Paulco

But generally crowds in our division are pretty poor . Places like Scunthorpe , Berwick and Workington are racing in front of only a few hundred souls at best , and that is unsustainable . And the cancer of riders being missing for whatever reason has crept into the second tier more and more . Lack of sustained weekly fixtures is harming the second tier far too much too , which also impacts on crowds . So to think that everything in the Championship garden is rosy couldn't be farther from the truth .

Not sad at all . I fear league speedway is disintegrating before our eyes . Doubling up has spiralled out of control , rider availability ( or lack of it ) has made rescheduling postponed fixtures virtually impossible . For league speedway to survive I feel a top league of 14 or 16 teams is really the only option , with a second tier of who doesn't want to be in the top league or can't afford to be . It's not a case of just catering for a top league , it's trying to make sure league speedway doesn't completely self destruct .

Can see both clashes ending in home wins this week , but the play off four has pretty much been decided for weeks . So these two meetings coming up aren't that important in the grand scheme of things . Sheffield will finish top and choose Edinburgh , and that will be comfortable for Sheffield whether Masters is back or not . Meanwhile Ipswich and Glasgow will slug it out for second and third and that ultimate play off semi is too close to call over two legs .

That included some of the away side a lot of the time

Aye the old 13 heat format was a bit jaded , hence the change to 15 , 16 , 18 , then back to 15 . 15 works perfectly well . As for gardening , the holding on to the bike while they stamp on all the spiders at the starting gate looks a bit silly , I believe next season they're not allowed to get off the bike at all once they get to the start .

Taking three laps to pass the lesser Lindgren in one heat , and looking a bad last in heat 13 before Garrity's bike exploded is a major concern .

Don't know what it is , but a wee bit of power sees some people reach for the jackboots .

It was pretty embarrassing , the riders hadn't a clue whether to stop or carry on racing . But apart from that it was an enjoyable enough meeting , not much in the way of passing , but good close racing in many of the heats . Think we all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw Nike get back up after his heat 14 crash . Nobody's fault though , don't know if that was a different bike Lindgren was on for that heat , but he looked a different rider than had been out previously , though when the bike went entering bend 1 poor Nike had no where to go but into the fence . Felt for Pickering , on trial from our feeder club and he was worth more than what he scored . Our Worrall was superb , as was Newcastle's . Lawson was his usual , brilliant in his four programmed rides before , not for the first time , messing up heat 15 . Summers though is becoming a worry , he looked slow last night . And the other farce was at half 6 when me and my mate were stood on the upper tier of the back straight . One of the over zealous park rangers came up and told us " you cant stand here " . Shocked we replied " excuse me , we stand here every week along with a hundred or so other people " . But no she was steadfast in her jumped up authority , in her book the whole upper tier was off limits . Anyway , thankfully , one of the directors was on his way to the pits and Mrs Jobsworth was told to get a grip and behave herself . So we were all allowed to take our usual places and enjoy the speedway . Honestly , speedway stewards are another curse on the sport .

Aye true , but the seats are cushioned

Yes they do i'm afraid , but for that you get to enjoy the Glasgow experience . The awesomeness of the Tigers and the plush 21st century stadium with it's impressive facilities .

No , this is Josh's trial meeting for next season

Didn't say he wasn't entertaining , just unpredictable

Haha , I was giving them a point each . Morris is what he is , a five point man in this league . While Lindgren is shocking away from Brough , Armadale excepted . Such a shame Lambert wont be there , he was brilliant at Ashfield in the KO Cup final last year . Hope we get some sunshine to dry the track out tomorrow , battering down tonight and has been most of the week .

More so . He likes a wee jump or two at the tapes and has been know to fall off under no pressure . At least Worrall , Robson , Morris and ok Lindgren would have maybe scored 7 or 8 from those rides , will Garrity ???? i'm not so sure .

Why on earth would we want to leave an essentially northern league to move into a predominately southern league ? Makes no economic sense . If it was to move up and watch the sport's top stars every week , then maybe , but we get to see 90% of the riders performing in the top division anyway

That must be a new development , might have been better with r/r as Garrity is a bit unpredictable

The loss of Lambert , who is an exciting rider to watch , without an adequate guest takes much of the gloss of this fixture . But at least every Newcastle rider can take one of his rides , which shouldn't inconvenience them too much even if Lindgren takes one of them , but we could be in a bit of bother trying to fill Bewley's rides with only Lunna and the reserves able to take his . With Lunna's gating inconsistent , Perry's machinery unreliable and young Jack having a nasty tumble a couple of weeks ago - that could be problematic .

He never actually said he was going to the speedway though , he might just like the California Grill and is taking his blow up doll as it might be couples only .

Remember Mitch Shirra riding for Coatbridge in 1975 I think it was , there was a bit of dubiety about his age as it was claimed he was only 15 at the time .

That was the early nineties I think when Arena Essex won the 2nd division and Swindon finished bottom of div 1 . Swindon got a stay of execution , but then finished bottom again the following season and did drop down . Ultimately it didn't do them too much harm as they were able to sign Jason Crump from Peterborough and reached the KO Cup final where they lost to Glasgow .

Why not just ask Leicester if they want to drop back down , and Ipswich or Peterborough if they fancy moving back up , would save all hassle deciding who rides for who , and would save SCB informing us how stupid we all are .

I wouldn't bother paying too much attention to the easily offended . It's the same with the numpties who go to football and hurl abuse at an opposition manager or player for 90 minutes , then go complaining to the police if the said player or manager reacts in any way .

Was looking forward to that scenario for the comedy value , but it looks a non starter as I don't think the league structure will be the same next season .

Is it different in the top league then ? As for the past two seasons in the second tier heat 4 has been protected for the number sevens , except if they get injured in heat 2 of course .

Who's machine are we talking about ? As Perry quite regularly has a spluttering machine .