Bagpuss

Under 24 and senior teams in Poland. On the Round The Boards podcast last week he explained that nobody from the Championship contacted him until well after Christmas and by then he was already sorted with three clubs.

A sign of where the priorities of Bewley & Holder lie perhaps.

Personally I don't think Knudsen for Jorgensen changes an awful lot in terms of Redcar's chances. Berwick just don't convince me, too many riders who won't improve and could go missing, plus they always seem susceptible to home defeats. They are arguably the best of the rest but I'd be astonished if they get anywhere near the top four.

I would absolutely agree with that bottom four, I think that looks quite clear cut on paper personally. Just a question of who misses out on the Play Offs out of that top five.

I have been (I enjoyed my visits), and I appreciate things have been widened and it's FIM standard. My point is that as with most tracks around a pitch the start/end of the straights will be a lot tighter than riders new to the UK are used to and its tricky. Even compared to places like BV, Worky, Scunny, Redcar, Glasgow etc. It's no criticism of the track, just the reality of the confines of the stadium. I'm sure those three riders will be much better on their second visit.

Agree with this, just because a track isn't small and tight doesn't mean its not difficult for a first time visitor. The narrow straights make it very tricky if you're not familiar with it.

And he's not alone there, plenty of riders do.

Unfortunately as a general rule British speedway provides awful customer service. Those who pay the expensive entrance fee get taken for granted quite often. If you want to attract new customers and keep them coming back it goes without saying that things need to change. Not sure those currently running things have got that in them though unfortunately.

Indeed, but it's one meeting against a, for whatever reason, woefully underprepared opposition. Masters and Boughen in particular are much better riders than that, really odd that they scored so badly. As always Poole are going to be there or there abouts. Although I think they are going to find it harder away from home this year.

If Redcar finish 8th then I'm a Monkey's Uncle!

Brummies look like they are going to be a match for anyone this year, next Thursday at Lynn will be hard work for the Stars with the respective track time each side has had.

Seems Museilak and Tarasenko were late for some reason.

This should be a comfy home win but will be really interesting to see how the Comets newbies go.

Spare bog roll too

Oxford are going to be up there this year, I fancy them to run Poole very close at the least in this one.

I see that Plymouth had snow that settled last night! They really have had some incredible weather, I really don't think the early call offs are anything other than genuine. As for the Covatti facility, I have mixed feelings but I think its common sense to grant some kind of facility. I'd always prefer R/R over borrowing other team's riders but it is what it is and the league needs all its teams to be competitive.

50-40

Plus its very early days, I always think it takes a few meetings for men and machines to get into a rhythm. In an ideal world we would spar like Poland do so that everyone is in the full swing of things when league matches begin.

I'm never a fan of putting a number 2 in heat 15, it always feels like too long since they last rode.

Tate Zischke couldn't look any more Australian if he tried

Which is absolutely fine as long as we don't hear promoters moaning during the season that not enough folk are coming through the turnstiles.

I'd suggest Lynn had the roughest end of the pineapple in terms of the MPT/stating pole incident and Kemp clearly touching the tapes but Leicester probably just about deserved to win, there were clearly several rusty riders on show and I'm satisfied enough with a five point deficit.