Fourentee

That's a dreadful state of affairs. My sympathies to the Bees fans.

Ah ha, you have convinced yourself! I would have thought if anything the importance of reserves has increased, given that they now have to mix it more with other riders higher up the pecking order. Unless, of course, you mean a strong pair is not as important and you can get by with one strong reserve. I haven't explained that particularly well, but I think you get the gist.

More of a ponder given his average and previous Monmore employment, really.

For what it's worth I don't see KK's scoring quite matching what Holder would have got. But the extra value lower down the order should more than outweigh any slight difference. Poole, as ever, shaping up to be a very competitive side. Shame from a Wolves perspective if Klindt does end up at Wimborne Road, always assuming CVS wanted him at Monmore. Obviously a steal on that average. But riders will go where riders want to go, so we deal with it and move on.

Branford a good signing, IMHO. Attractive line-up overall, too. Looking forward to resuming visits to Rye, which has been a rare port of call for me since student days in the late seventies.

For the record, having just looked it up, 3.61 and 5.52. His away average was the same as that of one F Lindgren, though I'm clearly drawing no comparisons here...

Agreed. Can't have your toffee and your ha'penny, as they say up north.

I suspect if you started a petition you wouldn't be short of signatories round Brandon way. Very impressive team building from Rye thus far. You always hope that teams moving up can be competitive from the off.

Wiser thoughts quickly prevailed there, I suspect! Put some form on, then!

Gosh, I had no idea. To think I've missed that. The Swindon thread, you say? I'll be right over in the next week or two.

Given how little you care about what Stevebrum thinks of you, one might be a tad surprised about the length at which you point it out...

Fair point, but in theory you could probably say the same about Monmore (at least from a size perspective) and we all know how that works out. I would expect him to find a way.

At least they didn't return to the previous effort, where the bottom two top-tier clubs (Peterborough and Wolves) played each other for the right to face the top second-tier side (Edinburgh). "What happens if we lose this pre play-off match?" "You get two extra pay days against a much weaker side." Hmm.

Couldn't have put it better. Will be a huge miss to the sport.

It's an interesting idea, but presumably there would have to be some kind of weighting to reflect the differing standards and match formulas pertaining in each league. Surely the sport's team building processes are complicated enough as they stand? Anyway, I don't think the majority of fans are too bothered how their team's riders perform in Sweden, Poland, Denmark and wherever. It wasn't much consolation to Wolves fans in 2014 that Woffy was tearing up the place in Poland.

I suspect there's a tacit acceptance among promoters that if Fred Bloggs is an asset of Club A but wants to ride for Club B, by and large it's in the interests of the system for the two promotions to agree a loan fee and let him get on with it. Next year Club A may be casting covetous eyes at Joe Smith of Club B anyway.

I don't think even Freddie believes they are necessarily the finished article yet. But he felt the Gerhard suited his style and had development scope. Obviously the advantage there is that, if you're the 'name' rider associated with the product early on and it's going well, then you have a potential advantage to start with and you're best placed to keep the project moving forward in the way you want it to. Fair play to Freddie; he committed to it in a big way and that must have been a risk.

Yes, you're right. I've also seen him remove the helmet once or twice in the pits following heat 15 away defeats for Wolves and smash it into the bench. All the more startling for being such a largely undemonstrative man, but an indication of the passion bubbling beneath. Edit: Helmet off on the lap of honour at the Olympique last night.

When he got really excited he would sometimes raise his left hand just above the handlebars in acknowledgement of the crowd. Even his fist pump after winning that heat at Belle Vue in the play-off final only travelled about four inches. The classic mix of Black Country and Swedish, a delight for the connoisseur!

Funny you should mention that...CVS tells the tale that PK was scouted and invited over to England; they hadn't met at that time. CVS had forgotten which day he was coming; came the knock on the office door and there stood a tall, suited and bespectacled figure with a briefcase. CVS thought he was an insurance salesman.

To give the opposing view, a young developing rider I spoke to recently said that if he has a tumble and wants a confidence booster he has a blast at Scunthorpe because it's fast but not technical. The throttle twists both ways, you know!

Now if you hadn't coughed to it... ...this wouldn't have happened!

Given his smiley, I'm pretty sure Perton Wolf was on the scent anyway.