PersonalResponsibility

Spotted this quote from Polish rider Marcin Nowak. It would appear nobody really knows what's afoot. "I am currently looking for a club in the Swedish league, I am waiting for events in the British league, where there is a plan to merge the two leagues"

I'm no fan of Poole's, and it's hardly controversial to say the track is far from what it used to be, but there have been way more boring meetings than that last night. There was still at least a handful of passes and that is a handful more than you'd get at some other places. It also gets a bit tiring listening to Harris whinge on about tracks being "diabolical" because they aren't 2ft deep in dirt. He's done it before on BSN with Leicester. You're a former GP rider in the Championship, a slick track shouldn't prevent you from beating Tobias Thomsen. It's a PO final, the track is set-up to win a meeting, not an exhbition to watch Harris flying around the outside of reserves. Overall, I think Poole will have enough. Kerr and Cook at 3/4 will probably see to that. Neither are very exciting, but they'll find their way to 7-9 each and that will probably be enough.

Chris Harris, Dan Bewley, Tom Brennan, Paco Castagna, and then a pick between Fricke/Emil/Doyle. In my experience.

Plans for a 1,500 homes and leisure village development on the East of England Showground are like to be rejected when they go back before councillors next week. Councillors will be told that the failure of the applicants the East of England Agricultural Society (EEAS) and its land promoter the Asset Earning Power Group (AEPG) to put together a Section 106 agreement means the development would not provide the necessary infrastructure to make it acceptable in planning terms. So members of Peterborough Council’s planning and environmental protection committee, which meets on October 21, will be recommended by officers to refuse approval for the development. It comes after more than a year after approval was given for the first outline planning application for 850 homes and a leisure village on part of the Showground. A second outline application for 650 homes on an adjoining part of the site was initially rejected by later approved. Both approvals were made conditional upon a Section 16 agreement being put in place. The move to reject the applications is likely to be welcomed by hundreds of people who had opposed the development of the 164 acre venue. In particular, there was huge opposition to the fact the development would mean the end of more than 50 years of speedway racing at the Peterborough Panthers track. However, the refusal does not automatically mean a return to the venue for speedway. The meeting is being held after the developers missed a number of deadlines to finalise the Section 106 agreement which sought to ease the impact of the development on the nearby communities. Councillors will be told there has been a disagreement between the Society and AEPG A report to the meeting states: “At no point up to the Committee decisions did either set of applicants fundamentally question the section 106 requirements. "More recently however, it is understood that the promotion agreement between AEPG and EEAS was not continued beyond March 2025. "EEAS have since taken a more active role in the applications as the section 106 has progressed, and it has become apparent that there is disagreement between the applicants on the head of terms as carried through into the draft section 106 agreement.” It adds: “However EEAS, as joint applicants and landowners, accepted the fundamental terms agreed by Committee and are seeking to introduce clauses which significantly deviate from them or are not material. "The Council’s position has been set out clearly and Officers do not consider that there is scope for further negotiation on these fundamental issues and therefore that there are no extenuating circumstances which justify a further extension of time.”

Love watching him ride, I just hope the leg off the footrest style doesn't hold him back. Bridger used to have a similar style. I'm not saying that's what stopped him becoming world class, but I don't think it helps a rider at times.

Genius idea. Go one better and make another series of that Harry's Heroes. Get Loram, Floppy Norris, Dean Barker out of retirement for one last rodeo.

Crazy to think that we had the Skybet Elite League, the top riders, a 10(!) team top division not that long ago really. It just so turns out that Terry Russell and co weren't quite the promotional gurus that Eddie Hearn is. Who could've guessed.

Great news that nobody is seriously injured. I hope they're all back at a track very soon. Equally good news for BSN subscribers, feels like it's ages since Redcar v Poole has been on.

Will be giving this a listen. We had Nigel on a podcast we did, funnily enough, and he was a good listen. Proper speedway man. Always enjoy your posts on here, Deano, and I'm sure Robbo is equally good value!

Hopefully it'll be Glasgow out of the two options. I don't think Glasgow is that good a racing track, but it's levels above Ipswich. I don't think the capacity of Ashfield is very high, though?

One question that I'd like to know the answer to: has anyone asked Bartosz to do any of this? It's a fair point that he might price himself out of individual meetings, but WBD have 'promoted' the GPs for the last 5 seasons. They are a multi-billion dollar, global organisation, I'm certain they had the resources to ferry Bartosz around the world. He's the best speedway rider of a generation (potentially the best ever), he's exciting, and he's in a country that has fanatical speedway support. It's not exactly a hard sell. Go and arrange a GP in Argentina, plaster him on every channel, have him do exhibition rides. I do partly agree with the concept that the World Champion should represent our sport, but equally, what can he do on his own? If he rides in individual meetings in UK/Czech, then probably 75% of the audience has seen him in a GP anyway. The lesser nations is where it needs representation but what use is rocking up in Argentina and riding in a random individual?

What, and ruin the unbridled joy of these hard-working guests?

I remember him being pretty good to watch at his peak, in fairness. I don't think he was ever as exciting as Ward/Zmarzlik/Emil, etc., but still put it about plenty. In addition, he only actually won 3 GPs across 2013/2015, and in 2013 he had Hampel/NKI behind him, so probably didn't really need to do anything exciting!

The craziest part of the whole story was that Lampart earned 1.53M zlotys NET (£300k) this season. Madness.

We spoke to a taxi driver in Krakow about speedway and he didn't know anything about it. He vaguely recalled playing amateur football on a pitch inside a track once, but had never watched a meeting. Poland is a different world for speedway, but it's hardly like every other Joe Public knows what it is.

Who's going to win the tug of war for Jack Holder? Whoever doesn't get him is going to have a battle to stay up.

I thought it was Basso lined up to replace Riss?

Sadly, I think a lot of what you're missing is nostalgia, not that there's anything wrong with that. Modern day speedway is clearly thriving domestically in Poland, and isn't exactly dead in Sweden, so why is GB struggling? I think you could bring back Wembley, uprights, 4TT and whatever else, but it's too late. It's been like death by a thousand paper cuts following British speedway in the last 25 years. I think where we do agree is that it's probably too far gone now. Sad.

Double post

Oh absolutely, it's a publicity thing at the end of the day. Strange from a sporting perspective at least, alas...

"Shall we get a new face in? Someone young, exciting, fresh or should we stick with an old face, someone we at least know will be challenging at the top end?" "What about if we just did neither?" What a strange 3rd pick.

I contemplated a treble at before the last GP consisting of Zmarzlik to win the world title, Australia to win the SON and Leicester to win the league. I got as far as adding it to my betslip and then didn't bother, so I can only apologise in advance to Ipswich fans...

Sadly, I think GBs best chance of a SWC win was in 2023. Poland were there for the taking. We were one rider short but still pushed them very close on their home soil. I agree with you though, Poland's talent pool really isn't that deep as it stands, and Australia look formidable. I'd sooner rely on Fricke/Kurtz/Holder in a big team meeting than whoever they can find to partner Zmarzlik.

What in god's name is this final section? There's more cameramen than riders. Is it some sort of showreel because they're all down the job centre on Monday?

Quite funny making the Polish federation's president present them with the trophy though.