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Been asked to post this by Greg Blair Hello everyone, Greg Blair here I’ve not got an account on this forum as I don’t usually come on this page but it’s been brought to my attention I’ve been getting some heat on it, just want to clear this up. I didn’t go up to the box to show the ref any footage, I’m often up in the box changing batteries or getting coffee and sometimes just making sure everything is running well, Steve the announcer is a good friend of mine and I went up when I heard the ref was away to view the footage in the commentary box just to ask him what was going on so I could relay any info I had. All in all I had no influence on what the ref did, I’ve seen decisions reversed before so it wasn’t anything new! Of course I’m going to get comments about my performances at Berwick or on BSN and it even made me laugh that this person said I wasn’t a very good rider. Hey I had a go and I loved racing bikes (not being very good at it) I love what I do in speedway, I’m happy to entertain and get a laugh but honestly if you want to have a go I welcome you to try it. Things happen in the moment, I’m passionate about my sport and Berwick speedway which I hold very close to my heart, I won’t say sorry for my passion! The only time I’ll ever say sorry is if I offend someone and in this case I haven’t so I’m blowing everyone who dislikes me kisses and the ones who do support me you’re getting bigger kisses! Enjoy your speedway folks x PS if you want to come and chat to me in person you can usually find me in the black and gold ... that's if you’re comfortable having a dig at me without hiding behind the username

In fairness.... Dave does have an iPhone 17.... With "ultra zoom"..... Considering it is UK Speedway I am quite impressed that phone footage was used ... I see the sport more in line to use a "sketch artist" like they use in Crown Courts for the TV News... "Give us half and hour and I will have it drawn up. What colour was Cookie again?"...

You are aware of the state of British Speedway, right? Lol

Connor is now awake in hospital

They'll be warmly welcomed alongside all of the other crap tracks 👍🏻😂

From Ben Barker Firstly, I want to make it absolutely clear that I have no problem with the Speedway Control Bureau and Auto Cycle Union. They have done nothing untoward. In the close season, the riders were told they had to pay an extra £28 for their ACU licence. That was, we were told, to cover for an extra insurance policy. From the research I have done, this is what I believe has happened. When that was suggested by the ACU, BSPL chairman Rob Godfrey decided the riders don’t need to be insured by the clubs. Therefore it saved the clubs a load of money per season. I’m not sure of the exact amount, but around £4,000 per club. When this issue was first raised by me at Poole on Good Friday, Mr Godfrey stated in Speedway Star on April 11 that “Ben Barker has caused a panic for nothing. The insurance policy has not been withdrawn, it has been replaced”. Subsequently, it’s been clear that ACU insurance was inferior to the old Race Insurance. This had led to the clubs covering their own riders to quell any fears, Ipswich and Redcar have announced this publicly, while a couple of other clubs have done so privately. Just over a week ago, the BSPL issued a new insurance policy which is inferior to the previous Race Insurance we had with the BSPL. The old cover for an injured rider was £225 a week, 14-day excess period and up to 52 weeks of payments. The new cover is now £150 a week, 14-day excess period and only up to 26 weeks of payments. It is nowhere near good enough to what we had previously. But it was a clear admission of wrongdoing by the BSPL that they had to re-issue a new insurance despite claiming I had caused “panic for nothing”. That wasn’t true. There has been no apology or explanation to how the season was started with riders not having appropriate insurance. Four riders were injured during that period; Niels-Kristian Iversen, Charles Wright, Tobias Thomsen and Vinnie Foord. That is clear negligence from the BSPL. That needs to be explained and who made those decisions which have cost the injured riders dearly. We need transparency about the people who made the decisions and whether we need changes in the people running the BSPL. Someone has to take responsibility for the mistakes that have been made. This is such a serious issue. The riders’ welfare has been overlooked in a terrible way. There are even more serious issues regarding this insurance issue. I will go into them at a later point. If it get 1000 likes 500 shares ill give a £50 voucher of the winners choice

It doesn’t matter which Team you support it was pretty poor situation all round.IMO.Dishington should be reprimanded for his handling of it.Thats Speedway though.👎

"Technical" tracks, if you don't mind....

... maybe this is one of the "wow!" news stories Rob Godfrey was teasing us with a few weeks back 🤔

I was a Somerset Rebels fan throughout their existence (plus a speedway fan before too) and like so many around the country lost my local team to support. Post covid I made the odd trip down to Plymouth as I thought this would be better than nothing and the kids still loved going, now we are getting down there as often as we can and have made the 160 odd mile round trip for all three meetings this season. The improvements the promotion have make are amazing over the years and the track is wider and although not much passing last night the opportunities are there to explore much more than they were 5/6 years back. I have never watched a BSN stream from Plymouth as I prefer to be there and am lucky enough to be able to do that regularly. My 18 year old daughter is now part of the previously mentioned Plymouth Media team which has really stepped up in the past two seasons with Andy Hague and Sam Whitfield leading the way on this giving the youngsters a chance to deliver this as they now do. We even had to with for my daughter to interview Garry May afterwards before we could leave for home last night. Yes the air bags do take a while to swop out but it needs to happen for rider safety. Mark Phillips, the Promoter/owner/track curator amongst many other roles he undertakes, was front and centre getting this sorted again last night. With the first one complete I spotted him putting his 'Promoters' tie back on after completing the task! Rob Doran (clerk of the course) actually was interviewed and explained the issues they to deal with in making the changes. Both times the air bags were popped were straight after track grades and watering so the track dried out during the delays meaning it needed more work. soon after. Ok it took a while but it happens sometimes at speedway, will it stop me going again? - definitely not! I got home at 11.35pm but was in work at 6.50am to do an 11 hour shift in the pro shop at the golf club. The golf club members know I'm more likely to know the speedway results around the country than who won the latest professional golf tournament! My sister, brother in law and niece all came along to the Coliseum for the first time last night and my niece is already asking when she can go again. I know a lot of you moan about the kids race but it is brilliant to see so many wanting to take part each week. I was stood near Scott and Danny at the pit gate whilst waiting for my son and niece to return and overheard them saying how good it is to see so many out there. Long may it continue and maybe one week the dog will follow the whole track rather than cutting across the top bend! I enjoyed last night, as did those with me, and the atmosphere is growing meeting by meeting down in Devon. See you all you Gladiators again in a couple of weeks when Scunny are down.

Are you being serious here? I can’t tell. “Michael Oliver isn’t sure it’s a penalty at Old Trafford, VAR video angle is inconclusive after reviewing the screen and no penalty given.” Hang on, Dave from the 2nd row of the Stretford end has a good angle on his iPhone, he’s going to send it to the referee on WhatsApp.” Announcement pending.. “After video review on Dave’s iPhone a Penalty is awarded for a foul on Manchester United’s number 9”.

Because trying to make sure PL promoters do as they're told is like trying to herd cats! 🙀

Fricke J Holder R/R (Castagna) Rowe Harris C Holder B Cook Flint Kvech Pickering Rushen Etheridge Scott Killeen Ban incoming for Paco though? He rode in an individual meeting tonight abroad and came second...

You need to get trackside again just to see the effort those two young lads put in.It is a pleasure to watch.It's been too many years now👍

Cooper on it tonight. This lad is class. Better than Cairns

Know lack of confidence tonight 10+1 😁

Yes they do.... And also plan games in knowing 100% that their players will be playing Ice Hockey somewhere else in another competition... However, they fix this by lending and borrowing some of the best players to each other through the season... It really works well...

Do they bring the ice smoothing machine out for 10 minutes after 4 minutes of play?

Paco suffering from King's Lynn fever. Something about the Stars that makes riders want to stay away after signing for them.

This just makes him sound like a bigger prat tbh. "Comfortable having a dig at me without hiding behind a username" is somewhat threatening. Big man Greg never fails to surprise me. Also, he most certainly did affect the decision with him shouting over the mic that its the worst decision hes ever seen in speedway, riling the fans up.

Blair didn’t supply the footage, or do anything like that from what I understand. The footage was sent to the box, presumably to the announcer, or the commentators or someone. Not via Blair, but for what it’s worth I don’t really like him, bring back Dick Barrie.

Exacerbated

Totally agree with this, I've seen riders get absolutely clattered & stay on, so nothing is done. Get barely brushed & slide off, so opposition gets excluded. Haven't seen the Cook & Battye incident, so can't comment on if I agree with decision, but surely a ref shouldn't announce a decision & then afterwards watch a replay to change his mind, especially an unofficial one.

Terrazzo in the Italian championship

This whole incident was how not to run a sport. I was watching the stream and the angle definately backed the referee's original call and it should have stayed that way. The way it unfolded was embarassing to say the least, even the phone footage made it a 50 50 call as you could say Cook was leading and Battye should not have gone for a pass that was not on which to me was what Jackobson did trying to go around Battye on that same turn. It's a big manouve to try and pass around the outside at Berwick and pull it off that high. Greg should still have been no where near the box to be in a position to show the referee anything but as for Willie to actually watch it well I still can not belive he did never mind then change his already made announcement. Was not going to change the meeting much as Berwick were fantastic out of the gate espesially prior to ht9 but was still wrong.

Says much about the state of British Speedway when you don't know whether the CEO is still in post. A chap called Ivan Mauger once said speedway is a sport with professional riders managed by amateurs. For my two pennorth , Pghil Morris has been great for the Speedway Grand Prix, where he is giiven the authority to manage the show . In British league speedway... didn't really stand a chance .... most promoters aren't interested in change.

Great post,anyone who judges a speedway match by the number of passes is clearly deluded.

... if only Kelvin Tatum had a pair of t1ts he could have gone on to broadcasting greatness 🤔😂

He's only gone and bloody done it... and well done to him for speaking out... he's not telling us anything we don't already know that the BSPL chairman is rotten to the core (Quelle surprise) and desperately needs replacing, it's just a shame that it's taken this to get any rider to speak out about it... and the mind boggles as to the other goings on that we have never heard about... the BSPL makes Fifa look like the Salvation Army!

GP is live on TNT Sports 2 on Saturday - programme starts at 5.30pm. qualifying at 1pm UK time and also GP is on HBO Max

Yes, and it gave some very strange outcomes…… First bend bunching didn’t happen with the outside riders just riding off the track and being excluded . Martin Goodwin excelled at giving a shove to move riders off the track and being excluded 😂 As riders left the track the race continued. A real trick track.

No idea yet, but with some averages dropping, max Perry now fits, Vinnie making good recovery, so cooper can guest if he fancies racing on a decent track 😜

Forgot to say @Bagpuss the centre green grass has been cut 😀 Andrew bain even mentioned you in his program notes, saying it had been far too wet to cut the grass in previous weeks

Bomber’s up for it apparently. It’s not often he gets to ride other tracks while not representing his own team .

Andrea is ..

With a bit of luck someone may have caught him in a trap🤣

Exactly, but some seem to think because the word development was added to the name all the better/older riders shouldn't be in it. I am all for a harder league a younger riders beats a Morley/ jody scott consistently there at least around a level to move up instead of 15 maximums with no competition and chucked in cl to early surely thats better for development.

Helped us beat Plymouth at Plymouth, now could help Oxford win at Poole, its a weird sport these days

A little worried as we were so poor at Oxford especially Bowes, Newman and Lawson, expected Bowes to be poor but Kyle and Richard should have been better. If Bowes doesn't improve he will get the chop in my opinion.

That’s Saul Goodman that

That would be a terrible decision. Klima for Castagna & a heat leader for Kvech would make more sense. If Klima is a 4.00 in the Prem, you have 7.19 available to replace Kvech, if he was a 3.00 (8.19), or 3.50 (7.69) not sure how assessed averages work. I'm not saying Lynn should replace Kvech (or Castagna), just pointing out the absurdity of replacing Kvech with Klima.

11.23 available now, down to 10.16 with the May averages (unless every replacement is equal or lower to rider being replaced). I don't see them making changes, at least not this early.

There are many parts of this that need to be fully clarified. I don't see how the Chairman of an organisation that has led this can survive. Firstly, what is actually in riders contracts this year and how does it compare to previous years? Secondly, who is actually saving the money? I believe Ben Barker had previously said that riders had £5 per race deducted to cover insurance. If that was the case, and that is not happening, then surely it is the riders and not the clubs making a saving. If the riders were aware then they could have used this to take out their own personal accident insurance, as some have published that they have done. Whether that is comparable is another matter. If the clubs were paying the insurance previously, and now are not and are making a saving, then surely they are complicit in this - even more so if they didn't explain this to their riders. If clubs either took out insurance to the same value, or advised their riders of the change - allowing riders to negotiate a contract so that they were no worse off, then the club may be exonerated. It remains a completely unedifying, and very seriously situation

Very impressed by pedersen got to be one the best signings of the season along with klima,based on what we've seen so far.

So you think the crowds have been falling away recently and you wonder why? Firstly when you say recently do you mean since the play offs last year, since we've only had 2 home meetings this year Berwick and Plymouth. Many people I know assumed Berwick would be rained off so didn't go. And perhaps the decision to stream at the bargain price of £7 had an impact. The time to judge will be next meeting against Edinburgh. Their fans always turn up if they think they've got a chance and after their brilliant result against Redcar at home recently who can blame them.

Yesterdays sprint race was absolute carnage for a while due to the weather conditions, after the riders switched bikes they started to get a bit more control of their machines

Not sure if Cami moaned but the kids running in the kids race did say it was a bit on the slick side and were concerned about a couple off ruts on the second bend

Cause he’s massively overrated.

Tuesday’s match line-ups start time 6pm UK time. Poznan v Rzeszow Poznan 9 Berge 10 Smektala 11 NKI 12 Pludra 13 Douglas 14 Witkowski 15 Mencel 16 Rzeszow 1 Szczepaniak 2 Rowe 3 R Jensen 4 Lyager 5 O Fajfer 6 Borowiak 7 Majewski 8