Little Thumper

BBuck, you are so right - making a comparison with the great Hyde Road is a little pointless, but you know what it's like - you never forget your first love! I can still remember clearly going to the Zoological Gardens some 50 years ago and witnessing speedway for the first time - the spectacle, the sounds, the smells, the wonderful fans in all their strange clothing and most of all the charged atmosphere - the atmosphere that filled you full of anticipation that you were about to witness something thrilling. That experience is etched on my soul all these years later and whilst I might not recollect what I did yesterday, that day so many moons ago when me and my dad cheered for the Aces like our lives depended on it is indelibly inked on my soul. So BBuck, I apologize for pointless comparisons but I feel sure you will forgive me this once? Now with regard to the ban on horns of which you were unaware, I am taking the liberty of providing a link to the stadium regulations which pertain to this matter. Paragraph 17 will be the one that informs you of that which you did not know:- http://www.bellevueaces.co/terms.aspx Now as these conditions will form part of the contract between the customer and BV Arena Ltd, they will obviously need to be displayed clearly at the location where tickets are purchased at the stadium but hopefully, if you have read them in advance of your visit perhaps it may spare you some inconvenience. And finally, my friend, you talk about crowd levels that do not exist an more. My question to you is why not? The core ingredient of a normal speedway meeting is approximately 15 minutes of racing. If you were to stand in Kirkmanshulme Lane and offer potential customers the opportunity to watch 15 minutes of sporting action in exchange for 10, 15 or 20 pounds of their hard-earned money, you would likely be ridiculed. So speedway has got to offer so much more than 15 minutes of activity. For me the extra ingredient, that makes speedway worth the effort of hours of travelling and pounds in admission fees is the speedway experience. In addition, I want to be treated with the respect that a paying customer deserves and I do not expect to be poorly informed and taken for a fool. That is the feeling that I enjoyed all those years ago as a child and it is the feeling that I struggled to re-discover on my recent trip to Belle Vue Arena. But hey, times change and the paying customer probably wants something a bit different to what was served up to people like me, Soldier Boy and all the other FANATICS all those years ago. I'm not sure what this new speedway product could look like but judging by the shortage of spectators when I visited BVS last Wednesday, I think there is some considerable way to go. Only my opinion, obviously.

Perhaps they couldn't get a guest rider? Wouldn't think you could use rider replacement in this one.

Reading all the posts on this unfortunate affair, it appears that a combination of circumstances produced this unacceptable outcome. As always in these situations, I feel sympathy for the visiting fans who will be considerably out of pocket and are far less likely to travel to away meetings in the future. Surely, the decision to undertake fundamental track work close to the start of a meeting should not be made by sundry riders and the bloke on the tractor. Is there not a Clerk of the Course who along with the meeting referee would decide the optimum course of action? Clearly, if the C of C was a former rider then there would be a greater likelihood of a good decision being made? Allowing spectators into a stadium to watch nothing more than bods operating sundry machinery is pretty unforgivable particularly when they are not immediately and fully refunded as they trudge back to the car park. Anybody can c*ck up once, but this is getting a bit farcical.

"Team GB is the brand name used since 1999 by the British Olympic Association (BOA) for their Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic team. The brand is now the trademark of the BOA. As speedway is not an Olympic sport (unlike beach volleyball), surely using the term Team GB in this instance is incorrect but also a breach of the BOA's trademark? I'm not sure that we feel the need to have a Team Sweden or a Team Australia or a Team anything else for that matter. Perhaps it is some kind of a Farcebook thing and is designed to appeal to Yoof Culture and clearly, if that is the case, then it would totally pass me by. Good luck to Great Britain's speedway team whoever might or might not be included. Just my opinion, obviously

Having watched IOW in action at Belle Vue on Wednesday night, I was pretty impressed with their performance. Stoneman and Cupitt proved themselves to be very, very promising and as always, if you have reserves who can chip in a decent haul of points then you are at least in with half a chance. Watching the IOW boys in the pits, they seemed to have some pretty good team spirit and they certainly made the home town heroes earn their money. Weather permitting, I shall go and watch the Warriors again on Sunday at Buxton and the Hitmen will have their work cut out to fend off the Southern invaders!