YeOldPitGate

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.

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.