Paulco

Hope all the injured riders are not too badly hurt , it did seem that the third bend especially caused most of the havoc . Track was fine to start with as Morris broke the track record , but it seemed to go downhill from the first grading after heat 4 . Morris tried to team ride Sarjeant and got too close to him on that bend and came down , so cant really put that down to the track unless Nick picked up too much grip . Birks just entered bend 1 with too much speed after passing Sarjeant on the home straight and went too wide into the fence . As for Garrity , he entered the third bend too narrow in passing Lawson , Lawson then cut back and retook him and Garrity went down on his own but his flying bike caught Bellego . As for Garrity's fall later in a race he was leading , a lot of smoke appeared from the back of his bike when he fell and possibly that was mechanical . The other falls were simple slide offs . Lawson and Summers had no issues with the track and were superb , while both Sheffield reserves were very impressive and have kept their club in this tie . 14 points is a defendable lead , but this tie will go to the wire in the second leg I think .

Agreed the Ty Proctor situation was rubbish . You can get riders like Konopka plying their trade over here , blatently not good enough , and a rider who has been a steady rider in both the EL and PL for years , is forced out . The guest situation is farcical , but what other option is there ? People are quick to condemn it , but nobody has yet come up with a sensible solution to it . Ultimately the scenario with doubling up / down / sideways / will have to come to a halt as it's not working . The fast track reserve thingy isn't working either as you're going to get the same core of riders doing it year after year after year . The whole structure of our league system needs a complete overhaul and if the solution is a 16 to 18 team league with no GP riders and a strict pay structure , then so be it . As for Sheffield using a guest all season - how can they possibly replace Simon Stead ? So under the current conditions , they have no alternative but to keep on doing what they're doing .

Agreed , the Premier League would be all the poorer without one of the best tracks in the country

That's sad Sandie , she couldn't have been that old either

Best just to draw a line under this one . Nick and Richard were very good and gave us our one crumb of comfort in heat 15 . Berwick were solid throughout and the scoreline was about right . Still I had a great afternoon in the warm Berwick sunshine and had a lovely walk along the town walls this morning . I love that wee town .

No point in the lad rushing back until he's 100%

Any news of Plymouth's promoters having heart trouble ?

Ellis Perks and Matt Williamson are Glasgow's reserve pairing . Perks was completely out his depth when he guested for us in the League Cup meeting , but we shall see . Lawson , Summers and especially Morris will have to bring their "A" game . This is a meeting we don't want Nick taking three rides to get going as has been the case recently

Apart from April's League Cup meeting

Apparently we could be without both Victor and Dimitri

Riders are basically self employed workers . It would be unfair of any club to deny a rider the chance of making extra money

It is , but I cant recall us beating anybody by that score at home this season

Only a handful I would imagine , certainly not as many as would have been there on the original staging date . But it's being shown live at Ashfield , so there will be a few of us there cheering from afar

That's twice this season I've seen Ipswich away from home , and twice Covatti has been their best rider . We just couldn't put Ipswich away yesterday , despite being 11 points ahead at one point . There is just something not quite clicking with the Tigers at home at the moment , but you now get 3 points whether you win by 2 or 32 , so i'll take the 2 every week . Not the most entertaining of meeting , heat 13 apart , but it was an important win nevertheless . Seems Ipswich are better on the road than they are at home just now

That was a pretty entertaining meeting . Wee Nick's ride in heat 13 was worth the admission alone . So glad he rides for us I'm pissed by the way , certain couple of Birmingham fans saw to that haha End of the day , I don't care about rule books and speedway's red tape , I just want to watch four riders on a track . And heat 13 today , Nick Morris take a bow son , that was amazing

Yes , a truly inspired piece of journalism that was

Seems David was second choice after that nonsense that appeared in today's Daily Record about us signing Darcy Ward haha

One of our Monarchs friends above seems to have supplied the answer to that one

Yes it appears we MAY sign David Howe

Welcome to the Stripes David

And here was me thinking the fanzone was out the back of the Prince of Wales pub

knew it had to be something

Are you sure he wasn't using it yesterday ? he looked super fast and going past riders like they were standing still

One more point about yesterday . One of the races , cant remember which one , there was an unsatisfactory start . The new rules prevent the riders returning to the pits . But what we had yesterday was all four riders sat at the pits gate and a posse of mechanics descended onto the track and all sorts of adjustments were then carried out . New ruling is pretty pointless then .

Looked a sore one , carried too much speed into the bend and caught the fence , but he got up and walked back to the pits , waving to the crowd , after a few minutes medical attention