Steve Shovlar

Agree. Believe the winner will be from the Somerset v Poole side of the draw. But all four teams are in with a shout. Just needs a couple of riders to stand up and be counted when it matters to swing things in their teams favour. A shame we have a week gap. Would be better to be riding at Somerset tomorrow night.

Hmmm. I thought it was an excellent race but to say it’s the best race in 38 years is ridiculous. Seen just as good or better races in the GP and Poland. The Darcy Ward GP race against Hancock and Gollob was better imo. Doyle made an error to allow Fricke to get him. However it was top notch no doubt about it.

He isn’t for us either but ends up top of the averages. How we could have done with Chris Holder right now.

Some interesting comments on the Polish speedway site. Some say the has bought embarrassment onto Polish speedway and it was frankly a disgrace as two of the other riders were also not ready. One said it stank with the ref giving Zmarzlik a huge helping hand. A Polish speedway commentator has called it karma, as a British ref threw out Zmarzlik unfairly from a race a couple of GP’s ago (I don’t recall what happened) Says it’s now 1-1. The general consensus in Poland from fans is that the ref was very wrong.

I think you have every chance of progressing to the final.

But a huge % of those 70 odd thousand at Old Trafford are Japs or asians who have come on a trip up from London for the day while visiting UK. When me and Rob came up to Manchester for the day before a Poole meeting we went to OT and on a non match day there were loads of Japs. Half the OT crowd are tourists. Doubt half of the MU crowd are from the area nowdays.

Up yours you corrupt ref!

Because its an individual. Clearly the fight has been knocked outof Woofinden tonight.

As proved in heat 18, the decision by the ref was completely corrupt. The FIM need to open an investigation immediately. Whilst it won’t alter what happened, it could ensure the ref is never near the start button ever again. I would go even further and get the fraud squad to check his bank accounts to see if any money has been recently been deposited.

Hancock is not challenging Zmarzlik.

The ref knew that if Woofinden was excluded he wouldn’t make the semis. He knew that by excluding Woofinden Zmarzlik would have a free hit, would make the semis, probably make the final and reduce Woofindens lead to nothing. The referee will think he is a hero to Polish speedway. The rest of us call him corrupt.

Have to say Tai is calmer than I would have been. He is watching his lead dwindle down to nothing. Zmarzlik on a roll and going to be hard to stop.

Absolutely. Having now just watched it back in the studio the decision was absolutely corrupt. The Polish ref should never be near a GP again.

Polish ref ? A disgraceful decision nevertheless.

Belle Vue don’t have to tap into that market. There are a lot of sports fans who can’t stand football.

Perhaps it will improve.......

For the first time ever, this is going off at 8pm for the England match. Bloody dreadful garbage. Things normally improve about now but it doesn’t look like it will get any better.

Money wise yes. But West Ham have much bigger crowds as do Arsenal. Man City attendances are 5th in premier league. 1 Manchester United 1.424.538 19 74.976 2 Tottenham Hotspur 1.291.103 19 67.953 3 Arsenal FC 1.127.133 19 59.323 4 West Ham United 1.080.808 19 56.885 5 Manchester City 1.022.434 19 53.812 6 Liverpool FC 1.007.931 19 53.049 7 Newcastle United 987.844 19 51.992

Man City are certainly not the second biggest club in the UK. They can’t even fill their stadium for most of their matches. Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham, Celtic, Newcastle, ManU, Liverpool have bigger attendances. They might be the richest club though. Perhaps the new league format, announced at the up coming agm, will mean clubs can ride on any night they choose, with the caveat that they don’t sign riders unavailable for meetings abroad. Riding on a Friday could well mean no GP rider. And would be unfair in the other team and all fans if a visiting has to ride with riders missing.

We have a premier league football club less than 6 miles from Wimborne Road.

They can’t be £10, if BT are not paying. The promotions lose when BT are in town, so why lose even more?

The crowd at Poole on Wednesday was much much bigger than the crowd at Belle Vue on BT. Last week you said the meeting against Wolves would be the smallest crowd of the season. You were wrong, as crowd was very good.

True Poole fans don’t own threads. But expect a reaction if you come onto a Poole thread and post bile. People would think I would have a screw loose if I went on an Ipswich thread every day posting the same bile Gavan does on Poole threads. And if I did I would expect to be treated the same way Gavan is on Poole threads. He used to faintly disguise his posts but doesn’t even bother to do that now. It’s just vitriol against Middlo, Matt Ford, any Poole rider and Poole fans who stand up to his nonesense.

Pretty poor meeting. Not exciting at all. One team beaten before a wheel had turned.

I must say the crowd on Monday looked abysmal. What are the Belle Vue management doing in advertising locally? The Manchester conurbation is massive so really they should be able to fill the place. I always can never understand why a club in a huge city gets the same size crowd or less than Somerset, for example, with a couple of small towns and flood plains nearby.