HenryW

Jye didn't come here on a tier 2 or tier 5 visa, which are the ones that you could apply for based on performance in the State championships. He has an Ancestry Visa which doesn't require any previous performance related evidence.

I guess my confusion comes from the fact that the meeting in question was part way through when the snow started. At that point it's down to the referee whether the meeting continues or not. As far as I'm aware it was the ref that decided things continued, nothing to do with the club itself. I can't really comment on Doyle today as I haven't seen the meeting yet. However, as I say, he has always been a very hard rider who rides close to the edge. I guess the pressure of the event maybe got to him today and he pushed a little further than normal. As for the fans. Having visited the town for speedway a few times I can assure you that I found plenty of very friendly and welcoming people there, so it's not all as bad as you may imagine. I think, though, that today the most important thing isn't results or fans behavior, it's the health of Krystian Rempala that takes priority. I hope we get some more positive news very soon.

Doyle has always been a hard rider. I'm not sure what the meeting in the snow a few weeks ago has to do with that.

Most likely an issue with the advertising provider used by the site. If they have had any malware in their ads, which does happen every now and then, lots of sites using the ad provider will get flagged until it's confirmed as resolved.

I'm not sure this is accurate. I don't think Jye requires a visa due to patriality. His Australian results wouldn't have qualified him for one if he had.

That's very much the Eurosport way, unfortunately. They have always been dreadful at editing sports events...as you say, it's just lazy/cheap.

That's not even close to being true.

Yeah. Richie Worrall is the only Belle Vue rider officially listed as doubling up.

I'm currently in Poland and the replay of what was the live feed from BSI on youtube is available here now. I'm not sure if the live feed itself was available as I didn't look for it during the meeting as it was on TV in the bar I was in. Was the live feed available on youtube in the UK? Is the replay of it available now? If it is, I'd be surprised if BT Sports were happy with that, and similarly if Canal+ were happy here in Poland...unless BSI have sold a contract that only offers them live rights and nothing else.

No. The clubs I was referring to just share home venues with other clubs, like Cradley do in speedway's National League. If you are purely talking about clubs that don't compete in professional league competitions and have no permanent home venue then that's pretty irrelevant to the thoughts of serious sports journalists, is it not? There are no professional league speedway clubs that have no permanent home venue, but I'm sure that there are lots of amateur football, basketball, baseball, rugby, etc clubs that move around different venues.

Serious sports journalists are constantly mocking the likes of the German football Bundesliga, Italian Football Serie A, American NFL and NBA to name but a few because teams don't have a stadium of their own....How right you are!

I watched the 1978 Volkswagen Grand Prix Final on youtube earlier today. The sport got lucky that they didn't still have that association when the emissions test cheating story broke

The track still exists, or at least it did as of the middle of last year. However, it didn't look in the best state of repair and I don't know when it was last used! I have this vague recollection of a meeting being arranged there at some point in the not too distant past (as in, the last 5 or 10 years). There is an article about a little reunion that was held there last year on this Ukrainian speedway blog: http://gorka-speedway.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/25-2015.html There was some talk 3 or 4 years ago about the Neva club starting racing league matches again and either joining the Ukrainian league (which has since fallen apart) or the Finnish league again. However, everything went quiet about this without anything happening. BSF member F-S-P might know whether there was actually any serious discussion with the Finns about them rejoining or whether it was just internet rumours. As of this year, the Neva club are apparently starting the construction of new tracks in the St Petersburg Oblast, and had a stand at the St Petersburg Mortorbike show last weekend, so there is still some life about the club. You can follow their activities on their VK page: http://vk.com/nevaspeedwayclub

That sort of thing could surely never happen to a major speedway event in Germany...

That was a fine performance from the Bydgoszcz team. I'm not sure many would have given them much chance of winning before the match. Krakow will surely be questioning Chris Harris' inability to win a single race against this level of opponent on a track he had raced many times.

Fine for their qualifying round but what are the chances of the Laguta brothers securing a visa to race in Manchester? I'd imagine that would be fairly slim. Edit: I see I was completely wrong and the Laguta's already have the visa situation in hand. Great to hear!

I wouldn't rush into any decisions as both clubs seem to have potential issues for running at their respective stadiums this year

It wasn't raining at that meeting and most of the guards broke off in the early races never to be refitted, so not sure that they would have made much difference. The meeting is on youtube if you want to see it.

I haven't watched today's meeting yet so can't compare but the crowd yesterday looked fairly small in the areas you could see...lots of empty seats.It looked like pretty horrible weather, though, with fairly constant snow falling.

That was a very unexpected and heavy looking crash for Ivanov in his first race. There's been some good, close racing already in this meeting. Not so sure about the dancers currently out strutting their stuff

A good post, I enjoyed reading your views, but the thing that stood out most for me was this comment. You rate Ivan better because he had more peers "at the top level" during his career. Given the fact that it impossible to compare across eras, could you not argue that Tony was actually better because there were fewer peers able to get close to his level? I admit I am kind of playing devil's advocate with that comment, but I thought it was worth throwing out to see what people think. Personally, I rate Rickardsson as the best ever, but I only really saw Mauger at the end of his career and that obviously brings in a bias. Despite having seen plenty of videos of Ivan at his prime, the sport changed so much between their respective eras that I find it really hard to appreciate his ability in the same way as I can with Rickardsson. My all time favourite rider is still Erik Gundersen, and I still believe we would have seen more World titles from him if he hadn't had that terrible accident at Bradford in 1989. Possibly strangely, I also think Hans Nielsen would have won more World titles if Erik hadn't had that crash. Maybe I just imagine it, but it seemed like a little something was lost from Hans after that day.

I think Erik Gundersen would get into that list. He was just over an 11 average from all official matches with Cradley in the 1986 season, won the BLRC in (I think) 1983 and 1986 and obviously took his 3 individual speedway World titles in 1984, 1985 and 1988.

Edinburgh already have their number 6 sorted. That will be Max Clegg. It's a 3 point number 7 and a rider just over 6 points that Edinburgh still have to confirm.

Before the speedway moved into the stadium it had been used for stock car racing. The stock car track was longer but the speedway track has always been the same size as it is now.

I'm just guessing, but I think the biggest issue that the crowd had with that race was just how deliberate Bruce made it look. If he had ridden close to the others and looked like he was maybe making an effort he probably wouldn't have got the same abuse, it would just have been a big talking point about whether or not he tried. He made it blatant that he wasn't trying and the sporting Brits didn't like that one bit.