IainB

That's what I'm saying about these riders needing to make their mind up which side their bread is buttered... a guaranteed season in Britain with however many meetings that entails or the chance of a shot in Poland? At the moment the riders want to have their cake and eat it. Don't get me wrong I can totally understand why they do it as there are many clubs in the UK that show zero loyalty to riders, Leicester and then there are those that probably show too much, Edinburgh, Dayle Wood! So there is no "guarantee" of say 30 meetings a season in the UK and this is where it all falls down. If Bailey was offered a season contract at the start of the year guaranteeing him a team place for the whole year as long as he raced in ALL fixtures, no matter when they were arranged for, he may be more inclined to turn down the Polish carrot. And until that happens, we're always going to have incidents like this and the fans that have followed a club all year all of a sudden get sh@t on come pay off time

During his evidence statement last week Phil Morris said that riders in the top echelon earn in excess of £1m per year and you have to assume that Woffy is one of these riders, so it's no surprise that when Poland say jump he asks how high? Connor Bailey does not earn anywhere near that amount though, especially when he's not riding. I'll grant you that British Speedway doesn't help itself by showing it's riders, on the whole, no loyalty at all, but at the end of the day it's the fans that suffer as usual.

You always have a choice, this is all about contracts. If you've signed a contract for a British Club saying you'll be there for all league, cup & play off fixtures, anybody can say anything about reserved race days etc. it doesn't make a jot of difference... of course we don't know what's in Connor's contracts with his clubs. Something is very wrong here and to just explain it away, like they did on BSN, with a throw away "That's Speedway" line is just not on. Poland used to just plunder our top boys in the top league... now they're dictating to us where and when our junior riders can ride. I don't really care who's fault it is, at the end of the day the whole sport revolves around the play-offs and for riders to be missing to spectate at another meeting in a foreign country is just not on!

Have they got the day off today?

I don't really think it would have mattered if he said no to Wroclaw... if he's scoring big points in the future, I'm sure they or any other Polish team would be very quick to forgive and forget

So Connor Bailey elects to miss a crucial play off meeting in the UK to not ride in Wroclaw! The same lad that elected to not ride for his country in the SoN2! This lad needs to work out which side his bread is buttered

Coventry Council

Totally agree except for the very last bit... fans will not travel. Something very strange going on at Swindon, haven't really been following what's going on too closely but like you say they appear to have a new stadium a recently built track within that stadium and a promoters licence on ice... but no Speedway!

The thing is would the likes of Simpson give up his full time job if offered a team spot for the whole season? If not you wonder why he's riding speedway in the Academy, because sooner or later he's going to have to make a decision on whether he wants to be a Speedway rider or not.

I don't want to go on about it (honestly) but I don't think I've ever seen a rider so clearly far out of his depth stay in a team for so long. He's got an average of 0.65 and has only scored 8 points all season and 5 of those were gifted as there was no rider behind him due to exclusions/ef's!

Even if they weren't stronger, British and bad would be preferable to foreign and bad. They do have an academy but still elect not to track a single British rider now Craig Cook appears to have left the scene!

Scorpions giving the Monarchs a lesson on how to pass on their own track. Bit of a mismatch this

Maybe... they can't all be like that surely

Can anybody explain to me why Dayle Wood is taking the team spot of a British youngster?

What's the score with Edinburgh at the moment? Are they finishing at Armadale at the end of the season like they were last year?

Used to be a great little race track... the fans never really seemed to buy into it though

I think @Bagpuss or @Lefty know more than they're letting on

True, and Birmingham and Oxford, I just don't think these speculative stories helps anybody really

Correct... not quite sure why he's wearing an Aces race jacket

Nope... to my knowledge the race jacket is quite the red herring. A clue... he is the father of a current rider who is not currently riding in this country but has done in the very recent past

Nope

I remember even further back in the SS... Dublin! All to be taken with a very large bucket of salt

Unless there's some kind of magical land in the back of a wardrobe where do they expect to find land where everybody else has failed for the last 27 years? I do wish these things weren't given the oxygen of publicity, it just gives fans false hope