YeOldPitGate

Oxford totally gone or just gone from Prem ?

Hopefull they are to shrewd to do that unless the new top league is championship standard and division 2 is national league standard.

I don't think he can cope with the pressure of being a number one he seems okay if he sits below someone like Jack Holder, Woffy or Fricke.

If Tolley continues somewhere else he should do it at Championship level to stem losses, try and get Rosco in as team manager and ideally find an experienced co-promoter. His heart is clearly in the right place but he needs a competent team around him.

Brilliant times I can remember heading down to Foxhole one bank hol mon afternoon early nineties for the derby was over five thousand their.

If they can land Beau Bailey and they can avoid putting day one pressure on him , they would certainly have an awesome signing on their hands, he's an out and out racer who looks like he has a massive future ahead of him.

Yes despite some horrible teams you can't fault Tolley's commitment to the cause his other business must make an absolute mint to cover the speedway losses.

Equally could be he's owed stacks so thinking why bother.

The other thing I have noticed when doing research and google flagging me posts on this site from 10 plus years back is how many people no longer post here unless they have rebranded, I reckon there is 30-40 of us on here which again is shocking for when you think about what the sport used to be.

Christ we were spoiled in those days Mike add in Henka, Rikardson, Boyce, Adams, Gunderson, Neilson, Pederson, Knudson, Loram stacks of star riders.

They must be insane absolute best case there will be 6 clubs running in Prem next year, tv money by all counts is buttons, they would be better off staying in Champ costs on average 30% lower, the crowds would most likely be similar and easier to put a team together.

Did anyone used to go to the old Kings Lynn talk in's hosted by Bill Barker these again were great affairs, Bill should have been on the stage a constant stream of one liners and quips, he took over with Malc Simmonds and they then had a major fall out a year later and Bill soldiered on alone. He used to walk round the terraces to sell raffle tickets to help fund the purchase of Mark Loram, first year he took over we had a powerhouse team with Bo Peterson, Lance King, Richard Knight and John Davis. Peterson went from unbeatable around Lynn to terrible, King started off showing what a talent he was but a couple of bad injuries set him back middle part of the year, Richard Knight was a stalwart but never good enough to beat the top men but he was loved by his biggest fan Nutter who used to spend all day in the second bend bar, John Davis would have been better suited to long track as he just couldn't hug the line and every race he would be on the fence by the second bend and everyone else would have gone underneath him, he had top equipment but his riding style wasn't suited for Speedway. Fantastic days again all pre internet when you would turn up and a couple of riders would be announced to the crowd and someone would ask Bill "Why can't we get Han's Nielson " and Bill would reply " Because we can't afford him you (insert expletive).

Yep I used to go 85-90 late teens with one of my oldest friends and his dad , his dad was a complete loon behind the wheel and we would have 5-10 near death experiences on the trip from Norfolk to the Midlands. As you say 10k plus every time packed to the rafters great atmosphere and 8-10 likely winners, Havelock, Morton, PC, Silver, Carter, Evitts, Paul Thorpe, Wiggy, Tatum and others no doubt who I have forgotten. After the meeting it would be a hole shot out of the field car park with 3-4 thousand cars all chasing the same spot , my mates dad would be going mental and would normally be in three near fights before we got out of the car park brilliant days sadly gone forever I fear.

Assuming there is a top league which with some of the current talk is looking a stretch.

What's gone wrong Phil it would appear they are still getting some of the better crowds in Speedway and they were supposed to be backed by a fella with deep pockets ? is it running in three leagues that's balls'ed things up ?

I'm not sure you speak for 36 mil poles anymore than I speak for 65 million britons, I've found the Ukrainians in the UK to be decent people on the whole I'm sure there are 5-10% that are unpleasant the same for virtually all races on planet earth. The fact they are fighting tooth and nail to stop the aggressor speaks volumes, most of the other old Soviet block countries left as soon as they could and have zero desire to return to the Russian boot s, if Russia gets all of Ukraine they will simply use Ukrainians to attack somewhere like Poland or Romania next. And I have no issue with Emil or any other Russians riders being let back into Speedway GP. I would imagine 90% of Russians want this war to end and just have a quite life but that's not happening whilst a hundred odd old men from the KGB are running things.

Putin has stolen hundreds of billions from Russia over the years, Donald helped himself to a free plane worth $400 mil so a couple of houses (if true) is small beer in the political corruption spectrum

I remember when he first came on the scene he looked like the next big thing, heeps of (excuse the pun) natural talent on a bike, from memory he had a couple of bad wrist injuries very early on in his career and was never anymore than bang average past that point when he returned to racing.

It shows how much UK speedway has fallen, ten plus years ago you could probably have picked up 4-5 decent new overseas riders to replace Becker, now nobody wants to ride here your left with the second division old hands who can score anywhere between zero and ten but there's no future progress in them. Can't blame Leicester for playing the game but going half the season with r/r really is a terrible state of affairs for the sport in the bigger picture its another sticking plaster on an industrial sized wound.

2 people ahead of you in the que Col ?

That's the spirit.

Out of interest with the delay "for a big crowd" what would you estimate the rough size was I'm guessing maybe a thousand ? it used to be a big crowd was north of £3k, it wasn't to many years ago when Poole came down on a bank holiday with Ward and Holder and Buster was quoting the biggest crowd since the mid sixties.

Ha ha you should be doing comedy on the stage, he's a top quality rider and would hold his own in any era.

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.