Grand Central

But Middleditch must get some perverse enjoyment out of this. He seems to relish giving his detractors ammunition. And if he doesn't. His fervent supporters are always ready to respond. This is a traditional part of SWC week. Isn't it?

The guy that collects the trolleys at our local Tescos is a very nice guy. I'm not sure if he acts as an unlicensed international Manager for a team representing GB. But I could ask.

Actually, I think many people would have been interested before now. Enough interest even to report it in a Magazine. Or did I miss it?

Again, fair enough. I just thought he had taken the wise option that Eddie should have. Rule yourself out when you're off form. Then you won't be embarrassed if a deluded Manager picks you.

Fair enough. I thought it was him that ruled himself out.

I don't quite get the inference for 2013 here. Whose face didn't 'fit' when Davey's did. This year.

Publicits dream? Public t*ts... Public zits ... Pubic cysts. I'll hope for publicist's dream. But I think for one person here MJJ is always a 'wet' dream. .

I think we all know why this is done And how costly it would be to dump the useless programmes. That is just common sense. But no matter what. When I get sold such a re-used programme. I still get peed off. It's just something extra to take the shine off a night at speedway. And so often, the night wasn't that shiny to start with.

Have 'Viking River Cruises' wasted ALL their money. The ubiquitous 'sponsoring drama on ITV' voiceover at every ad break during an episode of Poirot. And it has gone unheard. Even the ad break existing. And still some don't twig it's not BBC.

It's a funny thing about Barry Briggs, isn't it? His long and proud history in the sport has won him quite an army of followers for whom the great man can barely do wrong. And I'm sure that Philip Rising will offer the point that this is the view held by those that really matter. And yet simultaneously. He is also looked upon my many in - to put it kindly - the most poorest of lights. They offer nothing but vitriol. Is it just a PR problem? .

Or just as bad. To broadcast a chap with an almost Autistic-like fetish for young, blond scandanavian riders who comes across as a swivel-eyed Stalker.

I think a trip to a kindly GP for a medical certificate is recommended. There is a distinct possibility that this fall may have aggravated the ankle he injured in 2010. One can never be too careful in cases like this and we would all wish him well if he took a week or so out to get fully recovered.

This is usually a term reserved for when one has been forced into something by others. In this case Middleditch tied his own hands.

McDonalds gain is Cambridge University's loss. Or vice versa. Edit: For the benefit of the hard-of-thinking guy. vice versa is latin for 'do you want fries with that?' .

The original post being edited at damn near 9pm to remove all evidence of the losing bets that had been gleefully posted before the match started.

Whatever your politics. You have to admit. Mr Gove is certainly up against it with raw material like this

Quite right. You simply are not good enough if you can't both ride for Newcastle on Sundays AND simultaneously ride in Poland as well. It's always good to put the best brains to work on these matters.

Thanks for that. Extra information is always welcome. Well done. My memories of the seventies at Hyde Road and The Shay are as pink tinged as anyones. They were truly wonderful times. Thankfully. I seem to have aged slightly better than your poor self. The difference between a fine wine and cheap plonk. I suppose. My sympathies are with you.

A rather exceptional day, you would agree. And one that I certainly have looked at. Some Manchester editions went very strongly on PCs win. But from the Express archive Michael Beale (presumably Philip Rising) got seven or eight paras on a side column. As Kent had beaten Somerset to win the Sunday League and that got most of the rest of the back page. We would all agree light years ahead of anything of recent times. But the papers still kept things in THEIR persepective.

This is interesting. Earlier in the year the Express archive on line, which incorporates the Daily Star, did a cheap deal on their archive, so I spent a weekend trawling through and downloading interesting content. I was astonished just how that terribly small amount of column inches I could get on Speedway compared to my memory. Tiny stories and just very occasional page leads. It is worth a look just to see if others memory matches with the archive.

Previous post edited.

This is not really a true reflection of the seventies. I do not believe the 'second most popular sport' tag at all. I'm not sure who first came up with this but the use of hyperbole tends to incriminate Dave Lanning, but I may be wrong. What is more certain is that you have misquoted, as is often done. The correct quote from back in the day is 'second most popular summer spectator sport'. Subtly, but vitally, different. And still, probably, untrue. But who would know? I also think it is an overstatement that Speedway was taken seriously' by the media. The Nationals had Speedway correspondents then, whereas today there are none. So, things are dramatically worse, no doubt. But I don't think that many of those reporters found it easy going to get their editors to go with a Speedway story at all. The Mirror Group sponsored the British events of the World Championship so they gave decent coverage of that. And the other events they supported like the International Tournament As did the other papers like the Express. The London Papers did quite a bit around events at Wembley, too. But the broadsheets did not do anything. Guests have always been a difficult 'sell' to outsiders. And those that always hated the sport anyway eagerly used them against us. But did it have any effect on media coverage, really? I'm not sure as mostly it was the international stuff that got the column inches anyway. The provincial local papers have always reported well in Speedway Towns. This is the only place that has ever gone big on League coverage. And they have never made much fuss about guests. Most of the time (even in the seventies), people in speedway moaned about the lack of coverage. And with quite a few newspaper archives now online you can see just how right they were. Better than now, by miles. But nowhere near as good as we would like to think. And certainly nothing to get excited by. And on TV we got a regular fix on World of Sport. The BBC did their annual joke on us by covering the Internationale in comedy fashion. The prescribing of Rose tints for the spectacles of older folks now appears mandatory.

Talk of track preparation in this context is a little premature. As yet there is no track.

As if the hole wasn't big enough already ...

I don't know if this is relevant. But I had a straw poll among my imaginary friends and they came out 2-1 in favour of tac rides. My therapist, on the other hand, prefers the old system of bonus points.