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From Monarchs website: Kent Kings come to Armadale this Friday in a Championship fixture, the first time we've ever hosted the Kings who have moved into our league this season. Star Kings are Scott Nicholls (perhaps the best visiting rider over the last few seasons) plus former GP rider Troy Batchelor, Paul Starke and popular ex-Monarch Cameron Heeps. The Kings beat Monarchs by three points on their own track a couple of weeks ago, and showed how much they have improved recently by hammering in 57 against Berwick this week. So it is sure to be a tough match, with Monarchs likely to be without Richie Worrall after his high speed crash last Friday. That has still to be confirmed but if Richie decides he is not ready Monarchs will use a guest or rider replacement. With that in mind the riding order has been altered. Team manager Alex Harkess said "Scott Nicholls has been a class act and I hope he will be again on Friday – though one class act in their team is enough! He's a very, very good and accomplished rider. We also welcome our friend Cameron Heeps again, he hasn't had a great year and we hope things turn round for him eventually. It's a match we expect to win and we'll be disappointed if it is as close as last week again." As with all Armadale matches this season Friday's match will be Live Streamed, however the stream will be available only to those outwith a 25 mile radius of the track. Anyone within that limit but unable to attend should email info@edinburghmonarchs.co.uk WHAT THE FORK MONARCHS: Sam Masters (capt.), William Lawson, Richie Worrall, Kye Thomson, Josh Pickering, Luke Crang, Nathan Greaves. TOUCHTEC KINGS: Troy Batchelor, Ben Morley, Paul Starke, Cameron Heeps, Scott Nicholls (capt.), Ryan Terry Daley, Dan Gilkes Looking forward to this. Think it will be close.

Don't think so. If the accident hadn't have happened Monarchs would've gone into the final heat 2 points up and I think Sam & Josh would have got at least a 3-3 against Bjarne & Jason (or possibly Bjarne & Leon). But a very impressive performance from Plymouth who gave a very good account of themselves. Ruml, Keleher & Cook all did well on their first Armadale appearance. For the home side the Thomson/Pickering pairing got them out of jail. Great to see Crumpie roll back the years and he gave a great interview talking about bringing on the next generation of riders and reminiscing about riding at Powderhall back in the day. Hope no lasting damage for Bjarne or Richie.

R/R for William Lawson tonight (awaiting result of a Covid test). Kye and the reserves can cover.

Luke Crang is on the list as a 2* Rising Star. Nathan Greaves is on the list as a 4*, so can't be used as a Rising Star in the Championship.

Good to see Nathan back for the Monarchs tonight. He seemed to be steadily improving both home and away before his recent injury setback. Looks like he drops to reserve for August with, presumably, William replacing him at #2. I think that gives the team a better balance for a busy month.

Ulrich's new average from 1/8 is 7.96 so you'll have up to that (8.36 at home) to use for a guest. Makes the likes of Danny King, Steve Worrall or Adam Ellis available to use for any August matches.

Easy to say with the benefit of hindsight but it's quite conceivable that R/R would have provided exactly the same scores in each of the relevant heats (e.g. Nicol in ht4, Wells in ht7, Cook in ht11, Jensen in ht13). Also it might have been expected that a motivated Etheridge (against a team that he reportedly hates) would score to his average. And there's the risk in using R/R for a heat leader, that another of your riders gets injured during the match. So not such a cut and dried bad decision imo.

Superbly entertaining and exciting meeting today. The Ashfield track providing some brilliant racing. Cookie wasn't making any starts but had three fantastic wins from the back over Worrall, Thomson then Masters before Sam got revenge in the final heat. If William Lawson had held position in all his heats he would have scored 8 paid 11. Only time Monarchs were ahead was the end of heat 15.

It was a nice mild evening last night, but not that hot. There was certainly no dust but some on the third bend did get covered in flying muck during some heats!

Got to agree about the track. My heart always sinks when I arrive at the stadium on a fine day to find the track's been flooded - which happens quite a lot. It always produces terrible racing for the first few heats, with riders struggling to turn, then improves gradually to produce better but still not great racing. Think they might need to look along the M8 to get some advice on track preparation (used to be the other way round). On a positive note - Danny Ayres! The most exciting rider on track and a great character off it - check out his interview on this weeks Friday Focus https://youtu.be/mDOzLGyBs9U

Enjoyable night's racing on a well prepared track - standout heat 11 with Heeps going round both Worrall & Clegg for the win. Great to see Josh back and William getting in the mix and picking up some good points. Newcastle hampered by their guest not going well, but well served by their main 4. Not sure if 14 is going to be enough as Monarchs have been just getting to the mid-30s in most of their away matches. For a cup semi-final against Newcastle the crowd did not look particularly good, which must be a worry for the promotion.

It's a shame Josh Pickering is not back for this as he rode very well on his first visit there guesting for Leicester. But Paul Starke should be a decent replacement as he went well there in Glasgow's victory and rode very well against the Monarchs at Ashfield last Sunday. I think Eastbourne and Armadale are a similar size but maybe don't ride the same. Hope that those on their first visit take to it quickly and that William Lawson starts to turn round his season with a decent score. The Monarchs' fans (on here at least) seem to be very pessimistic and expect a hammering but I'm hopeful we might get close to picking up a point.

Good gutsy performance from all 6 Monarchs to keep the score respectable against a really strong Tigers side. The track was not ideal due to the weather forecast, but the track staff worked hard to keep the dust down as best they could and there was still some pretty good races. After a first race last, Paul Starke rode very well for Glasgow and Joel Andersson was the stand out for Edinburgh taking 7 rides including a brave outside burst to win heat 7.

I think Edinburgh might just nick this today I will be going to support my team and as long as all those wearing blue and gold give 100% I will be happy, whatever the score. Hopefully see some good racing and the rain stays away.

Last minute decision to go last night and after two heats thought it might be a good choice. Next 6 heats were thoroughly depressing. Score flattered Edinburgh as any luck came our way. Don't like to criticise riders but Sedgy was very, very poor for a rider of his experience. The rest were trying hard but usually not making good enough starts. Was very impressed with Leon Flint with good passes on Josh and William and, as ever, enjoyed watching Matty Wethers.

I thought Josh was very good all night and, along with Erik and Broc, provided some good opposition and entertaining racing - heats 4 & 12 were very good. Ricky scored okay but looked out of sorts and the others had nights to forget. But the main reason for the heavy defeat was that Glasgow were very good tonight. Cookie was sublime (I too have missed watching him ride like that) and I think he's bringing the best out of the rest of the team, particularly Chris Harris. I think Cookie may inspire Glasgow to get the away points required to pip us to the play-offs - and perhaps even to the league title!

Well done to Cookie...great to see him enjoying his racing again. Still a legend (even when wearing red & white). And congrats to Erik Riss on making the final. Great entertainment! I don't get the argument that GP riders shouldn't be in the Championship - I'm happy to see the best riders possible in the league that I watch my speedway. Craig is good enough to compete at SGP level, he just needs to believe in himself a bit more. I hope he does himself justice in a GP before the season is out.

Made the trip west more in hope than expectation and that appeared to be dashed as early as heat 2, with Coty left at the starting line and a machine malfunction causing Josh to fall when comfortably in the lead. Things got worse in the next race with Max taking a very awkward fall which put him out of the meeting - hope he recovers quickly. The racing in the early stages was poor due to the dry and dusty track, so was wishing I hadn't bothered. The racing started to improve from heat 7, which featured a fine battle between Worrall, Pickering and Thomas. Monarchs fortunes and scoring started to improve from heat 8 when Joel made a lightning start and was joined by Josh for an unexpected 5-1. Heat 10 was a standout with Harris and M Riss passing and repassing several times. Mark was probably a little fortunate to get back into heat 12 at the first attempt, but definitely not the second, but showed great determination in the 3rd staging to get the win with Josh picking up a good 3rd place by getting past Sarjeant. Tigers were unlucky in heat 13 as they gated on a 5-1 only for Chris Harris to rear violently across bends 1 & 2 and fall, and it was the Monarchs pairing who gated in the re-run. It looked like the victory would be clinched in heat 14 with Coty and Josh ahead until Josh, unsure whether to stick or twist, allowed Paul Starke back on level terms and in trying to block him had another machine malfunction which also allowed Thomas to pass him just before the line. Josh could easily have got double his score - he was definitely Mr Entertainment. So Monarchs needed a shared heat for an aggregate victory and we needn't have worried as our top boys Ricky and Erik, who were rock solid all afternoon, raced away for an easy 5-1. Now back home - tired, sunburnt & covered in dust but very happy!

Okay, fair enough, we'll agree to disagree. I don't think anyone is suggesting Edinburgh fans will desert Armadale en masse, or that even one Edinburgh fan will go to Ashfield rather than Armadale. However they will lose the Glasgow fans that currently attend regularly and perhaps some neutral fans. A move to Friday by Glasgow will certainly not add to attendances at Armadale, so I think it is quite reasonable for the Edinburgh management to oppose it. From a personal point of view I would miss standing with my Glasgow friends every Friday (and occasional Sunday). I am concerned with the aggressive and intimidating behaviour you and others have described. It has no place in speedway. Other than the odd shout across the terraces, I did not witness any on either Friday or Saturday night and I have to say I have never felt intimidated at a speedway meeting (and I have been attending for a very long time). Hopefully it was just a few isolated cases. On Saturday we had the biggest ever crowd at Armadale for a tense important local derby with no crowd segregation, no police and no stewards, and, from where I was standing at least, no trouble. Long may it continue.

Hey, it was a message not a letter So maybe it should be: Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge I'm trying not to lose my head...

I stand with a Glasgow fan who is a season ticket holder at both venues, and there are usually a few other Glasgow fans in our group on nights when Glasgow are not the visitors. So it would definitely affect attendances but by how many is difficult to say. At a guess I would say 25 to 30. If Glasgow were to go Elite (not beyond the realms of possibility) then, in addition to these 25 to 30, a further number of more neutral speedway fans might be tempted west to see the top stars in action. I understand that the Glasgow owners have done their research and think they can maximise their attendances by running on a Friday night - so that's what they want to do. I also understand that Edinburgh don't want to lose even 30 people attending on a Friday night - so they are opposed to this happening. As things stand there appears to be a rule that allows them to object to this, so naturally that is what they are going to do. And, although I'm not party to any conversations between them, I am surprised that the Glasgow owners were (hugely) surprised that this would be Edinburgh's stance. The problem with 'the letter' is that the Glasgow owners basically call the Edinburgh promotion liars and say they do not believe the reasons given for opposing the move. Instead they conclude that "the Monarchs are seeking to hinder our financial income, restrict our fan base growth and limit our ability to sign top riders who race abroad on a Sunday". Wow, that's some conclusion to jump to when all they've said is they don't want you to race on the same night as them. The Glasgow owners then compound this by going on to say they "feel compelled to announce that we will no longer be attending meetings at Armadale, as we don't want to help fund Edinburgh with one penny of our money now that it is clear they have decided to affect our income and growth." This comes across to me as childish, petulant and highly unprofessional. The timing of the message being issued also seemed to be deliberately trying to affect the attendance of Glasgow supporters at Armadale on the Saturday night (having already banked the admission money of the large Edinburgh contingent at Ashfield). This must surely have put a dampener on Glasgow fans excitement at being in the middle of a huge Premier League play-off with their local rivals. Unsure, if by going to support their team in their biggest match for decades, they might be displeasing the owners. I have been hugely impressed by what has happened at Glasgow since the Facenna brothers took over and a lot of goodwill towards Glasgow has been built up over that period. Some of that has been lost by the issuing of this message and I hope it's not too late for them to apologise for some of their comments and sort out the issue in an adult way by discussion with the Edinburgh promotion and going through whatever process is necessary with the BSPA.

Well done to Glasgow - look forward to meeting you in the final. I was hoping to make it through today but couldn't - looks like I missed a cracker! Spud riding superbly at the moment and it looks like James Sarjeant proved to be your match-winner today. Here's hoping for two close exciting meetings in front of massive crowds to bring down the curtain on the 2015 season. May the best team win!

http://www.speedwaygb.co/15results/edinburgh_02.10.15_res.pdf

Congratulations to Somerset - well deserved winners! After holding them close on Tuesday and wiping out the lead in two heats it looked like a straightforward win. Rebels had other ideas - Paul Starke, Richie Worrall and (latterly) Rasmus Jensen were excellent and Josh and Charles kept chipping in with solid points. Great tactics to replace Kurtz with Chessell in heat 13 to allow Worrall & Jensen to clinch the tie in heat 14. We definitely missed Kevin,​ and Sam is not looking as quick as he was before his injury. So glad to see Erik walk away from an awful heat 14 spill - he and the reserves were hit and miss all night and Max did not look fully fit. Sedgy was unlucky to blow an engine when on a 5-1 in heat 10. Cookie was majestic and his performances in 7 finals over the last 8 days have been truly phenomenal. I have been privileged to watch 4 of these live and 2 on the telly - only missed the one where he got a 15 point max and broke the track record! However, one man can't win a trophy on his own - even with a 30 point maximum. Well done again to the Rebels and their small dedicated band of fans who were applauded by the home support as they made their way round from the 3rd bend to see the presentation to their team.

Well that was thoroughly enjoyable. Congratulations to Poole on winning but also congratulations to Belle Vue on putting up a great fight and just missing out. I was supporting BV because of their Edinburgh connections but I have a lot of time for Poole and how they promote speedway there. So pleased that Cookie showed his true talent on the big stage (although worried it might persuade him to leave the PL) - he was the top rider over the two legs. Also thought Scott Nicholls performed magnificently in both legs. Matej Zager was brilliant in the first leg and tried his heart out tonight for little reward. For Poole Maciej was magic tonight and played a captain's role to get his team over the line. I think if the BV track had been prepared as normal they would have taken a reasonable lead to Poole and might just have won the title. I don't think there's anything in 'gogglegate'. I'm sure not many fans knew it was illegal (I certainly didn't) and I thought it was very brave of Kyle to ride without goggles rather than get excluded for time (for those that don't know, it's much more difficult to race speedway without goggles than with them). Two great meetings in front of two big crowds that came over very well on TV. Well done to all involved.