marko

Not read through all the posts but want to touch on what White Knight said a couple of pages ago, he summed up my thoughts when i read the statement about these young riders no doubt going out to buy the best and fastest bikes they can and then racing above their level of ability and end up injurying themselves and possibly others. Not against the concept of pushing the younger riders but like everything with the bspa its always done in a way which suits them first and the sport second. One other thing, all very well having these new rules but whats going to be done to improve the match day experience? if meetings are still going to be long drawn out affairs on poorly prepared tracks with little or no entertainment then what is the point.

After the storms on Monday i wonder how many tracks have suffered damage and how many have been improved by it, by nearest track is Arena, no need to say which is the more likely outcome there then.

Was this meeting originally set to go with 16 qualifying heats? because if it was its just another example of taking the P out of the paying public, its bad enough promoters running ordinary invididual meetings with only 12 riders and 15 heats but still charging normal prices. If your not going to do something properly then don't do it at all.

How is a comment in the Bournemouth Echo aimed at people on the internet? Don't think that paper gets distributed outside the local area. Look, everyone knows teams that have continued success tend to get disliked in any sport, it's just something you have to put up with, you (Poole) won the play offs, that is all that should matter to you, not what everyone else thinks, rise above it! You won the play offs just enjoy it.

Make the most of it, its the last time your going to see this sport on Sky, but with tracks like the one we see tonight and poor crowds outside of the play offs it will be no surprise. Anyways well done to Poole, not going to call them cheats, although i think they did have a win at all costs attitude that at times went too far. Seen enough, now time to watch some footy, speedway is effectively finished for 2013

Nope, it just proves that speedway is a minority sport, football is and always will be far more popular except for the absolute speedway die hards who probably have no interest in football anyway. Potentially millions of people, or at least a seven figure sum care about how England do tomorrow, where as only 3-4000 at most care about the outcome of a speedway play off final. For all the bickering and bitching that goes on within this site you would think the world revolves around this sport, it does not, its small and inconsequential, the winners of the final probably wont even get a mention in the national press.

this is hopefully a sign that sky cant wait to get shot of speedway, the viewing figures tomorrow will be crap thus supporting their case. I was going to watch the meeting as it would have been a potential landmark as the last sky broadcast of this sport ever but i will now be watching the football. Quite frankly though its shocking that in a season with only 14 home meetings for each team we are trying to stage a grand final in the middle of October.

Could be a clever move by Swindon financially to host the 1st leg at home as this is likely to mean more Poole fans spending out to support their team, had Swindon won at Poole 1st then a lot of Poole fans probably would not have bothered with the 2nd leg and maybe even some Swindon fans would give it a miss to save for home and away trips in the final?

I think there is also a danger though of the wrong messages being sent with that final meeting, everyone plays down the use of guests and rider replacement and that meeting was full of them yet people still turned up in numbers, what does that say to promoters?

Would not be surprised if sky did have a problem with crowd levels at meetings they show, after all most sporting events are made to look better when there is a good atmosphere, a great race can only look so good if no one is there to see it and for the people at home tuning in its going to be a case of what is that? well there is hardly anyone there so it can't be that good, i will switch over. Said it once and i will say it again, the promoters got greedy, they took the money and ran instead of taking the ball and running with that instead.

Would like to make a comment on the point Arthur Cross made about where the next generation of promoters will come from. I immediately thought of the late great John Berry when he said that and about how back in the day someone young with vision was looked upon in a not too nice way by the powers that be! The bspa has always been a closed shop and it probably always will be, which is why you will never see an independant body in charge of the sport. But this is what the sport needs, younger minds with visions and the ability to think outside the bubble that the bspa have long been trapped in.

Lakeside have been getting decent crowds the last couple of months but nothing spectacular i would say but for the first couple of months and the 1st meeting in June when it was on sky the crowds were well down below what would be perceived as average. No idea of actual numbers but overall the pattern is not good because the drop off when the weather is not good or there is no kids a for quid deal is quite alarming.

Like others have said its down the promoters that the sky link up did not work, they had a great opportunity to show their product off but what did they do? The carried on making no more effort than normal to prepare tracks that would provide good racing and 95% of the time offer no incentive for people come to and watch rather than sit and home. Week after week after week, they just accepted the fact hardly anyone was going to turn up, it could not have bothered them too much otherwise they would be begging for sky to stay away as it costs them money. In short they simply took the money and ran and sod what happens in the future.

Will say the same thing as i said on the Lakeside forum which is- I would edit that statement to read "Our crowds have proved time and again that they are only interested in watching official fixtures AND ONLY THEN when the weather is nice and its not being shown on Sky. Apart from the summer months our crowds have been poor, cant blame the promotion for not wanting to put extra meetings on and clearly they were not willing to break the bank to replace Seb which i have to agree with even though i think it probably puts a nail in a coffin regards the play offs.

If MJJ was going to ride over here then i could only see it being with Peterborough and no im not being sarcastic. However since Peterborough dropped Larsen and Sundstrom they are clearly not in their immediate plans which begs the question what is their current status, i seem to recall one or both were injured? Peter Ljung is still my favourite guess as to who it will be but if not him then its bound to be someone with good experience of larger tracks as that is what is going to decide whether we can nick that 4th spot.

Baring in mind five of our last six meetings are away from home and mostly on large track, i certainly would not rule out Ljung as being a candidate.

I always used to be keen on collecting programmes, there was a program I really would have liked to have got last season but they sold out and never done a reprint, I think being a lakeside fan you will all know the meeting I'm referring to. A few weeks back I turned up for a meeting a despite only a fairly average crowd they had sold out of programmes so I improvised and used my phone to keep track of results, in the end I figured what's the point in wasting £2.50 every time so now I don't bother, that's at least £35 a season the club has now lost. The trouble is programmes in general are a rip off and promoters rely on people wanting to collect them and refuse to publish team line ups to try and prevent fans making their own ahead of time.

I can understand forever blues point, to me Kevin was not given a whole lot if chances and I always felt he was brought in for his experience, Tyson has been riding well but it's a gamble.

Tac subs in the WTC are fine, Jokers are not and for the very same reason they should not be used in league racing but we all know the promoters will never get rid of them because its a way keeping scores artificially close without having to pay the riders more money.

Spot on Steve Brum, we go to watch Racing not this load BS, if this starts happening in league racing i would stop going tomorrow.

Exactly right Brummie it just goes to prove how much of a farce double points are, will Nicki be paid for coming 2nd thats the question?

Chris Gay got himself in a right mess with that heat but to be fair it did not help that the incorrect flag was shown to the rider in yellow, he was shown the chequered flag when he still had one lap to go having fallen earlier in the race, the ref actually robbed Shane Hazeldon of extra points because there is a small chance he could have got to the line ahead of Ben Holloway who was given 2nd even though he was 3rd when the ref incorrectly put the red lights on.

MJJ just F-Bombed again lol

These Polish team managers have a lot to learn from us when it comes to phone abuse, got to throw that thing down and follow it up with a curse word

who is this mickey mouse team we now have on