Noelinho

I expect Mario to struggle. Kevin might be OK but will likely be outscored by opposite numbers on his first visit. I'm pretty sure Edinburgh will win but let's see how our new boys adapt during the meeting and see how our reserves stack up. The 1-3-5 boys should be fairly equal and entertaining.

Today I, a lifelong cricket fan, have learned that county cricket is streamed on YouTube, from a speedway forum. Glad to see the ECB spend that £40million budget just as badly as others do.

The post above has it nailed. If there is no real reward for winning, and nothing really missed by losing, there is no incentive to invest more time and energy, so most don’t. This is meant to be (and is) the pinnacle of the sport in the U.K., but it looks more like Sunday league football in a dead-end division. The idea of paying BSN to stream for free on YouTube sounds nice, but I see two issues. One, would they have the capacity to stream more? Two, it would present a risk to their business model, and given they are probably the most sustainable entity in British Speedway right now, why would they want to take the risk? I don’t see the incentive for them. The Premiership clubs barely bothered to support a media day, so why volunteer to compromise a working model? I think the promoters need to show a lot more before you do that.

Meeting off, per Edinburgh Monarchs Speedway Facebook page.

It’s the 5-point riders that often struggle to find a spot. Too high to be a reserve, too low to be a sure bet. They’re the ones that get squeezed for the final spots.

Not sure why it would happen any more or less than any other season tbh.

I wish I could get to this as I think it’ll be an interesting meeting, but I expect Edinburgh’s reserves to make it a home win. I hope Jordy Loftus continues to impress and improve this year - he and Jody Scott were the standout reserves for me last year.

Even that is missing this year.

His gating on Saturday wasn't great (the final aside), but if he can get that sorted then he'll fly at home. Saw enough to see he should be a very good #4. Just need to see how Mario fares. Decent team though.

I did say "about" 3pm 😄 Bright sunshine for the last wee while.

Nothing to suggest any issues with going ahead. Intermittent rain but nothing intense. I think we’ll be fine. No rain after about 3pm.

My understanding is the Bandits have some form of agreement with the football club, rather than leasing from the council. That could be a sub-lease, the important thing being any such arrangement would normally terminate with the main lease (although there are exceptions to that).

I think you mean Daugavpils! Yes, it's not easy to get to, being on the Latvian border with Russia, a few hours from Riga, which itself isn't always the easiest place to and from the UK.

Yes, tapes up 6pm.

The council own it, leased to the football club.

That is after a two point deduction though. They did look like they could make the playoffs for a chunk of the season, but let themselves down very badly on the road - but even then, the closest they got to winning was at Poole and Glasgow. A very enigmatic team.

Drew was very impressive last year - a very noticeable improvement. I had been sceptical, but he convinced me.

Speedway is saved, hallelujah.

Surely not.

I seem to recall the referee made an enemy of everyone that night. I think that was the third questionable call already in the meeting.

If he'd fessed up perhaps I'd be of a different opinion, but he didn't. He lied through his nose for months and got found out, and he put a lot of people's noses out of joint. All a moot point as he's unlikely to be seen on a competitive speedway bike again.

Not in Glasgow colours.

In terms of what I'd prefer, definitely an exciting team. Winning is nice, but entertain me first. An exciting team is usually competitive at least.

I'm not sure where the Luke Harrison thing came from. I think it was thrown in to throw people off the scent because it was a little after some people had worked out the full seven. I'm happy to see Freddy back. He should improve his average next year. I didn't want to see two news reserves, and carting both over probably wasn't the best idea either. Given Freddy fits and has the higher average, I think it's the right move. Leon should be a #3 next year and our reserves should be stronger compared to this year. The question is simply how our second strings perform. They may take a little dialling in early on, but hopefully they'll be very strong come the second half of the season. This season, there were heats we knew we'd struggle in. With this team, I don't think that will be the case once they're all settled in.

We won the league with our current manager two years ago. We'll win it with him next year. Cracking team.