RobMcCaffery

Typical Midland head-banger. It's all the heavy industry Did you know Peterborough used to use "Don't Fear The Reaper" as their parade music, so I'm told? Wonder why that got dropped?

Clearly the rider scramble starts now, making early season predictions worthless, especially mine re Masarna. Apologies. We have a situation now where many teams are over-reliant on heat leaders with juniors, normally Swedish or Danish adding a few points from second string. A few pairings have riders who are more 'balanced'. With pairings riding together at least four times per meeting it's easier to read the structure of teams and where the 'power houses' are. Under this format I'd suggest rider-replacement is to be avoided. Certainly replacing r/r with even a rider like Pawlicki who is enduring an awful season at home, has transformed Masarna. One thing we do know is whether a team is going to make the play-offs - they all are. Interesting times but not necessarily on track. CMore chose the right match last night with the other three being very processional with just the odd decent race.

That's nothing compared to Hungarian A UK Sky News reporter once disgraced herself by reporting from Red Square in Moscow that the Russians used the Acrylic script. Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, parts of former Yugoslavia all use Latin, although the Magyars are not Slavic. Definitely last post on this although how can how you write and pronounce Polish riders' names actually be off-topic?

Strange. They come up with no data, just the headings. I gave them plenty of time to load. The same happened last week. Not easy to post screen grabs here.

SVEMO seem to delete these provisional line-ups on the afternoon of the match. They're all blank now (14.18 BST). Sportowe Fakty are still carrying the line-ups. https://sportowefakty.wp.pl/zuzel/terminarz

I was just answering a question.... Apologies, discussion closed on my side.

Many thanks Henry. Always good to encounter intelligent life. I had chosen to avoid terms such as 'diacritical marks' to avoid head explosions. The translation from Latin to Cyrillic and back reminds me of the fun to be had from translating a block of English text into another language in Google Translate and back. The results can be excellent for breaking the ice at parties. I do recall Lebedev being on his 2019 kevlars. Obviously time's moved on. I believe the survival of letters such as q, x and z in English is to maintain the sales of Scrabble. Regarding the Ekstaliga, Leszno and Zielona Gora look certainties. Lublin have tough home matches against Czestochowa and Zielona Gora but aways at Rybnik and Grudziadz. If their spirit and Zagar's form hold the cherry picker hires should continue to the end of September... Czestochowa have Rybnik and Gorzow at home but Leszno and Lublin away. If they can reverse their latest run they still stand a good chance. Wroclaw only have one home match left, against Gorzow so it's their away matches that will determine their chances. These are at Grudziadz, Rybnilk and Zielona Gora so there are points there to be taken. Gorzow's last place was a false position given their lack of home matches. Their last aways are Czestochowa and Wroclaw. I don't see them ,making it even if they're on a winning run at home. Likewise Grudziadz have a tough final four, Lublin and Wroclaw at home and Leszno and Gorzow away. I don't see them making it either. I go for Leszno, Zielona Gora, Lublin and Wroclaw, depending on those winnable away matches. Even Zielona have had their 'moments' at home. I also don't win at gambling, mainly because all I go in for is the National Lottery. Seen too many wealthy bookies

They don't have v because they use w instead and l with a bar gives them w. It's just how languages evolve. Most central European languages, including German use w for v. The Germans pronounce v as f. They probably think it's odd we use v in the way we do. It's only the same as how languages evolve with different words for the same thing.

Announcing/commentating isn't as easy as some might think.

I suspect it's the same for the Swedes.

Bear in mind the Russian names are translations from the Russian script, cyrillic, so there is no official spelling in our alphabet. We convert to how we would spell the names and the Poles their way. Their w is a v sound so what we would call Victor would be Wiktor in Polish, and something looking totally different but sounding pretty much the same n Russian. Going back over the years the English translations have varied. Take Grigori Chlinovsky, aka Grigory Khlinovsky. Likewise Grigori/Grigory/Grigorij Laguta. The problem gets more complex with Latvia where two alphabets are in use, Russian and Latvian so an ethnic Russian's name in his own language may be Andrei Lebedev (check the back of his kevlars) or Andzejs Lebedevs in Latvian! In English we have very few accents over or under letters like the e in cafe. Other languages have many. I don't want to wrestle with the keyboard too much but taking the Antonio Lindback case. The a in Lindback in Swedish has a double dot accent over the a, known in German as an umlaut, making his name phonetically closer to Lindbeck. In English we don't use that accent so we usually add an e to the vowel, hence the occasional use of Lindbaeck. The English alphabet isn't flexible to accommodate all these accents, usually applied to vowels to change their sounds. We compromise, and in so doing often get the pronunciation of foreign names very wrong. A y in Swedish is usually pronounced more like ew or a g like a y. The Poles don't just mess with vowels which is why Lech Walesa's name is pronounced Vawensa and Lodz as Woodz. In both cases the l has a bar across it, changing it to w. How do you cope? Compromise. We convert foreign names to our alphabet as best as we can and the pronunciations accordingly. Other nations do the same. I remember being amused at the 1982 Intercontinental Final at Vetlanda announcer refer to Kelly Moron. Well, he as many things, but not that.... It works in reverse. The Russians don't use the letter h so to get close to that sound they use a mix of x and i. I learned this when I covered ice racing n Russia using a programme obviously written in Russian and with the names similarly treated. It took a while to find Jarmo Hirvasoja..... So, it's all compromise in adjusting from one alphabet to another. Our lack of accents being used with vowels helps make English a tricky language to learn. Just a final one, Google Translate can offer some interesting translations. Dawid/Wiktor Leopard (Lampart) , Rafal Innkeeper (Karczmarz), Pawel Month (Miesiac). Oh and speedway to Zuzel, or .....Slag....... Hope this makes sense.

So did I. It's allowed. Actually you said it was a strange formula.

Again, tell the Poles. I don't care.

Oh dear, oh dear, iris123 pathetically seizing an opportunity to carry on one of his nasty, sad little vendettas. I'm the current target. This is a serious matter and far more important than a worrying need by him to bully people. I am so passionate about this subject because I cannot stand to see people just poising the sport with every excuse to spread doom and gloom. Yes there are serious problems to be faced, but that is the key, the need to be faced and acted upon. Fight for your sport and stop sneering at those who do. Anyway, now iris123 has stuck his knife in it's time to leave you to wallow in depression.See how many things are catastrophically wrong, what mistakes have been made, who to blame, how many tracks have closed and could well close soon. I won't be reading. Have your fun. Just sit there, proud that you were 'right' and just watch the sport die. - or just find a victim to constantly attack like iris23. I'm not the first and In won't be the last. Perhaps his isp needs to remind him of harassment policy?

So, the BSF message is clear, do nothing, put off anyone who does try to make something happen and look for someone to blame. And you people knock the promoters. Disgusting, ignorant negativity.

Of course we've lost more than we gained which is why we have to fight now. Or do we simply post on forums, try to show how clever we are and wait for the sport to die?

I was referring to the past couple of decades which eliminates half of those. So do we include Tamworth, Wombwell, Crystal Palace, Lea Bridge, Fleetwood and on and on just to emphasise the gloom?

Over the past couple of decades or so we have seen new tracks at Somerset, Leicester, Scunthorpe, Redcar, Plymouth, Kent, Birmingham and Isle of Wight while tracks have come, and sadly gone at Newport, Carmarthen, St.Austell, Skegness and Weymouth. It's not been all one way traffic. There is hope at Oxford, Coventry, Exeter, Rye House and Brafield (Northampton) and Workington's Northside track so it's not all black. Speedway can survive and sustain but it needs positivity, sound planning and in a few cases some work by supporters to campaign and things can improve. While stadia still stand there is always hope, despite the obstacles. I've sounded out about the lazy negativity on this forum but ultimately few on here will have any real say apart from being cynical to appear clever but I've been involved in a successful campaign to reopen Rye House in the past and I've seen others achieve similar success. People complain here about promoters failing to promote. Well, how about supporters actually supporting? You never know the future. Few would have predicted what we have gone through this year but if we are going to help the support recover the last thing needed is for people to pull out every obstacle they can think of. Let's see what happens and try to do our best to help. If I can do it then plenty more can....

Tell the Poles that.

So, there's plenty of examples of tracks that have closed and reopened so closure is certainly not always permanent despite the opinions of the negative doom and gloom merchants on here.

Could well be so. The assets ended up with Roger Shute and Peter Redfearn rather than Ron Russell so they would have sold them off. Wish it was fun.

Rye House closed 1994-1999, reopened 2000. There is a lot more of the stadium still there, rather than just remains. The work that the owner is proposing is still uncertain and would be reversible. He doesn't even know how much his project will cost!

Not the first time it's been used so they all knew the score.

Okay Madsen's picked up ;-)

Still, you have had the chance to just sit back and watch.... Top 2 straight to final, 3-10 in the semis so only 6 eliminated after 20 heats.