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It’s Edinburgh’s fault they started the downward spiral .

Speedway is a sport with 'downtime', like cricket, cycling etc and therefore there is going to be a fair amount of 'non-action' time to fill. Imo the job of the commentary team is to provide a conversation you can be drawn into, like pulling up a seat at the pub. A mix of sporting chat and general chitchat works well and I reckon Nige and Kelv do a good job of it.

Nicola Out!

I agree. Having grown up on some of the great cricket commentators, I quite enjoy the waffling! For me me, they are far superior to Tony Millard "stealing a march" and PC's "Henrik Gustaffersson". Even the great Dave Lanning made mistakes. So? The wonderful thing about Nigel is not only the fact that he is a great guy, but he is a TRUE speedway fan, unlike Alan Weekes. For their critics, you have to realize that like everything else in this world, commentating is totally different to what it was 40 and 50 years ago. Individuals like Kenneth Wolstenholme and Ted Lowe are a thing of the past.

For me, Kelvin and Nigel are a great combination on comms. I have listened to lots of speedway commentary over many years, but I am not sure I have heard a better combination than those two. They talk some nonsense to fill gaps, they both make mistakes and mock each other...but when it comes down to it, they both show their excitement for the sport in their vocal reactions, and I love that. I don't want to listen to a monotone description of what is happening, I want someone to show enthusiasm and excitement in their description of what is happening....and Nigel and Kelvin deliver that for me.

It was going well until the last paragraph.

So they run a meeting in the hope that there are no injuries and that an ambulance can be summoned at the drop of a hat when there is a curfew? If I had been any of the speedway fans attending last night and would have had to have stood around for two hours to be told it was abandoned after one race because of the curfew,especially if I'd travelled all the way from Redcar,I think I would be just a tiny bit miffed and that would be the understatement of the year! When oh when is this sport going to be run more professionally in this country.if I'd have been a first timer last night then that would have been my one and only visit I'm afraid.enough said....

If it’s a foreign ambulance it has to have a minimum 4 point average

Does it come in on a 4.00 or a 5.00? Could be quite a bargain if you ask me...

It's probably got Adam Ellis in the back

In my experience you can't cover for every eventuality. Additional medical cover if available and affordable is preferable Sure. But you have to draw the line somewhere between what's affordable and reasonable, and commercially viable. It's a reality of motorsport not just speedway, that occasionally events happen that cannot be reasonably anticipated without assuming everything will go wrong all the time and we can cater for every eventuality but btw the entry fee is now £67. People who are going to be enraged by the delay, and feel victimised by it are the same people who will feel the same when they run out of programmes, or delay a meeting for 30 minutes so riders can see where they are going, or that the food is 50p too expensive, or something. the professionally offended will always find reason to moan. I'd like to say maybe they shouldn't go, but most of them don't, they just come on here to moan. Speedway fans are customers, speedway is a product, it's up to each person to make a call on whether they want to buy the product for the price it's available or not. Edinburgh generally do things more professionally than most, last night circumstances caught them out. It happens

Tatum and Louis were an excellent combination.

The only time this year I actually enjoyed the commentary was when Pearson was otherwise engaged and Chris Louis took his place. TBH I've usually had enough of the banal comments by heat 6 and switched channels.

Speedway needs to open it's eyes and look for additional cover I've ran events, we had a local ambulance on site plus a private "medical car" which came with two paramedics The private medics would perform pre event medicals for participants and also deal with any potential injuries during the event If an injury required a trip to hospital but without the need for assistance the athlete would be accompanied by a volunteer If a more serious issue occurred (thankfully it never did) the ambulance could take the athlete while the event still had medical cover Oh and there was also a doctor on sight as well. Having one ambulance is doing it on the cheap, hoping for minimal risk and ultimately betraying the fans when it goes wrong

To be perfectly frank, most of it is childish and is bringing TV speedway down. They talk rubbish most of the time. Of course others will see it differently.

Too much negativity on this thread. The AA van has just turned up to sort the RAC vehicle that broke down on its way to attend to the ambulance that broke down. The ambulance is now on its way to BP and will hopefully be there in time for the re-arranged meeting on Tuesday. As precaution, Green Flag have been put on alert to cover all bases.

Betty

Ellis is ill till Wednesday I'm hearing

Could put frank Spencer out

What you need is an 'ice-cream/ambulance' combo vehicle, make it useful when its quiet.

Dear god you honestly couldn't make it up. What a tin pot sport we're made to look last 2 nights

These playoffs are starting to annoy me now! Let's just do Poole vs Glasgow and have done with it!

That's the problem with speedway, riders expecting to make a living. It needs to be an amateur sport, with the chance of some prize money as the 'icing on the cake'. And teams are skint now!

Yeah Gaz I wouldn’t have included the word ‘generally’.

One worrying thing for me, on the eurosport coverage, was the shoehorning in of Sam "straightaway" Ermolenko. Terrible commentator.

Just another night at the Speedway.... (In the UK)... Roll up! Roll up! Form an orderly queue please...

I still blame Edinburgh.

That’ll make a change

Firstly hope James is OK. Secondly sympathies to both promotions and sets of fans. Also to the Poole and Glasgow promotions riders and fans who are sitting patiently wondering who they will be playing and when in the semis. It does make you wonder about the sense of having 6 teams in the play offs and as others have said trying to run important matches in October.

Perhaps if they only had the top four in the play offs it may have been a little easier as well

Indeed. Truly dreadful incident with Sarj hitting the air fence( thank goodness) at high speed. Hope he makes a full recovery. Now my frustration would be the delay…. With a knee dislocation, the extent and nature of such an injury would be quickly obvious. He would need quickly assessed for bleeding and shock and transferred with haste to hospital. NHS ambulances do not respond quickly ( a blue light during the day can take an hour or longer) and response times when there is medical back up on site likely to be much longer. Therefore a trip to hospital was justified, by the quickest means. That would have been appropriate and understood by the crowd. Waiting for an hour made no sense. With speedway it seems now easily cancelled with a racing incident of this sort, or any heavy rain shower near the start, it makes you wonder if it’s still worth attending. No wonder the sport is struggling to attract new fans. I hope all the Bears fans are refunded for their wasted trip…

Cosidering Pearson is a 'professional' commentator covering different sports, it is a very amateurish show where speedway is concerned. Prehaps it's a perfect fit.

I know, imagine a forward thinking promotion realising there was an opportunity to put on a meeting that will get people excited. Get a huge crowd and streaming audience and make some money. You're right shouldn't be allowed in speedway

Here’s an Idea….. The Team that finishes top of the league (all Leagues) are the Champions??

To cop off a farcical week roary the tiger and ed the monarch get into a vicious fight and both ambulances have to take them separately to hospital to prevent another fight. Meeting off

Missed the adjective out Ian...?

I think the words "downward spiral" are a bit of a misnomer... As it suggests that they still have some way to go to reach rock bottom.. They dont....

Our crazy pole will be eyeing up a few victims of the bend 4 inside kamikaze move.

Yeah totally agree speedy recovery to Sarj. Edinburgh should make savings on no spare tapes required now on Tuesday.

The customers have already voted with their feet at a lot of tracks.It is a Professional Sport and should be run as one.

Exactly

So what,that is the idea of the tac sub rule in the first place,to give a team at least a chance of keeping it close....as far as I'm concerned,if a team falls six or more points down at any stage of the meeting the use of a tac sub should be made available so that the meeting would at least be much closer,except of course for the supporters who want to see their team thrash everyone week in week out.

Think we should have a new rule. Lets be able to play a TACTICAL ILLNESS, when riders can't be bothered, crap at certain tracks, or just feeble excuses.

It is basically due to fan demand after a number of ties (notably the 2006 play-off final) were won by a team using tacticals in BOTH legs.

I think they do an excellent job, easily the best by some distance. For people that criticise them, try and talk continuously for 3 hours about what's going on in front of you that isn't always the most entertaining, in fact put an audition tape together and upload it to YouTube and give us all a laugh. It's a difficult balance to strike of being informative and entertaining. If I did have a criticism it would be that they don't often go into enough detail, but then maybe they are told to keep it quite superficial, I don't know. The days of Richie Benaud saying 1 sentence once every over in cricket or Dan Mascal saying "Oh I say" at the end of a rally in Tennis are of the distant past.

I once spoke to former Plymouth promoter Ashley Taylor about this and he told me that when he took over the Devils opted for two ambulances at every meeting. It did cost more, but it was his belief that having just one was a false economy that could easily backfire. I was at Plymouth the night that Ashley Birks was severely injured, and due to Plymouth's medical cover policy the meeting was delayed only for as long as it took to repair the fence.

Well to be fair pretty much all of the sensible/normal Panthers fans ignore the idiot, it’s a shame everyone else doesn’t.

"Illness" according to the Leicester website... there's been a bit of that about this year

Cringeworthy for me

Often it is more entertaining than the racing.