06/06/21 1600 Newcastle v Edinburgh (C-KOC) Followed By 1800 Newcastle v Armadale (NDL)

[gmuncie 201]

1 hour ago, Bagpuss said:

So the authorities are just allowing riders to race in Poland when they have a meeting in the UK and are handing out facilities willy nilly to that end? Disappointing. 

It’s not ‘Willy nilly’ though there is an agreed order of what takes priority across European speedway and cup matches fall below league matches on it.
 

If this had been a league match Sam would have been there as he was at Redcar last Sunday despite his polish club having a match at the same time 

[Tsunami 10,219]

16 hours ago, highside said:

Why are guests all ways crap for the diamonds ?

Of course excluding Jason Lyons from that comment.

[Tsunami 10,219]

16 hours ago, Fromafar said:

Must have used a different one today judging by Updates.

The Updates site has him scoring 10 + 1 ?

[Bagpuss 10,778]

44 minutes ago, gmuncie said:

It’s not ‘Willy nilly’ though there is an agreed order of what takes priority across European speedway and cup matches fall below league matches on it.
 

If this had been a league match Sam would have been there as he was at Redcar last Sunday despite his polish club having a match at the same time 

Fair enough, thanks for clarifying 

[Tsunami 10,219]

After the fine result on Friday at Edinburgh, I wasn't kidded that we would win even with home advantage. Edinburgh are a decent side, not top the league contenders. but always capable of beating us, usually after we have been pretty close in the previous Fridays away meeting. 

Nice to see a decent crowd, about 650 spaced out in blocks of 6  around the terracing, including one Bus full of Monarchs and a number of visitors, track unknown. 

At the end of the day, the Worrall/s made the big difference and after then it should have beeb very even. Unfortunately Tero was terrible, Max no speed or points, and Joe out of it. Given those facts we did OK with good contributions from Adam, James and Matty. Although Connor only scored 4 from 5, he could be very useful with a nice style, a bit of aggression and decent gating. Watch him in future. For the Monarchs, aside from the twins, the 2 Aussies Josh and Kye were entertaining with a rough ride from Kye around and into the fence, and Josh with the best pass on the night in the rerun. Willie got 5, mainly from his unlikely win in heat 14, whilst I was disappointed with Joe's contribution. An expected result, but as expected the trump cards are going to be the excellent Roynon and the hard riding James. With better contributions from our number 1 Ben, and a return to form from  Max, and a little more from Matty and Connor, I think we will get some decent results again even the better teams. It's not the doom and gloom that many thought it would be , but away will be a different story. 

Very pleased with the track all night. It was smooth, no dust and given enough water and mild roughing up with the spiked grader. No Rough Park here,  and all race  lines were used. 

Convincing win for the Gems in the second match, with a speedier Max and a brilliant start from our Archie. Some really good passes, with Archie off 15metres weaving his way through the others to take a brilliant win, and getting Luke  Muff up to make it a home 5-1. Calamity and entertaining rider of the night was the expected crashes from George Rothery , who was extremely lucky to be able to ride given the damage he caused in his first ride. Taking down the exposed fence on the back straight and hitting a lampost is not a great way to start his meeting. Certainly the Gems will be a match for anyone home and away, and certainly will be with the returning Danny on Sunday if he gets the green light to ride from the Doctor.

A very successful first meeting, which was a bit long and especially when it cut in very cold even under the stand canopy.    

[leander 495]

22 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

Let’s hope the racing is better than the terrace organisation.

Blocks of six marked out so I have to stand right next to 5 strangers whose vaccination status I have no idea of, rather than being able to move into the huge empty spaces. Let’s all hope this is only for the first couple of meetings.

Come on the Diamonds

Can't agree more. I thought the whole idea of social distancing was so that you DID NOT mix with people outside your own social group. I found a space under the canopy where I was at least ten feet away from the nearest group. " Sorry, you can't stand there. you need to be on a "X" . You'll have to stand over there and mix with 4 people you don't know." Bonkers. A much better system at Edinburgh. Given coloured wrist bands depending on which zone you were in meanins security could easily check whether people were where they should be. Once in your zone you could stand/ sit where you wanted as long as you maintained the required distance from next social group. All security had to do was walk around making sure everybody complied. Not force people to break GOVERNMENT guidelines on social distancing by forcing them to stand next to strangers. 

Gripe no 2. Why was there a 45 minute delay between matches? There was a 15 minute track grade followed by 20 minutes of nothing. Then the teams did a track walk, followed by the bikes being warmed up. Warm them up during the track grade, for god's sake. Then just get on with it as soon as the track grade is finished.

Gripe no. 3. The Matchday magazine. 20% increase in price from 2:50 to £3:00. Fair enough. However, drastically short on content. Only about 4 to 5 pages (out of 22, allowing for the 2 score sheets) of readable articles ,at the most. Definitely won't be in the running for program of the year this season. does anybody proof read it before printing. Incorrect team manager for Newcastle. Referee =  Forename Surname. Fixture Picture. I have a ticket for Newcastle v Leicester on 20 June, yet according to the fixture list printed in the magazine this fixture doesn't take place until the middle of July. Hardly likely to attract the casual supporter if the next league fixture isn't correctly advertised. Not to mention the five away fixtures that are not listed at all.

Definite room for improvement.

 

[leander 495]

On 6/6/2021 at 11:57 AM, StevePark said:

Line-ups for both matches here:

https://www.speedwaygb.co.uk/news.php?extend.38926

 

Aye I saw that Steve, but I also saw two more different line-ups on various social/media outlets. In the end  they were all wrong as they showed Danny Smith as riding, when it was fairly obvious from his facebook post on Saturday morning that he wouldn't be.

[ruffdiamond 6,115]

All I would say, in respect of the two or three posts above would be, there was definitely plenty dust, break between matches might be down to pits availability and Edinburgh is in a different country and may have different rules. 

[MrP 241]

1 hour ago, leander said:

Can't agree more. I thought the whole idea of social distancing was so that you DID NOT mix with people outside your own social group. I found a space under the canopy where I was at least ten feet away from the nearest group. " Sorry, you can't stand there. you need to be on a "X" . You'll have to stand over there and mix with 4 people you don't know." Bonkers. A much better system at Edinburgh. Given coloured wrist bands depending on which zone you were in meanins security could easily check whether people were where they should be. Once in your zone you could stand/ sit where you wanted as long as you maintained the required distance from next social group. All security had to do was walk around making sure everybody complied. Not force people to break GOVERNMENT guidelines on social distancing by forcing them to stand next to strangers. 

Gripe no 2. Why was there a 45 minute delay between matches? There was a 15 minute track grade followed by 20 minutes of nothing. Then the teams did a track walk, followed by the bikes being warmed up. Warm them up during the track grade, for god's sake. Then just get on with it as soon as the track grade is finished.

Gripe no. 3. The Matchday magazine. 20% increase in price from 2:50 to £3:00. Fair enough. However, drastically short on content. Only about 4 to 5 pages (out of 22, allowing for the 2 score sheets) of readable articles ,at the most. Definitely won't be in the running for program of the year this season. does anybody proof read it before printing. Incorrect team manager for Newcastle. Referee =  Forename Surname. Fixture Picture. I have a ticket for Newcastle v Leicester on 20 June, yet according to the fixture list printed in the magazine this fixture doesn't take place until the middle of July. Hardly likely to attract the casual supporter if the next league fixture isn't correctly advertised. Not to mention the five away fixtures that are not listed at all.

Definite room for improvement.

 

Unfortunately a lot of last nights rules were down to Newcastle City Council and ARC racing. Case of everyone jumping through hoops to please these. 
Agree not ideal but out of the promotions hands

[Tsunami 10,219]

12 minutes ago, ruffdiamond said:

All I would say, in respect of the two or three posts above would be, there was definitely plenty dust, break between matches might be down to pits availability and Edinburgh is in a different country and may have different rules. 

There was very little dust, when you look at some recent photos of Redcar and Scunny. There will always be plumes of shale behind riders, but we could see all the riders all of the time. 

[leander 495]

34 minutes ago, MrP said:

Unfortunately a lot of last nights rules were down to Newcastle City Council and ARC racing. Case of everyone jumping through hoops to please these. 
Agree not ideal but out of the promotions hands

I appreciate that a lot of the covid rules in place last night were not necessarily the fault of Newcastle speedway promotion, who were doing there best to comply with various instructions. However, Stewarding could have been better. There was no check made, on the terracing at least,  to see that people were in the correct zone as shown on their ticket. For example I was in the covered stand area, but could just has easily stood outside on the open terracing , and vice versa, thus potentially overcrowding these areas. As I said before the "boxes of six", whoevers (not so) bright idea that was did nothing to maintain social distancing. How many social groups of five or six was there actually attending? It just achieved the exact opposite. A lot of people around the area where I stood weren't happy at the LACK of social distancing it created. 

Don't forget for the next 5 weeks there is competition with the footy euros being on telly. how many people would rather watch that in there safe "bubble" than be forced to mix with strangers at the speedway?

[MrP 241]

13 minutes ago, leander said:

I appreciate that a lot of the covid rules in place last night were not necessarily the fault of Newcastle speedway promotion, who were doing there best to comply with various instructions. However, Stewarding could have been better. There was no check made, on the terracing at least,  to see that people were in the correct zone as shown on their ticket. For example I was in the covered stand area, but could just has easily stood outside on the open terracing , and vice versa, thus potentially overcrowding these areas. As I said before the "boxes of six", whoevers (not so) bright idea that was did nothing to maintain social distancing. How many social groups of five or six was there actually attending? It just achieved the exact opposite. A lot of people around the area where I stood weren't happy at the LACK of social distancing it created. 

Don't forget for the next 5 weeks there is competition with the footy euros being on telly. how many people would rather watch that in there safe "bubble" than be forced to mix with strangers at the speedway?

I was upstairs in the restaurant area and I could see various people in high viz jackets constantly walking around. Whether or not they were advising people or checking up I don’t know. There were also council representatives in every area and indeed there were two sitting just along from us monitoring the situation upstairs. There were also constant announcements made via Barry Wallace. One final point you also have to take on board people’s acceptance or indeed reluctance of the rules and regulations. Like I said previously not ideal but considering everything I thought it went ok. Hopefully things will return to a more normal soon enough. Fingers crossed people still attend.

[ruffdiamond 6,115]

1 hour ago, Tsunami said:

There was very little dust, when you look at some recent photos of Redcar and Scunny. There will always be plumes of shale behind riders, but we could see all the riders all of the time. 

The dust is still causing my feet aggravation and, av had 2 showers since last night!!!,,, do you think a should change me socks? 

[OveFundinFan 4,140]

Leave changing socks to end of June, once every 6 months is quiet enough.

[TotallyHonestJohn 3,078]

4 hours ago, leander said:

Aye I saw that Steve, but I also saw two more different line-ups on various social/media outlets. In the end  they were all wrong as they showed Danny Smith as riding, when it was fairly obvious from his facebook post on Saturday morning that he wouldn't be.

I was told a couple of hours ago that Danny still thinks he might be able to do this meeting as at lunchtime today... and although am not on that bookface thing so I don't know what's been said there the craic today was he still thinks he will be able to do it (but he's the only one who does think that I believe)...

So the line up will be a bit fluid at the minute...

Regards

THJ