JamesHarris

Spot on mate.

And still is. You will see it everywhere in most Hindu and Buddhist countries.

What utter nonsense. You have fallen for the leftie propaganda by the sound of it. Old Dixie is a part of Southern heritage. To compare it to the Nazi swastika is both pathetic and ignorant. The only people the flag offends is snowflakes. I once talked to a black American on holiday who was from Alabama. I asked him about the Confederate flag and his reply was it was part of southern heritage and he even had one on his porch (the BBC would never tell you that). I was actually amazed at that but he told me the only people who have an issue with it are Liberals with an agenda.

Thats a carbon copy of the 1977 White City race jacket. Way back in 2000 I always thought the "rebels" nickname was a reference to the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion and the following battle of Sedgemoor in 1688 but if you look into the rebellion and what happened to the Duke and his followers you would hardly want to celebrate it. I don't have any issue with the Confederate flag or "Old Dixie". Anyone that takes offence at it or thinks that it is racist needs to get back to the holes they came from.

I realise that some people will not like Poole. As a Coventry fan I understand that. In football depending on who you support you may not like Man Utd or Liverpool. But I will say this, I have been disgusted by the comments I have read on here and social media from so called fans who seem to be gloating at the fact Poole may close. Poole have been the best team for years. Love em' or hate em' hats off to Matt Ford. If Poole go under any true speedway fan should take heed.

One thing the powers that be who run speedway have to decide in the future is do you market it as a team sport or an individual sport because you can't have both.

Good point to be fair. Off the top of my head though there is Sheffield, Swindon, Wolves, Birmingham, Kent, Newcastle & Poole so 31.8% of all operational tracks in the UK

We can go on all day about the state of British Speedway. In my opinion I don't think it will ever be the same again in this country after effectively being closed down this year. I think possibly having Nicki Pedersen and Jason Crump back in the league plus being on Eurosport would have re-generated interest to the outsider but we will never know. I do think the biggest threat now to British speedway though is not the donkeys who run the sport but the lucrative price of land for housing and political correctness. Does speedway really make money? With regards to housing you may have noticed in the news this week the Government has pushed through policy making it easier to obtain planning permission for housing. If a stadium owners is offered big bucks by a housing developer for his land will he or her take it? If you were offered millions of pounds it would be hard to turn down. As for political correctness this refers to Greyhound racing which obviously affects most speedway tracks in the UK. The leftie brigade want Greyhound racing abolished. The way things are going its only a matter of time before they get their way. With no income from that and the lucrative bookmaker streaming services the owners will cut their losses and sell. British speedway needs to re-invent itself as a team sport and fast. The die hard fans in their 60's and 70's will not be here forever and I don't see any way of attracting the instagram generation to take their places the way things stand. I've said this before and been laughed at but how about setting up two "franchise" teams to compete in the Polish League? Manchester Aces, Sheffield Steel, Glasgow Tigers?? Could be marketed to a whole new audience. Has worked in Super League and other sports.

I've not gone all through this thread but one thing I was wondering today is what if most of the riders who race in the British Leagues have now found themselves decent paid jobs this year to make a living. Come 2021 (if we are back to normal then) Will the same riders think "you know what, I'm quite enjoying having a steady income and not have to worry about the expense of running 2 bikes". Will the occasional spin in a Amateur meeting at Scunny be enough to satisfy their desire to race? Of cause I am only talking about the bread and butter riders here and not the top international one's who have lucrative deals in Poland or Sweden. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Look all you need to do with Boris is shout loud enough and he'll change his mind. What we need to do is start a campaign "we want to attend our sport stadiums", get it all over social media, get some mediocre premeirship footballer to vocally back it, have a segment on the Jeremy Vine show and within 30 minutes Boris will put out a release that he has done a U turn on attending sports stadia

Does anyone have a spare programme from Newport 2008 they could sell me please? It was the year they closed down mid-May due to the death of Tim Stone. It's the only track I can't get one for for that year. Thanks.

Sorry if this is not allowed on here but I'm selling a very rare Norwegian Ice speedway programme form 2009 on ebay if anyone is interested https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/383467373769?ul_noapp=true&fbclid=IwAR2NqTflHWn4spjHvGnC3itqAHx-FRICiOew0IK-pk553fConiReXSiXf_g

Oooohhhhh!! Somebody needs a poo

Cricky old lad, wind your neck back in. (Lancashire runs from the Lake District down to the north of Manchester) - Really!! I thought it was near Southampton??

Sounds good if you have a landowner willing to provide the land. Only snag is though you already have Buxton. And it may not go down to well with Belle Vue. Good luck though.

Brace yourselves for all the long winding press releases from your new manager that make it all about himself

Look I know my comments here are not going to make me any friends but here we go. The bottom line I think is that the BSPA has finally lost patience with "Ghost Teams" popping up year after year in the junior leagues and now that Cradley have folded, the thorn in the side of that argument has finally been removed. I've sat on the fence over the last few years and watched the MDL/MDSL with interest and In my honest opinion for what it's worth it has started to look a bit silly with all these old names being used. One or two like we had a few years ago is fine but when the league is made up of more defunct teams than actual junior teams of the promotion it starts to look a bit of a joke. Do the speedway star still run a fantasy league for people wanting to use such team names? I know the people running these teams are helping juniors get track time and that has to be applauded. But, I do believe that people running the likes of Reading, Weymouth, Crayford, New Cross, Wembley, etc, etc, have a very different agenda to those running the junior teams at Birmingham, I.O.W or Belle Vue. I could be very wrong of cause. I do sympathise with the people running the ghost teams. I know it takes a lot of hard work and enthusiasm, but if you are genuine about giving young lads track time and helping them develop then just swallow the bullet and call your teams Swindon juniors, Plymouth reserves, etc. After all if you are genuine then you will not care about team names, trophies and so on as long as the lads (and girls) are benefiting from a meaningful team competition. I know the objective of such enthusiast's it to find land and build a new track to revive them, but please, please, please wake up and smell the coffee. Unless you have endless pockets of cash, and are even lucky to get a patch of land when councils are after more land for homes, then you are just living in a romantic fantasy land. Cradley have failed and given up. Take lessons from that. The other thing you have to take into account is the 2 men now running the BSPA have no time what so ever for the junior leagues I will just finish on this. The language used in recent weeks on social media by the organisers of such teams to describe the powers that be has been very unsavoury when you are "promoting" yourselves as a family sport on the other side of the coin. It makes you look childish and like you are throwing your toys out of the pram. Sorry if my comments are a bit harsh but there's no point sugarcoating the truth.

Hi, I'm after a bit of help please as I've started to collect programmes again. Since 2012 have any MDL or NJL clubs such as Milton Keynes, etc printed their own separate raceday programmes and what years? Also have any rounds of the youth championship been held at Sittingbourne or Northside since 2011? Thanks

Sounds like the wrong topic to write about but I was wondering in these modern times when land is at a premium for housing, what will be the first track to permanently close its doors in the 2020's? At the turn of the last century there used to be a new track opening every couple of years but there has not been any new ventures (if you take Belle Vue's new track out of it) since Kent opened in 2013. I wonder how many tracks will be in operation in 2030?

The brutal honest truth is the BSPA don't like "ghost" teams. Now that Cradley have gone they have probably put their foot down. That said they still seem happy enough to take the £300? or whatever it is now for these teams to enter the development league's. It used to be on the grounds that they had 1 year to find a venue. If Reading have land fair play to them. I hope it goes well. But some of these "ghost" teams have absolutely no chance in finding land and even if they did it would probably be financial suicide. If my memory serves me right no new track (if we take Belle Vue out) has opened since Kent in 2013? That is a long time. There would always be a new track opening up every other year until the turn of the last decade. On the subject of Ghost teams how did Lakeside and Rye House get away with calling their joint NL team Hackney a few years ago?

As I've posted before I don't really know much about dog racing so I can't comment about the animals welfare but what I will say if anyone who jumps on the animal rights bandwagon and claims that horse racing is cruel and barbaric are very naive and easily led or they have absolutely no knowledge of how the horses are trained and looked after. They are probably treated better than humans. Their stables are immaculate and are the equine equivalent of the Savoy with prices to match. Everyone is entitles to their opinion but what folk must understand is a thoroughbred racehorse is a trained athlete. They are ultra competitive. They are individuals and have their own temperament. They have a jockey on board to guide and encourage them but they are not forced to race. Surely you have seen a race where a horse has refused to start? A loose horse will continue running not because it is a stupid beast and it has been trained to do so. It will continue because it wants to beat the others (even though there's no jockey on board). Unfortunately though horses do get fatally injured. It is horrible to witness and no racing fan enjoys seeing it. When it happens it is usually instant (broken neck), but if a horse incurs a leg break, etc, the care they receive is immediate and the the horse is "put to sleep" within minutes. It's horrible yes, but if a speedway rider suffered a fatal crash or a driver is killed in motor racing do we say their respective sports are inhumane and should be banned? Of cause not. Someone posted on this subject that horses are killed every year in the Grand National. This is highly inaccurate. One unfortunately died this year but prior to that the last fatality in the race was 2012.

I agree. I don't know much about Greyhound racing but once the PC animal rights brigade eventually succeed in getting it eradicated in the UK they will move their attention to Horse Racing and that is when these crazed extremists will come undone. Horse racing in the USA is not the same as the rest of the World. In the US, horse racing is primarily a gambling business. You will notice all the racetracks are identical and it's more about the speed of the horse (more about this can be read in Frankie Dettori's autobiography). In the rest of the World racing is big big business worth billions of pounds. You will notice that it is highly influenced by rich arabs. Once these animal rights loons start targeting horse racing here and in Europe my guess is their ring leaders will "get a visit in the night" or go missing.

Very surprised with the signing of Lasse Fredriksen. I may have missed something over that last couple of years but of his age group Glen Moi and Thomas Gunnestad were far better though I think Thomas does not ride much now? Norway is not exactly the hotbed of speedway these days. Lasse may turn out to be a good signing for you but I am a bit baffled.

Trouble is we now have a chairman of the BSPA who only cares about the present and will only worry about the future come November 2020. A Vice-Chairman who has no interest in junior racing or development and a NL coordinator who will do as he is told. Make of it what you will.

Unless Glasgow or Edinburgh move up as well it would be financial suicide for Berwick to move up to the Premiership. Unless of cause there is going to be "one big league"