Aces51

£20 admission at Belle Vue on Monday. Season tickets not valid but holders still get fast track admission and a free programme. Seems very reasonable, especially after charging normal price for the semi final.

The uncertainty must be worrying but let's hope everything turns out ok and we have two clubs with new stadiums next season.

Massive would be doing the treble in a league with 18 or so teams. Ford has achieved much in his time at Poole but at what benefit to the sport? Personally, I regard persuading a city council to fund and get built a purpose built speedway stadium a couple of miles outside the city centre as a massive achievement. That is excellent for the club and the sport as a whole in the UK.

I think Kildermand's problem lies with his peripheral vision. He keeps thinking someone is within a couple of metres of him and takes a dive.

Delighted with the result and you can't argue with wins home and away. All of the Aces did their best, you can ask no more and a special word for Mark Lemon, he has inspired the team this year. You have to feel for the Swindon fans they deserved a team giving 100% but didn't get anything like it. Rosco looked downbeat from the off and obviously couldn't motivate his riders, surely not a difficult task when taking part in such an important meeting. I was particularly surprised by the poor showing from Batchelor, I have never rated him highly but expected at least 6 points at home. Kildemand was also very poor, especially riding as a second string. The only Swindon riders who seemed to have any fight were Morris, Wright and Zengota when he made the gate.

Anyway, on to the match. I don't rule out a Swindon aggregate win but think the Aces should be able to keep it close enough to secure their place in the final.

I certainly can't be bothered looking back to find the matches but if you look at post #166 you will see that Orion, in a rare moment of lucidity, confirms it. If I remember, it was some rubbish about only being able to ride one or two matches a week so he couldn't fit Swindon in. Again, if memory serves, he immediately rode 3 matches in a week in Poland and Sweden. Orion also fails yet again in that post to understand that there was nothing underhand about the Aces having Jonsson on standby. They knew Zagar had suffered further internal bleeding after riding in the GP and that after resting for a week he was going to have a try out on Sunday. There was obviously a risk he wouldn't come through that try out so like any sensible promotion they had a rider on standby to replace him.

Is a bit rich Swindon fans complaining about a rider with a genuine injury who, very sensibly, decided to have a try out meeting to see if the injury had mended before riding in what is a very important meeting for his club. As has been reported his injury had not healed and he is going for further treatment today. Swindon fans would have preferred he didn't ride yesterday and instead took a chance today which, in the light of what has happened after riding yesterday, could have resulted in him not being able to give 100% and the Aces losing out on a place in the final. I can understand that but don't try to justify it by pretending to take the moral high ground when you have a history this season of using a guest for Miedzinski when he was obviously fit enough to ride.

What a shame and a loss for the Aces that Matej didn't come through his try out meeting today with a clean bill of health. Knowing his commitment to the Aces it must have been a difficult and disappointing decision for him to have to make but as he has said all along it would be wrong for him to ride in such an important meeting for the club if he is unable to give less than 100%. We know that AJ weakens us but know he will give his all and he is the best of those available.

Rosco has already apologised after accepting that riding in the GP caused furthest internal bleeding but obviously you disagree with him. Again it was made plain that riding today was to see if it was going to cause the same or similar problems but you seem to have difficulty understanding that as well.

The point here is that Zagar has been riding well in the UK recently so there is no gain in replacing him. I suspect Swindon would prefer him to ride in the hope that he is not 100% fit and they gain an advantage.

You were doing ok until the last paragraph. Dak had been very poor recently whereas Kennett is riding well and usually does well at Poole. The problem here is Poole's history of, let's be neutral, bending the rules. I know if my father had suffered a serious injury I would be off to see him straight away. However, we don't know the facts, we can perhaps assume the injury isn't life threatening, because them I'm sure Dak would have caught the first available flight, so perhaps we give Poole the benefit of the doubt for now. I must say though I doubt I would feel so generous if I were a Coventry supporter.

There are 7 hours of practice per week, of which 3 have to be Saturday or Sunday, dependent on whether out of season. That leaves a total of 4 hours of track time to be used on any other day(s). That should tie in nicely with the proposed training facilities for riders and mechanics, which will be classroom and track based. In addition there can be 43 meetings, far more than shall be needed under the present league structure. A NL team will account for additional meetings but even so it is unlikely that will account in total for anything like 43. It seems to me that you could also then arrange "matches" involving the trainees to aid their development. I assume the stadium will also be used for all sorts of commercial enterprises, conferences, weddings, maybe concerts, who knows.

I am sure it will be an entertaining evening with a true Belle Vue legend and it is in aid of a good cause with all of the proceeds going to Darcy. It's the day before the play off final so it would be brilliant for the Aces to be in it and for Jason to be there.

Difficult one for me. My heart wants Coventry to win but my head wants Poole because if we get through to the final we have a better chance of beating the Pirates. Hoping for a good match with all riders coming through it safely.

So you keep saying. Of course the other side of that coin is that we are unfortunate that there is only one rider who is likely to be an adequate replacement. The real point is that we are not fortunate at all to have lost Zagar in an accident which was not his fault. I suspect most, if not all, Aces fans would prefer we had Zagar.

You don't half talk some rubbish. He reportedly paid his wages back because of a poor performance for which he didn't think deserved the payment. That speaks volumes to his character and commitment not the reverse.

Of course it could and I don't think you'll find any Aces fans counting their chickens just yet. However, it is amusing seeing the desperation of a very few Swindon fans trying to find anything to try to use against the Aces, dragging up the genuine injury to Zagar and trying to cast doubt, which even Rossiter has found the decency to apologise for and having to dredge back to Zagar's Reading days to find any alleged example of his lack of commitment to British speedway.

I agree about the downward spiral starting long before the top riders left. In my experience crowds started dropping in the 1980's and have continued to do so ever since. I don't think there was any dramatic drop when Crump left Belle Vue, by that time we were down to the hardcore. Although I have no figures my eyes tell me that overall, crowd levels at Kirky Lane have been fairly static over recent years but visits to other clubs tell me many are still losing fans. The real problems are more with the lack of credibility, the ever increasing use of guests for reasons other than genuine injury, the tactical rule which, regardless of its fairness in comparison to the old rule, is seen as more appropriate to Its A Knockout, the lack of regular weekly meetings, the lack of publicity and major sponsors, the long term neglect of nurturing home grown talent,the lack of any real independent professional planning for the future and the self interest which prevents any hope of the progress required to return the sport to the mainstream.

After riding in the GP, where it was plain to see he was below par, then producing evidence of the further internal bleeding it had caused, even Rosco apologised following his childish allegations. It must be difficult to know if riding again is going to cause the same problem. Sensibly, he is going to ride on Sunday and see what happens before deciding if he is fit enough to ride on Monday. We now have comments from Orion who, despite the evidence and Rosco's apologies, seems to think Rosco was right in the first place. We also have foreverblue, who has been running scared at the prospect of Poole having to face the Aces in the playoffs, making silly comments that Zagar rode ok in the GP and that if he rides on Sunday he should ride Monday, despite what we all saw when he rode in the GP, knowing the health problems it caused and the risk that the same could happen again. Some people need to put their prejudices aside and think before they post such malicious foolishness. I think most would if they had internal bleeding which started again after they had ridden in a meeting.

Wolves are my second team. Having been brought up watching speedway at Hyde Road, with regular visits to the equally wide open spaces of Halifax, Sheffield and Bradford I first went to Monmore in the 1980's.I thought I had made a mistake and found the cycle speedway. However, I soon appreciated the different skills required to race on a tight circuit and realised that the quality of racing served up was usually good to watch, albeit not comparable to Hyde Road but nowhere in the UK is. Ever since I make a visit at least once every season,usually more and have a soft spot for the club. Unfortunately they seem to have lost their way over recent times and it is going to take drastic changes for them to be in play off contention next year.

They were lucky that heat 15 wasn't run and to get two wins from rollers. Riders falling was to an extent evened out by Nicholls fall when second and Worrall's exclusion as he passed Wright.

No Rockin Robins tonight then. They were fortunate to lose by only 14. Two of their heat wins were the result of rollers and heat 15 would probably have increased the Aces lead. An enjoyable match because of the occasion but the threat of rain resulted in a track that didn't produce the usual racing lines and denied Cook his usual blasts around the outside. Hopefully, 14 is going to be enough but I am certainly not counting any chickens. Swindon could do a similar job on us next week although I think Mark Lemon is more sensible than his opposite number and will have his team fired up, unlike Rosco who managed to fire up the Aces with his ridiculous comments about Zagar. A good impressive performance by Andreas but Zagar is the better rider.

Just proves it must be better to use the EL figure. Poole gained massively last year by the BSPA foolishly using the PL figures

That sounds like the sort of simplistic formula the BSPA might come up with. It would be far better to work out a realistic formula, say something like 66% of their EL average this year. Otherwise teams using the top tier one riders will again gain an advantage. If they are going to be riding in the EL and have an EL average then that is the correct figure to use. It is just a matter of determining a fair formula.