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... and all on the back of an army of volunteers that move heaven and earth each week to enable tracks to stage meetings and riders to earn money.

Quick run down my trip to Poland last week, coach from Manchester to Poznan, train to zelona gora , watch meeting stay night , train back to Poznan , hotel booked for Poznan, Poznan meeting called off so sorts out train to Wroclaw., no ticket, eventually get in ht 6, good seat on 1st bend. midnight train back to Poznan, no seat stood for 2.5 hrs on train, back to hotel Poznan, 2.30am, 1, 30 pm train to gorzow, go to hotel , then walk to Edward jancarz stadium, watch meeting walk back to hotel , train back to Poznan, 2.30 pm, then catch coach back to Manchester, 6.30 pm, Monday night , back home at 2 am Wednesday morning,. 🤣 loved it..

Jarek retiring is a great loss. I really hoped he would give one more showing at Ipswich. All you can say is that he was a great asset to Ipswich, a fine servant and alongside Gollob one of the good guys who wore the witches jacket with pride. Jarek, thanks for the memories.

The timing of this coming upto final GP for Brady Kurtz is bad for Belle Vue. He will say he not thinking about GP but is only human and it will be in the back of his mind and won’t be taking any big risks.

I find it incredible that what is mean to be a Professional Sport they cannot even fulfil the fixtures before the Play Offs. That is the shambles the sport is nowadays,and they still expect new fans to come along and be impressed.Its a joke really.

I think one league. The way i look at it is if we lose the top riders then so be it. the standard of riders will be the same so good close racing should be at every track and league will be well balanced. We have a range of different tracks compared to poland so if riders want to improve and learn how to adjust to all tracks they should want to ride in the uk.

I agree with you! Although, and I’m being deadly serious, in Poland and all over media there is such thing as “the lebedevs curse” 2 years before - ride for Krosno = down 1 year before - ride for Leszno = down This season - ride for Stal = …

Nicki Pedersen school of team riding there

Hampel retires. Been a good rider. 👏👏

These were not fixtures that were moved. The 2 unridden matches were scheduled for 28th August (Sheffield) and 4th September (Oxford) in the original fixture list. What were they supposed to do ? Look at the weather and say "oh look it's going to be sunny next Thursday, let's bring that Ipswich match forward a month in case it rains in late August" ? Blaming the clubs for the poor weather is laughable. If anyone is to blame it is the SCB/BSPA for issuing a fixture list with matches finishing just 4 days before the first scheduled playoff fixture, not the individual clubs. The original fixture list should have included a 1-2 week gap between last scheduled league fixture and first playoff to give a contingency period for any rescheduled matches.

Totally agree with all the above. We are making far too many excuses for my liking as a witches fan. Moaning about weather changing the track, moaning about track prep (our problem not anyone else’s so just on with it) and keep using excuses of changing rider positions. This will come to bite us in the arse, ride your best riders in their best positions and build momentum, don’t keep p!sing about with it and wonder why we lose.

Ipswich will certainly need to ride better than that next week. For me it looks like Thompson isn’t fully fit & possibly riding too much. The team has been inconsistent for the last couple of months. Sheffield deserved that last night far shaper & more up for it. Now I’m not the biggest fan of Jack Holder or Simon Stead. However last night Jack demonstrated how to team ride hats of to him & Stead came across very well in his post match interview, and seemed genuinely thankful for the amount Ipswich raised for the riders benefit fund. A disappointing night all round for Ipswich but not the end of the world, could be if they ride like that next week! Finally what a talent Cooper Rushen is, his third ride in the second half 0.1 of a second slower than heat 2 of the main meeting.

I'm sure this season was the first of 3 years at a 40 point limit. As the limit should average at 42, that means a weaker league. But when they vote for a 3 year plan, it doesn't always last!

Going to go to Belle Vue Monday. Weather permitting, been last 2 weeks to Sheffield for 2 rain offs v Ipswich. Maybe jinxed. 🤣

Nah fajfer is good for about 5 points normally on a good day! I don’t think even this match is done and dusted, Stal have really managed some strange results good and bad! I think it’s set to be Stal vs Bydgoszcz personally. Knowing my luck, Brennan to score 0 for Ipswich vs Belle Vue and knock us out, then max out against Stal and knock my Polish team out 😂

Drabik engine was assembled incorrectly and now has broken and leaking oil so he has had to change bikes.

We left Wolverhampton on Thursday around 2pm drove to Dover to catch 8pm ferry to find Mrs had booked wrong date 😂, sorted that out then drive straight to zielona gora (12 hours split driving between me and Mrs ) where booked a hotel for the night, went to meeting, brought merch from the ZG shop then back to hotel, next day had fabulous breakfast in hotel and then drive to Wrocław where we booked in the radison blue hotel, spent the day in the old town where in a market I found a book I was in so brought it lol and went to GP via an uber and back to hotel again in an uber where we were in the bar with all the travel plus lot, next morning drove to Gorzow, parked right opposite track for free ,again purchased from their shop, after meeting we set off home, stopping in services somewhere mid Germany where we slept for 4 hours and got food then got the 6pm ferry back to Blighty arriving back around 11pm in Wolverhampton, I had loaded my van ready to go to Isle of Wight next morning but it was called off so I went to work instead

With the Oct31st deadline for season finish.The play offs should have been delayed till the league program was completed.Till 7 weeks left.Why was deadline not extended it has been in previous seasons? Probably who your are +self interest.

Maybe and all have to move on but he was a fine servant in the UK and many a fond memory of him giving everything to the witches and entertaining around the UK tracks that he graced. My stepson went for the first time to Ipswich and Jarek sticks with him in those days as one who entertained. I really wish him well and offer a big thank you to one of the nice guys of the sport of speedway.

Harsh from ZG but it had to be done tbh. Lebedevs is getting better with every passing year tbh whilst Hampel was heading the other way.

good time fort him to get out i think.

Good servant to speedway

MJJ Balls of steel. 👏

Yes the decades of 'promoting' the sport as 'family friendly' have really worked well !!!!

58,000 views on YouTube alone... Probably more than double who attend every UK track... Need a bit more of this....

Wright by a submission lol

Jake Allen guesting for Redcar. Boxing match in the pits with Charles Wright before the racing commences

Agree with all the comments you've made. Messing around with the riding order is just plain dumb. Very poor display last night - again. IF we don't like a slick track why prepare it like that - Yes yes the rain, but I'd rather see a meeting postponed with it being prepared how we like it, rather than watch another meeting slick track, resulting in a loss and lack of excitement If the riders were holding back, then that is unfair to the paying public. Clearly, with the low attendance, some clearly saw this coming. Crunch time now, results are wiped and the 4 teams start from the same place. Just can't see us progressing. This great team, riding for the last time together are going to falter.

That’s ridiculous !! The SCB have nothing to do with the fixture list and the clubs are the BSPA !!!

Sheffield looked sharp and hungry while Ipswich didn’t. Sheffield clearly came in with a solid plan that paid off, and their team riding was spot on.

Ipswich's bottle?

Who ever does it is taking a huge gamble that probably has a 10-15% chance of working and they will need to be willing to drop six figures it just seems utter madness , we certainly need more tracks but if it was Louis this looks like the kind of experiment that would blow up massively and probably bring the witches down with it. If the stadium was in Coventry it would most likely be a goer but again start at Championship standard don't go all in on a huge gamble and the most expensive gamble of three options also.

Doesn’t really matter between March 15th and August 31st is 24 weeks plenty of time to fit in 12 home league meetings. I am at a lose as to why year after year clubs struggle to make the deadline. Maybe the deadline should be August 31st.

The only problem with that. It doesn't matter how professional they are if they are riding in front of just a couple of hundred people. You could say some of these riders live in a Fantasy world. You have riders of junior standard turning up with big flash vans all the gear. If it means going back to having one bike in the boot of the car, then maybe you will get youngsters who can afford to do the sport like it use to be. Rather than having rich Mums and Dads to rely on. Having said all of that. Speedway unfortunately is a dying sport. It's been on life support for a while now. Speedway was of a different time back in it's heyday. Demographics have changed. No London clubs. No midland clubs bar Leicester. It's sad but it's reality.

Don't want the gap at the top widening hey blue. 14x🏆♣️🤣

A few things: - massive TV money. It's like 8 mln złoty (so around £1.75 mln) per club per season - much higher attendances - average of Ekstraliga is almost 9500 per meeting. x60 PLN per ticket, that's around 570k PLN (£115k) on the gates. Times 7 in the season + play offs (at least 1 match, most often 2). That's before any merch, food sales, car park fees, etc. - a lot of sponsors. And I mean a lot - sometimes even 2 big sponsors in team name (that's like 1 mil PLN per year, each). That's numbers for Ekstraliga. Slightly less in 2. Ekstraliga: - TV money @ 1.5 mil PLN (£300k) per club per season - average attendances 5000 per meeting. x40 PLN per ticket = 200k PLN (£40k) on the gates. - also lots of sponsors. Understandably, they pay less but still bring a good revenue to the club. Probably also paying less for the stadium hire, as that's hired at cost from the town, not from the greedy greyhound franchises? idk. They can afford it to a point that speedway clubs in Poland: - have paid staff (up to a dozen different functions) - can run closed and open trainings for their riders - do a 2-3x weekly trainings for the youth academy (that's pretty much every club in Poland) - and can run events for the youths at least once a week that are free for the spectators to attend and cheer on the kids. Yes, there is a few failed clubs - Gorzów is struggling with debts since a few years (and went public with it last year), similarly Tarnów barely managed to get to the end of regular season, rumour has it that Częstochowa is not doing well at all either. But on the grand scale of things majority of the clubs can afford to keep driving the earnings of top riders (and not only, also "desired" riders which back in the day were low CMA ones, nowadays are the "Under 24" lads) higher and higher, so...

stal riders look more up form this

Reminded me of when he put Michelsen in the fence in Riga

100%, Got nothing left to prove, Doesn't need the money and he was only going to decline as a rider considering his age so may as well get out while he's fit, healthy and in one piece. Had a great career with a lot of good memories to look back on.

Would love it if Lublin bottle this.

I still wouldnt be confident at your place even with that, and the big ifs are Blodorn, Cook especially away and the reserves, i know weve done well in previous play offs after not shining during regular season matches but i think this season we have too much baggage in the engine room and at reserve. I think Witches will be a different proposition next week than they were last night.

Belle Vue will win their home by 16-20 I can see this one being the time Blordorn finds his gating gloves and one of the reserves puts in a 6+ night

I fully understand the team mentality. Admittedly I don't go every meeting, but Sheffield are still my team and I have been watching them for over 40 years. I am also a season ticket holder at my local football team so I know the hurt when your team doesn't perform, and expect that anger to flow on here. That wasn't the moaning I was talking about. It is the people who constantly complain about the way the sport is run, fixture planning, guest riders, playoffs, etc. It isn't the 1970s/1980s. The sport has changed and it is far better to embrace what you have and try to enjoy it, than spend all your time harking back to the good old days as they are never coming back.

It's a terrible position that Gorzow are in, and you have to feel for their fans, but this is some great sh1thousing from Rybnik: https://sportowefakty.wp.pl/zuzel/1207862/zuzel-krzysztof-mrozek-chce-pomoc-stali-gorzow-znowu-zwrocil-sie-do-komarnickieg "I don't want to comment on Stal's financial situation, as it's not my area of expertise, but if there really is a problem, we need to help others. We'll try to make sure Stal only loses two more matches. I'm willing to help,"

Just hope this mum puts his "gating gloves" on a string now.

But had Sheffield won the home leg, then maybe the Ipswich riders would have been a bit more up for it tonight and wouldn't have lost, so the table would still have looked the same as it does now.

Well, Sheffield deserved that. They looked hungrier and way happier on the very slick track than Ipswich. King was awful in his first two rides, Thompson has gone backwards at Foxhall and Edwards is not at this level. Hawkins howler not putting Ellis in in place of Edwards, Ht 12 I think. Holder made some good starts near the end Gate 2 was seemingly best. Ipswich will be nervous heading into next week.

Yes I know it was last week, if that’s the popular opinion then the BSPL should have no option but to move the play offs IMO. A sport that is a comedy show continues to become one when you don’t even finish your official fixtures. That’s why Poland laughs at us, and why we have no large number of fans… it’s nowhere near a professional run sport.

1. Leagues to be run on the Danish system of 5 rider teams with maximum of 1 GP rider per team. 2. Each team to name a squad of 6/7 riders. 3. Teams to run on their preferred night and if rider/riders are unavailable, National League riders to be drafted in. 3a. No guests under any circumstances, redeclarations allowed once per month. 4. North League; Belle Vue, Sheffield, Berwick, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Redcar and Workington. South League: Poole, Ipswich, Kings Lynn, Leicester, Oxford, Plymouth and Scunthorpe. 5. Teams having National League teams to stage meetings after main meeting with same format as Danish system. 6. Teams not having National League teams to stage second half with minimum of 6 heats. 7. North and South winners and second places to meet in semi finals and final. 8. League cup to consist of all teams and drawn in first round with 1 from North and 1 from South. Overall winners of each match through to quarter final with team losing with highest aggregate score to go through also. This is all fantasy, but something needs to be done now. Everyone to look at the big brighter future and get over themselves.

Maybe choosing your top twenty championship riders, based on current form although it can be based on hard fact/averages, it doesn't always tell you how exciting they are to watch. I prefer a rider who is always willing to mix it, rather than fast riders who rely on a good gate. On that basis Chris Harris would be top of my list.