old bob at herne bay

Where's the lad Holder actually based ? UK ? Poland? If he is living in Poland always going to be an unreliable choice of rider for UK speedway. In the interests of the sport and giving the supporters something to watch I think R/R should be suspended and guests allowed to cover anyone in the main body of the team. If a 6 man team in put out then supporters should be entitled to receive a partial refund of their admission. Say £1 refund per rider missing ... and I for one would put it straight into the speedway riders benevolent fund bucket.

Thank you GAH ...... must keep an eye open for the next meeting highlights

Wasn't there a plan to show edited highlights of the Eurosport coverage on a free to view channel ? Was it Quest ? Anyone heard about this ?

Was it the usual northern ref ... Willie Wishington ?

Bright and sunny here in Herne Bay

Judging by past visits the Eagles dont enjoy Arlington when its wet, and the seagulls and gems would struggle on a wet heavy track ... so sensible decision IMHO This May weather is doing my head in .... cold wet and windy. Was looking forward to at least seeing some speedway action live ....... not sure I will be buying any advance tickets wit he current gloomy forecast which doesn't look like improving anytime soon.

dont forget the fuel taps bruv posted "All stadium capacity figures must be available somewhere and the online ticketing shows how many spaces remain " Wishful thinking. All these figures are a closely guarded secret ...... Somehow speedway attendances in the UK have remained "top secret" - cash only admission for many many years although credit cards are now accepted at some tracks...... (used banknotes only ??) One can only speculate why this should be......

Sorry to rain on your parade , the seagulls might be happy with their webbed feet, but the Eagles??? Met office forecast for Eastbourne shows rain for most of the day, clearing by 1600☹️

just realised the wee Rangers play their Scottish Football inside the speedway track !

Seems sensible .... Berwick already play Scottish football and Scottish Rugby .........

mac 101 posted "the track will make for good racing with no real home track advantage " If I had a ppound for every time I had heard that a home track has no home track advantage I would be a rich man ! Depends how many hundred laps the home riders have had a practice (Behind closed doors of course as Glaswegians dont seem to be too keen on the Covid jab that has laid Paul Hurry low ? ) Stilll looking at the positives from wee Nicola's Nationalists you Glasgow fans will be able to watch Glasgow vs Edinburgh every week soon.........

So co promoter Dan does look at his crowd and knows that they all atend in groups of 6? ? Beggars belief that you can defend the co promoter of the speedway on this ?

As was almost inevitable, little planning for re opening the speedway has taken place. NHS covid testing in the grandstand ( been there for a while ?) some half baked ideas about groups of 6 only due to crowd limits (no surprise crowd limits ?) In fact no planning at all for the possible scenarios has taken place. Trust to luck seems the order of the day. Guess they will be OK if they miss the p. Offs and get KOd from the KO cup in round one. Dan Ford clearly hasn’t ever looked at his crowd and spotted the number of solo supporters that attend, and meet up socially at the stadium . Poor promoting. Matt wouldn’t be impressed .... guess he has his own problems with his Chateau now in deepest France . Sad to see what was once the UK’s best run club in such a mess.

Prompt call of by Len....... he’s been in the business long enough to know when he can/cannot get a meeting on. Currently absolutely torrential rain here.... been coming down hard for the past 15 minutes. Track must be under water I should think. Looking at the sky very grey.

Very concerned about the alleged contravention covid 19 crowd limits at KingsLynn. Were tickets available for purchase at the gate? Were track and trace details taken? What is the crowd limit at Kings Lynn ? How is the attendance verified ? Sounds like a lack of marshalling to maintain social distancing. None of which encourages me to attend ANY speedway meeting just yet. ☹️

Saddled with a "rising star" rabbit the Championship clubs have been made deliberately weaker, otherwise no differnece in reserves abilitiy. Not sure too many PL riders who also ride in the championship would agree that there is "a mile" difference nowadays in the standard of rider. The PL "second strings " are all much the same and double up anyhow ..... £2 per person extra to watch them is probably about right given they are saving money on wages of GP sooperstars left (replaced by Batchelor and Kurtz in the above example !!! ) and he tracks have to spend extra money on hand sanitiser this season. Still, with the lower standard of rider comes more mistakes, more incidents and more excitement.

The secret world of speedway attendances......... not even MI5 know how many people attend speedway meetings in the UK

Marko, we are definitely on the same page on this re length of meetings. The only plus point of a televised meeting is that the TV company do have a schedule to follow, and barring a disaster will not tolerate all the incessant time wasting that goes on in the sport . It might take 2 hours , but it will be 2 hours. I agree though 15 heats in 90 minutes is the right answer , that now seems impossible to achieve. When I first went to speedway you could watch a league match (typically 13 heats), an interval and half a dozen heats of second half racing and see some novices practicing afterwards and still leave the stadium by 10 pm after a 7.45 pm start. The 2 minute warning was only sounded when a rider clearly was having problems getting to the start ..... I suggest now that a meeting would never START, UNLESS the ref sounded the 2 minute warning ! The riders would just sit at the pit gates posing. C'est speedway in the 21st century. :-( : -(

Funny how people's expectations have been lowered in the "premiership" 2 "half decent" teams which would be competitive in the championship.

Probably hawks 1975. There are more seagulls in the Eastbourne "squad" than we have s*****g all over the seafront here at Herne Bay.

not so simples skidder1 though is it ....... as mikebv states , same riders , same bikes, same costs and yet the promoters pay them more money???

Nothing changes it seems in British Speedway.......... same old same old ......... the only thing that changes is the cost of admission and programme. Remarkable that the "premiership" still lumbers on with the appallingly low standard of racers now being paraded ....... guess it just allows the promoters to charge higher admission fees compared to the championship. No idea why it now costs more to stage 15 heats in the premiership than the championship ........

That’s a plausible explanation. At least gives some hope that the stadium will reopen this season for speedway. For a company whose main interest is in “the catering side” according to Dan Ford, hope the poole fans like their burgers.

We have been locked down since before Christmas. Government announced roadmap out of lockdown over 6 weeks ago. Still Poole speedway and their new landlords haven’t agreed how to reopen the stadium

Anyone but Eastbourne to be champions would please me. They are so "cocky" about their fantastic team of young British riders, most of whom seem to feature every week in Speedway Star .