GeneralMelchett

To be fair to Lawson whilst his best days are (probably) behind him he's brilliantly consistent for whoever he rides for - he was a big fave down at Arena when he rode for us!

The feature the last couple of years is they seem to do something to themselves that loses momentum just at the point where they could be contending! oh well onto next year for them!

Not for the first time you can't help wondering what might have been for KL!

Well I enjoyed that Birmingham gave it a good go and 2 late 5-1s give the scoreline a more flatterting look than the efforts of the top 4 for Birmingham deserved!

anyone from Sheffield - just for balance! If both Holders, as suggested, and Doyle were reluctant i can well understand it - the is a GP at the weekend, but also Holder snr and Dolye are both late 30s and have had some bad injuries in their careers. I can well understand reluctance to ride on a track that may not be safe. For the record not there - so no idea if the track was safe or not but none of those three strike me as shirkers!

Doesn’t look great but a great pass from Rew on Masters however - been 2-3 good heats so far!

Working fine for me and go Brummies!!

Can only see a walloping here but as its a thursday and i am in the wrong location for Sheffield v Ipswich - i might take the stream!

Oddly enough the fall of the Berlin Wall opened up eastern Europe like never before and the rest is hisotry! You are right in so many ways in the late 90s and very early 90s the UK scene still was the top place to be now we are just the poor relations.

Annoyingly i am not in town for this, expect a home win - but maybe the Witches to sneak the BP at Foxhall a week later - which again annoyingly I will miss as i am back in Sheffield that week!

You have to wonder if he has come back too early - so yes time to rest up for 2025 and come back in 2026 fit and raring to go.

Likewise when Chick and Peter T opened up Arena we’d have the Easter 4s matches - v Hackney V Rye H and Eastbourne - usually the Hackney and Arena matches would be on the same day with Rye on the Saturday and Eastbourne on the Sunday! Later on there would be the Good Friday double header with the Witches I think Lynn had dropped down? So it would be Foxhall in the lunchtime start and then down to Arena for the Evening - I know one year they reported 3k at Foxhall and 1900 at Arena let’s just say I am convinced they were under reported!!!

This was alluded to by Jason Edwards - he said where was team spirit at Ipswich you don’t get at other clubs - of course some will say he was saying that as he’s got a vested interest in saying that - which I don’t believe actually!

Yeah I was messing - on the Ipswich thread there was comments from BV and other fans not even there questioning the crowd! Unlike the self appointed ‘experts’ if people who were there say it was a big crowd that’s good enough for me! good to see decent crowds at a couple of venues - Oxford doesn’t seem too busy tonight

Naturally home support massively overestimate the crowd 😜 viz a viz the discussion about Ipswich the other week! good to see however BH were always speedway days in years gone by with home and away double headers always a highlight! a larger win than I expected so the playoff picture just opened up

One of the best meetings I ever went to was Wolves v Cradley either 1988 or 1989 - was a 45-45 draw - Wolves we’re patched up somewhat as Sam and Ronnie C were injured and has Kelvin Tatum and Andrew Silver guesting - we were on holiday in Shropshire that year and drove across for it - as a kid seeing the top riders on show was a thrill as Arena were firmly a NL mid to lower table outfit!

Which is last years score - my first ever visit to the NSS was Aug BH and it was 48/42 - great meeting seem to recall Anti Voulas scored really well for you - am tempted to come across again as weather set fair

Well Maybe… but the interview suggested differently! What do I believe …not sure I really am that bothered

Agree but no I denying it’s been a bad year for him!

You would have thought Lampart, Pawliki and Milik would have taught him not to sign Poles (and Czechs) - I agree Tobi M has been a flop! I had my doubts in the first meeting at Sheffield when he mustered 3 from 4 starts on one of his former home tracks! ATleast he is now attractive to any club for 2026. Of course the real shame was Jensen bailing when he did!

Part of his issue would have been the stadium rent, he even considered (for a bit) continuing to be the single leaseholder if i understood what he said correctly. If you take places like Plymouth / Workington / Scunthorpe I can only assume there model is that they are not constrained by large rents to a landlord? ergo they have a bit more budget for riders etc, or it helps stem losses. This goes back to a guy who was a chartered surveryor who many years back wrote on here and in the star about many clubs being hampered by renting - the future he argued was owning your won stadium etc. I caught a bt of the marketing from Plymouth on facebook and they seem to be doing the kids races like up in Glasgow. On that note the Glasgow promotion -have proved that perhaps you can attract a decent (ish) crowd in a large City? In the same star as the Tolley interview there is a decent bit on Glagow and their ambition - they get 1500+ crowds - the type that Tolley would have loved to get!

This is the result I expected in the KO cup match! Good to see Tom hitting form and better results of Dan, seems that despite the poor R/R score the rest of the team just did the jobs expected, curious on the crowd as it as good as last week?

yes like Mercenary footballers 😆 Whilst to us and speedway in general these are big losses / donations etc its small fry - the reason so many football clubs are in financial trouble is the old school traditional English / or Scottish cairman is long gone as so many no longer have the fortunes required to keep up! As you suggest mercenary speedway riders have largely been the benefit as are mercenary footballers - but in some respects fans ourselves are part of the issue - certainly in football always wanting bigger teams and to play at a higher level, its all part of the circle!

Luckily I didn’t hear that otherwise I suspect words would have been exchanged - like you say great servant sadly you have your Wallopers!

He certainly was drawn towards it - just pipped his opponent by a nose!