IainB

Which makes it all the more mind boggling as to why so many clubs were so eager to cancel matches when it didn't rain! And what do you put the fixture chaos at the end of the 2019 season down to? Or any other season where clubs are running on off nights on sodden wet tracks?

That's just simply wrong about the late start of the season... as you have then gone on to point out in your next sentence. And it wasn't a couple of clubs, it has become widespread throughout the sport and each time a match is cancelled because of THE THREAT of rain it has a knock on effect meaning that the 2 most important matches of the season are now being run in November! It all should have been done and dusted by the end of September, you know it, I know it, everybody except the people running the sport knows it.

Where's the man in charge of this clusterf@#k of a season gone to? Sat in a caravan somewhere in Lincolnshire devising a 5 year plan to make sure it never happens again

The final at Glasgow in 2019 was on a Tuesday night! A night generally recognised in the entertainment industry as being a real crowd puller, especially for travelling support I think you'll find that the fans are at the very bottom of the list of concerns of speedway promotions... if they even make the list at all. Why are teams running on "off" race nights in October? Poole's Wednesday night had supposed to be sacrosanct, so much so they've moved leagues to accommodate it... yet it's all gone out of the window for their biggest match of the season, smh Didn't somebody share the KoC in the 80's? Cov, Oxford or CH?

Perhaps you weren't "nuts" like us Coventry fans

Has anybody else listened to Nigel Pearson's review of the season on this week's British Speedway podcast? It's quite comical! Treat yourselves

The double headers were forced on the fans... were they forced on the promotion?

Perhaps they should run it on Saturday at Leicester with the Kent match

I do hope so, the quality of Speedway around that particular track is so much better with PL class riders

It seems perfectly simple to me, a rider should have 2 minutes to be at the start ready to race, if they touch the tapes they are excluded, what's difficult about that? Any of the other starting shenanigans are always up to interpretation, so why have them. So what if a rider gets a flyer or anticipates the start, this used to add a bit of unpredictability into proceedings, I still remember Jason Gage beating Hans Nielsen at Peterborough because he got a flyer... and Andy Meredith out trapping Hans at Coventry with Nielsen making a right pickle of trying to get round him. From the Speedway I've seen in this country, this season, the starts haven't really been an issue, I don't know if anything has changed but it doesn't seem as bad as in previous years. Watching some Swedish Speedway on the other hand and some of their starts have been terrible and you can almost guarantee the first race of every TV match will be called back... such an anti-climax.

It's not very scientific but here are the British riders used in the PL & CL in 2021: 1 Adam Ellis 2 Anders Rowe 3 Ben Barker 4 Charles Wright 5 Chris Harris 6 Connor Mountain 7 Craig Cook 8 Daniel Bewley 9 Danny King 10 Danyon Hume 11 Drew Kemp 12 Jordan Palin 13 Kyle Howarth 14 Leon Flint 15 Lewis Bridger R 16 Lewis Kerr 17 Paul Starke 18 Richard Lawson 19 Richie Worrall 20 Stefan Nielsen 21 Steve Worrall 22 Tom Brennan 1 Adam Roynon 2 Alfie Bowtell 3 Archie Freeman 4 Ashley Morris 5 Ben Morley 6 Dan Gilkes 7 Dan Thompson 8 Edward Kennett 9 Henry Atkins 10 Jack Parkinson-Blackburn 11 Jack Smith 12 Jack Thomas 13 Jake Knight 14 Jake Mulford 15 James Sarjeant 16 James Shanes 17 James Wright 18 Jason Edwards 19 Joe Alcock 20 Joe Lawlor 21 Joe Thompson 22 Jordan Jenkins 23 Josh Auty 24 Josh Bates R 25 Kyle Bickley 26 Kyle Newman 27 Luke Crang 28 Luke Ruddick 29 Max Clegg 30 Nathan Ablitt 31 Nathan Greaves R 32 Paul Hurry R 33 Ryan Kinsley 34 Simon Lambert 35 Tom Bacon R 36 William Lawson R At least 6 of these riders have "retired". There's 42 team places available in the PL and 84 team places available in the CL. You could probably thin down the CL list as not all of these riders will have done anywhere near a full season.

But we're the family sport, so we're told, T20 can't do this... are they trying to poach our "families"... before the grim reaper does

I would call that play off challenging, certainly not title challenging, it was evident every time we met Poole during the season we were never going to beat them over 2 legs as we could only beat them the once over 1 leg over 6 meetings. As good as the twins are, especially at Leicester, they're often found wanting away especially with Dan at 2, that's what Perks gave us, consistency home and away, you were never going to get that from Josh Bates Just my opinion

Not really good enough for a title challenge though, you need a reserve who's capable of scoring double figures, which Mountain and/or Dan have shown they're well capable of on occasions

I think there must be an unwritten rule that says twins/brothers ALWAYS have to ride in the same team... it seems to have happened a lot down the years lol

Funnily enough I was listening to a podcast yesterday with Lemo and he was of the opinion that some of the riders have gone soft and it's good that 6 rider races put them out of their comfort zone at times, he cited the Czech Golden helmet as an example of 6 rider races and they're ok on tracks that can handle 6 riders. Personally I think the accidents at the SoN were a result of the poor track prep on Day 1 of the event. For me I thought the 6 rider race was quite spectacular... as a one off only though.

I would describe success as those riders that go on from the NDL to make a career out of Speedway. It really depends on what the NDL is supposed to be "developing" is it developing international class riders capable of becoming World Champion, it's never going to do that on a consistent basis or is it developing riders to fill league positions in the upper leagues to sustain the sport in this country? For me it should be the latter and if you look at the position the upper leagues are in this season you'd have to say it has failed. We had "the perfect storm" this year of Covid travel restrictions and Polish league rider limitations and when British speedway should have been pulling on the resources of the riders that have been "developed" over the last 10 years there was very little there, hence absolutely ludicrous levels of doubling up/down. In another thread I took a look at the number of riders that were riding in the NDL 10 yeas ago that went on to have what you'd call a career in the sport and the number was alarmingly small, something like 10%, so the numbers would say that the NDL is a failure despite the "headliners" of Woffy, Lambert, Bewley & Brennan etc. That doesn't mean to say it's a bad league, I don't know, I've never seen an NDL match and don't really take too much interest in it. The problem really lies with the routes or progression into the upper leagues where the promoters are still more likely to choose a foreign rider or a double up/downer than go with an NDLer as the rules allow it.

I'd like to see Connor Mountain back, not sure why he wasn't included this year, started off with Josh Bates as a replacement for Ellis Perks, that didn't work and neither did his replacement Zaine Kennedy really.

That's me done for 2021, was thinking about the Olympique tomorrow, but the line-up looks a bit 2nd rate... and what a way to finish 2021! SoN x 2 and this. Just about every race had something and the 6 rider final was quite spectacular, the people of Manchester are so lucky to have this facility on their door step, yet I thought the crowd was quite disappointing, hardly surprising when the event had very little promotion. I don't know why Fricke was scratching around for bike parts as he was only riding at BV 6 days ago, personally I think it's a bit sad watching Crumpy ride unable to win races and for me the sooner he calls it quits the better. One thing I must comment on, having attended 3 matches at the NSS in 6 days, is the meeting presentation could be a bit better, specifically the music that is played, it was identical for all 3 events and just sounds like a mix tape that has been put together at the beginning of the season and is just played through the meeting with the same songs in the same order and all of the tracks are a bit "niche", no fan favourite party anthems.

Makes me laugh that they mention that they came through the NDL, CL & PL then stops short of going on to say and then out of Britain, for 2 of them at least and surely it's inevitable that Dan will go the same way

Ask Jaybea to produce you a Peterborough t-shirt with Stupid Boy written on the back! You'd wear it well

Either way, not really viable with riders riding for multiple clubs around Europe

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/sport/11342192.speedway-poole-pirates-to-contest-inaugural-european-club-championship-in-august/ https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/sport/11544713.world-speedway-league-poole-pirates-earn-silver-in-poland/

I thought it actually did run but just not in this country... as I seem to remember there being issues with riders that raced for more than one club

Yeah, I get that... over the last few years it's been especially difficult for some Aussies to get work permits etc. Yet some riders who don't actually "work" in this country are allowed to "reside" in this country, I just wondered what they were doing that some of the others aren't, have they got British ancestry?