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What would you prefer? Carry on regardless, incur rental & staffing charges as well as rider travel expenses, get the punters there & when it rains send everyone home? An early call off at least lets people get on with living their lives & they can come back next week. Better that than let them waste time & money turning out for a meeting that gets called off - THAT is a good way of ensuring they don't come back the following week.

So they couldn't afford hime - which is not the same as Bellego being expensive then, is it? If he'd said he'd commute using National Express it wouldn't have cost much - unless they couldn't afford it. The promotion at the time dismissed his not being signed as his demands were excessive. That's been proven to not be the case. Still, don't let the truth get in the way of pacifying in the short term, eh?

I don't think there was anything "apparently" about his signing. Of course, one scenario that fits is that the Glasgow Promotion wer talking more bollocks than the Rangers official who said "The VAT cheque? Oh aye, that's in the post".

Can you explain how a north & south split in the PL would "clearly" save money? Are all riders supposed to move house so they're based centrally in either region? It's a total fallacy theatre regionalisation would save very much, if anything. I think you'll find that it's already occurred to promoters to take into consideration where the opponents are travelling from when it comes to calling meetings off. The same a the time they might become liable for stadium rent. Track covers keep getting hrown up as the answer to every weather problem - except at multi purpose stadia. Then there comes the question of who's going to put hem down. And lift them for track perpetration. What about drainage? The water that is prevented from landing & being absorbed into x square metres of track has to go somewhere. Making tracks smaller - Glasgow, Berwick & Workington will bein favour of hat for starters. Or perhaps not.

How did the best track in the country - according to referees who, in every other aspect know nothing - fare on Saturday then?

Either a : he's under the impression you're a Glasgow fan or b : he's going to kill you in the near future. Not much of a choice, is it? 😄

No one has suggested that anyone would turn out to listen to the centre green presenter, the music, the pies or anything else other than the racing. The reason for stopping off at a country pub would be a pint and a meal. The preparation of the food needs to be right, but even if it was, people will be discouraged from returning by the stench of festering sewage. The current centre green presenter adds to the evenings entertainment what a rancid, festering latrine brings to a Sunday lunch. In my opinion. There's been a number of good suggestions to freshen up the approach to both Saturday nights and beyond. Hopefully they'll be explored.

And there we have it, "put up with" (twice) "not so good" and "whittering on". All the reasons why speedway is dying on its ass, as fewer and fewer people think its a good idea to pay out more each year only to have things that have to be "put up with". What problems does speedway have? It seems perfectly tailored to suit some of its supporters.

Is that the best we can expect these days: he's not as bad as some? I'm not disputing your assessment - in fact if that is the case, there's a significant reason behind the decline of the sport. "It's a bitt crap, but not as bad as it could be". With regard to the other comments: Nobody is suggesting that people turn up because of good presentation. Nobody is suggesting that people turn up at a pub because of sweetly smelling bogs. But you head off for a family meal in a local hostelry and, despite the excellent ale and outstanding cuisine, if there's a stench of fermenting bogs, the chances are that you'll not make the mistake of returning. So Barrie knows his speedway. So do any number of bobble hat wearers, but you wouldn't want to listen to them all night, and they would be without the meandering patter reminiscent of a fermenting bog. As for solutions, Edinburgh's idea of a local DJ has worked well. Berwick used to have a youngish guy who was a DJ. Go down that route. He'll be finished by 9:00 most weeks, 9:30 at the latest, so it could easily be made to fit for a few quid (bearing in mind Barrie won't be doing it for fresh air).

You can bet your bottom dollar that, on the first night of the season, promptly at "6:50" (18:57 GMT), to the sound of a 1960s flop made "popular" by a novelty act, as the riders amble out to the start line area past the least populated part of the stadium. Then everyone will be sent asleep for 10 or 15 minutes by the lullaby involving "bouncing", "Bandits", "bonnie" & "Berwick" which the brain of anyone not in a coma processes as "Barrie", "brainless", "billious" & "boredom" before the assembled masses are "treated" to a pick up full of riders tearing past (as best as a past-its-best, overloaded pickup can) which will come in handy for identification purposes, should any of them appear on Crimewatch CCTV footage in a drive by shooting. The alternative of either bringing the riders of of the football tunnel (where some of the PEOPLE are!) or taking a spin in the truck clockwise (passing the PEOPLE) before a non-meandering introduction & a proper couple of laps bike parade; thus getting on with the damn thing AND creating a bit of atmosphere will remain something that happens... elsewhere.

Excellent argument, coherently constructed & presented with aplomb.

3 groups of 4 would be more than enough. It does allow for continuity, because as & when more teams enter the PL the groups could be adjusted to accomodate them. How the same fixtures (but all now PL) as last year is less attractive doesn't make sense. What it does do is eradicate "fag-end" matches from the PT by incorporating them into the league. It's all just moving deckchairs though & not addressing the iceberg that speedway is heading towards.

It's actually a decent enough idea, and absorbs the Premier Trophy, thus doing away with pointless fixtures in May for those teams out of contention for the PT Semis. It'll include all the matches in the averages, avoiding the fixing that used to go on in the PT, so there's no reason to continue rolling averages. It also makes the play offs essential, between the top two from each group. All of which is good. None of which saves money.

Total fallacy that north & south would save any money. It's not about where he teams come from, it's where their riders are travelling from. Purely as an example as his signing has been announced tonight: Carl Wilkinson. How is Redcar going to benefit from dragging him up north for two lots of fixtures going to sve cash? And the adoption of straight north & south groups basically absorbs the League Cup / Premier Trophy into the league - the expenses don't reduce just by calling it a League match.

Based on his repeated non-riding absences, it hardly seems a huge leap of faith to believe it'll only be a matter of time before once again guests are being dragged in. If your warped mind wants to interpret that as "wishing him ill", then that says more about you than me. If you're naive to think that the Swedes don't take into account air fares when negotiating deals, then so be it.It doesn't actually matter whose credit card is used to pay the airline, the money ultimately comes out of the club. It could be easily argued that that's a price worth paying in the case of Alden (asset) and even Aspegren (+ loan fee). As far as throwing 5 teambuilding points into the wind on a non-English speaking second-halfer, it'll be in keeping with Sike, Hertrich, and to a large extent, Mudgway.

If they're going to run with Edberg (flights, hospital fees, NL guests as replacement once Barrett overtakes his average) and Albin (how much is it going to cost to fly an NJL: rider half way round the world to house & feed him) then, frankly, they deserve all the get - or don't get - to pay into the bank on a Monday morning.

When the bottom end of the other EL Clubs is taken into consideration - made up largely of uper & middle order PL riders - how did Stead season's go? Well, it got to the point where Swindon (may or may not have) sacked him. I think he'd be the latest to drop down and discover it's not that easy to rack up points. It would be ridiculous to think of changing race nights to suit one rider- it's not as if he's going to be a "world beater" at PL level. As far as "one of your own" is concerned, he's committed to the cause - as long as it isn't on Thursdays, when he's busy with Swindon. Brilliant.

Spelling corrected. That better?

Really? Is that why he's in the pits most Sundays & stays with one of the Directors when he's in GB?

A few of my suggestions have already been made, thanks. Ar you suggesting that here has never been a post made on here criticising the BSPA for "tinkering" with the ules from year to year, or that any of this doesn't fall into "rule tinkering"? Get over yourself.

Will all of this thread be in the PC version, or just in the enhanced X-Box & PS3 versions? Could this thread be incorporated along with the similar ones and be merged with those that bleat on about hoardes of fans being driven away by promoters constantly tinkering?

Problem, Arse? Repeatedly bleating about "true champions" and moaning about playoffs is going to achieve sod all. It's 2012, there's no black leathers, upright engines or monkey masks. What there is, is a big crowd (yes, even at Scunthorpe!), and a season decider Heat 15 - so, one thing there WILL be in 2013 is a play off structure (hopefully amended from this year).

So, no idea about the Challenge Trophy, or the Young Shield that preceded that? The only thing wrong with the Play Offs was the group idea instead of it being a straight knock out. No meaningless matches that drain the coffers even more. As has been evidenced for years, the semi finalists are awarded with a decent crowd for a change, the finalists with two. The fact that the sport isn't exactly awash with cash, surely that's the point of the play offs, at least at PL level.

Yeah, if only you had mentioned this time last year that the weather would decimate the whole season I'm sure they would have come up with an alternative. I suppose in 2009 you didn't bother with the Newcastle matches against Birmingham & Sheffield in the (non-league deciding) play offs - I suppose there were too many people enjoying themselves for you to feel comfortable.

So, with McBain also listed for this, and Joe Jacobs booked for tomorrow, it seems that Jakobsen has taken the hint & simply stopped annoying everyone by his attendance. It remains to be seen whether Barrett is coming in for two pointless meetings rather than three but, to be frank, running with Carr & McBain sends out exactly the right message - we can't be bothered, so why should you?