Wee Eck

I must have 14 fingers then! The comment made was about full stadia, not nearly full. The only one that sells out for every match is also the largest - Manchester United with 74,879.

I think you can count the number of full Premiership football stadia this year on one hand. That’s one sport that’s priced itself too high. But they don’t seem to care as ticket sales are now a small part of overall revenue - about 14% comes from that source, with around 70% coming from tv.

My point is the mentoring can’t have been that good if it didn’t cover guiding him about being paid.

Is that the same Jack Thomas who walked away half way through the season?

3 live in UK. One will be based in UK. Two - King and McDonald are part of the Sheffield/Poole exchanges. Neilsen has had more tracks than most other riders, Steve is the only one I can see took some negotiation. Look at Eastbourne - a well balanced team of British riders. That’s how CL should go, rather than importing overseas riders whose only claim to fame is that their average fits

Don’t you believe it. “SG”, or as others call him, SD (!) did what he was told on team building - and more importantly, team changes

Was it not Homer who said “things are difficult to predict, especially the future”. That’s Homer Simpson not Homer the Greek philosopher. Anyway, it’s too early to make any overall assessments, but I’ll go with three predictions for now: Justin Sedgmen won’t last the season at Glasgow and neither will Ostergaard unless he gets some decent kit. Poole will find their anti-Brit stance will bite them on the backside. They’ve dropped a league to save money and now are having to look at expensive fly in fly out riders to get anywhere near competitive. Leicester will discover the folly of allowing Stewart Dickson to build the team, especially having two 2 point riders at reserve. (See Glasgow 2004)

Not sure I follow that: team has three under 20s, JS is 27, RW 28 and Cookie 32. All of whom are fit and able young men.The only one who might just have been able to avoid conscription is Ulrich but more because of multiple injuries and an inability to keep his machinery in good nick than age

BSI is a British company with its base in Britain. It’s ultimate owner is a US group now called Endeavour, of which IMG is a subsidiary. BSI has been largely autonomous with Paul Bellamy, former MD of BSI (I think) having an over arching role whilst appointing a local MD, first Torben Olsen then earlier this year, Steve Gould. Paul and Torben - and the FIM - fought to limit the influence of Polish speedway, and I assume that was part of Gould’s remit as well. The Poles have long maintained that they should be allowed to hold even more GPs than the three they now have and that Warsaw rather than Cardiff should be the marquee event. A senior FIM member was heard saying Baku to Monaco (in F1) is like Warsaw to Cardiff. Baku tries hard but it will never be Monaco. When the new consortium is in place, I expect Warsaw will become the number one event. With BSI heading out of the picture (actually, no surprise there as they’ve failed to innovate) and OneSport - who already have the SEC and the World Under 21 Championship - part of the new package, I would expect at least one more GP in Poland from the start of the new franchise, at the expense of one or more in the rest of Europe, something that wouldn’t happen under BSI. From a personal perspective, I’ve been disappointed by the lack of involvement of IMG. I really thought when they got involved, there would be a huge push but they don’t seem to have done much. Such a shame especially when you consider they have their own TV company, Transworld Sport that has shown but never really pushed GP speedway. My opinion is that the new franchise holders could well be good for speedway as a whole, which we know is now centred in Poland, but that is potentially detrimental to Britain.

That team should walk the league with four heat leaders.

Morris rode for Buxton then joined Glasgow on his 16th birthday.

I know there’s a GP section but this maybe requires wider circulation. It seems Eurosport/Discovery in conjunction with OneSport have won the rights to the SGP from 2021. Because of the OneSport involvement, that means that, once more, the Poles have won out against the Brits. Should supporters of British Speedway be worried?

The only two remaining Championship number ones, if Skidder is to be believed, are King and Ellis. I reckon Wednesday’s “revelation” will be Danny King. If Worrall, King and Ellis are the top three, that’s a reasonable start, although only Ellis is likely to improve his starting average. And there’s going to be a longish tail

It’ll be a killer of a signing if it’s true...

Yeh. After 2019, he’s paying to ride

Sounds like another fencer might be on his way to Owlerton....

8pm!

2017 was different as the top league used middle leagues averages for initial declarations. But, Joe Screen was blocked from riding with Glasgow in 2010 (or thereabouts) as his converted average would have been 12.06. He started the season with Wolverhampton and, when his average dropped below 6, and they dropped him, joined Glasgow mid season

I assume that if he’s committed to Danish league, that rules him out of UK Wednesday night tracks, hence him not riding for Birmingham, and if he gets a regular team place in Poland, that rules him out of CL altogether. Hopefully the new Rzeszow promotion will pay its riders on time unlike the last one. Actually, that sounds very similar to some Championship teams

Adam Ellis needs to get out of the Championship altogether if he wants to progress. He’s been “up and coming” for far too long and needs to get team places abroad if he’s going to get anywhere. He’ll be 24 next year and has ridden in the middle or top leagues in Britain for about 7 seasons. When he’s on song, he’s a superb rider but needs (imo) to start challenging himself more if he’s going to progress.

I think years of ignoring British talent and failing to nurture juniors will come back to haunt Poole. There are no bargain averages in this league and every knows leagues are won with riders on their way up, honing their skills week by week. The inexperience of the management in this league and their lack of knowledge of CL riders will hurt Poole. I like Danny King and Steve Worrall but they’re not going to increase their averages by much, if any. And why would any young Brit want to go to Poole knowing their dislike of British youth - was Poole the only PL track who declined to hold a round of the British Youth Championship? I think, for Poole’s sake, there needs to be an acceptance that Matt Ford’s days are numbered. The most successful promoter of the last decade plus is out of his depth in this league. Whether Danny can replace him, and re-create his dad’s success may we’ll be dependent on him being strong enough to insist it’s his show, and to tell Matt to stay in France. Otherwise, if the Poole faithful want success, and they’re certainly used to it, maybe they should try to help find new owners, owners who understand the lower leagues and can command respect in them.

No one would argue about Masters vs Wells. But Sarjeant helping at home won’t get you a league win. Btw, no one want Heeps back? Or have I missed he’s gone elsewhere?

I think Glasgow would love that pairing........in the Monarchs 1-7. Two riders unlikely to improve much if any. After this year, I’d be astonished if Edinburgh went down such a week route. You just need to have a misfiring number one, as was the case with Wells this year, and you’ve no back up.

What makes you think that Glasgow and Poole will be “splashing cash”? Poole have never been big payers, but their riders were often subsidised by big paying sponsors. And their dropping a league to make money not splash it around. Glasgow pay well but you’ve got to look south, indeed very far south, to find the biggest payers in CL

Ok, I’m being thick now but, other than a couple of minor problems during the play offs, were there any other problems with doubling up in 2019? I thought the whole point of fixed race nights, whereby PL had Mondays and Thursdays, and CL had every other night, was to avoid these clashes. Also, why do people get upset about riders doubling up in UK when surely any rider who rides more than one league (whether that’s in one country or more) is effectively doubling up?