Leaderboard

Totally agree with you. They can’t do right for doing wrong. It’s ok for others to complain about Sunday night but when the management team apologise it’s a different kettle of fish. In future Rob and team don’t bother as your no better thought of. It’s called caring about Newcastle speedway and doing the best with what they have.

Once again he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. If it had happened at other teams it would have been “How refreshing shows how much he cares” At Newcastle not a chance.

Poole DID sign him and he was declared in their 1-7 which BSPL approved along with all the paperwork. It was the Czech Govt that changed their Covid travel restrictions the day after that put the cat amongst the pigeons. The BSPL granted a 7-day facility which is now over but replaced with ruling referred to above.

Agree on all aspects... Playing a blame game is never a good response as a leadership team... As you say, given the team they have they are going to take a few 'beastings' so no need to give out apologies.. And as most riders get paid based on performance, I am sure it wasn't down to lack of effort. Lack of ability maybe, but any team who get beat by a superior one can testify to that... If it needed mentioning then it should have been a simple "We are all extremely disappointed but are all equally committed to turn it round".. And as you say, if you go public as a professional entity, for heaven's sake, get your message out using the correct English language, as it can come across as amateurish, and brand damaging, when you don't..

Does this mean there was no discussion with Trollope before the track was prepared? Who briefed Trollope and didn't discuss it with the riders? Frankly an apology after the event isn't needed, the Diamonds were always going to struggle this year based on the late entry in 2020 and the relative inexperience of the promotion. No need to chuck the lads under a bus there have been changes galore all season they will have felt bad enough after the weekend without further public humiliation. Oh and a spell checker for whoever is doing the website releases might help, it's beginning to look like the village fete committee are at the helm!

Much more of this and you`ll be on the naughty step.

Rider's where asked what they wanted and Graham was told to rip the inside up comeing of bends which was done but did not suit all Rider's. But you got think Graham only had a few hours to do it. But I do know in two weeks Terry and Graham will be working together so hopefully will get it sorted

Honestly What the real shame was... is this meeting wasn't bad and there was plenty of passing and some good competitive racing; there was a healthy crowd in the stadium and it was the first time this season the overflow car park had to be used so there were a lot of positives to take out of Sunday; however I couldn't get my second nose bag because of the queue at the chuck waggon which again I suppose isn't a bad thing cos one; I'm fat enough and two; it means the food was selling well although there were no chips available; come on guys "No chips" I'm starting to think this is a witch hunt against fat lads; you'll be selling salad next... however the result was just the wrong way round and its accepted that Redcar have a good team but again apart from the dust off the track it was a good days entertainment... the club have nothing to apologise for IMHO or to feel embarrassed about that's for sure... Onwards and upwards and bring on Berwick this Sunday and lets see how we get on... As a team surely we cant gate as poorly as we did against Redcar... Here's a question has the promotion set up for a change with that strongly worded statement? maybe... who knows but possibly there could be news coming... but all in all there were a lot of positives to take out of Sunday other than the final score and the dusty track... and on that point... this defeat does not technically hit the top 20 biggest defeats at Brough... (that might change when Poole come or maybe Edinburgh again... Doh) that 20 point differential has been matched 3 times in the past and sits in the joint 20th place and those others were 32 - 52 against Edinburgh 27th July 1951; a 29 - 49 against Poole 19th June 1961 and 29 - 49 against Cradley Heath on the 6th August 1984 and on the 21st of June 2012 we pumped Redcar down their place 58 - 37 so "Schmit Happens" and what goes around comes around... however saying that Middlesbrough did do us on the 19th of May 1947 with a 30 - 65 reversal for our joint top (sitting in second place by date only) heaviest ever home defeat; but even Barry Wallace can barely remember that one... As D:Ream said "Things can only get better" and they will... Honest... I think the Berwick match will be much more keenly contested and much closer... Regards THJ Data Supplied from the excellent book compiled by Joe Wake "History of Speedway at Brough Park Newcastle 1929 to 2018"

It's not just prices that have changed over the years. In researching how much they had changed in other sports, I found a Chesterfield v AFC Bournemouth program from a div 3 away game I attended in 1985 amongst my speedway programmes. There is a section giving details of their upcoming away trip to Derby County at the old Baseball ground. They say that the cheapest admission on the away terrace is an "extortionate £3", which is £9 odd in today's Monday. In describing the ground it says " The ground is situated in an unsavoury area. Some houses around the ground have been demolished in a slum clearance scheme, the others have been occupied by immigrants and the area has some of the qualities of a ghetto" In today's money that would equate to "a vibrant cosmopolitan area rich with cultural diversity"

Gates had only just opened when I took the pic. Looking good indeed

Yeah,I went yesterday for the footy

TBH your Team Manager (aka "Calamity Clown" ) lost you this match. Instead of trusting messrs Cook, Jensen, Nicol & Wells to cover Ostergaard's programmed rides, in comes a highly dubious choice of guest which spectacularly backfires! Hard to imagine Stewart Dickson would have made such a blunder in a derby match when he was at the helm

Take a bow Danyon Hume. Brilliant tonight.

Absolutely cracking meeting with passes in every heat. Super setup. Good crowd and all over and on our way before 8.30. And stand up Danny Hume. Rider of the night.

Not quite right Jason Vissing getting released had nothing to do with cutting costs... It would have been cheaper to put Kyle in heat 15 rather than James; however James had wanted to try something on his bike and his set up... and presumably practice his rolling starts (Ahem)… so again you are wide of the mark with the last comment... However you are spot on with the bit in the middle... Regards THJ

Dicks getting a bit sensitive in his old age it appears.

Careful now play nice or the thread will get pulled... and you know what happens when a thread gets pulled... Yep... your jumper unravels... Regards THJ

You still can’t help yourself regarding” forum fannies” either. CLASSIC. ps Didn't think you were on the Promotion,your Dirt Extra columns regularly critises anyone who dares to have an opinion with differs from yours on this forum.That’s your prerogative ,but I am entitled to have my opinion too.

012.3.1. Rising Star Regulations – to be inserted on page 112 Rising Star riders can only compete in 2 leagues at any one time. So can someone tell me how he was allowed to guest in the Premiership as he is in the Leicester Cubs & Lions teams in 2 different leagues ( and everyone knows you can only be in one place at a certain time)?

Perhaps if it was it the News section along with Glasgow ticket advert it would help,not everybody reads the self proclaiming utter garbage that you write in the Dirt Extra.

I don’t see the problem.. yes the track was different but should Alfie Bowtell, Dan Thompson and Ashley Morris be getting paid 34 points absolutely not! Redcar are a decent side but we should not be losing by 20 points. One or two of our riders are off the boil and thank god for Howarth and Barker otherwise it would of been a lot more. Hopefully we should see an improvement on Sunday

Don’t think apology is needed,most fans know that is a very weak Diamonds Team and Redcar are a good Team.

Met Office forecast doesn’t look too promising .....heavy rain 1500-1600 ☹️. Hope they are wrong . Kent will be up against it with a rider short and no satisfactory cover for R/R. Heeps needs to score some points and prove his fitness......

Message him and ask him. I’m sure he will tell you. Great to have people stepping forward to do the updates, we should be very grateful that people do. And very fair in his reports too.

It is all conjecture what if this happened or that happened my own personal opinion is R/R was the better option ,you have your opinion which is your prerogative.

It's dead easy to praise someone who gives you something for nothing, innit? Your new best friends. Wait a minute though. Birmingham (one amongst many) were running with "Kids for a Quid" in one guise or another since 2007. If lowering the price, or giving admission away for next to nothing was the answer, then the terraces would be awash with young people in their late teens and early 20's now, wouldn't they? I mean, how many 17-20-year-olds are at Berwick now, having been bitten by the bug in their pre-16 years and are now paying full price at the gate? How do you answer that one without sounding negative? I know that the answer to the same question at Birmingham will result in a big round number. Basically, the experiment that everyone hung their hopes on has failed. (just waiting for the "I know someone who knows someone who came in as a kid for a quid" smartarse who just wants to be contrary) Sadly in the rush to the bottom of the admission price barrel has resulted in promoters taking the eyes off the ball when it comes to quality of the product. Whilst Rugby, Darts and Cricket have reinvented themselves time and again, and now have full venues, and attract competition from TV stations for the broadcasting rights, speedway still tries to offer the same old same old 1950's product without any thought to new ways of doing things. And all for the fear of losing the 70-80 year old "regular" fan base that's kept the sport going. There will come a day however when it'll be time to crack some eggs to make an omelette...

Isn't this a case for all sports though, other than football maybe? I know going back to my own experience, I was speedway daft when I was a teenager, Then I started to go out, alcohol and girls took over. Then you settle down and lose interest in the "chase". Then you go back to what you used to enjoy. I would bet that the only sports which attract teenagers in any amounts are one which also have alcohol nearby? Football (because it is media wall to wall), T20 cricket, darts nights out (sold as a night out rather than a purely sporting attraction). So if you want to attract teenagers, maybe you need to turn speedway meetings into a stag party atmosphere?

Methanol is a bio fuel so any thoughts of using petrol instead should be binned straight away.

I do t think This team was ever put out to win the league as silly as it sounds. It was put out to get fans in the stadium, and it has done that. The job this year was to get the club sustainable through this year and in to next year. reminder we started a lot later than most sides, nearly a whole year behind those that kept the riders from the season that never ran. personally I think we are close. 12 points on a heat leader was always going to be a tough ask and had he rode he’d have probs got a 9/10 average freeing up 2 points to put towards a stronger reserve from 3 points to 5 pushing Dillon or Zach there. The club as a whole has improved everything massively from the stadium to the track to the food selection in the cafe. from when mark took over to this moment in time it’s complete opposites. And he deserves every success and well done that go his way

No one's happy on here

I happy to stand corrected.

Aha!!!,,, now a know why you wear those shirts at the speedway, it's to hide ya dinner medals. As for the rest, am sure many of us have been in that place before, but jokes aside,,, me brother told is a story about a guy that had getting a phal and went home smashed to bits hammered, woke up the next day to find his dog dead, it had had the curry. Got no reason to disbelieve him, Mala might be able to confirm it as a know they know the some of the same guys?

Nothing new there.

No junior grass bikes generally use petrol and the 1000cc Sidecars use petrol. There isn't a problem. 500cc laydown methanol burning speedway bikes are expensive to buy , run and maintain and are generally a bespoke item.

I think if there were ever to be any plans to use petrol engines for speedway bikes there would be immediate and probably insurmountable problems with the environmental police so I wouldn't advocate taking this step myself! !

They are only opening 1 turnstile on Saturday night vs. Glasgow. You can almost guarantee there will be a delay to the start of the meeting.

Kurtz showed a load of potential initially but lost his way badly. Dumped in Poland by Leszno and let Poole down very badly when it mattered in the playoffs two years ago. What you see now is what you get. And if he is off gate four when it matters you can forget it.

Seems to be a threat of rain every Tuesday. Unbelievable really.

1968 & 69. I think the track was tarmaced for the stock cars, when the speedway packed up in 1962.

I have to agree Lisa, you should be expecting your number one to be leading the way and showing consistency, that i expected nothing and was underwhelmed by his signing didnt bode well. Lets hope those that say Bewley going to number one will relieve the pressure on Kurtz and he can pick up are right, but really in this weak league he should be doing far far better than this.

To be honest before hand most of us would have been delighted with a point as we didn’t think would keep it within 10 but in the end it was points lost. The rain completely changed the track which Wolves (especially Douglas) adapted to better and another home team who used a tactical sub to win. The racing was fantastic before the rain came, just like the Wolves track use to be years ago, an outside line and inside line that could be used for passing and no fallers!

The irony is cricket had adopted a couple of key aspects common to speedway. A variety of formats and more recently players who play for numerous teams. However they've done it somewhat better than speedway does. On a much larger budget of course. Would using the 4TT format for the league be the way to answer the current ills? Fair enough you lose team riding but that's, as stated earlier, rare. One league 16 teams. Facing your 15 opponents twice home and away with some kind of end of season play off and grand finals (4 of them, 5 if you add a neutral track). That's 10 regular home fixtures (similar to this season) and 30 away fixtures. Just about the equivalent number of fixtures riders have this season doubling up. 16 teams of 4 requires 64 riders (80 if you include a reserve) which is about the same number of active riders this season across the two leagues, so no need for riders to ride for more than one team. Rank the riders A, B, C, and D and each team would consist of one of each (maybe have a pre-season auction to generate interest). At each home meeting you have the potential for three sets of away supporters (or even streamers) as opposed to one. It won't happen because it's 16 (20 inc reserves) riders to pay for instead of 14 and 20 or 16 heats instead of 15.

Got to agree with Uk_martin on his point re quality of product. As an example T20 cricket down here in Kent - all the remaining matches have sold out ....... its £25 a ticket and £7 for 5-15 year olds. Party atmosphere, flames leap int othe air every time someone hits a boundary. Day night games add to the atmosphere. Cricket officianados scoff at the crash, bang, wallop, limited overs white ball game , but it has saved cricket from the abyss. Watching a 3 or 4 day county match is not everyones cup of tea . Someone has gone in and sorted out Cricket with choices of format, whilst speedway is stuck with 15 heats every match 4 riders 4 laps per race .............. yawn. IF the product was moved into the 21st century, interst woudl be increased , crowds would increase , and maybe prices would reflect better value for money?

Rode ok for Torun this afternoon.

I think Rich is spot on, methanol allows high compression and big flywheels which not only gives the right sort of power needed but a lot of engine braking too. The problem with road engines (or MX etc) on Speedway has always been the lack of flywheel effect.

I believe methanol was the chosen fuel, due to the additional power you get from methanol and the use of high compression pistons. When you take the head off a speedway engine, there is virtually no carbon deposits on the piston, the head or valves. And the ports are clean. Methanol used to be more expensive to buy, but I think it might be the same as petrol or even a bit cheaper now. As for the environment, it wouldn't surprise me if methanol is cleaner. It's used in power boat racing and speedway engines (2 valve Jawas and JAPs) used in pre 65 scrambles, they can and many do, use methanol.

My pic from a crazy night in Cloppenburg: https://www.baansportfansite.nl/nieuws/2119/oskar-paluch-wint-bizarre-finale-van-het-wk-250cc-speedway-in-cloppenburg

You must have been suffering from sunstroke that day

Wonderful personality. At Weymouth he went fron second half to reserve to second string to heat leader in successive weeks. Guys with pony tails and beards were very rare at the time so he really stood out and quickly became a bit of a folk hero. Of course the usual instability at Weymouth saw messrs Mawdsley and Lansdale pull out of Weymouth after the season to start their new venture at Rochester. Pity as the local community was really starting to take to the then Eagles. Most memorable Barry escapade was when he clashed wit Terry Stone on the home straight and went careering off onto the centre green. Now the stadium at that time was in a terrible state and the centre green grass had not been cut for months. It was waist high at the lowest and much higher elsewhere. The surface was also incredibly rutted and Barry was soon separated from his bike with Barry and bike flying on in different directions. The ever dedicated Red Cross came over as fast as the conditions allowed but then they had a problem - they couldn’t find him! One shouted “Here’s the bike” but it was a few seconds later when another shouted. “OK. I’ve got him he’s over here”. Luckily Barry was just bruised and shaken up and it was always a pleasure to follow his later career regardless of his team. Nice to hear he is doing well

Such sad news. Lew always had time for everyone and was one of those who would treat the top people and the ordinary fan in exactly the same way. In Speedway his biggest contribution was the wonderful Weymouth Training School which he ran for so many years with his wife Betty. It had a world wide reputation and was often the first calling point for newly arrived Aussies and Americans. A grass track legend. He won an all star event in Germany so many times that they gave him the trophy to keep. It was huge, standing some 5-6 feet high. I asked him about it one night at Weymouth and the next week he took the trouble to bring it down to show me. Typical of his thoughtfulness and kindness. As someone said earlier: Race In Peace Lew.