Chairboy

Jakobsen won't be riding

Does anyone know if Bradley Wilson-Dean is fit for this? I believe he missed his Championship fixture on Saturday.

RH v Leicester abandoned after 8 of the scheduled 15 heats. Keep your tickets for reduced admission to a future meeting! 50% off, maybe? No, 20% on the grounds that the result would have stood after 10 heats. "You couldn't make it up"

I'm not usually one to make negative comments (so now you know one is coming) - we all realise no-one is making money from speedway in this country, we should be grateful for any track continuing to run, etc...but... RH have achieved something that I wouldn't have believed possible. They have actually made the 'stadium' worse. That monstrosity of wooden planks held together with iron bars near the start line has to be a late April Fool joke, surely? And I do hope the ArenaCross(?) track in the middle brings in some decent money, because from a speedway fan's point of view, it makes the place look dreadful.

It may well be that the BSPA made an error in giving Clegg the 2 point average, and if that's the case they deserve to be criticised for it. But no fault can be attached to RH, surely? What's done is done. It's not as if the error (if that's what it is) was published just for a day or two and then corrected. It's been on the SGB website for months, and it's still there now. I'm glad I'm not a speedway promoter for many reasons (!) - but I have to say, if I were Steve Jenson and the BSPA were to refuse his team at this stage, when he has done nothing wrong, my reaction would inevitably be to ask myself "why am I bothering with all this?".

Genuine question - How/when do we find out that a team has been ratified (or not)?

RH haven't made the figure up themselves - it's on the Final Version of the 2017 Greensheet Averages. It's on the SGB website now, as it has been for some time. Aren't these the figures we are supposed to use?

KK confirmed on RH twitter

Now that Shanes has been announced by Poole, am I right in thinking that RH are the only Premiership team yet to complete?

Please tell us more!

Every day I click on that RH website, thinking maybe, just maybe...there might be some news about the last rider. How foolish I always feel afterwards. "Why did you look?", I ask myself. Haven't you got anything better to do? What has your life come to? I need help...

Isn't the limit 42.50? Surely that leaves RH with 7.28?

Exactly, Mr Trees. The point is that all England World Cup fixtures have a detrimental effect on attendances at all kinds of other events. Most sports promoters would try to avoid clashing with one, if at all possible.

Ah, that's ok then. Thanks for that.

Monday 18 June, home fixture v Rye House. The same evening as England play a World Cup football match! How did Buster stand for that?!

Can't someone just make up a rumour about what's going on with RH's last rider?

It's been said before, but it's still true - British speedway's asset system is effectively one which was ruled illegal in football years ago by the European Court, and was thereby brought to an abrupt end.

So now we know...having just listened to the interview with Steve Jenson, it is clear Rye House were not in favour of the new 8 point rule

I agree with redandyellow, SJ comes across as a very decent guy. Rye House fans are fortunate to have him (and Warren Scott) backing the sport at Hoddesdon. In relation to that podcast, one question I would like to have been put to him would have been - is he planning any further improvement to the 'stadium' before next season? He seems very focussed on improving the racing product - but can any more be done in terms of improving seating/viewing areas?

Personally, I really don't have a problem with riders 'doubling up' in different leagues. What I find frustrating is fixture clashes causing riders to be absent. Fixed nights should pretty much solve this, shouldn't it?

It may sound perverse -as most contributors on here have disagreed with my views - but I am actually pleased to see that the current system clearly has support from 'the fans'!

So glad you brought that one up - that genuinely was an excellent idea

Fair play, HJD. For what it's worth, I don't like the Away Goals rule in football either! Thanks for a reasonable response to my comments though.

...and possibly a degree of sporting integrity, too. Do you watch football? Whatever you may think of the sport, I think we would all love speedway to enjoy just a small percentage of the popularity that football generates. Football seems to operate well enough with 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw. Can you imagine football awarding an extra league point if you don't lose by too much? Or giving the away team an extra point for a draw? The league tables in speedway are a mess. Also, if you are watching Man Utd against Bournemouth and United go 3-0 up, do you think it would be a good idea for Bournemouth's next goal to count double "to make it interesting"? Some may say you can't compare speedway to football - but I (obviously!) think you can - and should.

Too many people are in favour of the end of season play-offs for them ever to be scrapped completely. If your club is involved in them I guess you are happy - but those that don't qualify have to finish their league programme (relatively) early, then sit and watch while 4 clubs have (up to) 4 extra meetings. I know I'm not the first to suggest this but the ideal scenario (in my opinion) would be to amalgamate the top 2 divisisions into 1 big league which would then be split into North and South divisions. The 2 divisional champions could then have a 2 leg play-off to become national champions.