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Agree 100%. Nonetheless I'm sure you are exactly right ;-) The Monday and Wednesday race nights suited Poole & Wolverhampton but could kill other tracks. I suspect Rue House will soon be in trouble. They were reportedly getting great crowds early last season, but that was when they were racing reliably on Saturdays. I doubt whether a fragmented series of Wednesdays and the odd Monday is going to work. The point about trying to use talent that can't be afforded, it looks like our crowds are now down to the level of semi-pro football, say their National League or its lower regional divisions. Can you imaging those clubs filling their teams with players commuting in from all corners of Europe! It's the economics of the madhouse. 'Names' may count amongst speedway supporters but the people who we need to attract don't know them. It's time to wake up and fit the costs to the revenue, then re-grow so that both will rise enough to start allowing the higher-ranked riders in due course, assuming we need them and their luxury costs. Some riders seem to want the lifestyle of F1 and Moto GP racers. You don't get that in front of 700 people in Manchester.....

Exactly, I think a lot of people are delusional about the quality of the sport back in the day. Tend to only remember the good bits and believe that's how it was all the time. I've watched loads of old meetings on t'internet and it's very evident that the quality of the racing is very similar to today. There's old World Finals, Continental Finals etc with 60,000+ in attendance yet barely any good racing except for 3-4 heats. I would happily say that top level Speedway today (SGP & Poland) is as good, if not better than most of yesteryear.

Why do we seem to be going after foreign riders who’ve shown no sign of improvement when riding over here but you’ve got riders like Nathan Greaves and Ellis Perks without a CL spot surely we should be going for one of these who will improve? Especially the seasons both of them had it’s ridiculous they are without a club this season.

And your point is??? I was off work Monday not feeling well but was okay to go back on Wednesday!!!

Maybe he was carrying an injury but I find it hard to believe that BWD hurt his knee colliding withJye as he just seemed to take his leg away with his front wheel he never got out of shape or even looked like pulling up when the ref stopped the race!!! Still that's speedway.Tonights racing was poor IMO most races sorted out by back strait,will give Ref benefit of doubt regarding NJB,but how she excluded Jye is beyond me and probably 99% of the crowd terrible decision IMO.

The price to attend vs. The standard on offer is the biggest stumbling block. £17 for 15 x 1 minute races no matter what way you look at it isn't great value for money. As a comparison it makes the 2nd division even more of a rip off as they're getting a lot less of a standard for around £15. In answer to the original question though of how is fixed race nights working out, I think it will benefit Somerset. Whilst it was nice to end the week at Speedway instead of mid week, the traffic and surrounding areas on a Friday as a nightmare at the best of times. I can't see any reason why crowds would drop at Somerset, they should only prosper.

Agree with school the next day as well

Do not understand why this is a 7.30 pm meeting, the last dog race is 2pm and with a nice sunny day surely a mid afternoon start time would have encouraged more families who do not want a late trip home.

Was Mr Newman Sr there.. . ? Was very shy and retiring...

I'm aware of that, but originally it was to be rolling averages after the first greensheets. They now changed it to rolling averages including 2017. This is keeping Poole's team average almost 3 points higher than their actual averages for 2018. This has now stopped Poole bringing in Holder for Shanes. The Pirates management are now having to have a total rethinking, hence the short term signing of Nielsen.

Just a reminder about the coverage this evening- wouldn`t want anyone to say "would have watched it if I had known it was on " !!!!!

Yes shambolic but I'm not sure why your suggesting the referee had some part in this. Jack Thomas came out in correct blue helmet colour well on time and lined up at right gate, gate 2. Sarjeant came out late also with blue helmet colour. Someone runs across centre green, don't know who but wearing tigers colours so presumably a pit member of some sort and rips off jacks helmet cover and replaces it with a red one. al this with the clock ticking down to zero. Thomas wearing the red colour then gets told to move to gate 4 and sarjeant goes into gate 2. by now the 2minute clock has expired and the ref has no option to disqualify both as they had wrong helmet colours and in the wrong gate position. A pity jack is just a young lad as a more experienced rider would have told the guy changing his colour where to go. And to compound the farce Jack is the one that gets taken out of the race. So sarjeant makes mistake , pit staf make mistake in changing Jack's cover then team manager basically shafts jack. I hope the promotion/team manger/sarjeant or whoever compensates Jack because at least he would have earned something from the race by getting the third place point!

people see meetings different maybe there wasn't much passing but I can get entertainment from watching a couple or group of riders trying hard you don't have to have passing to have a good race there was a mix of decent racing and gate and go heats tonight

So I assume you will now be attending the meeting rather than reading updates seeing you’ve got the change you wanted.

Cant believe Poole have got rid of Shanes. Build a top heavy team and then expect a 2 pointer to get 5 or 6 a meeting because the top end isnt performing. Ford says its for a month then Shanes might come back in................if i was Shanes i would tell him to stick it where the sun doesnt shine and concentrate on Sheffield

A photo showing all 7 riders wearing similar suits may look good, purely as a team photo, but it's worth bearing in mind that speedway *isn't* football or rugby etc. By which I mean the whole team is never out on the field, as it were, 'in play', at the same time. Just two riders from each team, in each race. For which there are helmet colours and starting positions. The modern trend of covering racing suits in adverts/sponsorship baffles me. Does this advertising really work? Does anybody read these markings? They're a distraction.

Jenga I stated in my post that it was the BERWICK fans that thought that we would be better with r/r than N Klindt riding for us at Berwick ! It wasnt ME that said that...it was THEM ! They were obviously remembering his previous appearances at Shielfield Park. There is no need for such an aggressive and sarcastic post to me !! I apologised to you, and that should have been the end of it.

There is obviously much wrong with the sport but the there is no significant difference between this year and last year so the only explanation for the significant drop in crowd numbers at Belle Vue must be the change in race night. Monday may work for a team like Wolverhampton, who have a long history of racing on that night but it is probably the worst night of the week for the entertainment and leisure industries. That is why many offer incentives to try to attract people in. If you want the best chance of getting a decent slice of the leisure pound you have a far better chance on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. I suspect that it was for those very reasons that the previous promotion changed from Monday, which was forced on them by their landlord and never successful, to Friday. It may be that as the season progresses crowds will improve but I have my doubts. In fact, when the TV coverage starts in a couple of weeks I think that is going to tempt some more fans to stay away especially if the weather is bad.

We seen 9 heats since start time in 115 minutes. This is not making speedway, this is killing it. Things happen and all off them have, but the ref is rubbish.

Divided opinion then , some blame the rider , me and others blame the team manager . Surely the manager is in charge of what's happening in his side of the pits . Lets just be thankful it happened once the meeting was won , and that it is never repeated

I was at the time, and rightly so. I like many others thought he would do a good job. KK never seemed himself, he's normally quite playful and mischivious, but there was non of that, in fact he looked pretty cheesed off half the time. must have been a reason ..

The problem with British speedway is its a professional sport being run by amateurs.

I though Berwick covered everything !!

Re-1.Liga Divisov meeting on the Sunday after GP Links are:- http://www.speedway-prague.cz/ http://www.speedwaynews.cz/kalendar-ceske-zavody/ Don`t know any line ups but I believe it`ll be reserve riders & you maybe able to get an indication of line ups from the Speedway Star `big issue` at the beginning of the season or by looking at each Cz team`s website. Sorry I can`t be of any more help.

old but not wise

You are right in one way does the promotion care about the free kids but they should get them interested because they are the next set of paying customers because as the older generation decrease without new interest they might as well close down

Should have kept Hans.

No doubt he will be o/k to ride for Somerset at Rye House on Monday night.

So are we going to prove all the bookies and pundits wrong now - or shall we wait til the end of the season?

Only Busch and Mikkel B nearer the end looked like they had any quality in the Bears team. I think the most baffling thing all night was how Barker got heat 15 or does he have it written in his contract he has to be in heat 15?

It was more to do with pulling perfect starts back something we were told would be relaxed on. Perfect example twice last night Richie and Claus, Richie made an absolute perfect start no movement just text book, upshot she pulls it back warns Richie for anticipating the start. Now i may be missing something but i would have thought it was part of a riders job to anticipate the start,why bring in a rule if these clowns don't adhere to it. Also hoping Paul Starke is ok was a real nasty one he took, Young Jack going for a gap that wasn't there and totally wiping Paul out no malice just inexperience.

I don't think the promotion don't care if kids come,they want as many people there as possible surely.The start time is a hard one to call really.7-45pm start suits me perfect when i am working until 6pm as it would do many others i would assume.7-30 pm is good to take the kids along.But i don't get the talk from adults "i have to be up early in the morning",does 15 minutes really spoil your nights sleep.When i work until 6pm it's a bit of a rush to get there then i still have to get up for 4-30am the next morning,no big deal really.Now if it was a 7-30pm start i may miss the start after finishing at 6pm along with many people now that work a 24/7 schedule.

He did say Danish born to which Steve is correct.Spent many of his years in Denmark.Qualifies being British through having a British mother. Having just seen the news Poole have made a swap,anybody surprised?I did say a few weeks back people bigging up how good the Ford/Middlo management team are.Well yet again they have got it drastically wrong from the off.I would expect them to get it right from the start if they were that good. It's a real downer though that it is Shanes that has to make way,these young lads need a bit of time to make their way into the sport.Instead Poole keep the under-performing riders with much more experience that should be doing better.So in truth Shanes loses his job for doing what is expected of him,and the 3/4 riders under-performing keep their jobs,crazy. So to SS and a couple of others who said the initial Poole team should walk the league,you were wrong again.

This is the 3 time this season I've heard of his happening, personally I don't understand why it's allowed to happen team managers surely tell the rider which gate they're going off or the rider has it marked in his programme , and finally they should check before they put the helmet on

Nielsen is British let's stop that nonsense. Also Nielsen is a massive upgrade on Shanes, he a much improved rider. The thing that annoys me is that Nielsen is only 'temporary' while the spin that Shanes could be bought back in at a later date is utter rubbish. Shanes was also doing his job unlike most others in the Poole side.

Think you are spot on with both posts here. The riders certainly seem to be having trouble with bend 2 in particular and that looked down to too much grip rather than not enough. It was, however, possible to pass - as both Jensen and Wilson-Dean proved. I thought the closeness of the score line kept things entertaining and there was indeed a huge amount of effort from both sides. Meeting all done in 90 minutes and no interval

Still early days for Sheffield, basically we haven't fielded our full 1-7 yet..

Berwick have some good riders in there team not rated highly but that don't mean there not a team to discount they out gated Workington most if not all night maybe they are gelling as a team where as Workington were only into there 3rd meeting as a team into the 3rd month of the season

Not sure with me Steve ,I started going to Monmore in 99 and after 10 years I nearly went to the dark side especially after Billy joined . In 2009 I went home and away and after a narrow defeat at Swindon I was really annoyed and realised I was almost a Wolves fan. I decided in 2010 I was going to convert but then out of the blue we came back and I was back to Wolves being the enemy. However let's be honest were never coming back in the true sense so Wolves mean more to me than any other team except the heathens of course. Strange but true

Oh dear what must Ellis Perks be thinking

So do I, especially bold uncluttered ones. Those Sheffield kevlars above make the team look like car mechanics.

You go better at our place than we do at urs. We are underdogs over the 2 legs

Much prefer racejackets to the race suits.

Although of course, if you drop a rider they can't be broughht back in the same season.... unless we're ignoring that rule. The rule of course is there for this very reason, to stop a team dropping a rider, waiting a month for the averages to change and then fiddling him back in.

I can see the thinking, as a short-term move that may bring a few more points from that reserve slot. Then it will be a matter of working out the permutations once the averages have kicked in, at which point Shanes might well be back. Of course, missing those top-flight matches will hardly help him in the interim while being dropped is not exactly a confidence booster either. And, as alluded to elsewhere, it's a bit harsh when a top-heavy team fails (so far) to perform and it's the two-pointer whose neck feels the axe.

you must understand starman that there are other posters on the forum who have had serious health problems,some not as bad as yours some far worse,but they havnt used it as an excuse to be rude.i wish you well for the future but if you post on the forum its likely i will disagree with you on occasion and you with me,its always been your rudeness ive primarily objected to

We know what that means - the kiss of death.

Its still early days, but it looks as if Newcastle's woe's don't look as bad as others

Sorry, Salt. Please accept our unreserved apology for any upset caused! The proof-reader has been shot.