spanner47

Riders doubling up are going to be right pain this season, with the elite league clubs having 36 meetings, lots of Premier clubs are going to be missing their top riders. Good luck to those that have to try to sort a fixture list with minimal clashes.

I would stick my oar in about 2014 but what's the point? I'll wait until after the EGM, the AGM, and the "Sky have pulled the plug, what the **** are we going to do GM". I was talking to someone yesterday who has spoken to a few promoters, and no one has got a clue about next season. So I'll come back to this thread when we've got a clue. I'd love to see a bigger top division with no GP riders, but that would totally screw the other premier teams that cant afford it. Some promoters will suggest a north/south thing, some will want to keep better riders, others will want something different, It'll be a big mess. I hope they can sort it out quickly, but I wont hold my breath. I'll be back on here when they do.

Looks like the guests and R/R scored roughly what you'd expect, apart from Klindt. I'm sure had Rohan been riding, Worky could well have been in the final.

Never known Leigh to fall off (when in the lead) for no (apparent) reason in all the years I've been watching him, then he does it twice in 4 days. Just one of those nights/weekends. We left after heat 10, it was when they decided to have ANOTHER interval, we'd already had 2 lengthy ones, plus lots of shorter ones with 2 on the trot. Ipswich scrub the interval when the meeting is dragging on, I thought all clubs would have the common sense to do the same, but not our friends from tha toon.

My heart says, lets win it with a last heat decider. My head says, lets have an average meeting, lots of 3-3's and win the cup with a bit to spare. Don't think I could stand the stress of it going to the wire, we've waited a long time for some silverware, come on lads, don't let us down now.

Happy with that, well done to the track staff and all the riders for putting on a show. Come on lads, It's a bloody long drive home from there is we lose.

They're currently sweeping the water off the track. Lets look on the bright side, at least it wont be as cold as when Newcastle came down at the end of last season. But it must be hard to take for a promoter, you reach a cup final and get a crap crowd, I hope I'm wrong but I can only see the diehards turning up tonight.

I doubt many would commit until after the 1st leg, then there's the weather to consider, and now with Worky away on the Saturday? If I'm travelling that far, i might as well do both and sample the hospitality of Newcastle's No1 turnstile operator. Forecast not too bad for tomorrow, a bit of light stuff then should be dry later, hoping for 6-8 point lead

They used to say "happiness is 40-38", these days It's a 7 point win and no injuries, couldn't be better!! Just hope after tomorrows meeting the lads can have a rest and bring home some silverware at the end of the season.

If caring about rider safety is whinging, then i wish all promoters were whingers. Chris was probably the only promoter there that knew the riders were in danger, he's forgotten more about speedway than most who run this sport will ever know. When ex riders that know what they are talking about start running the sport in ths country the better. What has been done about these unsafe air fences? Even when a world champion gets seriously injured, the idiots that run the sport in this country still do nothing. I suppose we've got to wait until someone gets killed before something is done about it. A caring promoter that doesn't want to see riders get injured, or some bloke with a cheque book that runs a team for a hobby, i know which one i prefer, and i'm sure the majority of true speedway fans would agree, even the majority of Edinburgh supporters (but obviously not you).

With only 3 weeks left before the cut off date, I appreciate every effort had to be made to get it on. The three forecasts I saw said, no more rain after 6pm, sadly all three were wrong. We've got meetings on when many others would have said sod it, sometimes you win sometimes you lose, this time the forecast was wrong and we lost.

All the more reason why Zagar should have picked yellow, Tai was always going to come across, thus leaving a big gap for whoever was in yellow. But for some obscure reason Zagar picked blue.

Amazed nobody has mentioned how the win was (almost) gifted to Neils when Zagar picked blue instead of yellow. Not often I swear at the telly, but when that idiot Zagar picked the wrong gate my betting slip went straight in the bin. Well done to Neils for winning it, but he certainly wouldn't have won it had Zagar done the blinkin obvious.

Whilst i applaud CL for trying to produce a grippy track, it obviously doesn't suit the riders. It's been the same for the past few weeks, awkward for 5/6 heats, then slicker and smoother for the rest of the meeting. Whether it's the way the bikes are set up these days, or that the riders just cant handle it, either way lets try a smoother surface and see what happens next meeting. One of the biggest complaints in Speedway is about 15 mins action for your entrance fee, last night it dragged on for just over 2 hours, just about bearable on a nice evening, but unacceptable on a cold night.

Cant see what the Edinburgh protest will be about. The ref wanted to continue the meeting with both riders, Cooks manager tried to calm him down, but he behaved like a child, and in the end the ref no option. I've always considered Edinburgh fans to be up there with the best (all teams have a few morons though), I hope the majority let their feelings known towards Cook, that might help him grow up, he let himself, the club and the fans down badly last night. One slapped wrist for the ref too, a rider booted out of a meeting cannot be replaced, luckily he was only replaced in one race and it didn't affect the result.

Biggest crowd of the season. but the meeting ruined by the actions of an idiot. I hope once Cook has calmed down, he'll do the decent thing and apologise to the fans, especially the ones that travelled over 400 miles. Speedway needs exciting aggressive riders, it would be a very boring sport without them, but when a rider is determined to injure another one (off or on the track) then something must be done. But what happened when North put Ben in the fence and bragged about it on twitter? NOTHING!!!! We all want to see competitive racing, but I can only imagine that when the ref realised that Cook wasn't prepared to calm down, he took the only appropriate action. Looking forward to meeting Newcastle in the final, just hope we get the 2nd leg this season, as they had it last season.

If we had used some of the sky money to invest in younger riders, take them to Poland and other Countries for test matches, then we might not be in this mess. But sadly, most of the sky money ended up in the bank accounts of foreign riders. We don't know if this would have helped, but at least we'd have tried.

Happy with two points in the end. Nice to see Ritchie getting amongst the points, and thanks to the other Ritchie for leading from the front, great team riding with Leigh in heat 13. Heat 11? Did anybody else think that it should have been a 1-5? Everybody where I stood had filled their prog in as a 2-4, not even close, or so we thought. As for the one league thing, would love to see it, but where do the riders come from, we haven't got enough riders now, take out the handful of top stars and doubling up lads, and there's a massive shortage. Looking at the "real" league table, Scunny have a lot of catching up to do, but when they get Birks back, I reckon they'll take some stopping.

Normally I'd prefer to go with our own riders, but as there's a doubt over Rohans fitness, it makes perfect sense to book a decent guest.

Can we call it off due to international call ups, they do it in football, but that's a proper sport. But very unfair on the witches, there's only 2 riders that can possibly replace Ben, Doyle and Cook. With those two out of the equation, we'll struggle.

This Week just gets better, I thought I'd have to wait until Thursday to collect, but the Russians and Swedes were so bad, £585 has already gone into my account. I only hope sporting index keep betting on speedway, but as they haven't got much idea what they're doing I'd be surprised if they do, they must be losing a packet.

Took about 30 mins to watch this when we eventually got home form the 4's. If only we could have fast forwarded that meeting.

Nice one, that has got to be the dumbest quote of the season. The way I see it, Sky didn't want it and Eurosport picked it up for peanuts. Lets just be glad we can still watch it, Moto GP and the Tour de France are much bigger than Speedway, well done to Eurosport for finding a slot for it.

No Gollob now, but they don't really need him.

More generous than skybet, both 11/10 with those tight gits. But as It's a two horse race, at least a profit can be made.