Big Al

103 riders across the PL and EL at the moment, give or take a couple. If BSPA were to write now to each of them, stating "Our intention is that from 2020 the UK will run meetings only on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Occasionally Mondays will be used, but Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be set aside for those riders who wish to ride in Sweden and Denmark. Therefore UK clubs will not be able to engage the services of any rider who has contractual commitments to a Polish club, which could prevent him from fulfilling UK commitments. Please let us know, by return, if you would be prepared to remain competing in the UK under those conditions." How many of the 103 would say yes. And what assurances would they need?

He isn't related to Peter Madsen is he? (guy who was recently convicted of murdering a journalist on his home-made submarine near Copenhagen)

James? His brother Charles rides for Sheffield btw

Wait till Friday!

I thought he wasn't given very long to settle and seemed a bit left out in a team spirit sense. He was very young then and perhaps not given enough encouragement. Still, Leicester reserves in those days were not generally treated very well, there was a long list of short tenures. The track was difficult for less experienced riders to master and so they tended to lose confidence.

I see that Charles Wright who has just been sacked by Somerset has an average of 6.36 but of course that will soon change whether up or down I don't know. But if he has become a troublemaker I'm not sure he'd be worth it anyway. The Bateses will know best of course with him being at Sheffield this year. I thought Leicester actually treated him quite badly in 2011.

Amazing innit? Three totally different reasons. NL has probably saved itself from a bore/dust fest though. Good opportunity to do some work on the track?

Coventry v Buxton tomorrow is off due to an electrical problem. National League 4's cancelled due to "a combination of circumstances". Leicester v Wolves (apparently) put back to 2 July. Is something going on?? (apart from the footy)

And less likely - Paddy Hougaard , Krys Buczkowski, Simon Wozniak and Greg Walasek

Woffinden was obviously making sure that GB got the silver medal and celebrated his success afterwards.

Quite so. And it sounds as if that's fixable. But I'm curious to know how the shape could be changed including to what extent.

Yes - would you be looking at keeping within the current boundaries, or expanding them?

Ok - fair enough I think most people would agree that remodelling would be great. Give us some detail including when the work could be carried out.

So what is the (realistic) solution?

Seems like Josh Bates can now be ruled out of the season. Danny King is having to continue with nerve damage which could impair him for the rest of the season. So will the management keep things as they are, or look to bring someone in (e.g. to replace Todd Kurtz)? The scope for UK - based riders looks a bit on the thin side though. But getting Kyle Newman back to reserve has got to be a priority. Will the new averages create any more elbow room?

A good win for the Lions tonight will set the season back on course for the playoffs. Expect Kenny Bjerre to shake off his recent doldrums with a big score befitting a No.1 and lead the way. Danny King looked sharp on Monday and I'm sure that KP will be back to his early season scoring. The reserves have been riding regularly during the fallow PL period, so I expect they will use the home track advantage to turn the screw. Leicester by at least 10 for me.

So perhaps the way forward is to resume SwC next year as a one-off event, held in Poland. The teams to be Poland A, Poland B, Poland C and Poland D. That should make them happy. The rest can get on and have an improved version of SoN, not held in Poland, but they can send a team if they wish.

There should only be a race-off when the top two teams finish three points or fewer apart. And if there is a race-off, the leading team can carry their advantage into the race-off.

Presumably you are a former rider? Could you go through exactly how Tai Woffinden should have engineered the race so as to enable Lambert to pass Sayfutdinov, without undue risk to himself being passed by the Russian. By the way I take no offence at your language.

The final was contested between the two best nations produced by four days competition and goodness knows how many heats. You can therefore presume that all four riders taking part were of a sufficiently high calibre to look after themselves and not require to be nursemaided. Woffinden was effectively giving a message, to Lambert and possibly Speedway GB also. He was saying "you shouldn't need to be over reliant on me now - I've done more than my fair share of points scoring and nursemaiding, time for you to stand on your own feet and prove your worth."

It works in GP because the method is the accumulation of points throughout the season. Now, if the overall GP winner were to be decided by a single race-off after the end of the final GP of the season, between the four highest agrregate points scorers from the whole season, that would probably be pushing it a bit too far (can you imagine....but I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility!!).

If you take somebody like Richard Lawson for example - a good old "bread and butter" British rider, the sort who you would think essential to the UK leagues. According to SS, he has a place with Opole, a team in the Polish third tier. If Richard was asked to commit to a UK contract requiring him to effectively guarantee priority to UK fixtures in the event of any clash with an Opole match for which they also required him, would he do so? Depends on how important, financially and/or otherwise, a squad place with Opole is for him when set against being fully available for his UK teams especially if, as someone has said on here, the UK hoists the Union Jack and builds its league calendar around Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Tempting though it is to take that route, I think it would create a serious rider shortage and a league with much fewer clubs at somewhere between current CL and NL level. The efforts and case for saving Brandon would become pointless, the NSS would probably become redundant for speedway. Is that what we want? The other way is to negotiate with other nations and keep trying to find an agreeable, acceptable solution. The problem is, though, you have to have you own house in order before you can do that. And the UK still hasn't done that.

I'd say they are two away from it

I caught some of a Swedish match yesterday, Bjerre and Andersen were on opposing sides and in second string positions. Was a bit shocked at how mediocre they were, Bjerre very poor from the starts and not competitive, Hans being passed by such as Thomsen and Milik on the first lap as if he was standing still.

Ah, thinking a bit further ahead than that!