E I Addio

What he actually said in his programme notes was "We have no interest in th Premier League in its present form but a regionalised version of it would be right up our street" We can only speculate on what he meant by a regionalised version of the PL or whether it would include other clubs currently in the EL. He has also not ruled out running a NL side in 2016 if the decision on the stadiums future comes too late for an EL team to be entered when the AGM takes place in October.

You can't judge everything by statistics. I was watching Zengota the night he guested for Belle Vue. As a Lakeside supporter it makes no difference to me whether Swindon or Belle Vue make the cut for the play offs but when you spectate at the same track every meetingyou get a feel for things that don't seem quite right and certainly it did not seem to my eyes that things were quite right. I was watching Zengota in particular because people were calling him the. man in form and I thought he might be a match winner, as indeed he was for Swindon a couple of weeks later, but of all visiting riders this year he did look ver,y bad. Nothing can be proved or disproved but all I can say as a neutral between Belle Vue and Swindon, is that it looked very odd to me at the time and even more so when he came back with Swindon looking a totally different rider . Others can form an opinion through the prism of whatever club they support but that's my view FWIW as someone who saw it.

That's a bizarre way of putting it. Whether NP deserved it or not is irrelevant. There is no rule that says Greg is the sole arbiter of who has what coming to them.if one rider attacks another in that way, he has to have a punishment otherwise it would descend into a free for all.

I don't doubt what you say but I am shocked. Having worked in insurance in the past maybe I know my way around the system more than some but I have always been surprised at people who don't question insurance quotes. Anyone under 21 is going to pay a lot more but in my experience the prices level out after that except that under 24's carry a bigger policy excess but the actual premiums seem to stay the same whether you are 21 or 61. The thing is the premiums different companies charge vary enormously. When I get my renewal notice in I always phone up and ask nicely if they can do anything on price. They will often knock a bit off even if it's only £20 to keep your business. The trouble is people are gullible. I know someone who thinks because he is retired and insures through Saga he will get a good deal but in fact he was paying £300 for some silly little Fiat, over £100 more than I was paying for a 1600cc Astra at the time but he just paid without question. The only thing I would say is that if you put several insurances with one company you get a better deal. I have both cars and the house insurance with the same company and saved about £120 on what it would cost to insure separately.

,

The other side of the coin is that some of the serious injuries in the past would have been fatalities today. Partly because of medical advances and partly because of safety standards. Alan Wilkinson for example is one who would almost certainly have walked away from the crash that crippled him if airfences were around in the 70's. There are many other examples..

My understanding is that the tracks owned by the local councils have in the past been available to clubs either for free or at a minimal rent but with the economic squeeze the councils are starting to look for more rent from clubs. It not all that much different is Poland where there is a recent history of clubs getting into serious financial difficulties.

Thanks Rob, Swap Briggo for NP and swap Fundin for Greg, Holder Tai or whoever and one can imagine the furore if that happened in a deciding race for the title in this in this day and age ! ! !

Maybe Watt thinks he is still riding for Lakeside ?

By fixed costs I am not referring to fixed as to price but they are fixed in the sense they have to be paid and don't vary, with use,whether you use the thing a lot or a little. unlike petrol and wear and tear which vary according to the amount you drive If you are sitting down working out your household budget then everything you spend will of course be averaged out, but the reality is that if you are going to a Speedwáy meeting tax incpsurance etc has already been pain so it doesn't cost you an extra 45 p per mile, it cost an extra 20 per mile or thereabouts according to the cars efficiency. I'll take your word for it that average insurance is £432 but I can only assume that is the full cost before no claims discount. I never paid anything like that even a couple of years ago doing 13000 a year on a 1600cc car. If anyone is paying anything like £400 a year I would strongly advise them to shop aound. If you have a clean licence and a few years accident free you can get much better deals for an average saloon . I have just bought a new car and got a years free comprehensive insurance with it. Thats how desperate insurance companies are to get you on their books in the hope of retaining your business next time round. Like most other things if you don't shop around you are liable to get ripped off.

I suppose that sums up why they were and still are such great characters in the sports history and I suppose the sort of characters that people say are missing these days. It was before my time but I seem to recall reading at one of the world finals they finished joint top on points and had a run off for the title ( imagine the tension in that) . At one stage they locked handlebars and both went under the fence . Fundin was apparently trapped there but Briggo got up and won the race and the title . Can you verify that?

It doesn't work like that. Once you have paid your fixed costs like tax, insurance etc they are there whether you go to Speedwáy or not. Presumably you would have a car for other things like work, socialising etc so if you go to Speedwáy it's only costing you petrol and a bit of wear and tear. If you don't go to Speedwáy you still pay the same tax etc so you all you save by not going is your petrol. And £400 insurance ? Either you have points on your licence, drive a Ferrari or you are being ripped off.

I was recently reading an interview with one of Fundins former Norwich team mates -I can't remember which one but might have been Gordon McGregor- but anyway whoever it was said exactly the same thing about Fundin. However, to relate the Fundin -Briggs rivalry to Hancock and Pedesrsen , on Barry's DVD he tells of an incident on track at Norwich that spilled over into the pits , and Fundin came over to have go at him and Brigho had to push him off . Bad feeling between the pair of them at the time but by the end of the evening Fundin came over and said he was staying the night in England and could he stay at Barry's mothers house,. Briggo said of course he could and they both drove down to London together. The dispute was forgotten about , no Facebook, no public comments, everything smoothed over. Maybe some of the present "stars" coukd learn a thing or two from the hard men of past eras.

Everything in the Swedish garden is not rosey th,ough. Their attendances are reported to be in decline. Not as much as ours but the decline is running a few years behind Britain, Looking at last weeks Speedwáy Star, Piraterna -v- Indianerna, which included Hancock, Ward ,Holder , Lindback, Iveson, Lindgren, Nicholls and Bech, drew a crowd of 2,667. Not particularly brilliant when you consider the wage bill for that lot. Elsewhere an Allsvenskan League match drew in a mere 481. Certain others drew in crowds no better, and in some cases worse than EL matches.

Well done to the Aces. Lakeside were weakened by Bech's injury and withdrawal but the difference at EDR reserve told its own tale like so many other matches throughout the EL this year. The Aces deserve a play off spot because the whole side seem to have been pretty consistent this year. A few ups and downs here and there but if you take the season a whole they have been a pretty solid side, and if they make the play offs it will have been on merit and an all round team effort so one has to admire that sort of performance. Fricke still needs to work on consistency but when he hits his best form has really does it bigtime. The thing I like is that he is obviously quite a talent but doesn't seem to let it go to his head. Seemed a very modest guy when I chatted to him last year,so I wish him well. Can the Aces spring a play off surprise though? All my instincts say no, particularly if drawn against Coventry in the semis who are very strong at reserve in but if all the top 5 fire together I don't think the Aces can be written off completely, so could be very interesting.

The point that is being missed is not the fact that there is a guest and its not the fact that the guest strengthens the team. That happens all the .time to all clubs. But it seems to me to be the height of conceit to proclaim it as a "great win" when what you are doing is rolling over the likely wooden spoon team with an enhanced team of your own. Other clubs have won at Wolves this year and I don't think any fans have been on here crowing about it being a "great win" . It is unfortunately a fairly common place occurrence this year against a weak team with an underperforming No1. I say unfortunately because when teams get into the sort of mess Wolves are in it invariably impacts on crowd numbers and that is not good for the sport. An away win over the top two clubs could be classed as pretty impressive, but talking about a "great win" over the wooden spoonists is pretty much a Swindon thing it seems. As I said it depends on your standpoint but if you think it's a great win, that's fine, but many would say that's somewhat triumphalist.

Totally missed the point of the post. As I said , great win or hollow victory depends on your standpoint but this sort of mis match is hardly likely to bring the crowds flooding in.

A great win ? Seriously ? With a team strengthened by a guest like Harris ? That is Swindon mentality. All these unbalanced teams are doing (and the rules that allow it) is ultimately driving more punters from the sport. A great win or a hollow victory depending on your standpoint but level playing field it ain't, and that is what p's many fans off.

I agree with that but would add that in addition to bringing better riders back we also need to produce more of our own. Part of the problem is not enough British riders coming into the sport. When George Barclay was running his training school at Lakeside a few years ago he had people coming from as far away as Cornwall. Obviously there won't be many who can keep that up and need facilities nearer to home. A lot of good riders like Scott Nicholls got into the sport through junior grass track but grass track in general has shrunk the same.way speedway has in recent years. We have had some decent ex -moto crossers come into the sport, like Craig Cook, The Worralls and Richard Lawson and more should be done to attract them, and giving them better breaks. What amazes me when talking to NL riders is that quite few have absolutely no idea when it comes to set ups. It. Would nt take much to give those guys some basic help and set them on the right road more quickly.

Add VAT to your £15 and the total admission is almost up to what is being charged now, and that is before you start averaging out concessions, under 16's etc , and you also have to factor in rain-offs, and smaller crowds on the nights people stay away because rain is forecast and the meeting hoes ahead. Whichever way you look at it the answer is not so much cutting costs as increasing revenue by better crowds. For a lot of clubs an extra 100 through the gate every meeting would make massive difference to survival.

They might at Poole but if you think back to 2011 , just after the Winter of Discontent we had a 10 team EL but at that stage Kings Lynn and Eastbourne were saying they could only afford to run 14 or 15 meetings so we had that ridiculous league where you met some teams twice and others once, no Craven Shield , and that revamped KO cup without KL and Eastie that never appealed to anyone. One thought that has occurred to me as a result of t his discussion is tha the r ace format really needs changing. After you have seen, for example the two number 1's race each other 3 times in the A fixture and anothe r 3 times in the. B fixture do we really want to keep seeing them race each other again in any meeting. The more I. Think about it the mo re I wonder if the present EL format is partly to blame for falling crowds, with gate positions that favour one team in the first half of the meeting then favour the opposing team in the send half, in stead of being more evenly alternatived, protected heats with some reserves totally mis s matched, and. Heatleaders racing each other 3 times a night. Just a thought. L

.....and they are still in trouble with falling crowds. Still a few years behind our problems but the trend is still there. There is no quick fix solution. Orion is right about crowds. The problem is that unlike League matches there was no Sky money for KO cup matches, and the crowds weren't big enough to sustain it without. The second uproblem you have is that most of the top continental stars that ride here only want to do a limited number of meetings because of foreign commitments. You can have relatively short season with the likes of Magic, Zagar, AJ , etc or you can have a longer season without them but you can't start adding meetings and keep your top foreign stars. The third problem you have is that is hard enough now to put a team together without importing guests, if you start adding other competitions that situation will get worse.

Just had an idea but haven't properly thought it through yet, but how about keep,the TR but any rider nominated to go for double points can't be nominated for heat 15 ? That would stretch the TM's imagination a bit.

I know one thing, if Ward and Holder were constantly going out on TS rides for Poole, ie 6 rides each per meeting, you wouldn't be watching Speedwáy , nor would I nor would loads of others. That really would be the ruination of the sport. Much as I loath the present TR rule I can see that bringing the old TS back would be a big step backwards.

Yes and the heatleaders could pick their own gate positions so they could go off 1 or 2 all night if the,y wanted.