Polish promoted events and heads buried deep in the international sands is all in the best interests of British speedway...isn't it?

As it is an initiative originating in Poland and it doesn't involve Britain in the slightest, cue all the accusations of what a Mickey Mouse event this will be....

Does a football team put the same 11 players out on the pitch in every match? But then again, football's a Mickey Mouse sport anyway isn't it?

Brummies fans supporting the Eastbourne Sparrows??? You have much to learn greyhopper

Get those twenty pence pieces ready! https://www.facebook.com/birminghamspeedway/photos/a.933032060040934.1073741827.344109385599874/981633395180800/?type=1&theater

Speedway Star and investigative journalism simply do not mix. The whole British speedway media and multimedia scene is one big cartel. If you do what the BSPA / SloSpeed International (Terry Russell) say, and print their press releases, prevent your photos / videos from going onto the Internet, and lick the appropriate backsides, you may belong...if you ask too many questions, dig beneath the surface, expose the soft underbelly of the sport, then you are in trouble. Then you'll be invited to the SCB disciplinary committee for a meeting without tea and biscuits. Your card will be marked and you will be out. Phillip Rising and all at Speedway Star are at an age now where if that magazine were to fold, they would be too old to get jobs anywhere else (other than at B&Q possibly)...they have to keep their jobs at Speedway Star, so they have to keep that magazine running, so they have to be patsies to the authorities, print what the BSPA tell them, and do as they are told, and if that means looking the other way whilst the truth unfolds, so be it. What we need is a proper terrier of an investigative reporter in a tabloid newspaper...that would be fun.

1 Be interesting to see how many fans turn out. Assuming that the Cradley fans don't come (but some will, maybe?) and it's just Brummies fans there, it will give a decent wet finger in the air test for what support the Brummies actually have, and will be a benchmark for what to exceed by the end of the season. 2. Riders are missing. Can't be helped. It'll happen again and again throughout the season. Maybe getting too tied into any one rider may not be a good idea. 3. Let's see if those remaining riders can conjour up some decent racing. If 1 in 3 heats is a decent race I'll be happy with that. It needs a ratio like that to create the right impression with whatever newcomers turn up to stand a chance of converting them into long-time fans. 4. On the subject of newcomers, I don't see much going on to attract a new crowd in...or am I missing something? 5. Hope that the Brummies can win this for Adam Ellis.

And this guy could kick on...now try saying that about, say, Robert Lambert, or one of the other British youngsters who could have been there had the BSPA / SCB not decided that it was not in the best interests of British Speedway to take part. Shale comes in many colours, with many different gradings according to sand / clay content etc. This one happened to be black (seen that before at the old Wiener Neustadt stadium) Gorzow's is light grey, others are all shades of brown-red. The important thing is that this was suited to the climate / environment and absorbed the rainwater well without going too muddy.

20 heats in just over an hour. Now that's the way to run a good meeting, to make people happy who are there, and not to mention making for good television. I wonder how long the next Sky meeting will drag on for? Not forgetting of course that an EL meeting will only feature 75% of the number of races that the Pairs meeting on Eurosport did. But of course, what do these pesky foreigners know? Sky are British, and they know best, coz we won the war and all that...

If you have an Android phone, you can do things the "modern way" - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.krygiel.speedway.programme&hl=en I've used it on the Brummies 2 fixtures so far and it works a treat. Only slight snag is the lack of recording the heat time, but the rest of it is pretty intuitive. Best of all it stored the end product as a PDF file which prints out lovely.

Interesting article = http://www.sportowefakty.pl/zuzel/512748/dziekuje-bogu-za-gorzow-rozmowa-ze-slawomirem-gebka-organizatorem-wsl So Matt Ford / Poole Pirates were given €20,000.00 for taking part in last years' event at Zielona Gora. Wowzer. That's a decent slice of bread, I'd say!

This will be an interesting test of the Cradley fan base...I hope there's a good turnout. Be interesting to hear how the crowd levels compare to how they were at Monmore Green.

If only you could turn the clock back and tell that to Chapman & Son at Kings Lynn.

There's a big difference between individuals sending out texts or tweets and commercial radio stations such as Total Sport Radio or BBC Radio WM doing live broadcasts to fill up their air time. And don't think that if the promoters could do something about the use of mobile phones, they would hesitate.

You can't copyright the news but you can license the broadcasting rights of a TV or radio station to fill up it's programming schedule with stuff that it believes will give it an audience. That's the basis that TV companies pay billions for, to cover football. Everything has its value. Even speedway. So if Swindon's speedway meetings provide something attractive and valuable to Total Sport Radio, they should be made to pay for the privilage to broadcast it, shouldn't they? And the proceeds distributed to all and sunder in the BSPA, shouldn't it? After all, wasn't "not having the broadcasting rights" the reason why Buster and Jonathan Chapman expelled the BBC WM Radio personnel from the Norfolk Arena back in 2010?

Is everyone aware that the web site creams off 7.4% of all money donated? Now that the contributions have stalled at £170, out of which only about £160 will find its way out of the web sites coffers, what's going to happen next? Will a picture be published of the cheque presentation ceremony? When Adam Roynon blows an engine, is there going to be another appeal to the public to buy him a new one?

One wonders how much Total Sport Radio paid to Terry Russell / SlowSpeed International Ltd for the broadcasting rights of the Swindon meetings, and how much other clubs will benefit from this deal beariing in mind the collective bargaining obligation that SlowSpeed International Ltd has on behalf of the BSPA.

Maybe this is something that can be discussed in the Speedway Tavern? They may find a willing volunteer for you.

Different stadium management, different policies. Speedway personnel can't do their thing whilst the dogs are running round in circles at Perry Barr...again nothing that the tenants can do about the landlords rules.

I bet you thought that this was going to be about Neil Middleditch, or maybe Matt Ford? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32123192 I bet you wish it was about them now though, don't you?