Backless

Not really, he's riding in the CZ league and if he didn't he'd be banned anyway. Is the 7th rated Tiger (hence the N L guest) still strutting around in his Kings Lynn kevlars, like he was at the start of the season? It's not that he's foreign, it's not that he goes missing, it's the fact that he's rubbish and still employed that bugs me. I'm sure at some point soon some clown will use "Sitera", "2013' and "steal on that average" in a team building thread. Word to the wise: some have low averages because they're not very good.

To be honest, loyalty doesn't come into it - who are you going to bring in to replace Barrett & the space reserved for Ashworth, that would improve Berwick's position for either 2012 or 2013? Ashworth seems more than happy to want to return & Barrett, while not an asset looks tasty enough to persue. If he attains a teambuilding average then he's got to be a better bet than the 5 point totally unproven route Berwick have gone down of late.

Not taking anything personally. Minority sport on not, if it's 2nd or 3rd in the viewing stats then it would be reasonable to class it as something of importance to Sky. Their treatment - repeatedly - suggests otherwise.

I don't have any viewing figures, but let's assume you're correct. If speedway is in the top half dozen sports in terms of viewing figures, why should we "be grateful" about the coverage? In fact the shoddy way the cut off the presentations on Saturday is all the more deplorable. Sky charge a hefty fee for their sports channels, that includes any gratitude from me. I'm equally grateful to the baker who bakes the bread I BUY, the oil company who provide the diesel I BUY and indeed anything else provide for me that I PAY FOR.

Check out any of their other rain-affected coverage, only then do you see just how little Sky care about speedway. Particularly one day cricket, dig out a couple of relevant archive matches, and some sensible conversation And they can fill hours of airtime

Live Golf from New York or not, it's totally indicative of the lack of regard Sky has for speedway. There's always ways of sliding back the beginning of the next programme, especially sport and in particular American sport where it happens all the time.

And if the thieving parasites who have defrauded their way through the equivalent of £25 per man, woman & child in Scotland had been the catholic variety of sectarianism in the name of sport, that would of course have been okay then, wouldn't it? Shut down a few protestant schools to make up for the shortfall to the public purse. Chuck a few dozen protestant nurses onto the dole. No one would care. Meanwhile, Berwick Speedway who, quite radically, have made continured improvements to their track & infrastructure without the need to drive the club over a clifftop, (hey, THERE'S a cunning plan!) and are succesfully exploring avenues to increase patronage & revenue. Ther'es simply no need to drag day tripping drunkards into the equation.

Tax dodging to anything up to £125 million, a price worth paying for a full Shielfield Park. Had the rain on the day not been apocalyptic, there's a good chance there would have been more speedway fans in the stadium in June than the descending football thugs & drunks today, what with the need for a considerable police presence and segregation to pen in the drunken animals. Speedway needs no comparison - there may not be as many on Saturday, but the promotion know what they're doing to keep things moving in the right direction.

It's a shame that Team GB have no representation in the upcoming Paralympics that BSI could cash in on - sorry, I meant make an appropriately well timed appearance. They could even have been cajoled to wave a flag in support of the Brits yknow, what with it being the British GP and all that sort of thing..

Did you buy a gross of them, at a market stall in Devon? LOL!

Not a lecture from me, just a question: are you Mike Bowden?

If that's the case, why not give (say) Jason Crump David Howe's racejacket next Friday and we'll just deduct his points because he's not eligible to ride in the Premier League? Same thing, isn't it?

... less apathetic (or perhaps more bored at the time) than any Mildenhall Tigers fans, it seems... If it wasn't a "mistake" then it was a deliberate slight at an East Anglian institution, purely designed to create the furore that it has amongst the clubs fans. why wouldn't I? I have no association with King's Lynn & have probably been 3 times in the last 10 years - the Speedway Star has my permission to call them whatever they like

Evidently they're not miffed enough to have felt need to comment. As to "why?", can I have 'mistake' and ''**** up' in any sweepstake, as well as 'no one cares'?

Devildogger WOULD be a good name for Mike(Dad) though allegedly

And how many of those have their own logo-emblazoned " Xxxxx Xxxxx Racing " clothing - cos that'll help them be better riders. As much as blame can be laid at the door of the sport's authorities for the lack of "conveyor belt", of those who are supposedly trying to break into the sport, there seems to be a bafflingly large number who make a hobby of it all.

Splendid stuff, well thought out & brilliantly structured. Apart from minor things like planning permission (Berwick for one), shifting Berwick into the Elite League works so fabulously 20 odd years ago I'm surprised no one has wanted to do it since. It saves all those pesky visiting supporters from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Redcar, Workington & Sheffield popping in to support their teams, spending cash & the like - just asking for trouble. Best done away with. One "local" derby against Belle Vue will be more than sufficient. I must admire the investment you're evidently prepared to make in persuading all the greyhound tracks that Fridays & some Saturdays should be given over to their tenants. The loacls will certainly be excited to see you turn up at Glasgow & Buxton to install lighting too (maybe your plan also includes converting Stoke from gas lighting to electricity too). One question: the top SIXTY FOUR Brits - does that include the old guys who turn out with JAPs & Jawas??? A TV contract for regular BBC1 coverage on Mondays Fridays & Saturdays (maybe hosted by Dale Winton?) & you've got it cracked.

Would it be possible to exaggerate any more? Probably not.

"Any speedway is better than no speedway" - sums up more than anything else why speedway is in the position in which it finds itself.

So the processing of a professional sportsman's paperwork that's dragged on for weeks & weeks is only now apparently held up by the processing of lots of professional sportsmen's & women's paperwork. That all seems plausible & not at all flannel-based. Maybe they should sub-contract their press statements to the Berwick guy - maybe Harry Potter can help.

So, what about my suggestion that Rather than compound their error of last winter, the BSPA see sense & prevent him from running a speedway club?

I thought Plymouth had so many fans beating down the doors of the St Boniface Arena (Arena? So I imagine it has all the amenties of the Norfolk Arena, of maybe Wembley Arena, or all those indoor Arenas that popped up in other cities. Or maybe "Arena" was cheaper to pain on a sign than "Hole In The Ground") that the gravitational pull of the earh was altered by so many people standing in the same place on a Friday night. It's called cashflow - I presume those matches that were rained off will be restaged? This has the same stench as last year, when the BSPA should have god rid altogether. Shame for the Plymouth fans, yadda yadda yadda. Bigger shame for the Plymouth riders who aren't getting the Plymouth fans' cash. Hopefully, if it lurches on long enough for there to be a decision to make, they won't make the same mistake again.

Berwick are current;ly in negotiation on establishing an exchange rate to convert the fee into Scotch pies. Your sauces will be useful when negotiations are completed "luxuries for the track" programmes at £4 are luxurious enough. Ah bless, have you been looking at a grown up's letter? Have you taken down all the pictures of Little Kenny Bear, or just pinned Ickle Mikey's pictures over them like another layer of wallpaper?

I'm sure the sports authorities look forward to receiving your cheque to underwrite almost all of those meetings!

Pretty much what the Peterborough fans said, the last time they held the same meeting there.... An excellent meeting on an excellent track.