YeOldPitGate

Your welcome.

Has someone found him ?

In my opinion they were both brilliant natural talents and great to watch on a bike, a similar argument would be when I was still going Lynn signed Henka I think the same year Ippo possibly got T Rick now for two seasons I thought Henka was a better more talented rider than Tony but as mentioned i stopped going in 1992 and past that point Tony ended up being a six time world champion. Henka is probably the most naturally talented rider i ever saw on a bike but possibly similar to Screeny he just didn't have that last 10% dedication to make it to the very top of the pile despite both having masses of natural talent. One interview that always resonated with me was Sam Ermolenko saying "I feel I have reached that level now when the pressure is really on i can beat anyone" and a week later I remember him lining up against Hans Nielson possibly a world team cup event at coventry and that might have been the year when Han's only dropped six or so points all season , Sam trapped and although Han's was faster he had the calm head and track craft to keep the Main Dane behind him. Apologies if these years/stats are slightly out as I say i'm going back a long time ago but they were great times how like most of us I would dearly love to travel back in time and be there again.

I think your right again from memory Hackney were backed by Terry Russell they were destroying the old second division they looked to move up and got no help from anyone (sounds familiar) other than getting Simmo , they got smashed for a season then dropped back down taking Simmo with them . They had Andy Galvin at the time who was second division top gun but he had a bad injury a few years later that pretty much put paid to his chances of progressing further. I'm 56 now and would have been 17 or 18 at the time so having to trawl the memory banks so I could be 50% off with the above.

I think in the perfect world he would like to offload the Stars and focus on just stocks I would be stunned if its him.

Its bizarre with Heeps when he started out with Mildenhall big things were expected but it never really panned out for the lad.

My memory is a bit hazy on this Gavan as I stopped going in 1992 but I thought Mark started with Hackney in the old national league and then Lynn signed him as a reserve in the Bill Barker days poss 89 or 1990 I haven't googled and as it's nigh on 35 year ago I could well be wrong.

I think a lot of that has to do with them being slung into the Prem also from the get go I can only remember Rob Lambert and Joe Screen being good enough from the start in the top league, the likes of Havelock, Loram, Dugard, Silver came up through the old second division for a couple of years before moving up. The problem you have is unless you are a top 10% talent which Bob and Joe both are/were you get on a bad run and have confidence smashed where if you can end up a big fish in a smaller pond for a couple of years whilst training up you can then move up with more confidence things will work out. I've never seen Cairns ride but given he pretty much doubled his average in year one that's all anyone can ask of the lad, but I do agree with this next crop of youngsters smashing their confidence early doors is not the way to go.

Agreed if Coops, Cairns and Scott keep level headed and avoid bad injuries all three should have huge futures and should be the core of future England world team cup squads assuming UK speedway hasn't totally collapsed over next 2-3 years.

Fair play to the Ford's they have done it again they have got two of the best UK prospects on false averages, one of the best riders in the league in Lawson, Cook should crack on further and is destined for bigger things, Gilks if he stays injury free should improve. I've never really rated Kerr although he is brave as they come but he's one of these riders who can score 3 -13 on any given night, Bowes I don't know much about but if anyone can get improvement out of him its the Fords. I know they are marmite but they run a tight ship at a profit most years but where they are masters is getting riders in on false averages. It was pretty obvious last year whoever got Cairns in so long as the other six weren't dog awful should win the league. Although I would have loved to have seen him the other teams must be heaving a sigh of relief Bailey isn't riding over here as in my opinion that lad is the best aussie prospect since Darcy Ward I reckon if he came in on four he would have ended up on six or seven at seasons end.

What about Gusts big track should suit him, if he can be strong armed to turn up most of the time.

Plus Halifax had one of the greats in Kenny Carter before his sad demise and Neil Evitts had no where near the same pulling power.

Spot on 1valve my friend pretty much said as much it just makes the losses in his pub in theory lower but he would be way better off if he just owned his cash cow insurance business. Without straying to much into politics he mentioned when Reeves lowered the employer ni threshold in 2024 that alone cost the pub an extra 45k a year for zero benefit other than paying more to the tax man. So your burger, bun, salad and chips has to go up from £16 to £20 to cover it another reason pubs are going the same way as speedway tracks.

If though at first set of new averages VP is off 1 point to 1.5 points it will give a bit of flexibility to strengthen up elsewhere I don't think he's a bad signing personally but granted if ideally he was a four he would probably be the best number four in the league, but I think if he stays injury free he will average over seven points a match.

As Cookie say above ,a friend of mine owns two business's one is an absolute cash cow, the other is a pub which turns over a mil a year but still is loss making. As my friend is an old softie he doesn't want to sell the pub as the girl who runs it for him lives there and he doesn't want to make her homeless. Part of the profits from the successful business is offset against the pub losses to reduce the overall profit figure, as you say if you only had one business you would be making more money but if you want the cudos of owning the local speedway club having a successful outside business is one way of partly subsiding the failing business. As another example Tolley has his badge business which I'm guessing must make a fortune so as a result he can write off six figures of losses a year at speedway without blinking.

Forget the league if its four teams lets head straight for the play off's

Don't forget in line with the general speedway trend there's probably only 40 of us knocking around this forum these days.

This is the problem clubs are essentially worthless you are being asked to buy into a dying business model so the only likely buyers will be long term fans, it used to be that when a club was in trouble their would be several interested parties but with speedways ageing demographic a lot of the wealthy fans are now pushing up the daisies leaving an ever shrinking pool to possibly be the latest saviour of the club/s.

There are still rumours of a six team top league given nobody in the championship wants to commit financial suicide by moving up is there a likelyhood someone with money to burn is going to take on Northampton ?

Thing is reading between the lines it looked like the plan was Bewley to Ipswich and Belle Vue retaining Kurtz in 2026 if Belle Vue end up retaining Dan it could leave Ippo having to attempt at some kind of strength in depth approach whatever that may look like.

Bit like signing for Scunny and then saying I'm off if Sheff are in one league, Shotgun load, point at foot, pull trigger, repeat.

Agreed I was late teens when Benn, Watson, Eubank, Collins, Hameed, Tyson and Holyfield were starting to all come on the scene the late 80's - late 90's were brilliant years early Tyson easily the best heavyweight I have ever scene and Benn snr was my all time fave he had some incredible wars over the years. One of my all time fave quotes "lets have some parliamentary procedure"

Agreed it will be the most rigged fight ever AJ might be ten years past his best but there's a real risk he could kill Paul if he hit him with an uppercut so the word will have to go down come in one 20% of your ability tops but your right it will still pull in a fortune in readies.

Tony Rikardson wasn't bad either.