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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

Said this half way through last season. He is better than Cairns and the hype is more than justified. Those who felt it was unfair to drop him in the deep end of Premiership racing as it was detrimental to his development need not fear. He’s going to make a mockery of those thoughts. He is the absolute real deal.

Just came here to mention the “told you so” moment about cooper, he will perform this season and he can roll with the big boys now and then. People who wrote him off might wake up now. He is better than Cairns IMO.

Lynn are poor kvech shouldn't be this bad and tbh fricke has started poor aswell

An unusual, but novel idea....

Do they still knock seven bells out of each other on the ice ? . Best bit about that sport imo

It certainly made me say "Wow!".... Then smirk and shake my head, knowingly.... And then laugh out loudly, and madly, into the sky above... As often happens when you read something has been changed by those running UK Speedway...

So is gardening. Pruned them roses yet Arthur😂

It’s even weirder when Trackrat is about.

That’s just what I thought.

With the speed of advances in AI its not hard to foresee that it won't be long until you will be able to do near real time modifications to video footage anyway so only official footage should be used.

Good for you guys hope it helps the crowd levels heard it was half decent crowd today hopefully they all return

I think he's burned his bridges down here,but if he did come at least he would have a semi final to look forward to 🤩

I’m pretty sure that Redcar are only using Mudgway because they need a heat leader to remain competitive. It’s not really through choice, but through necessity.

You also don't need a pair of training shoes to run a marathon but it certainly helps!

I think the rule is that official footage if provided can be used for the referee to make his decision, but has to defer the result until the footage is seen, you can't announce a result then go and look at a fans footage and change your mind. The decision wouldn't have affected a drubbing for the comets , but the officials have to abide by the rules, the sport 🤔 is becoming more of a joke every weekend

I'm not sure you understand what 'development' means. Any riders who want to start or come back to the sport should be encouraged with opportunities. Why is Jade Mudgway any less deserving of a place in the league now, than say Ashton Boughen was a couple of years ago?

You are so far off the mark with this statement it beggars belief,stinks of envy of a club on the up in these challenging times rather than a club in decline like the majority of teams,crowds and positivity. Plymouth bucking the trend long may it continue.

Won £50 on Cook v Zagar,. Bricking it that he would be in Ht15 given he won Ht14.. ..😁

So we lose a knowledgeable presenter in Abbie for some bimbo.