Hamster00

You can blame the track as much as you want and I might be in the minority here but I want us to win more than anything whether it's a good meeting or not if we lose I'm disappointed As poor as the track was the Monarchs had there gating gloves on which is paramount at Berwick, the riders should be getting more flak imo.

Best laugh of the night 😂

In a word embarrassing Beaten by our closest rivals and no entertaining racing at all Barker clearly wasn't fit enough I didn't think this team was up to much when it was announced and I think even less of it now.

Rider replacement should help us but is Barker 100% yet? We should probably win this but it's Edinburgh and Cookie so I can see an away win being on the cards after we take a healthy lead and blow it. Cookie to clean house and then slate Berwick on twitter

Fair point I was just going by the official greensheet averages on the BSPA site

I thought Simon Stead finished top of the averages last season? Stead, King and Cook are the top 3 in the league imo with Barker, Kennett and the like not far behind The difference is, all of the above apart from Cook have found there level Cook still has a chance to progress.

That teams as bad as my Leigh Lanham shout.

You obviously haven't seen half the teams Berwick have assembled over the past 10 years then

Tero Aarnio would start the season on 5.54 and more than likely finish the season somewhere near they he is a gap filler if no other options are left but he wouldn't be my choice If we stick with Allen and have 19.50 left to play with how about Anders Mellgren 6.57 Leigh Lanham 4.90 Ben Wilson 4.86 Nathan Greaves 3.00 Leaves us with 0.17 to play with Granted that team won't exactly be world beaters but people like Lanham can help young Allen along and I see a lot of Sheffield fans were disappointed Ben Wilson didn't get re-signed It's just an idea so that at least we have one reasonably strong reserve to cover if Allen is struggling.

I don't think Sitera was booted due to under performing it was so we could fit Lubos Tomicek in personally I wouldn't have booted him as early as we didn't see enough of him to know what he would be like, he did in the end go to Glasgow and was pretty poor but so was Tomicek so swings and roundabouts there Sike yeah they got it right by booting him after a handful as he was never going to set the league alight I just think we do let some riders just hang about for way too long, Robin Aspregen for instance did nothing for a full season and still managed to see it out It just confuses me sometimes some of the decisions that have been made.

In 2013 all the changes were forced on us due to injury and all the changes that came with that In 2012 as you say we used 17 riders, of those 17 10 of them were injured at some point during the season and we also made some big errors with signings at the start of the season and had to sack Filip Sitera after a handful of meetings to fit in replacements once again a lot of these changes were forced In 2011 we had 3 riders who were replaced by injury and the other changes were getting rid of Tamas Sike why we signed him in the first place who knows and we replaced Charlie Gjedde who was garbage and was in the team for far too long in 2010 6 of our 10 riders were injured at some point during the season forcing changes again in 2009 we only had one injured rider but we also let William Lawson stay for way too long.

You make changes, sign different riders, get rid of certain riders, one area we have certainly lacked in is our inability to replace under performing riders during the season we seem to give them way longer than they deserve, change the team management and so on and so forth You don't just stand still and let it pass you by.

You've lost me with that statement?

I only went to one meeting where the crowd at Edinburgh I would say was bigger than ours and that was the play off final I would say they are on a par if not smaller on occasion Out of interest how many times were you at Armadale last season?

As I have alluded to a few times we work wonders off the track which is where the promotion as a whole do well I don't think it's a cheap shot to say our on track performances have been poor bar last year I am practically saying as you are it's time to build off the back of a good season and continue to try and be a competitive team capable of making the play offs Where we disagree is on the team I suppose Barker is a good signing but it's the pieces you put around him that make the difference so signing him as good as it is isn't going to make us a play off team I am disappointed with the TJ signing as I don't rate him and I don't see his average going up that my personal opinion Jake Allen was a good idea on a 5 but on a 7 I think it's too much of a risk as results in Australia mean very little really I am just worried that we may not move forward unless they have something up there sleeve but personally I can't see it.

I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure that we get bigger crowds than Edinburgh and Newcastle so what being a big city has to do with it has got me? Would you say Workington are a big city because they seem to be able to put out some very competitive teams year in year out and are in the play off race Are you actually saying what we have achieved over the past six seasons is acceptable on the track that is? As I did say we have achieved wonders off the track and I'm not moaning about that but you must have missed that so you could completely take my post out of proportion I am simply saying it's about time we build on our success and personally I don't think we are looking like doing that You've taken everything I have said and blown it ridiculously out of proportion I am being realistic by saying we can be a play off team every year and I'm not having a dig at everything our promotion does as you seem to think I sir just think we can do better.

It's more being realistic than being negative we have worked wonders off the track agreed but one play off season in six under the current promotion is unacceptable imo and we need to build on the success of last season Yes we've signed Ben Barker but that doesn't get me any more excited about the season I'd rather watch a team of gating tarts win the league than Ben Barker and six also rans and finish near the bottom which is what could happen if we are not careful I want to watch us win I'm a Berwick Bandits fan not someone looking for a fun night out and if we start losing at home and struggling I am going to be an unhappy bunny.

This promotion could learn a lot from PW they have worked wonders on improving the race surface, bringing big meetings to Shielfield, getting our stadium FIM approved and making it a fun family night out. But on the track it has rarely came to fruition up until last season, we had 5 seasons of mediocre teams and terrible signings now after last season is the time to make a statement and get in to the play offs again Instead of being the nice guys and not sacking riders and just signing riders because there nice guys it's time to be a bit more cut and thrust a bit more PW, if this is a make or break season for Berwick Speedway it's time to bin Allen and sign someone else, someone proven it'd be really nice if they would bin TJ but that won't happen that's just my fantasy world I would sign Pepe as he will put points on his average sometimes you have to go back to go forwards.

His average is high considering he's never achieved much in the past just scored well at reserve last season His average will drop I think.

He would miss two Saturdays next season Would rather have him than some of the other options out there longtrack or no longtrack.

But Jorgensen as with Theo and Rusty is not a club asset therefore age should make no difference it's how good they are on the track Signing Allen is understandable to build up the asset base but when it comes to riders on loan it should be the best available option Some people may think Jorgensen is the best available option although I do agree with Robin and it would have been Theo or Rusty over Jorgensen for me But then there are plenty of other riders I would have had over Theo and Rusty.

We may all be brilliant team managers but we will never get the chance.

They have changed there tactic though last season we only started with only one rider on an average over 7 This season we have two over 7 if Jake Allens average is a 7 as guessed and we have one over 8 On the face of things we have had a change of tactic It may work but if it ain't broke don't fix it as they always say.

It's not just Edinburgh's model last year they seem to produce teams capable of winning leagues year in year out and most of the time with a similar formula We have just produced a winning formula last season and now we have changed the formula no wonder we can't find consistency from season to season and it's one reason why I fancy us to be well down this season.

Barker may improve his average slightly but I can't see much improvement I would say Berwick were the best of a bad bunch last season I reckon if you look at the two teams in the play off final there would have been some big improvements there.