bigcatdiary

Godfrey, Louis and Bates, Ford makes the tea and sandwiches

It appears Ritchie Worrall doesn’t

Well let’s be fair that wouldn’t be difficult would it

One of the very best I have seen in decades at Peterborough, tactically astute and excellent communication skills with riders and supporters alike. The only problem is he will still be restricted with the restraints of the Kings Lynn ownership as he was at Peterborough.

They have indeed and they deserve our support at what is an important part of Peterborough Speedway future existence. Its clear that a good turnout for the Peterborough Speedway Rally in Cathedral Square , Peterborough on Saturday 18th November from midday will have an effect on showing our local council that the Speedway has massive support in the city and shouldn’t be allowed to die after 53 years of history just so Ashley Butterfield and his company AEPG can make a lot of money. The Showground should stay for the benefit of Peterborough and it’s residents and be enjoyed for many years to come.

The recent application which the council turned down in respect of the DHL business must have come as a major shock to both Butterfield and DHL as it cuts off a major revenue stream, most of the people I know and myself thought he would get planning permission granted after following the meeting online. As the council was minded to refuse that on the basis of local opinion and 150 objections despite approval from the city planning dept, it doesn’t look good for the next two housing applications which has major opposition from just about everyone as well as nearly two thousand online objections and being against the PCC local plans. If I was Butterfield I would be a worried man because having already sunk a large investment into the application it’s now looking very unlikely he is going to get it home, he can bleat all he likes that speedway is finished at the Showground and is not viable but locally now that’s been showed up to my be bullshyte, so one would have thought it’s time to pull your horns in and come up with a compromise which benefits both AEPG and Peterborough Speedway.

Butterfield is surely the key to everything, until he talks to the consortium or agrees to let speedway continue at the Showground their will be no way to move forward. Chapman has nothing really to sell other than the right to stage speedway in Peterborough and with no venue at the moment it’s worth very little at this point. Buster has made it very clear he doesn’t want to continue at Peterborough past 2023 but even if he did Butterfield is blocking his path both to running speedway at the Showground and selling Peterborough Speedway as a going concern to the consortium.

Your making excuses for management, most promoters and certainly Dickson know full well their own tracks and specifically know when track conditions are unsuitable for speedway racing, bearing in mind the rain that has fallen recently it surely should have been blindingly obvious to anyone that the track wasn’t up to it if it was completely saturated the day before. Utter shambles is pretty accurate to describe the yearly attempts to run meetings in October when the weather is pretty much the same year on year, and the same end of season scramble to complete meetings and finals is the same year on year. Official meetings need to be completed by the end of September and October is spare for the odd meeting rather than important finals.

I agree, Monmore was never one of my favourite tracks but it did offer some interesting meetings and it’s a sad loss to the sport in the UK.

I would be amazed if the track is visible above the water after the rain we have had over the last 24 hours

A bit complicated, it’s bloody ridiculous but I wouldn’t worry because the weather forecast is horrendous for the next seven days.

I listened to most of it and found the reactions of the objectors very interesting when either Butterfield or the DHL boss was speaking when they came out with complete bollox, the councillors had the same view as me so they couldn’t have missed it either. Councillor Stevenson was excellent, if the dates are better I wouldn’t mind attending the main applications because it’s clear that meeting will be lively to say the least. I don’t doubt their will be an appeal or an updated and different new application on the car business but I think it’s unlikely this will be sorted by spring 2024, it’s a big blow to AEPG and hopefully the car business with DHL will be shut down as quickly as possible. I do wonder though if PCC will let them continue pending an appeal.

Their was talk that it wasn’t going to be very long at all

It doesn’t work like that unfortunately

Not sure I agree with that, Peterborough running speedway offers him big gates every time we meet, he has said loads of times he would sell the Panthers if the right offer came along and it’s clear he wants to cut down his involvement in running speedway both at Peterborough and Lynn. Apart from a small amount the chance of enough supporters making the trip down the A47 to make it worthwhile is minimal, let’s be fair Peterborough supporters have been used to to the very best ( when our track man gets it right) Lynn racing is generally poor and at worst dreadful. Given the choice most won’t bother ( me included) and to be fair Chapman should know this, he has been told enough times.

Over 53 years 300 plus riders have ridden for the Panthers, if these riders particularly wanted to go nothing was stopping them from attending. As for those who wanted to go but didn’t get invited, really, is it that important to for ex riders to think they need to get invited for free to consider attending the very last match at the Showground.

It’s been a shame for the last few seasons, but it certainly ruined tonight’s meeting.

I was told all his equipment went back to Denmark after his last match for Berwick, shame as I think he should have been included bearing in mind the massive part he has played in our history.

Entertaining meeting but it has to be said Ipswich with Sayfutdinov and Doyle and an 18 point lead should have won that overall but the Witches bottom four were shocking. Sheffield attacked it and clearly wanted it more, good scoring 1-7 and the best team won on the night.

Yes it was

I can only agree with this, the track was a disgrace and the referee not much better, he let a few fliers go last night and whatever he was thinking in heat four when Hume locked up heaven alone knows. Sayfutdinov, Doyle and King were excellent for Ipswich and Lambert and Pickering did their best for Sheffield but Holder was appalling and the rest of the riders couldn’t handle the track. As a viewing spectacle it was complete rubbish and that’s the biggest problem, for a showpiece final it was an utter disgrace.

We use similar materials and our racing has been affected as well.

It’s Interesting that stock cars gets good crowds at Foxhall and The Norfolk Arena, perhaps the stock car racing is good, I wish I could say that about the speedway at both venues but let’s be honest its generally pretty poor and has been for decades.

It appears to me that the FIM want all of the riders to go through the WC qualifiers and to be fair if they did it would make for a better quality field and avoid this sort of scenario of riders in the series that haven’t really got a hope, Lebedevs, Huckenbeck and Kvech are well out of their depth at this level.

You and me both, the more matches that count the better