Grachan

Yup. And look who had the strongest side.

Funny that - Poole and Leicester looking strong. The two sides untilising dodgy averages.

I don't go to every meeting. I probably to to 4 or 5 meetings a year, and they tend to be when the opposition looks most attractive. This is down to distance I live from Swindon, convenience due to work and cost. This would make it an easy decision which ones to attend. I would go to the "Super League" matches. Not sure why you think it should suddenly cost 20 quid though.

Good, because I have BT but not Sky! Much as I think Natilie is a great presenter, Sky's coverage was better, though. Hopefully BT will understand the importance of minor placings more this year. Great that it will still be getting covered though.

I think you've got me lol. One with Nick and one with Darcy.

I'm intrigued now! I've often wondered if I know you too, from those times, as we seem to share similar memories a lot of the time! Winning at Swindon and Oxford was always the best thing, as we always tended to be poor relations to one or the other (or both!) over the years. Things were so much better when we had that three-way rivaly, and I used to regularly go to all three.

I remember a trip to The Shay. Phil Crump beat Kenny Carter twice in the match, and then won the second half. I remember Trevor being on those trips. My parents were good friends with his parents.

Hans should have been excluded. Much as I was a supporter of him and felt he was easily the best rider in the World, I just can't see how he got away with it. I just took another look at it on Youtube. Tommy is going round mid bend. Hans is inside and moves out towards him, and Tommy actually tries to move further out at the last minute to avoid getting hit, but Hans takes him out. No denying Hans was the best in theWorld, and maybe he needed to get the rub of the green just that once to get off the ground with World Championship wins, but he got away with that one.

Good: 1 - My first meeting at Swindon. I had been to a meeting at Weymouth earlier in the year, which had inspired me to go again - but Swindon was another level. I can still picture it now. It seemed so much faster and more professional than the meeting at Weymouth. It was Swindon v Wolves in 1974. Martin Ashby broke the track record and beat this guy called Ole Olsen, who everyone was mocking because he only scored 7 points from 5 rides. 2 - Going to Poland in 1976 and seeing Peter Collins become World Champion. 3 - Swindon signing Andrew Silver after his brilliance at no 8 the year before. 4 - Cradley walking out at Oxford in the snow. Not sure why, but I loved that meeting! 5 - Swindon coach trips to World Finals and away meetings. Bad: 1 - See Steve Roberts good point no 5! 2 - The same as you, Sidney, with Petersen, Holden and Jansson. Like you, Sidney, I was at school at the time and those three had such a profound effect on me and I became a bit obsessed with all three. 3 - Reading and Oxford closing down. 4 - Going to a Swindon v Glasgow meeting after many years away, and standing on a near empty second bend and watching a dull match with a very small crowd. I couldn't believe how much the atmosphere at Swindon had changed. I do think it picked up again later, when Rosco came into the club, but that was a real shock. 5 - Watching Reading and Oxford celebrate World Champions and waiting over 40 years for Swindon to have the World Champion in their side themselves, only for Jason Doyle to win it and then get dropped before riding for th club.

So 14 top league speedway in a season. I tend to pick and choose meetings, and every match I chose would probably be a top league one, because that would be the league that matters because that would be the "first" team. How would you propose to convince fans of those clubs in the so-called Super League that the ONE true league is the one at the lower level? Would you expect fans of Swindon to all turn out in large numbers to watch a Swindon side where, say, Troy Bachelor and Tobias Musielak are replaced by under-21 brits? These teams would soon want to stop running in the lower league due to lack of support. The result? Two leagues.

What you want to have, in order to keep fans entertained between races, is riders who are excluded standing on the track gesticulating at the ref. Fallen riders stomping over to the pits phone by the starting gate because they've been harshly excluded. None of this is allowed now. It should be encouraged.

Me too. I just thought that that might be the only contentious position in the order. But the order is pretty logical to me. Doyle (9.69), Lindgren (9.29), Vaculik, Morris (8.87), Thorsell (8.64). Yet Vaculik is assessed as being below Morris and Thorsell.

Winning the league in this sport isn't all it's cracked up to be. It just leads to a feeling of disappointment afterwards.

They aren't being assessed. It's about taking a rider without an average and putting him where he should be. My own assessment is the same as yours. Most people's would be. The only possible change might be swapping Lindgren and Vaculik round. He's a nine.

Also he was leading the World Championship at one time. He should be a nine. To anyone who thinks 8.00 is a fair assessment, put these riders in order of the standard that you think they are: Jacob Thorsell, Jason Doyle, Martin Vaculik, Freddie Lindgren, Nick Morris. I reckon there must have been some horse trading somewhere behind the scenes to get Vaculik reassessed, because there is no reason to think that the original assessment was incorrect.

They obviously used their own skill and judgment to work out that Vaculik is slightly below the standard of Nick Morris and Jacob Thorsell, so assessed him accordingly.

Incidentally, can you imagine the uproar on this forum if Poole had signed Vaculik and then had his average reduced by a point?

Precisely because of that. They got Vaculik on 8.00, so it gave them more scope. They have, effectively, been able to build to 43.50. So they are bound to have a strong line-up.

Eurosport isn't free.

Exactly. Plus, the teams in this 'Super League' would struggle to get support for their championship strength sides. So they would stop running them. And there you have it. Two leagues again.

Difference being the two leagues had different riders. The two leagues now have a lot of the same riders in them. Also, when the two leagues combined intonthe BL, it had the best riders in the world in it. That is not what is being advocated here.

One league at the strenth you advocate is, in terms of making the sport popular, rubbish. In terms of the finances available, it may be what the clubs want. From a supporter pount of view - merely in terms of the product and the appeal - it's crap. It seems, every year, that the best thing they can think of is come up with something to stuff Jason Doyle, who is showing commendable loyalty to this country at the moment. There is a certain section who seem intent on making the sport weaker every year until it snuffs itself out. I am not one of them. I miss when teams had the best riders, regardless of how feasible it is.

And even out support levels to somewhere between the Championship and the National League. Why is that always seen as the answer?

The second division won't want one big league because they wouldn't be able to sponge their heatleaders off the top league any more. Why do you think it's to accommodate Jason Doyle in the top league? They've tried their best to get him out the league for the last two years running.

The 1981 World Final WAS an amazing final. I was there. It's not just a case of looking on a sheet and counting passes. You can come away from a meeting with countless passes and not get the feeling that you got from that meeting. I was there, and you came away with the feeling you had seen something special. It had what I guess you would call the X-Factor - that undefinable quality that made it special. Penhall's races were possibly the only great races of the night, but is just had something that no other final I have been to has had (and I went to 3 at Wembley - all great events but there was just something that the Americans of that time injected into Speedway for that too brief time that gave it something extra that has been lacking since)