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Over the last decade the Elite League/Premiership has significantly weakened the product on offer and as a consequence crowds have dwindled. Therefore, the evidence suggests that a "watered down" league will only hasten the demise. Three clubs have gone from last year. Of those three, Lakeside rode on Fridays and Workington rode on Saturdays. Therefore I am not sure weekend meetings are the panacea you think they are.

Not quite as much excitement this week as last mainly down to track conditions which was heavy and also that Newcastle never really got going until the second half of the meeting and by then Berwick held a decent lead. Excellent from Steven Worrall and Lasse Bjerre once he got his bike going while the two Newcastle reserves were disappointing. Berwick were strong throughout but young reserve Leon Flint caught the eye most, scoring in all his rides which is way more than should be expected from him.

One question I have to ask after reading Dave Peet's comments on the Scorpions site “Leicester haven’t been in our league for a while, so some of the lads had not ridden it before, and we spent most of the meeting trying to get dialled in, while the track was a bit grippy early on. “In the end, it became a stepping stone for our league meeting here later in the season. Next year we come back, we’ll be dialled in.” Which guys haven't seen the track before? Auty and Garrity rode for them. Allen rode in top flight last year so will have been to Leicester. Coventry rode their NL fixtures there so Bailey and Kinsley will have rode for Mildenhall and List rode in the ben fund a couple of weeks back. Got to wonder if he does actually have a clue

Speedway in this country must stop being dictated to by Poland.If it is to survive,the best race nights for family's are Friday and Saturday with Sunday early starts. My team Belle Vue have never had Monday as a regular race night in all the years i have followed them.Just tell all riders to decide were they want to ride Poland or Britain so we can still have speedway there will be a watered down league standard because riders will have to be moved up into higher leagues to fill any gaps.But i would rather have that situation than no speedway.Three clubs have gone from last year how many more from this year,we cant let the current situation carry on or soon there wont be any clubs left.

......And the criticism of the track/racing goes on....(yawn). This is the ninth season of the new LIons era and whilst the track is obviously the worst in the universe (designed by somebody no longer having an interest in the running of the club), at least there have been attempts to try and improve the circuit, within the obvious constraints. It appears quite often that riders (of a lesser ability) are taken in by the plethora of negative comments made on social media about the quality of the track. If they don't make the gate they can be excused for not making up ground because its a crap track. It has been proved, that top riders (and lesser but brave ones) can make passes on the track. Is it because of their ability or mindset though? Gating is the most fundamental part of a rider's skill set and the vast majority of races, even at every other wonderful UK track are won from the gate. Better riders refer to Leicester as a technical track. Having witnessed the home meetings against Redcar and Scunthorpe, I have to admit that the huge winning margins were boring (although a bit of a novelty for us) but that was largely down to the opposition appearing not to be up for it and for some riders embarrassingly so.

Good job Gappmaier did nothing, otherwise this could have been a real hammering...

No nights will ever be right given the nonsense that pervades as its operating model.. If the day ever dawns when it sorts itself out, and can run itself as a team sport based on one rider having one team, and can cover absences from squads rather than sharing riders, then weekend has to be the desired times to open.. For Worky running so many meetings in such a short time was the disaster, rather than running on a Saturday, and Lakeside had to vacate the stadium.. There is a reason why Poland run at weekends. The crowds this weekend show it. If they ran on Monday and Thursday's this week the crowds would have been many thousand poorer (even though every superstar on the planet would have ridden).. Lets be honest, hardly any riders now riding in Britain put 'bums on seats' so you might as well run at weekends to see if non superstars can generate big enough crowds. Currently 'Superstars' don't bring the crowds in on a Monday, Wednesdays and Thursday's so got to be worth a try..

Who have thought that hope its just the start for Berwick great start to the season well done

Why say that we are sending contracts out. Surely the contract should be agreed before being sent out. I work in high end finance and I only send contracts when clients have signed off on million pound deals.

Good to see someone from Poole admitting the holes are there. Credit to Josh, even if it does make some others there look a little economical with the truth.

I think people will see what they want to see to a degree. Scunthorpes faithfull who are used to seeing a lot of passing week in week out will have seen it as a processional meeting, whereas those used to the FTG Leicester stuff will have seen a much better meeting than usual. I guess it depends what you are used to. It was a better than usual meeting at Leicester and provided more entertainment than usual, but it certainly wasn't like what was served up the night before.

And just realised it's not on a FRN. So again. What is the point in FRN

Was chatting to former owner Terry Russell at the Swindon Dinner Dance last year, local east ender, Ackney fan then owner, and Leyton Orient fan. Went a few times in mid 60s after New Cross closed. My first match was in 1963 New Cross v Ackney.

Many of the tracks in my golden era of speedway were dangerous. Many tracks like Hackney, had lamp posts with the lights hanging over the track. Yes Hackney's track was perhaps a bit too fast especially when the 4 valves came in. But we all know the riders new the risk they were taking way back then and indeed still do in today’s modern era of speedway, although of course still extremely dangerous safety has become paramount in modern day speedway. Probably the safest track in the land at the time was London rivals Wimbledon. The catch fence [which of course was used in modern day Rye House under the reign of Uncle Len] had no posts and if a rider was unlucky enough to fly through the fence there were no nasty surprises. Even the fantastic old Hyde Road track at Belle Vue wasn’t without danger. It had manhole covers on or near the track and Peter Collins famously rode in the 1977 World Final in Sweden with a bad leg injury after the manhole cover was dislodged and clouted PC in the leg. Yes in post war Hackney there were fatalities at The Wick and one pre-war with Dusty Haigh. Two certainly post war were as a result of the lamp posts, one wasn’t. I’m not sure on young Alan Clegg. These guys paid the ultimate price for entertaining me and many thousands of other speedway fans at Waterden Road. The Len Silver era had top quality riders from around the world and racing was excellent. I have to say the Russell/Pavitt era had very good racing to. Scofield, Galvin and of course Thommo were brilliant when they missed the gate coming from the back. Going back to the sixties and seventies so were Banger, Middleton, Plechy, Thommo [that man again] Lord Morton of Hackney and numerous others, but the track was different and had far more dirt than in later years. In 1996 I’m so pleased they were called London as the track and viewing was awful and they didn’t use the name Hackney, because Hackney was a brilliant race track despite its danger and produced far better racing than any other track in the country.

There is one main reason Lakeside and Workington closed and it's nothing at all to do with Friday and Saturday's. The fact they had to ride so many Fixtures in October mostly against each other was a huge factor. The other factor ROB GODFREY - cancelled Lakeside Fixtures in summer as them riding on a Friday stopped him booking Guests for Scunthorpe and cancelled some Workington matches too. The success of those sides unfairly affected them. Had Godfrey not cancelled Lakeside matches at a few days notice they would have ridden fewer Fixtures at Rye House and not lost huge amounts on last few matches there. Also a fact they lost their Track to developers, that would have whatever day they race on. We absolutely need ONE BIG LEAGUE of 14-16 Teams giving variety and whatever level that finds can and should be marketable until the Polish bubble inevitably bursts and Riders have to accept that "getting paid in UK" is better than not getting paid 5-10x more in Poland...". Some sides are having a real go at PROMOTING the sport, others are living in denial and negativity.

I think most Leicester fans will/would ‘put up with’ and actually love a season of easy home wins with good racing like last night, after 8 years of near bottom of the league stuff :-)

and an even bigger mouth . last time i heard of one of his tweets he was abusing a top cage fighter which is so brave from a computer sitting in a wheel chair. even his sugar daddies at poole seem to have got fed up with his "f**k british speedway" comments every time something happens that he doesn't agree with as i haven't heard of any darcy ward benefit again this year.

It’s all about opinions and mine is you’re a keyboard warrior!

We invite you to view the trailer for our Memories of Hackney DVD here: Only £16 (post-free in UK) from us at https://www.retro-speedway.com/homepage

7 points taken this weekend. That’ll do And I enjoyed tonight You always do when you win

Absolute shocking performance … well done the bandits … very worthy winners and the scoreline was a fair reflection in their superiority to us well ive watched the 1st 4 meetings and we still cant gate we look slower …….. opposition pulls away or catches us ……… even at home 2 of our riders look happy just to survive 4 laps at home ! 3 look short of confidence ………… already apart from bjerre who beat the woeful gappmaier (truly pathetic non effort) ….. every other diamond lost his dual with his counter part ………. and at home that is totally unacceptable our 3 heat leaders have thus far been poor, and of the other 4 only clegg has impressed whilst every team should be increasing their average to 42 …….. we will be lowering ours !! whilst its not time to panic ………………. the alarm bells are ringing …. cant remember the last time we started with 4 defeats but I suspect it wasn't a good season we haven't even reached Easter and it looks like another long season ahead …….there were NO 'positives' about tonights performance

Going to be a long season if that display by Newcastle is anything to go by. Only Clegg came out of that meeting with any credit for Newcastle.

Over the last few seasons our record away from home has poor to say the least, so lets not get carried away. We have Glasgow home and away at the end of the week, do well in those meetings and we really could be onto something. However for tonight lets celebrate a great win at Newcastle.

Away wins are a very rare thing for Berwick, so I`m sure this one will be celebrated well into the night. Excellent win and well team managed with the right riders being replaced in the right races. For Berwick to early to get carried away, but what a great win, while for Newcastle to early to panic but they need to improve especially at home.

Watching the Lublin match this evening i hope Lambert tells Buster about a chap named Miesiak,boy he was exciting to watch and scored well too.Maybe later on in the season?

While people keep commenting on it he will keep posting it.

Still posting bs I see

Yes ZZ is rider replacement

Broken collarbone

Pretty sure it`s reserves or no 8 - Roman Lachbaum. Or maybe not so sure

Disappointing result for the Scorpions. But we shouldn't panic we need to give our young riders the space to settle in to Championship Speedway. I'm sure we will do. You cannot lose a rider like Jake Allen without impact ? His rides yielded two points under IRR he would surely have been good for 4 times that and a nominated Ht15. So likely a more respectable 54-36 If everyone's standing. Lions have a good top 4; as indeed do Scunny so this competition is going to be won in the "minor team positions". How well will the young riders coming up from NL cope with CL Speedway ?. It's going to be interesting finding out and as I have stated I do firmly believe that promoters have to resist making changes if early results don't work out.

It is numerous things, not just race nights, although I guess that keeps some fans at home. The Speedway Star pre-season edition with all the line-ups, for example, and there is not one single team that would encourage me to shell out £20 to enter a stadium. Reducing prices might help, but promoters are naturally worried about doing this, and so will increase them year upon year to make up for the missing fans and stand the risk of losing more fans who feel it not worth the price anymore. So they combat that by putting up prices again next year. As always, the best hope for speedway's future is for the old supporters to introduce the new ones. I had it done to me, and I introduced my young brother. But, when a new fan is hooked, you have to offer them a product that doesn't have their mates laughing at them.

Live on you tube

Think Sheffield in a couple of weeks will be a much closer match. Happy enough with what I’ve seen so far, definite improvement in the track last night. Enjoyed the new style parade too. A season of winning most home meetings is something we’ve lacked for so long. Fingers crossed.

From only 2 rides I believe

Watching(luckily) on https://supersportowo.com/stream11.html

How it stands with the look off what they have I would think a heat winner at home is top priority bar wright I wouldn't put a penny on the top 5 winning a race bjerre should be at reserve so the whole team is wrong

They didn't last season, Woryna achieved 6.36 last season in this league and is likely to improve, don't see Summers or Barker achieving that but they are cheaper.

A really good meeting . Some good team riding & passing in most races. Seems Stewart has managed to get some consistency in the surface, I fear for Scunthorpe on the road they have a very long tail end. Only downside from tonight is i didn’t have the courage to ask the attractive young female Scunthorpe fan in the Grey hat on bend 1 for her number :-(

F##k of zzzzzzz

2 things I wish for tomorrow at BROUGH is that when it says tapes up at 18.30 let's do it & a diamonds win

He would.... not known for his liking for a wet or grippy track ...

Poor old Stewmac is there- hope they sort it so he sees some decent action.

Maybe, but It’s Cook that needs replacing. Woryna doesn’t score the points Cook would.

Three of those offers came in one phone call.

Zielona Gora v Torun Extraleague Friday April 5th be quick watching it- because it could dissapear !!

He's just a simpleton with a big ego...

The rain has saved the Aces from getting a good thrashing

I think it would be quicker to name the riders who Nicki hasn't upset down the years! Saying that he's had a raw deal the last couple of years with refs excluding him purely because of his reputation and riders (Woffinden and Janowski spring to mind,) overreacting after barely being touched. You know they wouldn't react like that if it were any other rider. I for one will miss him in the gp's this year because he's the last remaining character and he stirs things up. It's all gotten too chummy with all the fist bumps and high fives..We need another Penhall v Carter type rivalry!

Honestly You are a total plum I am far to good looking to be confused for Steve W, plus I usually wear long trousers not shorts. However speaking to "In the Know" Tony in the Vatican (Maryport) I think there is going to be a bun fight. Looks like the dirt is coming up and getting dumped round the back of the pit area and the Rugby club are going to bill the Speedway for the pleasure of putting it there along with a charge for removing the fence and storing it round the back and a charge for the containers with the Tractor and air fence panels in. It may be going legal so I cant say to much however to omens are not good. No as indicated above Tsunami its getting piled up round the back of the electronic scoreboard stand and billed to the Speedway for sitting there, It is a disgrace the most successful west Cumbrian team of all time are just getting absolutely shafted, the Leader of the Council who said on TV we will support the Comets in their endeavours and back them to the hilt has gone to ground, help!!!! what help?, its a disgrace how the Club the Fans and the Promotion have been and are being treated... Not sure what can be done now I am absolutely gutted Regards THJ