IainB

Well, you have got Kolodziej and KKand he's still well capable of beating either of them

Madsen, N Pedersen, NKI, Kildermand, K Bjerre, Michelsen, Hans Andersen, Thomsen, MJJ

They just keep winning it There's a lot of hot or miss merchants in that polish team

Yes, they're on the pace on their own tracks. I suppose it depends on what format you compare... Clearly the Russians have the best 2/3 man team, the poles probably the best 4/5 man team and I'd say the Danes would have the best 7/8 man team... All of the above on a neutral track of course

True... I just don't buy that the quality of rider the Polish system produces is anything special. Undoubtedly they've nailed the way to run a successful league. I just think they produce quantity rather than quality when it comes to riders. Just my opinion

I'd say only Hampel and KK have been genuinely world class out of that lot so far

Yeah, one of em was a Ruski, couldn't remember which. My general point is that the Polski's are not the all conquering nation producing world class riders off of a never ending production line that we are sometimes led to believe. The majority of the "Stars" in the Ekstraliga are foreigners

Go on... Read the rest

Yes, I'm having a giraffe, got that one wrong, shows promise/international class... Glad you agree with the rest though

Let's look at the "Poles" in the Ekstraliga this year Przedpelski - Club Man Swidnicki - Shows promise Holta - Norwegian Miskowiak - Reserve Kowalski - ? Buczkowski - Journeyman P Pawlicki - World Class P Pawlicki - Club Man Turowski - Reserve Lotarski - Reserve Lakhbaum - Reserve Woryna - Club Man Miedzinski - Journeyman Szczepaniak - Journeyman Klosok - LOL Protasiewicz - Journeyman Tudziez - Reserve Dudek - World Class Krakowiak - Shows Promise Tonder - Reserve Niedzwiedz - ? Zmarzlik - World Class Kasprzak - Club man Wozniak - Club man Karczmarz - Shows Promise Bartkowiak - Reserve Nowacki - ? Kubera - Shows Promise Kolodziej - Journeyman Szlauderbach - Russian? Smektala - Journeyman Drabik - International Class Chugunov - Russian Janowski - World Class Liszka - Reserve Curzytek - ? Hampel - Journeyman Jamrog - Journeyman Lampart - Shows Promise Bober - ? While the Polish league is without doubt the strongest league in the world there's an awful lot of dead Polish wood and unproven talent. I wonder how they manage to implement the " have to have four Poles per team" rule and still comply with European Law? That's probably been done to death somewhere else on these forums anyway

I remember Jason Gage beating Hans Nielsen once at Peterborough, he brought the house down... Doesn't mean they're going to go on to great things

Can somebody read through these and summarise the relevant points... thanks https://www.pzm.pl/zuzel/regulaminy https://translate.google.co.uk/?hl=en-GB&tab=rT#view=home&op=translate&sl=pl&tl=en Rules.txt

It's the World Champ in the picture Hang on a minute, let's not blow too much smoke up the Poles bottoms... The fact is they have still only produced 3 world champions (ever), have won most of the team cups on their own tracks. even these under 23 (or is it 21) world beating reserves that we see disappear when they get older... where are the reserves of a few years ago now? I don't think, most, including me, are criticising Dave... It's Premier Sports not providing him with a co-commentator to work with. I don't know that I've ever watched any live sport that has been presented with a single commentator... since the 70's

The Speedway on TV issue is a complex one, looking back at the crowds in the early Sky days and it's pretty clear promoters of today would die for those crowds. A lot of "promotions" never promoted a televised event at their track. At the end of the day, for me and many people I suspect, it came down to money. Whenever Sky were at Coventry I never went... because they never reduced their admission, I wasn't going to pay £16 to watch a meeting I was already paying for on Sky, If they'd reduced it to a tenner (and once or twice they did) I would have attended (and I did). When clubs reduced their admission the crowds were generally much more healthy.

Well, I've watched my first 3 PPV matches on Premier Sport and I must say, while I'm more than happy to have some "Live" Speedway to watch, I'm less than happy with the coverage. It reminds me very much of how Eurosport used to be, bordering on amateurish, I wonder if this will be the shape of things to come when/if the British League gets underway on that channel. I know the commentator is active on here so I'll not be too critical but he really needs a co-commentator to work with as even just reading tweets out during the breaks leaves him with nowhere to go other than silence. You'd think that Premier Sport would have taken in enough extra subscription money to warrant a co-commentator. I also realise there were no adverts in any of the matches over the weekend, so surely that's even more reason for a co-commentator. The commentator doesn't seem to have done his homework on the intricacies of the Polish League either, with lack of knowledge of the helmet covers, league points, tacticals, rider numbering (what's that all about!!) etc. He's certainly more knowledgeable than that 5-1er, 3-3er guy they were using last year for some matches but I do feel he doesn't inject much excitement into his commentary, sounds more like a cricket commentary... but that's just my personal preference/opinion. Missing heat 1 of the 1st match yesterday while they're playing promos is amateurish and unforgivable. Having watched some of the Free Sport output last year I've become well used to not seeing the last few heats of a meeting, so I was well prepared for it and recorded the whole channel for the night! As things stand I can't see myself renewing my subscription beyond this season should live British Speedway resume next year.

Like I said... better to watch delayed, unless you like long silences

During this time of lock down I've been listening to a lot of excellent Podcasts, where a number of riders have been telling stories of their careers. It's been great listening to some of their anecdotes at length, as opposed to a mid meeting interview, or a PR friendly interview in the Speedway Star. I don't know if I'm just naive but a thread that seems to run through a lot of them are the shady people and dealings that go on in the sport that a lot of us have no idea about. The Sean Wilson, Rick Miller and Bobby Schwartz podcasts have been very entertaining. Anyway the ones I've been listening to are provided by: Humans of Speedway Tatum & Peason Talk Speedway The Speedway Podcast Are there any others I wonder?

"The Axeman" as nobody called him... Except for Peter Yorke

Haven't they got that roof on yet? I thought that was the reason why it closed... at least that was the story we were being fed at the time

You could try starting up a Just Giving page

I think you can subscribe to the online Premier Player, whether the rights extends to the US or not I don't know... you may also need VPN

I tend to watch on Live/Delay anyway... a bit like the F1, maybe give them half an hour start and FF through all the filler and hope to end at about the same time

probably better... as from what I've seen in the past they do tend to have looooong delays for track grades etc. and as there's no presenting team there's no filler... saves me fast forwarding through it all

The can of worms is now open...

Ekstraliga being shown live on Premier Sports @ £9.99 a month for 6 month contract... think I may have a punt for that price, especially as I've spent £0.00 on Speedway so far this year!