Grachan

Do you know what that stands for? You have just been extremely rude.

I was actually quoting directly from the government's Life in the UK handbook when I put Rugby. So you can't blame the damn BSF for it.

Apart from the obvious top 3 of Football, Cricket and Rugby the lists seem to vary greatly with no real statistical evidence. I guess they have been mainly guessed by different people.

I think you should lay off the "autism" stuff. It's not big. It's not clever. And it might offend an awful lot of people. And having an interest in numbers and figures doesn't automatically make someone Rain Man.

Agree on all three point, but particularly the second one. There is too much emphasis now on positive test numbers, but these are wholly dependent on who decides to have a test and gives no indication on how serious the case is. The figures we need to know are how many people get it serious enough to have to go into hospital and how many die. Without that it is just another virus.

This is the official list of sports, taken directly from the "Life in the UK Test" official handbook for all the dodgy foreigners who want to live permanently in the UK and take all our jobs but claim all our benefits too. Cricket Football Rugby Horse Racing Golf Tennis Water Sports (bit general that) Motor Sports (and that. I guess that covers speedway although in the notes it's all about F1) Skiing (Yup. Skiing)

I saw a couple of lists that have Netball third or fourth too, which I find strange. That one has rounders. I guess it must mean as a participation sport. All the lists do seem very subjective.

This, from 2019, has speedway fifth, which seems a bit optimistic but it's good to see it recognised. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-popular-sports-in-the-united-kingdom.html I found another that had Speedway 7th. Others don't include it at all. It is the certainly something of a cult sport.

It is.

I doubt it too. He showed last year and with his scoring this year that he is clearly still improving.

Probably true. However, if Mark Loram had won a one-off final I'm sure many people would have said that he wouldn't have won under the Grand Prix system.

Although, if the end of last season was his peak and he rides like that in this meeting he may well qualify.

Interesting comments looking through that old thread, such as how Colston was slave trader but nobody objects to him in Bristol and how nobody minds there being a sports team in the USA called "The Redskins". Both those issues have come to light lately.

As people say, Ivan and Hans would probably have dominated in a Grand Prix series when at their peak. To expect them to win every year is probably still pushing things a bit htough. Erik Gundersen certainly had the World Championship mentality. And riders like Olsen, Collins and, as stated, Michanek were definitely worthy World Champions. Also, if ther had been a Grand Prix in place in the 1970s, Tommy Jansson wouldn't have been riding in a World Championship qualifier on 20 May 1976.

It's all good experience for him. From what I saw last year he is the most likely British rider around at the moment outside the big two to make it to international standard.

Ellis was probably the best Brit after Woffinden and Lambert at the end of last year, and he is riding in Poland, so not an overly surprising pick. What level is he riding at in Poland? I saw that he scored a 15 point maximum recently but don't kmow what level of rider it was against.

Speedway continuity. Not hard to work out really. The Rebels nickname in the past used the Conferderate flag so they stuck with that at first. The same as Reading Racers did with the Harringay Racers logo, for example. Later, they changed it to a more locally appropriate image after dropping the confederate flag.

No, you're right. The fact that the Rebels fought in the Battle of Sedgemoor and had a Wyvern on their flag and their speedway team is called The Rebels and has a Wyvern for a logo is clearly just a coincidence. My mistake.

It still fits though. Westonzoyland is just 10 miles from Highbridge. Are you suggesting that the Somerset promotion had absolutely no knowledge of this and it is just coincidence? The Battle of Sedgemoor was the last and decisive engagement between the Kingdom of England and rebels led by the Duke of Monmouth during the Monmouth rebellion, fought on 6 July 1685,[1] and took place at Westonzoyland near Bridgwater in Somerset, England, resulting in a victory for the English army. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sedgemoor#:~:text=The Battle of Sedgemoor was,victory for the English army.

Certainly more connection with Somerset than the Confederate Flag. The Wyvern is the official flag of Somerset. The Rebels is relevant because of the Battle of Sedgemoor, which took place near Bridgewater in 1685, which was part of the Monmouth Rebellion. It's actually one of the few nicknames and logos in speedway that are truly locally relevant.

And it made last night's meeting intriguing from the off. I was wondering, for example, if Robert Lamberts had missed an opportunity to stamp his authority over Madsen in his second ride. Using the new GP scoring it's all down to the final race (which, I guess, is what they want), which would have given the same result but in a less interesting way.

Brilliant. Very impressive from Lambert.

Got it now. On Maniak. Sorry. I'm a novice at this.

Why am I getting tennis and road racing????

Where's this speedway then? I'm seeing roadracing from 1993.