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Nope. That's not how it works. I've already preemptively responded to this with the Robert Lambert example. Riders orders are declared. Swindon had a facility for a rider who was not missing for a genuine reason. Frankly anyone putting their faith in THJ gets all they deserve. He's never done anything decent in the UK. Often looks like a poor wobbler - which is odd because watch him abroad and he's a decent enough rider.

It's a joke that THJ can still ride. When Robert Lambert had to ride in Poland a few weeks back and Newcastle got no facility, when his Polish meeting was rained off they got a facility (due tot he 24 hours after an FIM meeting rule), if that was allowed then that means BWD should have to ride tonight. How can you have a guest for a rider who is available? There is NOTHING in the rules that allowed THJ to still ride.

It funny how speedway riders value themselves. In the real World most people go to college/school and then uni so don't earn a penny until they're 22 (other than part time work around studies) and they pay £9000 a year for 3 years too. Maybe speedway riders need something similar where they don't earn anything until a certain level - if by the time they're 22 they're not good enough to earn a living they either give up or ride for nothing. It's always confused me why the NL costs so much when it's a development league (before some bright spark chimes in, the leagues official name is, "The National Development League" so maybe like university, riders should be paying to ride in it? Obviously not directly but they should not be taking a wage from it. Is speedway the only sport where at 16 you can be pretty pants, compete in front of 200 people and still take home a wage? Compete in front of 200 people in most other sports and you're charged an entry fee - thinking motorcross, autograss/bangers, sunday league football etc here.

Agree with this. The fact they're running the sport on speadsheets. ARGH! Databases and full systems. That way when a fixture is changed it can be emails and texted in seconds to all riders, managers and anyone else in the list for the effected teams (potentially fans too), the BSPA and club websites could be updated instantly. The one time a spreadsheet is possibly the answer is the referees scorecard but that should be a case of webpage that lets them select the date, the competition and the two teams. It then asks for the riding order. If a guest is needed it will give a list of all eligible guests. This spreadsheet will then go back into the system at the end of the meeting and averages will be available within minutes. That way you can change rolling averages to any number of meetings you like. But also why are we arranging meeting on dates of GP qualifiers and SEC meetings? It ok having some all singing and dancing system but if you don't put the dates that are not free in, it won't work. Another issue with spread sheets, two teams sit there changing things on a spreadsheet, send it back to someone for them to put it all into one master sporeadsheet but in that time something has changed. With a database it's instant, Club A say, "can we change to this date" and Club B say "yes" and someone at the SCB/BSPA clicks a confirm button having got an email/text to say a change has been requested.

Good, sometimes you have to kill off and cut away to grow. We spent years pandering to Eastbourne in the EL, where are they now? Speedway has in the past spent too much effort on pandering to the weak. So on one hand you think theres too much doubling up but on the other don't want less clubs? How do you propose getting rid of some of the double uppers? Because we sure as hell can't magic up 30-dd new riders, so closing two clubs would limit half the problem. Losing 4 or 5 clubs would be better. I hate everyone equally, I'm very independent As for fixture clashes, I have some software that is probably 70-80% complete for solving this. The only reason it's not any furter complete is because I'd need to speak to someone at the BSPA/SCB to see how they wanted it to work. But my thinking is every club would log into a website, put all their home dates in, put any dates they cannot ride on (due to foreign commitments). Then put in any manually arranged meetings (bank holidays etc where they want specific teams on specific dates). From there the system will give each team a meeting a week home and away so that all teams have ridden the same number of meetings at the end of the week. It will also try and keep the second meeting against a team away from the first (rather than riding the same team twice in a month) and it will avoid clashes without doubling up riders - so if Leicester are at Swindon it will either be on a day other than Thursday or if it's a Thursday it will be a Thursday that Ipswich are not at home. It CAN be done as I've tested it. Just need minor detailing.

They're not going to go to the expense of filming the speedway to stick it on the red button for a few 1000 people.

Nothing can be done retrospectively. The rules say BV had to appeal before the next heat. Thats it. However, thats a stupid rule. Imagine Poole had used an illegal rider in their last meeting at Somerset and won the meeting by a point (or two), Somerset had not noticed. Had that illegal rider not been used Poole had lost. Rye House should be allowed to appear retrospectively. The rule is abysmal, but, you can't ignore the rules that says you have to appeal sooner or you're breaking the rules yourself.

Except it wasn't a fuss over nothing. The rules at the time were broken. Had Mark Lemon appealed before the running of heat 13 that night then Newmans points would have been removed. Funny isn't it how it was heat 12 again and it was Mark Lemon missing it again. How much more is he going to cost BV with his poor knowledge of the rules?!

Lets assume it was a GP. Lets assume that the BSPA dont recognise the GP series. If Bjerre didn't ride the DMU would suspend him. Now change GP to SEC and what do you have? Ah yes, Bjerre either rides in the SEC or gets suspended by the DMU. He can't win, whatever happens someone is suspending him or he's letting down a club/country.

You could equally argue that mayve Briggs, Moore, Craven, Knutson were not "that" good, and around that time in reality there was not great speedway rider, just a lot of good ones? This is a fun argument I say argument but I think we agree. You can only compare people to their peers and riders of their day, its impossible to compare riders unless their careers overlap and even then it's difficult if one is just started as one ends. Greg Hanocks wins/career for me show how good TRick and Crump where though for this reason, he won a title before they got going (I know TRick had won one at that point) and won a few after TRick and Crump were gone but what did he do while they were around? Throw in Nicki over the same period and it was only when he had suffered a few injuries Greg got going again. So while Greg with 4 titles is one of the greats, Crump and TRick were something else. What I was of Hans, looking at the stas etc. clearly a damn good rider but I'm not convinced he'd have won as many title in another era. He lacks that big occasion mentality and others who had it would have chewed him up and spat him out. How funny you should post this after my response to you last post!

I thought that, then I checked the regulations. The rain off date was always Monday. So why the hell was a play-off meeting arranged that day?!

No, you can appeal before the next heat. Once the next heat has been run you can't appeal it. Funny isn't it, how Lemon has twice missed things.

You could argue it's not Rosco job to stop himself cheating Its for the referee and opposing team manager to stop!

TBF, in this case if you take BWD 2 points away and leave it at that, or you take BWDs 2 away and move the other 2 riders up it means a 9 point win. It doesn't actually matter here. But I agree generally.

The current point scoring system is brilliant. It's rare a heat 15 doesn't mean something these days. As mentioned, it was better when you only got 2 for a home win of 1-6 points though. Because it was confusing. You get to heat 15, you've won the meeting (or lost it) and you ask, "Can we get a bonus point Dave?" and Dave replies, "I don't know, what was the score in the other meeting?" Not a clue, don't know. You may laugh at this but I was at a Stoke vs Newport meeting many years ago when Newport promoter Tim Stone come out into the crowd and asked us, "What do we need to get a bonus point", the away promoter didnt know FFS, neither did the fans because the programme was a rain off programme from before the 1st leg and nobody had thought to check before hand in case the programme didnt tell us! At least what we have now, we all know when we go home if bonus points have been won and they matter in every meeting, not just the second leg.

Didnt a Redcar rider have an illegal R/R ride or something vs Somerset last season? Although it was pointed out on here and it meant Somerset lost a league point they would have otherwise won the BSPA deemed it a "statement of fact" by the referee because Somerset had not appealed before the next heat?

Why heat 14? Heat 12 was the heat that Musliak should have been out in and BWD scored 2 point in that race that should be removed, provided Lemon appealed before heat 13 was run (but I doubt it tbh). Making it a 9 point difference.

Ivan was retired by the time I was old enough to know I was at a speedway meeting. But I was lucky enough to see him do the "final 4 laps" (plus a dozen more!) at Exeter. He come out and took it steady for 4 laps and it was a bit underwhelming, then he got faster and faster. His final 4 laps while not flat out showed that even into his 60s he could still ride a bike, he could have probably scored points in the meeting itself if he had wanted to, he just oozed class. That was just some demo rides from a guy I'd only heard about (and seen on video) up to that point. I was amazed. It's damn hard to argue he was anything but the best speedway rider of all time. As has been said it's hard to compare riders of different eras but having watched and read everything I have about Ivan I've no doubt that with his mind set, his will to win and his methodical approach Ivan would have been a success in whatever he chose and that means he'd have made it as the very best in any era, it may have taken more work, it may have taken a different approach but I'm certain he'd have done. The fact he's been retire 30 years and people still talk about that time he was beat by x, y and z. You clearly didn't get beat very often if that's how you're remembered!!

Ah yes, that well known reason for a facility, "unforeseen circumstances"

Keeping his average down in a pointless meeting

Maybe a sponsor has offer to pay more if their are more fans in the stadium. OK they might lose say 10 or 15% from the gate but if a sponsor is offering you enough that it will cover it and then some. Sponsor always seems to be forgotten, what is a sponsor more likely to want to sponsor? 1000 people all spread out and bored. Or 4000 people squashed in, making noise and having a good time?

But why does TV want play-offs? Because it gets viewers. So the viewers must like them. And who are the viewer? The fans. Odd that.

I've never once had an issue with paying extra for a play-off final. And the crowd sizes suggest nobody else does. I'd happily pay £30 now to watch Newport or Coventry in a play-off final. Speedway gets a lot of things wrong but IMO, plays off are one of the three things it has right. The other two being the points limit and the league points system of 3-2-1-0-1-2-3-4. Yes all 3 could potentially be tweaked but the basic idea is spot on. Keep the play-offs, they're brilliant.

Im not going to knock Poole running a NL team but to suggest it produced any riders is pushing it. Poole/Bournmouth signed ready made riders - which again, I'm not knocking, its how it has to work. Mind you, Coventry Storm did produce a young lad by the name of James Shanes!

Sorry, it was meant to be a jokey comment. I thought you knew by now to take a lot of my comments are me being sarcy/facetious