spin king

Hugh Skidmore, that is a massive change in opinion.

Why the concern you state a few months ago that you not prepared to go again. Or was the offer of a free drink maybe enticing to think again, Take it for what it is an end of season challenge, something just fill in the end of the season.

You are probably right,.

Have a soft drink then.

So lets get rid of the one thing that appears to making the sport money, is that wise. Most people I have spoken to agree the Play Off's are a good thing, they keep excitement in the sport till the end of the season, and the Promoters seem to feel that they make money, and there is no doubt that they cause excitement as teams fight it out to qualify for them. I personally think back to 2011 the last time the Premier League was decided with no Play Off, the season was over by the end of August, and at Sheffield crowds did start to fall towards the end of that season. The one thing that speedway clubs need to do is make money so would it not be madness to take away the one thing that is guaranteed to make them money. Speedway does not run on fresh air.

Not surprised by the news, in fact I fully expected it after last season. Love him or Loathe, agree with him or disagree with him, Neil has been a very colourful character who will be missed. I think the enthusiasm for the sport has drained from him, I think losing a lot of people who have been close friends some of who have played a major part in helping run the club, and I think that the new air fence rules have been the final nail in the coffin. Will anyone take the club over? Would you buy a speedway club. The only thing up for sale would be the rider assets and license, so maybe Tony Mole could be interested in running Sheffield for a season and then transferring over to Bradford for the 2015 season. Who knows, but it looks like a winter of uncertainty for us Sheffield fans.

The Play Off's are here to stay whether you like them or not, and I have to say that I am a fan of them. The easiest solution to the Redcar/ Leicester problem this season would be to work out what the average deficit of Redcar's results, and if that is found to be more than 22 then Leicester go through and if it is less then Redcar go through. For the future I think that Promoters and the BSPA should make the league programme the main priority, if they run the league programme first chances are that the Play Off's could probably be up and running at the latest early September, run the KOC and the Premier Trophy meetings after or where there is no possible League meeting available..

No he is not, I think that you may find that Damien Koppe is not fit as well.

Congratulations to Somerset on their win tonight. But it did appear to be a case of helping Somerset get through their fixtures, as it was not much of a speedway meeting, more so about riders getting around a speedway track, with some race winners been clocked at times of over 70 seconds.So more about riders going through the motions and getting to a point where a they can declare a result. Bit difficult to assess the Somerset team on this kind of meeting, but I still think that they will go one better than last season play off's and I wish them all the best.

(1) Craig Cook (top man in the league) (2) Ricky Wells (possibly surprise choice, but not many top riders in the league who average more away from than at home) (3) Ben Barker (Would be interesting to see him riding in the same team) (4) Steve Worrall (top rider and racer) (5) Jason Doyle (pushed Cookie all the way) (6) Micky Dyer (reserve to number 1 in a team challenging for the Play Off's makes him a no brainer) (7) Kyle Newman (pure racer) Over the points limit but who cares.

Very difficult to disagree with those sentiments, the investment in the future of riders from this country has been virtually ignored over the years, and at least some of the money that the BSPA were given to by SKY should have been spent on the youngsters.

Its was not a dig at Scunthorpe, I was just using them as a point. They have kind of corner the market in signing of young British riders over the last three to four years, and who can blame young British rider signing for Scunthorpe when they would be allowed to use training facilities virtually 24/7. The problem is that as I pointed out that is if your another club, and sign up a youngster who has a contract with Scunthorpe you can run the risk of developing a rider for Scunthorpe or any other club in a similar situation, maybe this is why there is a reluctance for Promoters signing up young British riders. Its a difficult one to solve if that is the case, maybe centralized contract for Junior riders, but that would be very unfair on Rob Godfrey who has invested a lot of time, effort and money on developing riders and would rightly so be needed to be compensated properly.

I would not disagree with what you are saying about the asset base situation especially when it comes down to young British riders, but someone like Rob Godfrey who has an abundance of young British talent at his finger tips will be reluctant to release some of that talent and would rightly want some compensation for any rider that he is made to release. In a perfect world no rider would be an asset of any clu, and they would be free at the end of the season to sign for any club that they wish, but again those who have strong asset bases would want to be compensated for their loses.

The Sheffield team in 2011 had Ashley Birks in the side who was on a similar average, who was a young British rider new to the Premier League. He was never dropped and as far as I aware the club never considered dropping him. What happened the following season, Ashley return to his parent club and the rest is history, Sheffield gave him a seasons development and Scunthorpe had one of their young riders ready for a season with the club after been given a season to develop and learn tracks. The big problems with signing young riders up or giving them a chance is that the ones that are god enough to step up usually have a Premier club connection if you look a lot are Scunthorpe assets, so you run the risk of giving a young Brit a chance only for the some other club to reap the benefit. So maybe in Sheffield's case it is once bitten, but it does make me smile that people seem to be singling out Sheffield not using British riders, as most years Sheffield teams have been predominately British..

Sssssh.

Looking from outside looking in I would say that there were a few factors that have define Berwick's season. Seb Alden not re-signing which I believe ,mean't that the Promotion had to change the team line up at the last minute. The obvious one was the lost of Ricky Ashworth not once but twice, and the second one must have had effect on the riders. The signing of Eddie Kennett at the time appeared to be a Master plan, but for one reason or another just did work out. But one of the biggest for me had to be not re-signing Micky Dyer from the season before.

Blimey, that is a decent Sheffield line up, I will revise what I thought, I think we should sneak a win.

Not much speedway left to watch mate, so I would say go. I would say that you have every chance of seeing a win today, maybe not all three points but I think a win for Glasgow is the likely outcome.

The line not quite correct. (4) Danny Maassen ​(5) Rider Replacement. . I would be happy to see us picking up a point for this

Nice to see you practising what you preach with British riders.

Bold move by the Somerset Promotion, and will be interesting to see if they pull it off. There is an old saying "If it ain't broken don't fix it.", and you do have to wonder with Somerset sitting at the top of the league are the Promotion at Somerset getting a little bit twitchy about the top 5, because for me the top 5 that Somerset has should or would carry the reserves. But it certainly has added a twist to the Play off situation, and it will be interesting to see what the final outcome will be.

I pick up my information from the Scunthorpe fans forum, where Rob Godfrey had said that he had agreed to sell Ollie to Coventry. Maybe that transfer had not gone through would be interesting to find out.

Got agree with you wholeheartedly, the lad has got something about him, and I would definitely like to see the club maybe give him a run in the team next season. Something I did find out that I did not know is that he is no longer a Scunthorpe asset I believe Scunthorpe sold him to Coventry last winter.

At the start of the meeting I would have took a draw, but by the end of the meeting I have to say I felt deflated as I thought Ipswich were there for the taking. The big difference was Jason Doyle who once again I agree with others who say that he scored more points than what Ben Barker would have got. The Ipswich fans can crow all they like that its a point gain as they don't have a decent record around Sheffield, their record is no different to Rye House's around Sheffield and Rye turned us over not once but twice and against a lot stronger Sheffield line up. With no Barker I don't see Ipswich progressing in the Play Off's and I don't think they looked particularly good tonight.

I would not worry about running against Football on a Sunday. Unless we run a meeting on 29th December there is only one local football fixture that is played on a Sunday Sheffield United on the 13th October other than that date no further clashes this football season.