RoundTheBoards

Does it? They probably mean Kai.

Luke who? The only possible replacement for Josh Embleton is an unattached 3.00 rider

Can't see Kingston wanting to travel from Essex to Berwick for home matches. Ben Rathbone may be a better fit.

If it was true you'd be able to provide the list (that I've asked for twice) of 15+ year old who could fill the MDL with a view to progressing to NDL standard. (You only need 12 riders to staff the 3 teams, which you say isn't enough teams). First you can't provide the list because you're "out of touch with it all". Now you contradict yourself that you have "bitter experience" ... but you still can't provide the list! The fact remains there are only 3 MDL teams because there aren't enough sub-NDL riders around, aged 15+, to fill 3 MDL teams.

That is just completely untrue. If you think it's true, I repeat my challenge for you to name all these riders aged 15+ who could ride in an MDL league aiming to put themselves in the shop window for an NDL place. It's not the case that the rider pool has dried up because there are no MDL teams. The reality is that there are no MDL teams because the rider pool dried up and the people running them couldn't get enough riders to staff them. The British Youth System does a good job with what it has, but there are very few riders even in the youth system, and many of them are several years away from turning 15.

I don't think the question is "Where are new riders expected to learn their trade?" The worrying question is "Where are new riders?" It's all very well saying there should be a MDL of more than 3 teams, but just 3 teams needs 12 riders. Can you name me 12 riders within reach of the Midlands aged 15-21 who would be suitable for this MDL with a chance to progress to the NDL in future? I'll wait....

It's pretty obvious who is telling the truth. On one side we've got a man on his own, claiming in his book (which contains many other errors and "misrememberings") that he didn't write the letters demanding free passes for 100 of his friends. Then on the other side we've got a number of promoters who received the letters, and many more who have seen the letters. These include the late Phil Rising, a fairly impartial journalist and self-confessed Collins fan. Then we've got the vitriolic scrawled message to a dying man who had only tried to help sort out the situation of the 100 free passes. Why would you be so nasty if you hadn't even demanded the 100 passes in the first place? Sorry, but you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to solve this one.

No it wasn't. In the past averages were based on every league match in the season. They still should. Rolling averages should be based on the number of league matches in a season. 10 is too few to get a fair average.

Just James Pearson, Jacob Hook and George Congreve to start with. Maybe someone will be looking at Jake Turner during the season if they lose a heatleader to injury.

James Pearson signs https://twitter.com/TheAces/status/1634130512951361536

Getting himself match fit ready for Ipswich when the Russian's visa is denied?

In that case I would have thought he would be ok to do NDL, unless he's on some kind of permit/visa for his normal job that won't allow him to do any other work.

Assuming Hook is riding for Armadale (as seems to be the case), I can't think of any reason why MacDonald couldn't do the same and ride NDL on a similar basis. The only thing is without a CL team it's hard to imagine how it would be worth travelling to the other side of the world just to do NDL, and maybe there'd be work permit/visa issues coming over without having a professional job here.

Congreave has British patriality, and (allegedly) so does Dayle Wood. (and Luke Killeen etc) They come in the same as any other British rider on 3.00, unless they have ridden in a National state championship in which case they come in on 4.50 But that's the same as it's always been. Nothing to do with the new rule this year opening the league up to Commonwealth riders.

The only Commonwealth rider we know will be in the NDL is Jacob Hook, and he has a CL average of 4.00 and so will be 8.00 in the NDL. Can't imagine anyone flying in a Commonwealth rider just to ride NDL, so presumably any others would ride in CL too, and just double their CL average for NDL. But if anyone did come over for NDL only I can't imagine them being assessed at anything less than 8.00 anyway.

Don't think they ever staged Speedway racing at Rockingham. Wasn't it just cars, karts and road bikes?

Since we lost Peter Craven in 1963 and the first World Pairs Championship wasn't staged until 1968, it's hardly surprising that Craven's total number of World Pairs title wins exactly matches the total number of terminal cancer patients he callously insulted.

With the four riders already signed, I'm not surprised there's not enough points left for another four. Doubt they'll get away with an 8-man team!

Anyone else been watching this? Thought it was quite a disappointment and not worth the money to watch the BSN stream. Thought presentation would be better with it being America, but it was awful. A bloke playing the American National Anthem on what seemed to be his first guitar lesson, A scruffy chap doing centre green interviews while wearing a rucksack. Meeting introductions very untidy and disorganised. Racing was quite decent for the main test match considering the track was so small. But it was spoilt by the lack of helmet colours. BSN captions were all over the place. Full marks to Adam Roynon who did a brilliant job of identifying riders considering that he was commentation from UK and only having the same pictures that we had. The other commentator was clueless. After the main test match it's been a shambles. Took ages to do a presentation. USA riders wandered out randomly some without their racejackets. Laurence Riogers out there loving himself photobombing the winning team photos even though his country lost. We're now 2 hours 40 mins into the meeting and still trying to do the second half, no one knows who's in which races, but Adam Roynon still being a hero recognising riders.

If only 3 of those riders are still alive, and Eric Broadbelt and Ken Eyre are regulars at BV every week, then it seems it is only Collins who is being a bit of a prick about it. If the other 97+ people on his list aren't ex-title winning riders, then who are they? Wonder if his publicist and apologist can enlighten us?

With Mick Hucknall being a massive Manchester United fan, a link with Ipsich would seem as unlikely as Port Vale fanatic Robbie Williams supporting Stoke. There is a big article in today's Speedway Star over about 3 pages (I haven't read it yet) about this Weston Super Mare thing and the (now deleted) crazy Facebook posting. Someone at the Star seems to have gone to some time and trouble to speak to people involved and fathom out what it is all about, so maybe there's some explanation there when I get round to reading it.

Come on. You don't see that the Facennas owning Glasgow and also sponsoring the league is a dodgy conflict of interests?

Does seem a weird conflict of interests.

"Taxi for British Speedway!" https://britishspeedway.co.uk/cab-direct-championship/cab-direct-to-sponsor-championship/

Even the stuff that these Walter Mitty Somerset Superdome builders posted about Michael Jackson was cobblers. They said "you can see we are working on the same ethos as we did for Exeter City Football club who were in financial difficulty over 20 years ago. They were out the League, no crowd, holding boot sales to raise money. One visit from Michael Jackson, who didn’t even sing & a Match against Man Utd, they were back in the league & financially stable for a few more seasons in no time." Actually Michael Jackson did visit Exeter City in June 2002. It was arranged by the infamous bender and well-known spoon-nonce, Uri Geller, who was an Exeter director at the time. (Is Geller behind the Weston-Super-Dome?). The season following Jacko's visit, 2002-03, Exeter City dropped out of the Football League for the first time in 83 years, and took another 5 years to get back. As for " We have done this in the past for Stoke city with Robbie Williams". That sounds equally unlikely since Williams is a lifelong fan and shareholder in Stoke City's local rivals Port Vale.