Tigerblade

I doff my metaphorical hat to you, Sir!! A fella who sits near me at Owlerton called him "Climb Ev'ry" when he rode for us

Exactly, surely he'd think the prospect of having a 3 times World Champion racing there one evening would be a draw to attract fans/prospective buyers.

Are the Sheffield promotion also responsible for the fact that Peterborough couldn't find dates for a KOC semi final, and two home meetings with Sheffield until this last week or so (Peterborough v Sheffield B still outstanding)??? I can assure you I am not a sycophant, I am simply a fan, I've never met the Bateses in my life, and I'm merely trying to explain reasons why Sheffield still have some fixtures outstanding. I'll repeat again, as some people still don't seem to be getting it - since the original postponement of the home A meeting against Wolverhampton on May 11th, THERE HAS NOT BEEN ONE MONDAY OR THURSDAY, WHERE BOTH SHEFFIELD AND WOLVERHAMPTON HAVE BEEN FREE, until last Monday when it was again rained off, and there aren't any in August either - Wolverhampton already had their home meeting against Leicester scheduled next Monday, before the rain off at Belle Vue this last Monday.

Not bothering with reading my further explanation to fueltaps, then?

Indeed they do, and Sheffield were at Belle Vue on March 27th, King's Lynn on April 24th (re-staging of the rained off March 30th), Wolves on May 15th, and Leicester on May 22nd. The Peterborough and Wolves home dates didn't become an issue until April 27th and May 11th respectively. The Panthers one was re-staged July 3rd (when Wolverhampton were already scheduled at Belle Vue) however there has not been one Monday or Thursday since May 11th where both Sheffield and Wolverhampton have been free, until last Monday when of course it was rained off again.

Don't go bombarding them with sensible facts, mate, they don't like it for some reason Plus we were also at King's Lynn on 24th April, and Leicester on May 22nd in this 7 weeks without a home fixture spell. We qualified for the Knock Out Cup on 19th June and are still none the wiser (offically, at any rate) as to who our opponents will be. I suppose that's the Sheffield promotion's fault as well.

The British Final is only 19 days before the Cardiff GP as it is, and who gets the Wildcard is dependent on it. Surely we don't want a repeat of last season's hoo ha, when the original staging had to be abandoned before the cut off date, and they had to make the decision practically on the spot???

I'd suggest the two on 7th September would need to be Leicester/KL and Sheffield/Wolves, given that those two fixtures cover 3 of the play off contenders.

I wouldn't turn up at Owlerton on Thursday if I was you. We're at Leicester

It's the only sensible thing to do. Sheffield for one still had 3 fixtures to fit in before the original date. Wolves at home, where there hasn't been a Premiership race night where both have been free since the original rain off date, and the rain off last week. Plus Peterborough away twice, where again there hasn't been any Premiership nights both have been free, and won't be until the end of August, since the first one was called off. Not to mention the KO Cup final which we reached almost two months ago and we still don't know who we're facing.

Whilst Tobi was injured, there was one Thursday when the other 6 teams were already scheduled in fixtures against each other, another one the Tigers were away at Ipswich, and one where a home meeting was rained off. What else were they supposed to have done?

I did omit it, fair point, but everyone who was there would remember that. I still maintain it shouldn't have put PC and Mort off as much as it did though, surely in all the years it was their home circuit, they'd ridden it several times before when it was a quagmire?

I was also at both Norden and Amsterdam. It's all very well harping on about track time etc, I refer you all to the 1983 Overseas Final at Belle Vue - 3 Aces riders in it, and the one with the least experience of Hyde Road (Larry Ross) was the only one to qualify easily for the Inter Continental Final, Chris Morton did but had a struggle IIRC and Peter Collins was nowhere near. Nobody is telling me that Egon had more experience of Norden than PC did Hyde Road.

When they both would have raced against him numerous times before.... It is a classic case of because he didn't take UK speedway seriously (probably to be far, speedway in general), the UK didn't take him seriously. People talk about Egon, and Jerzy Szczakiel being not "world class", but in my opinion, Les Collins, with every respect to the bloke, would have been a bigger "shock" World Champion had he done it in 1982. He was certainly an excellent rider at his peak, but not one of the very top averaging riders of that era.

I seem to remember one against Oxford in the 1995 season when R/R for Sergei Kuzin was doing us proud, and we'd had difficulty assembling a team, and we'd been roundly criticised by the Oxford promotion at the away meeting previously, and the roof nearly went off when he won the run off for the bonus point. I remember the Alan Grahame one well, how Big Al was excluded for that one I'm still not sure, but he was almost as angry as Sean Wilson afterwards!! I also have a vague recollection of being at Newcastle one night when everyone was having to phone the referee from the start line phone, as Barry Wallace announced that Roman had smashed the pits phone

Rene Aas married a Sheffield lady and was around for a few years after finishing racing, although I don't know if he is still in the UK now.

I wouldn't really want those two either - Josh gets injured too much and Ty has never really won the Tigers fans over, mainly because in his first spell he replaced a popular rider (Adam Roynon) and was obliged to prioritise Wolverhampton's fixtures ahead of Sheffield, was deported the following season, and then was hit and miss this last season.

It was even the lead sports story on Radio Sheffield as I was going home from work yesterday. Probably a quiet news day with the top two football leagues having not played last weekend. Quoting you Kev, I know it's not relevant to Sheffield but will you be going to see the Kings in the Championship next year?

This reminds me of not a rider, but a friend of mine who was at a British Final when Sunbrite were sponsoring it. He's been a vegetarian since childhood and at the time was living in a non ground floor flat. He won a bag of barbecue fuel!!!

I was at that one, had forgotten most about it, apart from it being against the Aces. I wonder what made Wayne decide to throw it all in. Not that he could tell us now of course :-(

At Sheffield's Golden Jubilee meeting in October 1979, each heat was prize sponsored for the winner. Scott Autrey won 3 heats and the prize in all 3 was either clocks or watches. He was forever known to me and my parents after that as Scott "What's The Time?" Autrey.

Yes, the original point of this topic seems to have got lost.........

Sheffield United, not plain "Sheffield".

They seem to get the blame for everything else that has ever happened.....

There has been a team representing this very forum on Eggheads, some while ago now. Also teams of Glasgow and Belle Vue fans. I saw an old "Bullseye" (circa 1985 if I remember rightly) on Challenge a while ago and one of the couples said they were Poole fans.