YeOldPitGate

Silver was a very talented rider, similar to Kelly Moran in style, he had a couple of nasty crashes though and I think was never the same after them, Screen should have probably been the best English rider of recent memory he came straight into the top league as a reserve when the British League as it was then was a really high standard, even Loram had a year at Hackney before moving up. We were truly spoiled in those days Screen, Loram, Henka, T Rick, Gollob, Moran Brothers, Ermolenko, Lance King, Morton, PC all great racers and those names are just from my first sixty seconds of thought, Sean Wilson he was another one.

Agreed after very good careers they are both now on the final leg but equally I think if they got back to near full fitness both could still be 8-10 point men in the championship for another 2-3 years if they decided to carry on a bit longer.

Thanks for the clarification, yes Beau Bailey looks an awesome young prospect exciting rider to watch.

Do you have a link by any chance ?

What a feast of legends in that first sentence Mike how we were spoiled in the past with such great riders en masse.

Fingers crossed if true that the new owners are good people Phil.

I know its been said to death a thousand plus times but yet again credibility shot to bits in that Leicester will most likely go on and win now thanks to the efforts of a lad who doesn't actually ride for either teams starting 1-7.

If true something must have seriously gone wrong as the people in charge have been there for many years with no issues as far as I am aware, and surely crowds can't have completely fell off a cliff compared to 3-4 years ago ?

Personally hadn't heard anything along these lines Phil can't imagine the Holders would hang around if they weren't getting paid on time.

Who's Bailey the young rider who retired a couple of seasons back forget what his first name was ?

Wasn't this the case when he was in the grand prix's also with set up's etc.

Brilliant days I had stopped going before Ott joined but remember Loram , Henka and Dennis Lofquist at reserve, I would have been late teens then, stood on the second bend with one of my oldest friends and his dad who drove us to meetings all over the UK. A great character we christened Nutter would spend 99% of his time in the bar and pop out for ten seconds whenever Richard Knight came round and would bellow Richard's name like a man possessed for 10-15 seconds then straight back to the bar without watching the actual race. Wild Wayne leading the war cry's, Bill Barker who should have been on the stage doing comedy wandering round selling raffle tickets, whilst asking if anyone had seen Malcolm Simmonds, Bills winter talk in's were comedy gold. The racing when Loram and Henka were involved was out of this world in those days, Henka in my opinion was a more naturally talented/better rider than T Rick when they both first came over but I guess Tony had that extra 5% of grit/determination that led to six world titles, but I've always thought for natural talent Henka and Ward are the best two riders I have ever seen on a bike. Fantastic times I would be back there again in a heartbeat.

The mental strength of these riders is incredible, another example is Chris Holder not the rider he was but still a very good rider after a terrible crash that put him in a wheel chair for months and seeing what happened to his best friend, incredible grit.

Has anyone been down to the stadium to spray some WD40 on the pit gate yet ?

One thing I have just noticed is Poole have completed more matches than any other team so the Fords also seem to be good at getting matches on and out of the way where some teams have raced just over half of the Poole completed fixtures , or is it just being down South they are in a drier part of the country. The issue is again you have weeks in summer with nothing happening at many clubs then a bit of rain and you can see loss making double headers being crammed into back end of September early October.

Flagrag good to see your still about we were debating on another thread what the current tv deal was worth per premier league team, I seem to remember you used to be close to media people involved and wondered if you had any idea what each club currently receives, no issues if it puts you in a difficult spot and you prefer not to disclose.

Surely it would make sense to have the rising star in the championship rather than slinging them in the top league and maybe 1 in 20 makes it and the rest lose heart/confidence and are lost to the sport. You don't see in boxing the next great young hope being put in with Usuk after 4-5 fights, look at the young UK riders lost to speedway over the years, its bonkers to me miss out the next logical step in the ladder and sling in a boy with a years experience against Doyle and Emil.

Your never going to please everyone but its not really any different from a football manager in a world cup group stage pulling off his best players as soon as the team have got enough points to qualify for the knockout round.

Agreed very good signing you would hope he should do well at championship standard but not always the case as I thought PK when signed would be averaging 9-10 in the green sheets at this level.

Agreed no good/easy choices moving forward but if the premier is reduced to say 4 or 5 teams next season and given no one is daft enough to move up what are the alternatives to say a 10-12 team championship standard top league ?

Any interesting rumours you have heard recently Phil to give us something to chat about on a quite Monday morning ?

Despite his mistakes you can't fault Tolley's commitment there must have been a zillion other things he could have blown north of £250k on.

Out of interest does anyone have any inkling what each prem club gets from the current tv contract ? from memory Flagrag if he's still about was close to people in broadcasting maybe he knows/has some thoughts.

What is the alternative though ? run with a 4 or 5 team top flight.

The best solution I could see if the money was there to make it happen would be the polish model, 8 in top league and 8-10 in division 2, once home and away most promoters don't own the stadiums so this should reduce losses as less meetings but the shortened season would mean seeing the top boys only once and hopefully lead to more meaningful meetings. The top boys could still pick up there 4-6k and maybe a few more would come back with a shortened season, the second strings could still double down to boost their earnings. Try and run meetings at least fort nightly rather than monthly avoiding the 6 meetings in two weeks early October scenario and more fans losing interest due to no regular schedule. This would save seeing the same teams/riders every week, if you knew Emil was coming once a year rather than three/four times you might turn up. As I say the money isn't there to make it happen but its like anything in life if you wanted to get fit maybe you would look at what Ronaldo's fitness routine is rather than sticking with a diet of kebabs and coke and expecting a different result.