Steve Irving

As expected, an expensive and fierce battle for the best under 21 riders. 3 way battle for Cairns, Belle Vue, Sheffield, Ipswich.

Let me clarify. I was talking about the recent past when Mike the Belle Vue fan was referencing Birmingham and Oxford struggling at the foot of the table. Yes they struggled, but thats on them. They had as much chance as everyone else to put a team together. 2006 is an awful long time ago and to be honest, has little relevance to this season when 2 clubs only got confirmed in March leaving basically a 4 team league with 2 fillers. The fact Ipswich scraped in to 4th is also irrelevant and says more about King’s Lynn than anything else!! How anyone can say this season “hasn’t actually been all that bad” with a straight face i’ll never know. It’s been a shocker.

Couldn’t disagree more. You seem to be forgetting that 2 teams this year were at a severe disadvantage to the other 4 and that meant the league lacked any kind of fairness or integrity I’m afraid. Someone made the point that other teams in the past haven’t been competitive but that’s just not the same is it. They had just as much chance as anyone else to build a side but blew it. Tough.

Cast iron certainty that Ipswich will be a different animal next year, and I’m pretty confident Northampton will be very competitive too from what I’m hearing. My biggest bugbear this year was that it wasn’t an even playing field and for all intents and purposes you ended up with a 2 team league and there were zero surprises that those 2 contested the final. No excuses for any team next year (unless Eastie come to the tapes late) so we SHOULD see something fairer, and much more competitive. Pretty disastrous year and all a bit unsavoury but it was all about getting through it which has been achieved. Upwards on onwards to ‘27.

Those + Bewley. Just agreed a two year extension to his stay with Wroclaw. Wouldn’t rule him out just yet.

Except for supporting their team. Their attendances are crap generally.

The amount of Garrity apologists on here is quite alarming. Some quite clearly lack any moral compass. Amazing how this forum outs so many scumbags and even more worryingly, nonces over the last few years. The Speedway “family” isn’t quite as squeaky clean as the image sometimes portrays obviously.

He may need one of these.

This is genuinely the worst track I have ever seen in speedway bar none. diabolical.

He is but you have to be so careful bigging up these kids as the next big thing. So many examples of 16 year olds who promised everything and delivered very little. Plenty of examples in the other direction as well of riders not tipped to do much, who suddenly come to life and go on to have great careers. You never can tell.

No.

Rushen has badly run out of steam towards the end of the season.

Silly if they’ve signed him again. You’ll hear the cheers from Manchester all the way down in Suffolk.

Think you might have to settle for 7, rather than 8.

Did they? I’m not sure they did. Many pre-season said it was a decent effort and looked a solid side. The biggest criticism came late in the season when the team was badly underperforming and was losing out on a play off place to a team of misfits that was put together a few weeks before the season started! Ive yet to see any criticism of the team manager which I find a bit strange. Why are questions not being asked there? I’ve seen people praising him in the past as one of the better team managers but I’m sorry he doesn’t pass the eye test for me. Part of a team managers job is to generate a good team spirit and get the very best out of the riders at his disposal. This Lynn team should NOT have been finishing behind Ipswich’ ragbag team and lost so many home meetings so he’s failed hugely I’m afraid.

Danny King is 7.35. I don’t care how well he’s done for Ipswich this season or how many years he’s been there, you just don’t touch him on that figure when you see what else is available for less. Janowski 6.06 Masters 5.96 Brennan 5.91 Ellis 6.13 Lidsey 6.34 D Thompson 6.14 Flint 6.09 Rowe 6.07 You even have Zach Cook on an identical 7.35 but unlike King, he still has his best years ahead. Flint and Rowe nearly a point and a half cheaper but are upwardly mobile. There’s so many vastly better options. Sign King on his current figure and that eats in to what you can potentially have as your top 2. If Mayfield retain him then that’ll be a red flag in my opinion and show that they don’t know how to wisely put a winning team together.

Obviously the track changes are planned for this winter, but are the structural changes planned for this winter also or is it something planned for the future? Seems an awful lot of work to get completed before March/April…

The perfect response to a snivelling Troll. Fair play 👏🏻

A relief the 2026 season is coming to a close. Its been a difficult year but it’s done it’s job. Lets not have another winter like the last one. However many teams are assembled, get it rubber-stamped in November. Let all clubs build their teams fairly and on an equal footing to give the league some integrity, get the fixture list published in the new year at the latest, and let clubs get their season tickets out on sale in good time. Lets all hope also that Richard Coleman has managed to get the old farts to at least implement some kind of change to start the green shoots of recovery.

Nobody’s being “sacked” ordinary man. All the riders are out of contract in four weeks time. Enjoy the meeting tonight. Hopefully you can get your against all the odds victory over the line although I expect it’ll be a close run thing. It’s nail biting stuff. Good luck.

You’d be better off with this Godfrey than the one who’s currently in charge of organising the league structures and setting the rules 🤦🏻‍♂️

So the fella rocks up literally months ago, has got a GP round down there, is ploughing money in this winter to revamp the track and improve racing for supporters, and he’s talking to big names because Ipswich are “not there to make up the numbers”. But I thought he was a “FrAuD i BeT iPsWiCh FaNs WiSh ThEy StIlL hAd cHrIs LoUiS” right @SteveArena?

Could somebody please check on the welfare of Messrs Godfrey and “Speedway futures” please? They’ve just taken one massive whack in the nads there from Richard Coleman. LOL.

I mean, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Compare this interview to the interview on the very same channel pre-season where Godfrey spends half of it having “bants” with his mate Simon Lambert, citing he always give him a team spot because he’s cheap and doesn’t cost him a lot of money,, We’re talking night and day here! I don’t want to be mean to the fella and I’m sure he’s trying his best, but come on now there needs to be a complete changing of the guard. I don’t care what club you support but you can’t fail to be impressed with this guy. Very interesting that he’s working alone on trying to get a TV deal over the line while Phil Morris and others are working down a different avenue.

If you’ve heard bumbling Rob Godfrey on one of those podcasts and you know this is actually the “chairman” of the BSPL, as well as a “director” of “speedway futures”, then I’m sorry but nobody can be the least bit surprised at the absolute state of British Speedway currently. Its an incredibly sad state of affairs.