I'm not sure you can claim Kurtz as 'one of your own'. He had already been riding in the UK for 6 years, with 4 years in the top flight at Poole, topping their GSAs in his final year with them. Yes he has improved while he has been with Belle Vue but that would have happened with age and experience wherever he was riding. His improvement is not much different to Jack Holder who left Poole at the same to join Sheffield. Both have been loyal servants since then, but neither club can claim to have nurtured them to the extent that you may have done with some of the others.

I think your first point of comparing youth and senior racing has already been covered. I actually agree with you on the 2nd point we actually have a good talent pool and we will lose some of them initially. In the long term though young riders will only go to Poland when they are confident they will start.  This might not happen until they're 25 as Poland's U21 system (rising star) is ruthless riders are pulled from the team meeting to meeting. The transfer from U21 to senior is also really hard in Poland, only the top riders can do it and they often struggle for multiple seasons (miskowiak). Britain is a much better place to develop from 18-25 than Poland.  Therefore Britain can instead build up its own talent pool with only the top few going to Poland.

That’s scuppered another fixture

Pouring down south of wton.

10 to the pound more to go around

Unfortunately ran out of bras