Tony501

Just commenting on a couple of other posts (I hope they don't mind) but I think Speedway is both a competitive sport and entertainment. Winning a meeting matters to the supporters of the participating teams and riders and therefore I of course want my respective EL and PL teams Leicester Lions and Peterborough Panthers respectively to win with entertainment value being secondary. However,attending many other meetings around the midlands it doesn't matter to me which team wins just so long as I see my speedway heroes and the racing is good (entertaining). Changing the point a little, I know Niki Pederson is viewed by many as a pantomime villain as evidenced by his being soundly booed at the GP but he does provide huge entertainment value as well as being a great rider.In my view the sport needs characters like him as well as gentlemen like Greg, battlers like Chris Harris and the super speedsters like Tai, NKI, Janowski (yes I know he had a bad day on Saturday) and Chris Holder.

Berwick are a good team but so are Peterborough so I am hoping for a close match and a good advertisement for Premier League Speedway. All the posts and comments about rider availability (or more accurately unavailability) I understand but from my experience this is pretty much the norm for many PL teams throughout the season. A bit extreme for Panthers to loose three very good riders for this meeting but "that's life" as the French would say. The two named replacements however, are also good riders. I have never been to Berwick and understand it is not an easy track to pass on. Gating will therefore be especially important which of late has not been one of Peterborough's strengths (passing has) so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Thorssell and Konopka of course, deserve a chance and I further agree time will tell whether they were good signings or not but management to be fair, are trying to make positive improvements and I applaud them for that. What I can't quite understand is why virtually the whole team have of late struggled out of the gate. I went to Leicester yesterday and watched Simon Lambert and Robert Lambert (guest) ride well for the Lions against a good (albeit on the day rather unfortunate) Robins team. They still did not gate particularly well but better than against the Devils on Sunday. However, they did in my view ride with considerably more commitment and aggression than they showed on Sunday. I hope Sunday was just a bad day at the office and we can respond with a storming and confidence boosting victory at Berwick tomorrow and a better and more productive home showing next Sunday against Redcar, particularly as I am bringing three first time guests. Up the mighty Panthers!

Thanks to the Lions management for reducing prices this evening. An inspired decision. It was my first visit to Leicester and I look forward to visiting again soon. It was a great team performance led my the magnificent Doyle but with all riders contributing. The Lamberts' thankfully appeared far more committed and started far better than they had for Peterborough the day before. Well done the Lions! If you can keep that team together with talented and productive quests like Carl Wilkinson I think you will soon be storming up the league and no one will relish competing against you.

Got rid of Olly for Konopka, big mistake I think, only completed one race in which he finished last. Only decent rider today, with the will to win and providing great entertainment was MPT, the rest were average to poor. Plymouth were by far the better team and deserved their victory. Our starting was really bad. No chance of winning the league I think. Ipswich and Plymouth are better teams as they have recently demonstrated as well as our Scottish cousins, Somerset and Sheffield. On current form we will struggle to finish in top six. Disappointing after a good start to the season.