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The track i visited in the 1980s which hosted WTC rounds (ect) ( Lee took Penhall from the back in one round) was far superior to today's track.

The decision to go with race bibs in 2018 was to reflect the 70th Anniversary - that logo was then reflected in a load of new merchandise and will be retained as part of the club design. MF has already stated that team kevlars are a possibility for 2019 and he may consider each set being sponsored by/auctioned off to individuals - subject I guess to whether there is any main team branding or if one of the existing sponsors is given more prominence. Its not as if Poole were the only team not to have team kevlars last season!! Just to be clear, money isn't tight at Poole - its just currently tighter than it has been in recent seasons and yes that is possibly also to do with MF publicly wishing to step away (which he won't do if he doesn't get a suitable buyer!). Finding a suitable buyer and having a trusted day-to-day management/promotion team in place for when he's away I would suggest is higher up his list of priorities than getting a main sponsor. (NB. Still plenty of time for both!) The club hasn't run at a loss for many seasons - despite the horrendous losses due to rain-offs at the start of last season. The 'loss' of the 2017/18 Main sponsor - Poole Volvo - was somewhat expected as it was only a 2-year deal. What has put MF on the back foot somewhat is the loss of the 2 other sponsoring companies - both of which are due to financial pressures in their respective businesses. In one case it is due to a major costly business expansion which has currently led to a withdrawal of all sponsorship - not just speedway. What annoys me somewhat are the continual jibes from so-called Poole fans - I expect it from opposition 'fans'! - when the 2019 team retains 4 of the successful 2018 team, thereby retaining some continuity, brings back a club asset and at the same time manages to do it within the 42.50 team building limit, by losing 2.5 points from the 2018 ending team - and we're still only in January - 3 months before Poole's season commences. Rant over. COYP

No truth in the suggestion whatsoever.

Difficult to understand negativity from fans of a club that wins so much.....I'm happy enough with 2 titles in my lifetime!

I could give you Jack but in my opinion Holder isnt as good as Fricke now.

Do they make electric cars

Ford running a tight ship is a good thing ,he has assembled a decent side within a budget he should be applauded.

I doubt they bother reading your crap either.

Neither are yours all you do is moan.

And a nice piece on young Archie Freeman too

Jack Holder is no way better than Chris at the moment- maybe will be but not at present.

Great article in last weeks speedway star about the all conquering 1976 Diamonds. Horrified to discover that one of my all time favourite Diamonds is a Berwick fan!!!

So Jenga is fishing with his constant Glasgow digs , and here was me thinking you were semi-intelligent. Jenga has not got the brain cell capacity to go on that many fishing trips, just a summary on his years of crap but he is like marmite personally I enjoy reading his drivel I am usually left shaking my head in dis-belief but it is amusing at the same time.

And by having the ref firmly on your side and MPT's injury....

Who is better on his average ? Linus is a decent rider...

In the late 90's there was a request for riders to be allowed programable ignition systems, which would auto do the settings for different stages in the racing. A vote was held with all league riders, and there was a majority of riders who didn't want such an extra expense. So when I knew that Seemond had a switch on his bars, I knew it was an attempt to change the ignition setting from retard at the start gate, to normal after the first bend. I pointed this out during the meeting, hence why Seemond stopped using it, but after the referee refused to do anything about it, Seemond went back to using it and won his last race. They definitely worked. Just a pity that at a later year 2002, Davey Watt hadn't used one and he might have reached the first bend with everyone else. Instead of tootling around at the back for the 3 rides we allowed him.

Sorry but I don't use or have any desire to use Facebook, so alternatives are most welcome.

Pity nigel Pearson can't pronounce it properly

Seems that Stoke are looking for another rider as they have just realised that Paul Burnett fractured his leg over a month ago before they announced his signing. Thought it was very strange that they announced his signing while he was laid up with a bad fracture. Anyway, they've finally caught on and issued this statement.... STOKE’S pre-season injury jinx has struck for a second season with Paul Burnett being ruled out due to breaking his leg in an accident at work. Potters promoter Dave Tattum commented “It was great knowing we had our team in place and then I had a phone call off Paul informing us that he’d been injured at work. We then waited a little while awaiting outcomes from the hospital and Paul has now had to have an external fixator fitted to his leg resulting in there being no chance of him being fit to race by the start of the season. All of us here at Stoke send our best wishes for a speedy recovery to Paul.”

It's not a competition! Most people make a mixture of positive and negative views depending the teams situation. But yours all seem to be negative lately. Good to see a positive one. Also I am happy with the team selection so I don't need to moan

Great to see Max in this kind of form but Tungate shows what a force he is down under.....if he could conquer inconsistency he would be a top performer but you can't knock his average , not everyone cuppa but I don' mind Hobbit ...very impressed with Lidsey also must be looking at 6+ this season

I*o*y......

Bored now I have read a couple of your posts!!!Some things don’t change with the years

You really ought to get out more all you ever seem to do is attack other peoples post especially mine funny old world enjoy your evening

This has the basis of a good idea and, by amazing coincidence, one I thought briefly about only the other day when talking about Champions League football and the various international cricket franchises operating their T20 and 'Big Bash' tournaments that attract a lot of interest and media backing. As many have already pointed out, the obvious key to success is commercial support from a TV broadcaster plus major sponsorship to meet the riders' pay expectations. A huge obstacle to overcome. As speedway worldwide is already drawing from a relatively small and shrinking financial pool, the Polish authorities in particular will be wary of encouraging another league likely to impact adversely (financially) on their Ekstralika. But it can be done. I've clearly not thought this bit through, but, rather than say Poole or Swindon or whoever from the current Premiership, how about two completely new independent BRITISH teams riding in the new Euro League? For want of much better names, let's call them 'LIONS 1' and LIONS 2' for now. Instead of having an established home track each, the seven or eight home fixtures for BOTH Lions teams could be spread around the country, giving fans all over Britain the chance to see top quality riders and competitive racing? Those matches would not only bring more credibility to British speedway, they would help to plug gaping holes in the Premiership fixture list. It would be no different to a national football team, such as Spain, playing home internationals at various grounds like Bernabeu (Madrid), Nou Camp (Barcelona), Valencia, Seville, etc. Naturally, the BSPA would have to earn a cut from this but they are hardly in a strong bargaining position.

a nice quiet chap . still got a picture somewhere of him in his blu n white Big C jumper . often seen him @ Cockermouth car boot .still looked the same as he did way back . a truley stand out supporter . RIP big fella .

Oh contraire I think we still count Chris Holder as a Poole rider even if he isn't riding for us currently.

why are you making my P/Boro, which is obviously a shortening of Peterborough into a silly slanging match.

MDL and SDL are on Feb 2nd and I believe the NJL is on the following day.

Thank you for these very illuminating facts

Another win for max. Lidsey made the b final

Hell yeah..

Wtf?? You moan about the team not being strong enough and then you are moaning about changes??

Accoring to http://www.svemo.se/sv/ in 2019 Sundström is riding for Piraterna in Elitserien & VIP Speedway in Allsvenskan. Both clubs are based at Motala.

Correct decision then. It’s never been a secret.

The chance of the land at Ashfield ever being built is very slim due to the fact the land is believe to be contaminated, it was an old railway works and lots of stuff was dumped there hence the name Ashfield and not fit for housing also there is a fault underneath. Just ask the owners of the houses behind the 3rd and 4th bends. The initial planning permission was rejected by the council and the developers only got it through on appeal but the home owners have had many problems with two of the houses having to be almost rebuilt due to subsidence.

I thought we were supposedly vulnerable in heats 13 and 15 in 2018 - yet not only did we make the play-offs but we won the Premiership trophy too.

You cant help yourself what has sponsors got to do with us, but you have to bring us into it again prize buffoon of the highest order.

Rather than a track closing surely an open licence is the next best option? the BSPA should 100% encourage any track to operate from training tracks upwards!

It’s been posted umpteen times, Kildemand has already ruled out the UK.

That sounds terrible imagine regular speedway on regular nights during the summer, even worse if it was first week of May until end of August, all those dreadful nice warm evenings with reduced threat of rain and the whole of September reserved for Play Offs, Cup finals etc. Thankfully everyone will see sense and run erratically, enjoy the Easter weekend washout and embrace the rush of fixtures before the cut off dates / freezing their toes off watching the season wimper out in late October.

Well fair enough, when you know it's futile, then you stop - that's about making an intelligent choice. Part of the problem seems to be that some don't know when to stop!

There isn't anything like the money or global appeal in speedway as there is for even Rugby League, and I'm not convinced Canadian teams in RL makes much sense. Certainly people have lost interest in Super Rugby since it added the teams beyond its core base, and the huge time differences make the whole thing a bit of nightmare for television. League speedway is really only run in Europe so time zones wouldn't be the same issue, but a European competition would only make sense if some decent television or sponsorship deal was secured on the back of it. You couldn't really run such a thing on the expectations of crowd revenue, and I'm not convinced the likes of Poole v Falubaz Zielona Gora on a cold Wednesday night would really have as much appeal as Poole v Swindon for the average fan, although you could maybe stage away 'tours' as a couple of matches at a time which might appeal to some fans. I don't honestly think Poland would have much to gain from this nowadays, and it would appeal more to those national leagues where a team or two would like to run at a higher level of competition, but there aren't enough teams in their own country to form a league at the desired level. I actually think it more likely that British teams would run in the Swedish Leagues than the Polish ones. The time to have done a European League was 20 years ago when there was more equality between the three or four main leagues and cable and satellite televisions were looking for cheap content. It would also have been a good opportunity for those leagues to have taken control of the SGP and SWC and run those competitions for their own benefit. But no-one wanted to look at the big picture, speedway is now way off the radar as a marketable sport and everyone within the sport is just fighting over scraps these days.

Some good views on here. I really do like the idea of a Euro Super League. Could it work? In current circumstances probably not. But maybe, just maybe. It would have to be franchised and administered and marketed by an independent body affiliated to the FIM. The BSPA or other national bodies would never be allowed to run it. I like some of the comparisons to Rugby League which now has French and Canadian teams involved. Before Super League and Sky Sports investment, RL was a rough n' ready northern sport played in the middle of winter and followed by a die-hard fan base. Pretty much could be said for speedway these days. However since Super League was launched, it's franchising and marketing has brought a whole new fan base to the sport and also enjoys huge media exposure. So how about if for Speedway? Such a competition could still run alongside the domestic leagues and most importantly the Grand Prix series. There would have to be brand new teams (or in this case franchises) set up to successfully market such a competition to a wider audience. 8 teams - say 2 from UK, 2 from Poland, 2 from Sweden and 2 from Denmark. You could possibly make it 9 by inviting a franchise from one of the other main speedway nations on a yearly basis providing they meet strict entry and financial criteria. So that would be 8 home meetings over the year and of cause probably 1 more depending on a Grand Final play-off series. As someone has rightly pointed out I don't think fans would mind spending £20 admission to see 15 action packed heats featuring the best riders in the world (I love the idea of Woffinden, Cook and Lambert as the heat leaders). It would also have to do away with stupid team points limits. Some will say what about the away fixtures? - Nobody will want to travel over? Wrong. Not every meeting no, but some fans would want to travel over to say Poland or Denmark and make a long weekend out of it. I remember going over to Perpignan in France a few years ago and the city was rammed with 3000 Leeds Rhino fans there to see their team take on the Catalan Dragons. Broadcasting rights and big sponsorship deals would be key for such a competition to work but if left in the hands of the right management this could be done. Maybe such an idea is just a fart in the wind, but if Speedway is to generate a new fan base with a new exciting future could such a competition be the cure? Cheers

I read every issue and thoroughly enjoy them. The quality of the articles is superb, evoking many happy memories of the 70s and 80s. I see no reason why including the 90s would be a bad thing. Just think, Tony, of all the extra material available to you overnight! World Finals of the 90s, the dawn of the GP era, world cups, 10 years of league and cup exploits, not to mention numerous individuals of interest that currently miss the cut off date. Go for it, I think your readers will be overwhelmingly supportive of the idea.

Exactly what is sought by TV and sponsors though, a Euro League. A continental audience rather than national and therefore many more people to sell to. It would have to be FIM endorsed as the national federations are unlikely to relinquish control even if it could raise the profile of the sport. 12 to 14 teams should provide enough fixtures so that the gp riders only ride in the one league providing some much needed credibility. It's the only way in which league speedway including gp standard riders could be delivered in this country, albeit restricted to one track and 11 to 15 meetings per season.

As a buyer from day one and a 'subber' for many years, to be honest I was thinking the same but hesitated to to comment as the mag does excellently what it says on the tin and deliberately doesn't cover the modern era, which it isn't about. But, yeah extending the timeline upto 1999 is a good idea I think. Just keep on doing what you're doing, Tony....

Personally, I think there's enough of the 70's and 80's yet to cover that there is no need to stretch the timeline. Whilst most of the big name riders have been covered, often its the (relatively) lesser lights who have the more interesting stories to tell. For example, the recent Tony Lomas interview was fascinating, particularly his memories of Charles Ochiltree.

One year from now, the beginning of the 90's will be 30 years past. I think Backtrack started in 2004, only 14 years after the end of the 80's, so I guess there is a case for expanding the coverage into the 90's. Personally, I would have little interest in the 90's because the decline was well and truly beginning and things would never be the same again.