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Why wouldn't you take 'em to speedway? I'm sure they would like Dean Barker, Tai Woofinden, Terrier Betts, and the like. Not forgetting Lassie Bjerre, or most of the Great Danes, actually... Steve

I've taken a few dogs to the pictures over the years.

While he was doing the donut after heat 15, I remarked that he was showing us what he scored at Armadale last night

I found it very boring. I don’t like pairs competitions, and like them even less after that. I recorded it, like I do all televised speedway meetings, but like many others, this tonight was deleted straight after. Let’s see what Belle Vue throws up.

The track needs a blade over it. The first bend was completely relaid last year all the way down but clearly there is an issue with the stability of the actual ground itself as the riders were being thrown all over the place. The grader went over it for a few minutes but it didn’t really solve the issue. Hopefully it will be worked on before next Thursday. The second point is the watering of the track. No watering whatsoever took place during the meeting. Whilst there wasn’t the billowing clouds of dust, after the first few heats the moisture was gone and the track became slick with passing at a premium. We are lucky to have a brilliant race track at Poole which can produce tons of passing. But not while it is prepared as it currently is. The track needs more dirt, and the bowser going around every 4 heats during the warmer nights. As Matt has taken his finger off the pedal things have slipped. The air fence used to be immaculate. Now it has dirt on it from the previous week. Poor visual presentation. That bloody awful “music” the riders come out to? Sort it! Provide the riders with a well prepared track and they will provide great racing. Which will get the crowd excited. Which will increase numbers. Perhaps the bigger issue is the lack of the top stars. They are gone fore the foreseeable future, perhaps they are never likely to return. The riders we have in the league now, bar the odd few, will never be replacements for Ward and Chris Holder, Or Trick, or Loram, or Magic. Their riding skills and ability to make stunning passes are a memory today.

Got to say I thought tonights meeting was brilliant i think the light showers helped prepare a perfect consistent track for the riders to produce some good close racing. Thank you to the Eastbourne team for finally giving the Leicester public a competitive meeting to watch & but for the final 3 heats it was close.

No. You suggested 4-3-2-0 (not me). I said that 4-3-2-0 would be unfair, as a team suffering an engine failure would be automatically eliminated (The same problem that we saw last year). I said this year's new rules are far more fairer. (You don't even grasp that there are new rules this year). You're not the girl from the pits are you?

As a clueless bimbo?

Kyle has already scored 1pt less than he achieved in total all last season. Workington should be praised for sticking with the young man last year when other teams wouldn't. What would he be doing if Worky were still in the League?

I believe Ouch was being ironic.

From April 12th

Only after 6 gin and tonics!

I take my dog wherever he is ‘allowed’. Isn’t that the point of the thread? No one is asking to take their dog to the movies.

I can't understand this rule anyway. Coventry ran Greyhound Racing and dogs were still always allowed. Wolverhampton, Oxford and Swindon all did then suddenly brought the rule in so that was the end of our visits to those tracks. There aren't exactly any Greyhounds wandering around during Speedway matches so why are visiting fans pet dogs banned? If it's just a health risk it would be simple enough to show up-to-date injection records.

Was fortunate enough to be at the Zielona Gora and Leszno meetings last week (Poznan SEC meeting in between). Amazing atmosphere at both league meetings, racing brutal at times. Wonderful presentation. No ridiculous guests or tracks full of holes or oil leaking onto the track. The whole experience reminds you that speedway can be taken seriously if presented properly.

I can highly recommend the Tom Farndon book, Sidney. Some years ago I was at a college reunion. Funnily enough, the person who first gave me the nickname, norbold, was there. I hadn't seen or heard from him since we'd left college about 45 years previously. During the reunion, he said to me that someone had brought along a small autograph book to sell at his school fete (he was a headteacher now), but it hadn't sold and the owner was just going to throw it away. He had a look at it and realised it was full of old speedway riders' autographs. He rescued the book as he hoped he would be seeing me at the reunion. He knew I was interested in speedway because he had seen some of my books in his local bookshop. Anyway, he showed me the book and I couldn't believe it. It contained dozens of speedway autographs including Tom Farndon, Vic Huxley, Lionel Van Praag, Johnnie Hoskins, Alec Jackson, Dick Case and many many other top riders. He asked me how much I thought it was worth. I told him he could probably get at least £75 for it. He thanked me and took the book back. Later on, just as I was leaving, he came over to me and said, "Here you might as well have the book, it's no good to me and I could see how much it meant to you." I reminded him it was probably worth at least £75 and he just shrugged and said, "It's ok, I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me and we were just going to throw it away anyway." So he gave it to me for nothing. A little while later I showed the book to John Somerville and he offered me £100 on the spot for it. I said it wasn't for sale. I still have the book today. A prized possession!

Don't bother going to Leicester then because there were at least 4 there tonight and sorry to disappoint you but no dog poo and no barking. You always know someone is losing the argument when they resort to stupid comments like taking a dog to the cinema . Speedway attendances of a few hundred people standing on a grassy bank as against thousands seated at a Football match is another daft comment not really worthy of a reply.

Hope they have to pay to bring them in. Why people need to bring a four legged turd factory to speedway is beyond me.

It was Premier League Trophy Final.

This is one of those situations where you cannot please all of the people all of the time. There are some dog owners who have to take there dog EVERYWHERE they go , regardless of it maybe annoying other people ( or annoying the dog even ! } Personally , I don't want to go and watch Speedway while stepping in dog poo and listening to dogs barking . As someone said , do you take a dog to the Cinema ? a Football Match ? I would probably avoid any track where a lot of people took dogs ( I believe you could add Cardiff to the NOT allowed list )

He even said he doesn't watch racing, not interested, which is fine but BT should have done their homework first. Hopefully they won't use him again.

I am actually wishing for Scott to retrun. Woffinden saps the life out of you.

Re; Simon, hasn't that been said for a while now and, am not sure if he's ever been far above the dizzy heights of a 5 point, second tier rider ?

Every team doesn't do as well when it performs badly.

If Gappmaier is the problem, away from home anyway, I`m not quite sure that Theo Pijper is the solution.

I’m pretty sure it’s just standing at ground level on those bends as has happened before. Not great but it’s all that’s left now.

Nice one armchair x

Yes, well we already know that!

John Campbell piece in last nights programme says he "feels sure Edinburgh will record our biggest number of race winners in any away match this season" We have been warned.

He is a very young kid but hope the experience will do him a lot of good. It helped Tai and look how good he was next time he got in the GP's. He might surprise us in one or two GP's with a semi final. He has huge talent so I hope he doesn't get slagged on here.

I'll tell her you said that Marcus!

Oops sorry guys, I knew a win was enough but had forgot a draw wouldn’t be, anyways it would be the biggest disaster of the season if we can’t beat that Edinburgh team tonight, my prediction is around 60-30

I don't take my dog to the movies. Not until they make another Lassie film anyway. But then I don't go to Glasgow or Edinburgh from my home in the midlands, to go to the movies. Enough of this levity (for now at least). We still have a few tracks missing from my list. Can we complete it please?

I can see why John offered you a £100!!

Simon got an extra (R/R) ride last night. He started poorly, but scored well in his last three rides. Danny beat Chessell in heat two (despite being 'beating up' after the first bend fall in the original running) and got his fourth ride, mainly due to the fact Max, despite winning heat 2, was poor in his next two rides.

After writing my little story above I dug out the book as I haven't looked at it for a while. Here is a fuller list of the well-known speedway autographs it contains: Sprouts Elder, Tom Farndon, Lionel Van Praag, Wally Kilmister, Gus Kuhn, Alec Jackson, Eric Gregory, Norman Evans, George Greenwood, Vic Huxley, Dick Case, Buster Frogley, Alf Foulds, Bluey Wilkinson and Johnnie Hoskins. It also contains a number of photographs of teams and individual riders as well as some other autographs of actors, including Robertson Hare, and an autograph of World Flyweight Boxing Champion, Jimmy Wilde. It won't be up for sale on eBay any time soon!

IMO this is a step to far for Lambert at this time in his career, hope im proven wrong. He is getting beaten up on the first turn big time in Polish league, but the bar is set a lot higher in the GPs!

Danish qualifiers.

But did they pee and poop where people were walking???

As I have asked before, do you take your dog to the movies?

Another good meeting Cook missing the gate should be mandatory, Jensen is proving me wrong as he is looking good and once Starkey gets going we will look pretty formidable, he seemed to be down on power compared to the rest of the team. And as for Young Kyle another accomplished night from him, all in all another step to were we want to be in terms of race sharpness.

Poznan is a very good base for a number of tracks. Last week we hopped on the train to ZG on Friday. Probably cost about 7 quid each, there and back, took about 1hr 45. Same with Leszno on Sunday, about 1hr 20 on the train. Both direct connections. Torun is easy as well. Cheap flight into Bydgoszcz and 45 mins on the train to Torun which costs about 2 quid! Meetings cost about 8/9 quid to get into. The SEC qualifier at Poznan was a fiver.

Exactly. Looks like BV only have glory hunting fans nowdays. How many years since their last title? A generation ago!

No, shame on the xenophobe for suggesting there isn't a 'genuine' Brit in the GP.

Lidsey has been to Poole more times than Blackheart if he is who I think he is!!

Try http://www.historicspeedway.co.nz/Fay Taylour.htm or just type Fay Taylour speedway into your search engine. There's lots available.

He's not. And he's not wrong either. It's a hell of a jaunt for belle vue supporters and it absolutely has to be right to make it worth it. Poole is a fabulous track, but its poorly prepared and that is now impacting people's decision making in terms of attendance, especially when the travel is so acute. Being sympathetic isn't relevant, at the end of the day there is work to be done at Poole in the same way as there was at kirky lane, and people voted with their feet there too, and they only lived up the road. I have no sympathy for the state of your track because frankly you have more control over it than we ever did at the dog track.

I got my copy on Amazon. Cheaper for me to get books and dvd's from Amazon.co.uk and get them shipped over, than to buy them on the main American site! Steve

Sad news, Sonia McPhilips passed away on Tuesday after her battle with illness. Sonia and Maxi were our host after speedway for such a long time, when they were Landlords of The Grove pub, the home of hospitality for Berwick Speedway.

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