Subedei

What advantage? One of the Swedish GPs is held at Eskilstuna, Nicholls' home club in Sweden for the last 8-9 seasons. There's no advantage whatsoever. Jason Crump rides for Wroclaw, but his opinion, stated at the Wroclaw GP was that the track was totally different from a league meeting. Under such circumstances, it could be argued that it's a disadvantage to the Poles, since they could be caught out by differing track conditions. I do with you'd stop coming out with such nonsense.

History. There's a long history of begging for a place at the GP table in Nicholls' career. And because history has also shown that the powers that be are willing to throw a few coppers in his hat, it means he doesn't actually need to qualify, so he goes out and gets wasted before GPs instead of being professional. Once you get caught in the poverty trap, it's bloody hard to get out of it. Certainly too much like hard work for a serial failure used to living on charity.

It's probably more than he deserves. But throw the dog a bone, throw a couple of coppers in the beggar's cap. All this begging Nicholls has to do will mean his cap's wearing a bit thin.

If he accepted it, however, it would prove Nicholls has no dignity, honour or integrity. So, this is what you want it to come down to, British speedway as the equivalent of the family down the road living on benefits because they're too lazy to get off their backsides and work.

Just for you Schumi, you'll find it on page 49. And, how many more times before people understand, Scott Nicholls already said he didn't want to be considered for a BSI pick - he was going to qualify on merit, or he didn't deserve to be there. Did he qualify on merit? No. So, your post and point is irrelevant and pointless. It could, justifiably, be argued that being nominated last season was the worst thing that happened to Richardson. Almost every other weekend this season he's been humiliated at various GPs, including a zero return at one, and has maybe had his confidence shattered. Andersen, on the other hand, went away and worked hard to improve and justify a return. This charity everyone is proposing is negative and does nothing but harm those it is intended to help. I don't need to qualify, so instead of trying I'll get wasted the night before a GP. Yes, like Andersen this season, give him the wild card place at Cardiff.

Do keep up Hazzman, I've got to be up to around 140 times now. But as long as the terminally deluded keep coming up with faux-justifications for the inclusion of serial failure Nicholls, with right and truth at my side and with the strength I receive from Holy Genghis in Eternal Heaven, I'll keep knocking down their attempts to corrupt and demean the sport further than it already is. Come and join me in the crusade for honour, justice and integrity.

I was meaning to contact you about that wager. I'll shortly be making a donation to one of cheetahhawk's chosen charities and thought I'd make it a double donation by including our wager. But I'd forgotten the sum involved. I believe it was £25, but I'm not sure. Anyway, in two out of the three major leagues, both Kolodziej and Ulamek have superior averages to Nicholls. So an arguement that they're superior to Nicholls is valid. Stop viewing the world through the narrow prism of the British Elite League. I notice Wieslaw Jagus beneath Nicholls in your list - yet Jagus has made as many finals as Nicholls this season and has a superior average to him in Sweden and Poland. Again you're viewing the world through a narrow, chauvinistic prism. You probably wouldn't have included Jagus if he hadn't qualified for the GPs and reached the final in Bydgoszcz. you need to broaden your horizens. And your point about judging his inclusion for 2007 at the end of that season, why don't we judge his inclusion for 2006 on the basis of his failure in 2006. Yes, he got an unjustified nomination for 2006 and as has been proved, he wasn't worthy of it. And now you want to judge him after 2007? What's the point? You and the deluded like you will still argue for his inclusion in 2008. Nicholls knew the rules at the outset. If he can't qualify via the GPs and can't be bothered to enter the qualifiers, he's got absolutely no right to be in the GPs whatsoever.

I've given my list of fifteen riders I consider better than Nicholls. If you don't consider them better, well you're wrong. And it doesn't really matter anyway. The criteria for qualification was known at the start of the season. Finish top eight (effectvely now ninth with Andersen included) and you're in, or finish top three in the qualifier. For the third season running, global superstar Nicholls couldn't manage eighth (ninth) and couldn't get off his not inconsiderable behind to compete in the qualifiers - he also, incidentally, broke Kolodziej's collarbone, denying the young Pole a chance to qualify. Nicholls shouldn't be in and if he is in it will shame the sport.

Yes, in that context, I agree. But the pertinent context is qualification. And generally the trio you name have, year on year, qualified by right for the following series. Nicholls, on the other hand, has now failed three years running. Now come on, let's have some intellectual honesty around here. I'd have had you and your cohorts loudly and longly shoving a Nicholls qualification down my throat, had he qualified. But he didn't. So let's have some humility out of you. You were wrong, I was right.

I mean, young Moses, look at SCB's last post. He declares Nicholls hasn't failed before adding: Where's the logic there?

You'd be surprised.

Except you, of course. You actually predicted that Iversen would be top ten material. Failure to qualify is failure. Failure to qualify a second year running is dismal failure, Failure to qualify three years running is abject failure. Nicholls has had his chances and failed the last three times. Enough is enough. And I'd be adding a certain TR to your list of 2006 failures, by the way.

It did, indeed, all go wrong. And not just for Richardson. Nicholls failed again. Why should he have another go, after now failing for a third time and having turned up his nose at the alternative qualification route? I, on the other hand, argued last season that Richardson and Nicholls would fail again, which they did.

Didn't he have something of a "run-in" with Schlein last winter?

I also think Nicholls will be in the GPs next season. But he shouldn't be. How many more failures is he to be allowed? The truth is he may not be as poor as I think, but he's not half as good as some people around here think he is. He's a second-rate rider from a second-rate speedway nation, pure and simple.

"Nicholls was half a man," was the rather cutting comment of at least one Tarnow supporter after watching Nicholls. Still, you just cling to your delusions of grandeur. But it does British speedway no good at all, living in a timewarp while the rest of the world moves on. Maybe next season, after another dismal failure, you'll be ready to eat those words. But I doubt it. You'll just come up with the same revisionist nonsense to justify yet another charity outing for the hapless, helpless Nicholls.

The poor old foreign rider can't really win, can he? If he's good enough, we expect him to frop everything and concentrate solely and to the exclusion of everything else to his British commitments, but if he struggles then he's shipped off fast enough. Look at Robert Kasprzak at Isle of Wight - a few bad meetings and out he goes. Loyalty is a two-way street.

I just feel cheated. Last season, around this time, I made much the same comments and the usual suspects came out with their usual claptrap. Subedei would be eating his words when Nicholls (and, as far as SCB was concerned, Lee Richardson, whom, improbably, SCB had decided was one of the top fifteen riders in the world) stormed into not just the top eight, but the top 3-4. I would've eaten my words. I've eaten them before and although they're not as nice as fish and chips, they're infinitely better than those diabolical small cabbage things. So, why aren't they eating their words? At this time I should be serene in the knowledge that vindication was mine and they should be accepting of that fact. But they aren't. No, they're coming up with all sort of revisionist nonsense to justify the unjustifiable and defend the indefensible. You watch, someone here will decide the only GP that counts was the Italian GP and that as a result Nicholls is actually No 2 in the world. And what about next year, when Nicholls flops again? Will they eat their words? No, they'll come up with new excuses to justify yet another nomination for a serial failure.

Has it got bells on it, or an anklet?

Reinforcements. Now, with Schumi at my side, nothing can stop us. Have no fear, we will triumph over the reactionary forces that bar the path to British speedway rediscovering its self-respect and dignity.

The odds may be against me. I may be outnumbered millions to one. But I have right on my side. And that's all I need to persevere through the ridicule and disdain into the sunshine of the New Jerusalem, where all shapely female legs will be adorned with an anklet and speedway will have recovered its integrity.

And maybe Tarnow fans, who've witnessed Nicholls race to a stunning 5.60 average in Poland, scoring a memorable 2+1 from 5 at Rybnik and an astonishing 0 from 1 in the following home meeting, and Kolodziej would be in an even better position. Face facts, Mr Reading fan, if it wasn't for Jagus, Gollob and Hampel being already qualified (remind me how many British riders qualified) for 2007, your promoter BSI would've placed Kolodziej in the series, regardless of your qualms. Anyway, I fully expect Postlethwaite to announce at Peterborough on Monday that Scott Nicholls has chosen to shame this nation by accepting a nomination, together with Lindback. And the final descent into irrelevance will begin.

I don't care what others think: I'm right, I know I'm right and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong and needs correcting. Mike Lee was world champion at around 20-21, Kolodziej is older than that now. He deserves a chance in the GPs - Nicholls has had his chances and blown each and every single one. I'm not obsessed, just seeking integrity and justice.

But does he still do his cabaret turn?

A wonderfully gifted rider, albeit a little Gollobesque in demonstrating said gifts - it all came together for him on that day in Norden. He had a rocket-machine GM (first GM world champion, I believe) powering him and seemingly final say in track preparation. Maybe if the one-off world finals had still been around it would all have come together for Gollob on a given day in Poland. We'll never know. Still, I had a bit of time for Muller - went all the way down to Newcastle to see the new champion in a match race series against Newcastle's mighty NL heatleader trio of Beaton, Hunter and the incomparible Joe Owen. But he'd injured himself at Exeter (?) and could only manage a half-hearted effort against Beaton.