Tigerblade

Neither had we, until Sheffield signed him!!! It is fair to say he didn't have the best of times with us.

Bumping this one back up with sad news unfortunately...... Ernest passed away on 28th December, a couple of months short of his 99th birthday, as reported by Phil White on social media. Apparently he (Ernest) was a veteran of D Day and Normandy, so a great hero off track too. RIP (Race In Peace)

Especially when some fans can't even agree if Tai is British or not .....

It's Danny King and Ty Proctor, as per official Facebook page.

Agreed, after the season we've just had, which was partly due to not replacing him earlier than they did, I don't think either the Club or him could take the risk.

Zaine at second string would be somewhat of a risk IMO, he hasn't even been proved at reserve yet. **EDIT - realise that is the average he has to come in on, hopefully the other reserve will be as much of a steal as Drew!

Pretty much my reaction as well, I went to Cov v Cradley at Leicester in the summer, to meet up with my Mildenhall supporting friend who knows the Kemps, and came back being seriously impressed with him. That has really sparked my enthusiasm for next season.

Where was that? Even if it hadn't been, I don't think the promotion can afford the risk on him after last season. As for Drew Kemp, I didn't think we had a hope in hell of getting him.... Extremely happy to be proved wrong!!!

Whilst it saddens me as much as the next fan, London has hardly had any action in almost the last 30 years, and none since 2005 (I don't really class Rye or Lakeside as central London) But the reasons for this are not all down to the current BSPA.

It surely can't be much more difficult than Thursdays have been the last couple of years, with the dog racing on Thursday afternoon meaning the track staff weren't able to get on until 6.30pm. Maybe Sundays was the best option available - as well as the fixed race night, Sheffield also have to deal with availability (or not) of Owlerton, which seems to have been getting more difficult as years go by. Re the stock cars, Tigers wouldn't be racing every week anyway with only meeting other teams once, and possibly having to race away some Sundays. Another possibility is that more away fans may be able to travel on Sundays. As it happens, Sunday is better for me, although I am lucky in that I have a job where I don't work evenings or Sunday. Unfortunately it's make or break for the sport as a whole, and promoters need to look at trying to get new younger fans in. I'm not entirely convinced they're out there waiting to be converted, but we'll see. I can also understand the reluctance to go Premiership immediately after this season just gone.

In a way it is poignant for me too, as the first time I saw Sheffield race league opposition (first two home meetings were a pairs and then an individual), it was against Reading, and Bernie was in that side.

I can only echo what Steve and Tim say, I read it a couple of weeks ago, and it was excellent. As I only started going in 1977, I had no real idea of Bert's career save for Edinburgh and Milton Keynes, although of course he was one of the characters who immediately stood out. So all the abroad stuff was new to me, and fascinating, because he did it when many people of his generation would not have done. So I can understand why he recalls these events so well.

I believe the story to be that he promised the 1973 top scorer (who turned out to be Bob Valentine) a new engine, but allegedly it ended up as the track spare, and Rod Haynes beat Ole Olsen in a second half in 1974 on it. Although someone who was there at the time will know better than me.

They did stage an individual meeting for younger/NL standard riders, with slightly reduced admission, and it was an excellent meeting. However it didn't attract that many people.

It's a combination of circumstances as to why Sheffield finished so early this season. 1. Reduced number of fixtures anyway with teams only meeting each other the once instead of twice - which was introduced as a way to alleviate fixtures congestion at the end of the season (as you can see, that has been a roaring success ) 2. Failure to progress from preliminary rounds of Championship Shield/KOC. 3. One rain off, due to the mainly excellent summer. People can talk about Challenge matches/Individual meetings from the old days, but unfortunately nowadays they don't have the appeal, nor do half the riders want to ride in them.

Simmo was England captain when I began going to speedway, and was truly one of the biggest World Class stars of that era as far as I am concerned. Also like others have said, he carried Poole for many years. You knew that your own heat leaders had taken a scalp if they beat him. On the other hand, he seemed to drop out of a lot of individual meetings/Testimonials at the last minute. He actually chastised me on this very website some years ago about the latter, claiming every one he was booked in, he rode in - I wasn't that desperate to prove myself right that I was going to dig old programmes out etc. but over a period of about 3 years I went to Wilkie's Benefit, PC/Mort/Wyer/Wilson/Cartwright Testimonials, and there was an air of "oh, he hasn't turned up again" in at least a couple of them. Obviously his attitude in later years made up plenty of people's minds about him, but until the end of his Poole days at least, he seemed generally faultless in the main for club and country.

In the 70s most of the bike sports folk went to watch each other - Barry Sheene was often pictured at meetings, and another road racer Mick Grant who was around at the same time, was at Sheffield more than once. As for more up to date, the football referee Uriah Rennie was a regular at Owlerton a few years ago.

Can echo what Bagpuss said about Craig Cook with self belief/confidence, it definitely appears to be his biggest issue. I know what people have said about GP/Premier Riders, but had we taken all of those out we would have been left with a line up of second strings and reserves, and this is supposed to be the Championship's plum individual event with the cream of the League in! I also don't remember much dissention about Carl Stonehewer racing in the PLRCs when he rode in the GPs either! The only issue I would have with Cook's eligibility is that he has hardly ridden any Glasgow meetings, where there used to be a cut off point for qualification for this meeting. But the fact this hasn't applied, well this season at least, is not Cookie's fault. It was an excellent meeting I thought, how close it was shows by the fact that the top 3 after 20 heats were all on 11! Ty Proctor may well have been top qualifier had it not been for his crash, I don't think I've ever seen him race Sheffield as well as yesterday (auditioning for 2019 maybe? ) Both Kyle and Charles started like steam trains but then faded a little, but like Kyle said, "third is better than bottom".

I was thinking this earlier - throw in James Shanes too, and you'd think none of them really deserve to be dropped. But someone's going to have to miss out.

As I said on the Monarchs thread, I would love to see Kasper fitted in at second string/reserve. But then again Todd hasn't done anything really wrong this season either.

After the last few weeks, getting a 5 - 1 in the last heat to get a draw, is definitely a point gained, rather than two lost! I agree with Charlieboy, I also thought that Broc would be better at reserve, don't know if it's equipment or confidence. I definitely would like to see Kasper back, he would be a steal at second string on the basis of what I've seen in these last two home meetings.

Although it shows as TBA on the fixtures on the official website, we've raced the match at Peterborough.

Owlerton has dog racing on Saturday nights, it's always been scheduled for Sunday 2nd.

I could live with that - usually (as in not the last 4 Thursdays!) we would have enough firepower with the rest to get away with it. Mind you, the last rider we had like that (Ricky Wells) wasn't hugely popular with Tigers fans. As I said on Facebook, the signing may or may not be someone that makes us go "ooh", but the good thing is that there is going to be a 2019. I don't know if it's because it's coming up to 30 years since 1989, and it's been a terrible end to the season, I was beginning to get a bit nervous.

And that's what it is - a run, not a season. Some people who have been going long enough to really know better have been saying "worst ever" and stuff like that. I don't know if it's frustration or what, but some people come across as being utterly delighted when a rider doesn't do anything. I'm not making it up either - I've heard them. Re being paid, I do wonder though about some riders, Neil Machin was well known for not paying that well (I've no idea about what the Bates' do), but riders were always paid every penny on the dot. But some riders do seem to prefer to take the risk of getting hardly anything, rather than a guaranteed lower amount, judging by what you hear about some of them being owed money.