E I Addio

No thanks. Leigh is a really nice bloke , and a Hammers legend but he is nearly 40 years old and watching him is like going to a funeral these days. Young blood is needed.

Where does that information come from if clubs don't publish attendance figures ?

Credit where it is due: the quality of th production is good for the sort of magazine is, some of the articles in the close season are very good and in many ways it's a better read in the winter than in the summer, and the price is cheaper than most specialist magazines. It's actually not much dearer and much better value than a cup of coffee in Starbucks, especially on subscription so no complaints about the price as such BUT I cancelled my subscription some time ago and now just by it occasionally when there is something I particularly want to read. A lot of it seems to be hot air to fill the space. Others on the thread have already pointed out various shortcomings and apparent lack of clear editorial policy. Personally , I don't believe and never have believe that it is the propaganda arm of the BSPA, but it's easy to understand why others feel that way, with the lack of objective or constructive criticism. My real complaint is the lack of balance in a lot of the articles, some rider or promoter says something and no attempt to explain the opposite point of view. That to me is not journalism. I don't want to read pages and pages of windbaggery. A classic example, I. One of the last editions of SS I bought was Niel Middleditch banging on about poor refereeing but when one examined the example he cited they were not bad refereeing decisions at all they were either 50/50 calls that didn't go his way or they were decisions that were wrong from his line of vision but not necessarily from the refs box. To me, those sorts of one sided articles are a waste of space. Something with a big more insight is required. The price is not an issue for me but I can't be bothered to go out of my way to get it any more in its present form No cut and paste ? There is plenty in there that I have already read on clubs websites when SS arrives. In short, SS is like the sport itself. Both are potentially good products but need a long hard good look at themselves to see what can be done to up their game.

Probably tells you all you need to know about him.

So, it's OK then for VOR to describe those who disagree with him as (and I quote) " Happy Clappy Automatons " but nobody is allowed to challenge what he says ? Sorry, but if someone posts something on a discusdion forum they are entitled to have it challenged.

That really is the nub of the issue . If you take any EL club in the country the bulk of the fans complaints these days are lack of communication and failing riders not being replaced as quick as some fans woukd like . Sometimes the complaints are justified sometime they aren't but it's what Speedwáy fans like having a good moan about and we all think we know best. But there is a big difference between having a moan and getting abusive on a personal level. People who read the forum have read VOR's posts and can make their own judgment on the vituperent way he chooses to express himself. His posts and hounding of Neil Vstcher in particular on the old Lakeside forum were beyond the pale. I think everybody woukd agree that Neil has been a great asset to the under 21's but his tenure as TM at Lakeside was maybe a bridge too far. People woukd be entitled to make fair and constructive criticism of his role as TM but on a personal level he is a decent bloke, he has given hell of a lot to Speedwáy , and continues to do so. He certainly doesn't deserve personal abuse on the level one poster in particular (guess who ) was giving on the old Lakeside forum. Similarly Dave Watt. Most Lakeside fans could see that Watty did a terrific job as captain in holding the team together after his great friend Lee Richardson died. Then in 2013, as I have mentioned on here before he did a great job with Peter Karlsson have to go out in match match after match at Arena to pull off a heat 15 win to take the match points. In fact in 2012 and 2013,he posted some of the best CMA's of his career for Lakeside. Unfortunately in 2014 a combination of injuries and personal problems which have been well documented took their toll on Davey's form and the two or three usual suspects on the Lakeside forum were in action with their knives. Davey is not beyond criticism by any means, but had deserved better than he got from certain so called fans.

Many? There's only about 6 or 7 post on there and half of them are already up with the old "I would go to Rye House but its too far excuse" that you use. Never mind you can always start a Rye House Forum of your own and sit behind your keyboard heaping abuse on Dave Watt like you did when he was at Lakeside. It will be just like the old days.

That is to confuse a successful team manager with a good TM. A successful one wins with good riders, a good TM gets the best out of whoever he is given to work with.

No Cyril Maidment ? A podium finish puts him in the frame and 22 caps for his country, says he is more deserving than at least 5or 6 on the list, and I would bank on him scoring about 7 or 8 in the theoretical final.

It's cardboard and chips these days I am afraid. Used love my fish and chips there before the meetings, but it really seemed to go downhill a couple of years ago so I gave up having them .

I think you are reading something into the situation that isn't there. In previous years Speedwáy has been predominantly on a Friday night and there was never any problem getting dates. Cook said on the mic about 2-3 months ago after a particularly horrendous night with roadworks and delays around the Tunnel that this couldn't go on and he wanted more Saturday meetings in 2017. Therein lies the problem. While the track is generally available on Fridays the stock cars use it on Saturdays and the Speedwáy fixtures can't be sorted until the stock cars sort their dates out. He clearly couldn't commit to the EL while all that was in limbo. It's clear the Tunnel hasgone from bad to worse over the last two years, not just affecting Lakeside. It must be costing the country millions in wasted time and money with these long delays.

I didn't say the EU isn't spending as much as other countries I said that Japan (that is one country ) spends more than the entire EU. Not sure how you make the jump from there to saying the EU isn't spending anywhere near as much as other countries. Obviously there are inefficient as well as efficient farmers as in other any industry , but the EU in its wisdom has decided subsidies are the way to go not just in the UK but all over Europe. I dint see why the UK farmers should be deemed to be any less efficient than those anywhere else in Europe but the Voice of (Un)Reason seems to have a bee in his bonnet because UK farmers who vote Conservative get subsidies but he has no comment about French farmers under a Socialist government, who have long been among the most inefficient also getting subsidies. Almost everywhere in the developed world subsidies go with farming . Rightly or wrongly that's the way it is. You can't blame the UK farmers for accepting them when most others around the world get it.

Never miss the chance to have a dig at another club or stir up a bit of trouble if you can do you ? Why should it mention Stuart if he is not leaving ? Where does it say the club is up for sale ? Where does it say he is losing money? The explanation given by Jon Cook on Essex Radio is that they want to run more Saturday meetings for ease of travelling for the Kent fans, because the Dartford Tunnel is so badly congested on week nights (which it is) . In fact Jon Cook said over the mic two months ago that they were looking for more Saturdays next year. The problem is that until the stock car season finishes in two weeks time they cant make any commitments because the stocks get choice of dates but the BSPA need a commitment today, AGM day Ten pages into the thread and only Steve Shovlar comes up with speculation about Stuart leaving. Just because he lives in the USA it doesn't mean he never comes over here on business.

On that basis you might as well say they are all trick tracks and nobody could say you were wrong. Bit of a pointless argument to make really.

We expect the ill informed politics of envy from V.O.R. but you must surely know that farming subsidies are an al most world wide phenomenon. The USA spends around $20billion. p.a on subsidies and Japan around $43 billion which is more than the whole of the EU spends including spending on inefficient French farmers. EU farming subsidies have been reduced considerably in recent years but the whole issue of subsidies is immensely complicated and not capable of easy dismantling. There is far more to the problem than blaming allegedly greedy farmers for depending on handouts.

Whoops pressed wrong button

I think a number of members have grasped the irony. It is that Steve claims a lot of Brexit voters didn't know what they were voting for but it's clear from his comment about the European Court and UK laws that he doesn't understand all that facts either. As for Brexit voters making protest votes etc, I haven't discussed with anyone why they voted the way they did so I have no idea what their motives were. What percentage of the 17,000,000 that voted out have you discussed it with? U.K. Rents were rocketing long before Brexit and have been discussed on the forum long before Brexit. As for rights for employees disappearing what specific employment rights do you think are going to disappear? Industrial Tribunals and modern employee rights go right back to the Thatcher era and beyond. The idea that they all come from the EU is a myth. The recent judgement in favour of Uber drivers shows where the courts stand on these things and it's highly unlikely all that will be dismantled. This is another one of those scare stories ( the sort we hear from both sides I have to add) that are put out and gain traction for no particular reason. All anyone can say with certainty is that since the referendum the pound has fallen in value. Apart from that it's all speculation at the moment and there is still a long way to go before we know whether it's for the better or for the worse.My guess is that things will more or less trundle along in the same old way in the long term. That's what usually happens. Money talks. The Germans aren't going to want to lay off thousands of car workers because they can no longer sell 800,000 cars a year to the UK. and that's without other EU carmakers, and there are all sorts of strings to be pulled on both sides of the fence. It's all sabre rattling at the moment. The real horse trading has yet to start. It's just a shame that Csmeron messed it all up when he went to renegotiate last February. That's what happens when you send a boy to do a mans job. In the meantime, don't believe all you read in the Mail and the Guardian.

In the vast majority of cases there is no appeal to either of the European Courts, even if you do feel you have been treated unfairly. In fact simply feeling you have been treated unfairly is not a grounds for appeal anywhere in the EU. New UK laws answerable to no one ? What are you talking about ? UK laws are made by the UK parliament which can be ejected by the UK electorate if they don't like it and replaced by new representatives. And you try to tell us the common man or woman doesn't understand what they were voting for. The irony !

If all that is important to you is yourself and your family, and you don't give two hoots for anybody else, then the corollary to that is why should anybody else give two hoots about you ? They've had their say and you've had yours. So what are you moaning about?

Without wishing to defend Cameron, it is a fact of history that it was Gordon Brown that started slackening the tax burden on the rich from 1998 onwards and increasingly from 2002 when he came under the influence of Sir Ronnie Cohen. Thus we had the situation in which hedge fund managers were paying less tax than their office cleaners. It was also Brown that abolished the bottom rate 10% tax rate and put the lowest earners on 20% if they were over the tax threshold making many low earners around £230 per year worse or more off. So much for looking after the poor. In fact the Con-Lib coalition raised the tax threshold far higher than Labour envisaged taking many of the low paid out of taxation althtogether. The was almost entirely at the behest of the Lib-Dems although Osborne claimed credit for it. That's not to say Cameron didn't look after the well off, but New Labour especially Brown, are not off the hook when it comes to looking after the rich. Funny how people forget these things when they get on their soapbox. Again, the red tint specs distort the facts of history. Labour certainly created the NHS but they didn't create the welfare support system. Forms of welfare support have been around in this country and in Europe for over 400 years, but the foundation of modern Welfare support was laid down by the Liberals in the early years of the last century. What Labour did was not to create it but to expand it in line with Beveridge Report commissioned by the coalition government in 1941or 42, although it fair to say the Tories probably wouldn't have implemented it as quickly or comprehensively as Labour. It also a fact of history that the electorate threw them out at the next election and kept them out for 13 years, so they couldn't have been that popular with the general public.

Good point. The other thing is there are only a limited number of licensed SCB officials such as start Marshalls, incident recorders etc, and some work at more than one track to cover holidays, and other staff shotrages. if all meetings are on the same night it presents a bigger problem in getting cover . As it is there are some clubs that just about scrape by with the minimum number of trackstaff/officials.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-37720480

The problem there is thst It was, in the words of the PM a straight in/out referendum, not something to find the best way to satisfy all parties. Unfortunately, the man responsible for the shambles resigned from public life straightaway and started looking for something easier and better paid away from the public eye. If the public voted in the belief that it was a straifght in oout referendum I am not sure how constitutionally the politicians could backtrack on it.

I am I missing something here ? Since when did the EDR rider pick his team, rather than the other way round ? There are a lot of lower finishing teams that ought to be having the option of picking Adam before Poole get their pick if Lakeside don't want him. I realise that the Echo's ace journalist Phil Space cobbled the article together to ...er.... fill space on a slow news day and I may be reading too much into it but he talks about Adam going on loan. EDR riders do exactly go out "on loan" .Does this mean Adam might be doing a Garrity rather than EDR, or is there some sort of Ford stitch up in the offing ? Or is it just a journalist saying the first thing that comes into his head to fill a bit of space? Seems strange though that an EDR rider talks about going somewhere when we haven't had the AGM and he doesn't have a PL team place.

It's the PL numpties that are half the problem. Unless and until the PL buy into the EDR system it's never going to work 100%. Having said that, it could still be made to work a lot better than it does now. The whole order of picking needs to be sorted.