RacerDon

2016, some good meetings, some bad meetings, shouty man Pearson and Kelvin will get very excited on occasion, and then Poole will win go and win it again........ Plus ca change

As always this time of year and (yes) still bitter 9 years on, may the best team win and may the tactical joker fiasco never again decide who lifts the crown.

Well done Denmark, best team won. Nice that Iversen has just realised how unfair the joker rule is - don 't remember him being so concerned about it in 2006 when Peterborough stole the final from Reading though.

Clearly not enough of us, or we'd still have a speedway team to support.

In truth the joker(s) has never once revived a one sided speedway meeting, but has been used on numerous occasions to allow almost evenly matched teams to produce a completely unjust result, often in critical matches. Yesterday was a clear example of this, with the most blatant of course being in 2006. All well within the rules, and I suppose it can be fairly said that, like Reading three years ago, Jason Crump rode honestly and fairly to win his heat, and in doing so naively played right into the opponent's hands.

But was this the heat when Crump rode like an honorary Swede though, in shepherding Lindback home for the win? (possibly a tactical sub for Hansy, who usually fulfils that role) Then to be absolutely fair he did *perhaps* go to the British pits and wish us good luck, which was nice , if about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

To be honest none of the team, with possible exception of Rico (who had the misfortune to come up against the only Aussie who was still trying) did well enough in the fifth, and crucial, round of heats. King got done up like a kipper by AJ otherwise he might have got 2 vital points, however after his excellent effort at peterborough was fully entitled to get his chance tonight, and very unfair to label either him or Bridger as wasters....

With Nigel Shouty Man Pearson and Kelvin Tell You What Tatum I don't think she has anything to apologise for to be honest.

Of course there should be reserves but straight like for like replacement after track injury only (sorry once meeting started no Walacekesque headaches brought on by two last places allowed).

The current situation is ridiculous, although caused by Poland abusing the previous rule a couple of season's back. Made even worse by the tactical joker rule. Anyone watching speedway for first time and seeing the combination of these two rules would almost certainly write the sport off as mickey mouse. That said I expect Russia would have won anyway. p.s. does anyone in the world NOT know how old Emil is by now ??????????????

Thought the referee is always right, at least wasn't that Nicki's position when he got away with it in Cardiff last year?

And young Emil will continue to be nineteen years old for the foreseeable future.

I hear that Millard and Paul Hardcastle are making a record. N-N-N-N Nineteen.

TRACK: Plough Lane, Wimbledon (should still be the shining beacon of London, and British, speedway) 1. Ronnie Moore 2. Jim Tebby 3. Tommy Jansson 4. Pete Murray 5. Trevor Hedge 6. Graeme Stapleton 7 Neil Cameron opposition Reading Racers 1. Anders Michanek 2. Mick Bell 3. Dag Lovaas 4. Geoff Curtis 5. Bernie Leigh 6. Dickie May 7. Graeme Smith Team Manager : Cyril Maidment Result a 40-38 win for the Dons with a classic Tommy Jansson last bend pass in heat 13. RACE NIGHT: Thursday MARCH OUT MUSIC: Don't know the name, but the one they used to play at ABC Saturday morning Pictures Oh, and it's 1972, and I'm 16 again, carefree and with hair.

Confidently predict 1. Denmark 2. Sweden 3. Australia 4. Poland I prefer Sweden over Australia purely based on Denmark and Sweden's history of team riding (plus manufactured draws in the finals of football world and euro cups) to help each other out when needed.

Quite right, we should be proud as a nation that Nigel Pearson has retained his title in the World Cup of Shouting. Sadly rumour is that Poland are offering to let him commentate under one of their licences.

Based on Monday's effort beating the Russians would be a fantastic result.

Well remember that tournament and being on the bend where the Michanek/Collins incident took place. Having watched replay on youtube that decision could easily have gone either way. Excellent summer of speedway. How strange to look back just 35 years and Denmark had to combine with Norway to put a team out, given the strength in depth they have today (also just as well since Norway have now thrown their lot in with Poland)

Well at least we'd have had something to show for the tactical joker last night

Having watched PL teams turn up at Smallmead every week with hardly any British riders (of which Woffinden, Haines and Barker have been the only ones you could see having the potential to step up successfully) it's more a question of where Elite League teams (and following on from that team GB) will get their British riders from in seasons to come. Fans, of course, are notoriously patient with riders who fail to score points, even if they have undoubted potential..

It's about time that Betfair introduced a market on how many times Millard will utter the words "Norwegian riding under a Polish licence" on Thursday. (It must be his turn to commentate I'd have though) Apart from that Sweden and Poland all the way, beyond that just hope GB can be competitive for the first three rounds at least.

For a start Denmark don't have a weak link in their team, they also seem to have their machinery much better prepared, and obviously a much stronger team spirit and determination. They also seemed to know exactly the line to ride first bend from every gate position, whilst how many times did our boys get forced out into last place off first bend (on a track they were all supposed to know so well)? As to GB you'd expect Nicholls, and Richardson, to have done much better last night. Bomber has been largely off the pace at this level since he cost me over a ton with his last bend pass of Hancock at Cardiff last year, in that context he probably did almost OK. Stead, I'm sorry to say, will never make the top level but as a home track heat leader gave a shockingly desperate performance, in a couple of heats riding the track like a second half junior who'd never seen it before I'm not going to blame Allen, who was probably the only rider to perform to realistic expectations. At least GB have the chance to salvage some pride from last night's terrible effort, however we at Reading know all about Jim's powers of motivation (and tactical nous) so it could be another painful evening's viewing

What a difference a year makes... GREAT BRITAIN 60: Scott Nicholls 15, Chris Harris 14, Lee Richardson 11, Simon Stead 10, Edward Kennett 10. SWEDEN 49: Jonas Davidsson 16, Fredrik Lindgren 12, Peter Karlsson 9, Mikael Max 8, Antonio Lindback 2, Magnus Karlsson 2. RUSSIA 27: Denis Gizatullin 11, Emil Sayfutdinov 6, Roman Ivanov 4, Sergey Darkin 2, Renat Gafurov 2, Danil Ivanov 2. USA 20: Greg Hancock 15, Billy Janniro 3, Chris Kerr 2, Charlie Venegas 0, Tommy Hedden 0. Even allowing for the Danes being involved this time around with pretty much the same team as last year GB were slow, seemingly underprepared (perhaps over confident, or maybe just complacent, Jim??) . Painful to watch.

So reading the referee's comments starting gate positions in GP might be summed up as follows.; The rider in red can only ride one line, this has to be 100% perfect to avoid almost certain exclusion on any coming together. The rider in yellow can ride any line he likes. The rider in blue probably won't gate quickly enough to be involved in any trouble. The rider in white might as well not be there anyway, certainly in Cardiff GPs. (BTW, apart from refereeing, the strangest decision of the night must have been Hans Andersen choosing white over yellow in semi final, can only have been because he didn't want Nicki inside of him for some reason.. meanwhile Nicki could not hide his joy at getting the outside gate) Well if them's the rules god help speedway.

Fans don't usually boo bad opponents, I'm sure Nicki takes the booing as a compliment, as in most part he should. Well out of order for people not to respect his post match interview though. I don't believe he deserved to be in the final but would have liked to have heard what he said. As said many times it wasn't his fault that the referee made two dreadful decisions, I've never yet seen a rider rush to the phone to plead that his opponent shouldn't have been thrown out... The people who will really deserve serious abuse are those who select the referees if they don't immediately announce that this idiot is suspended from officiating at all future GP events. Sadly ridiculous decisions are rather more common in SGP than they ought to be, given the endless camera shots from all sorts of angles.