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Ford should be thinking about himself.. He is a business man.. He has made it clear the club is up for sale if the right offer comes in, and has been for a long time, however no one has come in and bought it.. Maybe 'the fans' who want to stay in the Premiership should buy it? Too many 'Promoters' run their clubs as an expensive hobby and it shows in the way they run the sport... "Sustainable losses", supported by other parts of their business, seems to be an accepted year end performance for too many.. As you say, he has been good for Poole and hopefully made money, therefore as a business man if the model you are using suddenly stops working then you need to change it and see if something new does.. Fair play to the guy for doing it as far too many run with the same plan every year with the inevitable same results..

Was Anders Rowe ready? Was Leon Flint ready? If they're good enough, they're old enough.

F1 has about twenty races a season where points are awarded. SGP has 10? meetings a season when you can do up to 70 races and/or wins. Its totally different. What a load of zh1t to mess with the scoring.

What a load of rubbish. Complete throwback to the way they used to award points, which was abandoned for a reason. EVERY point should count.

What's wrong with 16 year old Palin riding in the 2nd division. 16-year-old Peter Collins, Chris Morton, Michael Lee, Kenny Carter, Andy Smith, are just a few riders I remember riding in the 1st division.

Buggered the SWC and now done the same with the GPs

Don’t like this at all . so win all your heats 15 pts last in final take hom 14 scrape through to finals on 7pts win final take home 20 bloody joke

WHY WHY WHY What an absolute joke. A rider can have 6 perfects rides (18 points) and finish last in the final and get 14 points. "IF IT'S NOT BROKEN"

Somerset have done it having almost bankrupted their club after one season in Premiership. MF hasn't got a bottomless pit of money. Much of Poole's top level success has come on the back of much hard work in and around the local area in getting big sponsorship deals. The season just gone has seen not only the new, last minute main sponsor going into liquidation and costing the club around £35k but also saw the departure of 3 'major' club sponsors before the season started - one expected because they were at the end of their 2-year deal and 2 others due to a shift in their own respective business development plans. No club can afford to lose a six figure income from their bottom line without it having a major effect. To operate at a level which has - according to MF - a 25% lower cost base at a time when he is also less 'hands-on' due to his developing new business interest abroad, is a very sensible approach when leaving the day-to-day running of the club to his son Danny! Resuming 'local' derbies with the likes of Somerset and Eastbourne (and maybe Plymouth and Kent too) and seeing some other different opposition is all good as its all about the racing and the atmosphere for me - and many others it would seem.

You've identified one of the fundamental problems with British speedway - it doesn't understand who its target market is. Speedway tries to target children by doing into schools, having face painting and bouncing castles, but when you actually go to a meeting the average age is over 55 and the presentation is like something from the 70s. Kids don't want to listen to AC/DC and fill out paper programmes with a pen, they want Stormzy, Fortnite and an app to keep score with. The solution is in fact quite simply. If the majority of your customers are over 55, then market speedway at... wait for it... yep... over 55s! Its not rocket science people. You can also align the sport with sponsors who want to target that demographic adding some much needed credibility. The other benefit of course is that over 55s are likely to have far more disposable income than youngsters.

Jordan has a higher NL average than Kyle Bickley, Connor Bailey, Danny Phillips, Jack Smith, Luke Harris, Drew Kemp, Ryan Kinsley, Jason Edwards, Joe Lawlor, Tom Perry and Connor Coles. I think he might be ok.

A thoughtful parent who has createdfurther opportunities for his child which will been entitled to dual nationality/freedom of movement between AUS & the UK yeah those true colours are disgusting.......sometimes there is a whole lot more to life than speedway.

I bet they send their new official photographer...

No champagne, fireworks or hot showers either. Not like it’s the first time either.

Yeah he is ready like I said a few weeks back that he'll be well capable of keeping the 2 point average & could possibly put a point on around the EWR & a half a point away at some not all tracks.. the lad had a great family behind him & also a good mentor in Wayne carter.. definitely 1 for the future as will young Archie Freeman & Danny Smith also Ben trigger & apologies if I have forgot to mention more but the future is looking good for GB SPEEDWAY

You are 100% right. The GP series, when it was introduced, had one feature which countered the "how can a rider who has one good meeting, be considered WC?" effect. Well, what better way to prove that the WC is the most consistent rider across the season that to make every race and every point count? A 3rd in your opening ride should not be considered a bit of a slip, to be caught up later. It's 2 lost points, lost for good. And what about "I've qualified for the semis, so why try hard to win further races" under the new system? We want riders making every race meaningful don't we? Pushing for every point, not making judgements about their likelihood about their qualification for the later stages of the meeting. This is a fundamental mistake and ignores simple psychology. Think on. At Torun this year, we were following the destiny of the championship from race 1 and throughout the meeting race by race.

They finally get the scoring system right after years of tinkering and then go and balls it up again.

Piss poor decisions , yet again.

My comment has nothing to do with the racing just see it as a negative step ps yes i know its his money but we give it to him in the first place

I agree with that financially it makes sense but as a fan it doesn't sit well, we have been so long in the top league it seems sad to me to have to drop out and I think despite all the flak we get we will be missed. I know MF has worked very hard to make the club viable but maybe not being here on a day to day basis and leaving running of the club to his son hasn't worked.

I'm not a fan of this if it is true. As I said earlier, a rider may score 15 points in the Qualifying heats and finish third in his S/F for an actual total of 16 points, loses 4 points in the new format, being 'awarded' 12 points. Another rider may qualify for the S/F with 8 points and finish second in his S/F actually scoring 10 points but gains 4 points after being 'awarded' 14 for finishing last in the Final!

Clearly Scunthorpe seem to think so, Palin needs to take his career forward and moving into the Championship will do that.

Great night..Razzer Rider of the Year...Gater-Batch...Bonus King Doyley...Unsung Heroes Track Staff. Only Tobi and Doyley not there. Great to see Leigh Adams message on big screen. Over 200 there. Hope trophies are still in one piece!!!

It may be sensible financially but dropping down a league is not brilliant, we are the most successful team in the modern era, one bad year and we jack in the top league,i will still go but it won't be the same. Teams in most sports do everything they can to stay in the top league, we just give it up willingly.

complete twaddle. If you're good enough, you're old enough. NDL likely to reduce is quality and quantity, he could double down anyway, let him race older more experienced riders and he will learn quicker. Didn't do Peter Collins and Michael Lee any harm did it??

Why?

Fingers crossed , it's good to see the council standing up to the property developers dodgy tactics.

You couldn’t run a bath so stop talking out of your arse.

What do want the final to be ? you want Swindon to make it close ? Maybe Man city in the fa cup final should beat Watford by less goals . brain dead post .

After the recent GB test match v Denmark, with somewhat weakened teams, I wondered about the selection of Team GB for a test match. What would your selection be for a full strength seven man team? Assume all riders available and on reasonable form. No particular track in mind, so no horses for courses, and no tactical switches such as putting best rider at number 7. I will make my selection. 1 Woffy 2 King 3 Cook 4 Wright 5 Lambert 6 Ellis 7 Bewley.

He's not going to Poole though is he

It won't be King!!

Always entertaining watching England losing

Win all your heats, finish last in your semi-final, take home 10 points...

Being around the junior scene for many years now with my own produced riders, I have watched his progress and he is the real deal. He has progressed very steadily with great support from his whole family. He is not dirty, he is not a throttle basher, but he is a very technical astute rider who has great confidence and style. Of the recent great successes emanating from the junior scene and the NL, Jordan is the best, and is now being pushed by the Thompson twins, who will make great progress next year. My protege Archie Freeman is next, and next year we have hopes that he will follow in the same direction that Jordan has. The junior scene is looking very good and healthy, but we need a National League to drop into for more competition to take them to the next step, the Champiomsship.

Who says it isn't broken though? Maybe the organisers have looked at some of the lacklustre attendances and figure this is one way things can be freshened up a bit?

You mean like better run sports like footballs Premier league where any team can sign whoever they like and as it stands Liverpool have 28 points and Watford have 5. Any league system usually has a big difference in points scored between the top and bottom teams. At least in speedway all teams on paper start the season even and its down to the manager to be savvy enough to sign a team of improvers and riders that can score points home and away to gain points on the road and that's what will bring you success whatever the points limit is. Where in football the sign whoever you like system usually means money buys you success. In my opinion speedways system if far fairer for all the clubs in the league than football will ever be.

Most of the clubs don't want one big league!!

Please remember to post in modern-day easy-to-read English style please nw42, as I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Perhaps Foo Keen was related to the speedway rider Jack Keen?

Steve Pugh

You used to run groups like that until they got even less posts and probably died a slow death. Seem to remember you had another name and posted to make it look like there were more contributors. Then you got rumbled

and if Desperate Dan had've found a way past Teesside Tom in ht2, things might have been a lot closer. Not to take anything away from Wright's ht13 btw

Aggro between the teams and riders is certainly missing these days. However very hard to produce that kind of thing as at some point during the season all the riders will appear on the same side at least once.

Why? Surely Poole running is the most important thing? I wish people would give it a chance first before trying to run it into the ground

This is great. Someone has lost a thread and someone lost the plot

Dead right! If you want your speedway to continue at your local track, year on year, set the limit lower, keep the promotion's losses down and let the sport be there for you and your friends.

That’s irrelevant and entirely a result of team selections through the season. All teams started out with a limit of 38 and after the first matches the combined average was a bit lower than 42 (due to some races finishing with two riders). Subjective team changes were then made during the season due to loss of form and injuries, generally with lower averaged replacements coming in, so the combined average went another bit lower than 42. And so we ended up with 41.3. That will happen practically every season but it doesn’t change the facts that 42 is the objective limit and an above figure can bring in more higher averaged riders (from the PL or abroad) and a below figure can move higher averaged riders around, exclude some of them and reduce costs.

Love a lot of what TR said .. quite clearly and quite rightly we can't keep the same 7 thou . What I don't like is rules that stop you tracking the riders you like with only one rider over 8 etc . Make a limit and let all sides work to that in any way they feel fit .

Several reasons why teams request to drop.. With financial being the obvious one. With the underlying reasons of there being absolutely no kudos by winning any Speedway title nor any attainment levels to aspire too from the lowest league to the top.. No disrespect but a Grand Final in Speedway (UK), is akin to two bald men fighting over a comb.. Therefore what difference does it make to the clubs what league they race in? Hardly anyone cares who wins. There is almost zero National coverage.. And there is no financial reward worth speaking of, in fact, as we see, successful clubs can actually lose money and go bust by winning!! Therefore you might as well decide amongst yourselves where you want to compete, and at the end of the day you can watch pretty much the same set of riders anyway so no loss there.. As you say, it sends out all the wrong messages, but that's where the sport is in the UK, and I suppose the overall thoughts are better to have clubs still in existence than not.. An ever decreasing circle though isn't it?

The scoring system used at the moment works well. Is it broken ? Why change it ?