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Did nobody clock the crowds at Belle Vue and Peterboro last week? These massive roll-ups will have doubled, even trebled, the respective promotions' revenue over a regular meeting. Similarly, what about the huge interest in the soccer play-offs each year as clubs battle for promotion in their various leagues? Or the full-house attendances at ice-hockey play-offs at Nottingham every season? The revenue from being involved in play-offs is a massive boost to any club's financial year, and in some cases could make a difference between failing or surviving. Regardless of the "fairness" of it, they are here to stay, and the season-long league table is a qualification process, no more, no less. It is up to the promotions at every track to make their regular matches bright and entertaining enough to keep them close to their budget, while aiming for a shot at glory in the play-offs to put icing on the cake. Yes, speedway is a sport. It is also a business. Run a straightforward league with only one winner and see if you can stay in business. Money talks.

By the sounds off it so does Jan.

Their fans are tiresome and seem to think they’re down here doing us all a favour.

Just for the avoidance of doubt Marcin Novak is not “apparently” getting married on Saturday (copyright Edinburgh Speedway Official Website) he IS getting married on Saturday. Just want to be clear on that point - and while we are at it this has been arranged for a while and not just since last Friday - yes I know it’s hard to believe that a wedding can take longer than 8 days to arrange.

Some of these Polish riders are massively overrated. They wouldn't cut it in the Premiership.

What a joke from Glasgow! Discriminating against their own! Foreigners get it for 1/3 of the price of us how the hell is that fair

On reflection, not sure what I enjoyed most? GB winning (simply coz I'm not used to it...) or the fact that we stuffed the Poles for a change ? It's great to 'shut up' their bullish following!

Can't see Poole leaving Championship yet

British speedway fans. Absolutely no pleasing them. It's Glasgow in October ffs of course there's going to be rain about. Delays were completely unavoidable so all this could've finished is nonsense

They were getting on with it, but they'd already had a delay for one crash, and another delay for Miskowiak to receive medical attention (and there was a paramedic require with a fan at that time too). So yes, there were delays, but they weren't really avoidable. Outside those, the referee was very quick with the two minutes and track work was brisk. There were at least two other restarts too.

Most probably intends to start by avoiding signing riders with guaranteed earnings

That's all well and good but take the example of the 2003 season... Edinburgh won their first ever title. We went top of the league at the end of August after a victory at Glasgow (sorry Weegies, I had to mention it!). The following Friday (5 Sept), we raced IoW (or PoS as I used to call them) at sunny Armadale and the place was packed. From that meeting on, 'til the season finale on 31 October, crowds were well above 'normal' levels. 9 meetings' worth of barely being able to move on the terraces. Compare that with your play-off scenario above. 2 home meetings. 3 in the Championship. And also add in the fact that you've diluted the League programme into qualifying skootaboots, it's hardly surprising the casual punter doesn't turn up 'til the 'business end' nowadays. It wouldn't surprise me if the play-offs actually cost clubs money every year which, in turn, leads to the dropping of standards across the board at all levels, which in turn leads to even lower crowd numbers, etc., etc. Poole Pirates - the people's Championship Champions 2021.

Yes in my mind they are. Were significantly better over 2 days and for example could to lose it due to an engine failure at the gate. That's highly unfair IMO I understand the concept, but do the top 6 in the gp go into a head to head over who is world champ? Do mercedes and red bull have a race off in F1 to see whose world champions? It's an Americanism which may work in some instances but in Motorsport is something I wholeheartedly disagree with.

To be honest some of the stuff being written on here about Dale Allitt is pretty unpleasant and uncomfortable to read, of course the frustration is understandable after a dreadful season but do people really need to slag him off day after day?

Of course not, the Stars season ended way before the Panthers, why shouldn't he celebrate, he was involved afterall .........

Why not have the play-offs at the start of the season, than have the league to see who should've won?

This is what gets up peoples noses.He claims he is only concerned with Lynn.Yet every time you see him at Peterborough he is dressed up in all his Peterborough attire.If he wants that fine,stay there. When I have seen Rob at Lynn,on quite a few occasions he's not in anything Lynn he has his Peterborough cap on.Does Allittt not realise he's pissing a lot of Lynn fans off by doing what he does.Then again I suppose he doesn't with the way he has spoke to some. Peterborough fans you have it all to come,don't disagree with anything he says or else you may feel his bitter tongue.

What's the difference ray c ? Same riders in both league's apart from a few . And it costs a lot more to ride in the so called premiership, so I understand Poole staying where they are, more teams in the championship.

No, we don't want Poole .....

Just checked on the result again.. Still says Great Britain won.. Poland were second And Denmark third.. No mention of who beat who, and by how far, and how many times they did it in the qualifying races leading up to the Final... A Final which ended, Zmarzlik, Lambert, Bewley, Janowski... GB 5 - Poland 4... I suspect as the years go by and it passes into the midst of time it will still only say.. 2021 Speedway Of Nations 1st Great Britain 2nd Poland 3rd Denmark... How it all unfurled will be but a side issue...

What you say about Woffy, Lambert and Bewley is true (and you can add that much of British champion Adam Ellis' formative experience was on French grasstrack). BUT To survive British speedway needs to produce its own riders. The NDL plays a vital role in ensuring that we have the second strings of the future. Without the NDL to provide opportunities to learn would riders like Paul Starke, Danyon Hume, Alfie Bowtell and Simon Lambert still be in the sport?

I feel the Championship needs to be weaker, 1) to encourage the likes of Poole / Glasgow / Leicester to step up 2) to shorten the difference between Champ & NDL for riders trying to step up! At the moment riders can score maximums at NDL level but not score a point in the Champ! Makes it tough to know if you are good enough to step up! 3) if it makes the Champ a cheaper league to run - bonus!

Some good racing ,pity the rain curtailed the meeting some nasty crashes tonight , hope all riders are ok Plenty of Polish fans at the stadium

Meetings tend to drag out at Ashfield.

What a waste of 15 quid. Hardly worth double the cost and more of a monthly Eurosport player subscription. Meeting could have been completed half an hour ago in the dry.

I am confident Plymouth will have a team that will be challenging for the playoffs, heard a few rumours and hopefully they become fact,Plymouth as a club on and off track are on an upwards curve, watch this space

Who knows goalposts continually moved it is also been known for me to scan read things and pick it up wrong as MDs reply indicates .

if there was no Dale or Buster there would be no Lynn speedway.

Fine with us

Just remove the ''peoples'' part of the sentence and everyone's a winner.

This applies to everyone not just Jenga. What does it matter, you either want to watch the match live, via the stream or delayed stream, and pay the ticket price or you don't. If you do, great and I hope you enjoy it. If you don't, fine, just stop complaining.

Yes and Kings Lynn

You've just contradicted your own point. "Soccer" play offs in football league are for clubs 3rd to 6th!! You know what the team that win the league are called.... Champions!!!

Oh really ok ....... I hate tv these days, so complicated lol, I'd go back to 5 channels in a blink of an eye .......

I already paid the £15, I was ok for watching Tuesday night, but not tonight. I emailed Monday night when the decision to cancel was made asking the same question. Not had an answer yet. I have looked through the terms & conditions but didn’t see specific mention. I think £15 if fair for a meeting with 7 world champions in it, many riders travelling from Poland, so there are expenses, and of course top riders will want good money to ride. I reckon all those that ride in Poland are getting paid a lot less then they would in Poland. And if aGlasgow speedway does earn a few quid from this event then good on them. Their big reward may be the GP Challenge some time soon, and again, they will need money to do that.

Don't disagree with you. How the team finishing 6th can potentially call themselves champions is a lot of nonsense. By all means have post season play offs for say young shield or craven trophy or whatever they want but top of the league are champions. Rugby league would be the example to follow on this front

The Blackbird Brothers...some sort of record?

Maybe it will cost less if you have a Z in your name.

No, just checked and it's £14.99 !

Can’t be that busy got time to wear a Panthers hoodie and celebrate with the Pboro team there Premiership win .

Speedway clubs should produce calendars that run March/April - March/April and use the photos from press and practice imo ......

Sebastien, Stephane and Mathieu Tresarrieu

Crikey,done deal have him on a free.

Peter, Les and Neil....would have been something if both Phil and Stephen had also ridden for the "Aces"?

This years team was written off by pretty much everyone early doors, it didn’t stop them winning the league.

Give 'em a chance - they don't take over the contract til November 1st!!!

The rules are set. why have a semi final and then a final ? Simple, it guarantees that Tv and the crowd gets a climax at the end of the meeting in exactly the same way as in the GPs have a Grand final race to decide the champion. I agree that we were helped by Janowski’s mistake..but the same would have been true if the roles had been reversed. It was great to see GB get a world team title.

There are plenty of other sports that the BBC don't mention either. This week we have seen 4 brilliant meetings all live on Eurosport which is a channel that is cheap and easy to subscribe to for many people. So, that is about 12 hours of coverage, plus the highlights are available as well. Whether BBC mention for 10 seconds on the breakfast program is not really that important by comparison.

Spot on Gordon Pairman and the point about vested interest is worth mentioning again, until we have people with integrity and complete honesty the sport in this country will continue to get worse.

Unfortunately, a lot of the competing countries don't have 4 capable riders at that level.... Certainly didnt feel sorry for the Poles ! Regarding those that say we were lucky? Tell me what was lucky about losing one of the best riders in the world on day one?