IainB

You should get yourself on Twitter for up to the minute information, not just from the clubs but also the riders who can often give you a better idea of whether a match is going to be on and what the line-ups are going to be.

Isn't that written by the guy who's got his book out and giving the proceeds to the SRBF?

He'd essentially be a "free agent" then though

I was thinking while watching the Swedish match last night that Luke Becker must be on the Ekstaliga clubs radar, like Holder, Lidsey & Bewley have been and that if a rider for one of these clubs were to get injured, or I were looking to make a change to bolster up the side, Becker would be one of the the first riders I'd be looking to sign. "The Little Missile" already rides, Poland, Sweden & UK, so something would have to give, could there be a suitcase full of Zloty's heading the way of Monmore Green anytime soon I wonder?

Yes, I've not forgotten that... but I believe that BT Sport also made a bid for the rights although I'm not sure how much less it was than Eurosport... or even for that matter how much the Eurosport deal was for.

Could a rider from one of the lower Polish leagues be drafted into the Ekstaliga as a replacement due to injury? And if so would the 2 leagues only rule be applied? Meaning, would a rider have to drop a league mid-season?

Going off topic for a while... A cartel still operates with the traditional big 4 supermarkets you can see this when they "take turns" offering the same products at "discounted" prices. It's a real bug bear of mine. 1 supermarket will for example sell a bottle of Jack Daniels for £16 for a week or 2 while the others price it at £25, then after a couple of weeks the next one will sell it for £16 and that original supermarket will hike its price to £25. This happens with many product lines, it means you either pay it, travel to 4 different supermarkets to do your shop, or what I do is just bulk buy when the product is "on offer" (the price it should be being sold at). Rant over!

Now we're talking Steamway

To be fair they do call themselves promoters lol Boxing still have promoters and what a murky world that is! But to your general point, I've been having a "discussion" on the Leicester thread about "promotion" and somebody pointed out to me that the Bates family are successful business people that run a number of successful businesses and are basically just Speedway fans. They run Sheffield and Leicester as fans and put management teams in place to run the club. Don't get me wrong I'm glad they are running Speedway but it doesn't seem to be the way to be getting Speedway out of the fine mess that it's gotten itself into.

I don't mind a bit of tractor racing if it's actually doing something like bringing the track back into a raceable condition. I've seen too many tractors doing too many laps just trying to move non-existent dirt back onto the racing line and the watering of a track in parts where the riders never ride. Didn't the BSPL put the TV contract out to tender and there were multiple offers and they decided to opt for Eurosport to attract sponsors to free to air TV. How's that one worked out? Has that brought a League sponsor? Has it brought in any European sponsorship? Has it brought in any sponsorship? In fact here we are in the height of summer where Sky Sports are having orgasms about "The 100" and our "Broadcast Partner" are showing repeats of Olympic action and there's no Speedway until the 16th of August!

Not ALL fossil fuels are bad, just like not ALL plastic is bad. It's the big emitters and the big single plastic users that need to change to allow acceptable use of fossil fuels and plastic. A big part of all motorsport is the noise and I don't think you're going to get that without some sort of internal combustion engine. I don't see why we can't live in a world where some fossil fuels are still used for motor sports, vintage cars etc. While the rest of the world has moved away from them

What I would say in response to this is that the majority of us actually bring small screens to meetings, wouldn't it be good if there was some Facebook live coverage of behind the scenes interviews, race summaries etc. instead of us having to endure endless tractor racing. All it needs is somebody with a phone to actually do the transmission. At the Cricket and Snooker you see quite a few people wearing ear pieces, I assume they're listening to a commentary.

Do "junior" Speedway bikes (non 500cc) run on methanol also?

Also don't forget that GP positioning does not truly reflect race points scored. When you look at his actual GP race points of 10,7 & 8... it's not too far away from his 7.67 match average in Poland which actually puts him at a slightly better 22nd in the list of the Ekstraliga.

2 GP's does not a season make. As I said in my original comment yes I think Fred is under performing a bit. But you can't deny there's some real track specialists riding for Polish clubs, always have been, always will be. Kolodziej is another example, a far tougher opponent in Poland than he would be in a GP at Mallila. So you also need to list those riders competing in the Ekstraliga that aren't in the GP's. Case closed

So track knowledge and "track specialists" play no part in Speedway? Poland seem mostly unable to win anything at world level outside of their own country. Let's hold all of the GP's at Wolverhampton and then see who ends up as World Champion, Zmarzlik probably wouldn't even qualify for the following years event!

Thanks for saying it's ridiculous, how kind of you... erm rude! I suggest if you think about it, racing Miedzinski at Torun is a far more difficult challenge than facing most of the GP field at Prague or Vojens etc. Each Polish club will have riders with far more track knowledge, having done hundreds of laps around their home track than riders pitching up for 1 or 2 nights at a GP venue.

I've never seen anything quite like that, the riders seem really invested in their clubs (until they go and ride in a different country of course ). In my mind I was comparing it to what I saw on Saturday night when Poole won at Leicester and the Poole riders sheepishly came out from the pits to clap at their fans, no criticism of Poole, well done to them for doing it. The riders got close to the fans but not too close until a photographer wanted a photo of them in front of the fans, it all looked a bit awkward... a bit different though when you've got a crowd of 600 in front of you celebrating as opposed to the 16 or so at Leicester Is Freddie underperforming though? Probably a little bit yes, but I would suggest that these days the Ekstraliga has a stronger line-up, in the heats that Freddie rides in and the tracks that Freddie rides on than in the GP's

To compare Speedway to cricket, all the Speedway competitions are the same, just with a different name, the format is always the same 15 heats, 4 riders, 4 laps, 3,2,1,0 point scoring. Yes there is a pairs event and a 4's event but these are one off's. There's no variation... oh excuse me, you can't tac-sub in a KoC match... that's it, really? That's the vision?!? How about a competition where the matches consist of devil take the hindmost races, 1 lap dashes? Saw a number of these at Stoke, I think, and they were quite entertaining. You get 3 first bends per race, which generally where all the action happens and a match race, which can also be quite entertaining, just thinking out loud but it's something different.

You can see this by the crowd that Cardiff attracts, as a bit of Speedway purist, I go to watch the event because of its importance (World Championship round), the racing and the atmosphere. The downside (for me) is that there are a lot of people at the event that are p1ssed up on the booze, it's generally ok as I can move to seats away from these annoyances but I've never seen anybody p1ssed up at a league match. This is born out by a "discussion" I'm currently having on the Leicester thread about various issues with Speedway in general and some with Leicester in particular. There are some people that seem to think that because there is Speedway at their track that everything in the garden is rosy and that the sport doesn't really need promoting that much. The if you build it they will come style of promotion. Clubs should never be happy with their attendances unless they're playing to full houses. I'm not sure that many do dislike them, they probably don't like them when they're at the start or end of the season as fixture fillers but some of the biggest attended meetings I've been to were Individual meetings held in the height of summer on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons. World Championship Qualifiers, Rick Miller Testimonial, Golden Hammer, Pride of the East etc. etc. These events used to carry some history and prestige... until they were stuck at the end of the season with weakened line-ups and the punters saw through this. Isn't this basically what Buxton, Somerset & Scunny were/are?

Looks like the same crowd numbers the Speedway used to get The place is looking good though!

They seem to be big merchandise wearers at Leicester though, you see no end of people wearing the stuff

I stand corrected, a prog board, badge and pre-order scarf

But do the Foxes and Tigers outsource their merchandise? As for Jaybea the only League Championship winning merch that I could see was a badge... or a scarf that can be pre-ordered with delivery from the 24th of November!!! That in my book is rubbish!

I haven't but I will do... Anyway I thought that's what these discussion forums were all about. I'll let you know what the reply is and we can discuss it some more. Blimey... this sounds like a coup I just wonder why the Bates got involved with Leicester (Don't get me wrong, I'm glad somebody has) when they already had an interest in Sheffield... was it to give Josh a team place? Isn't Damian Bates also on the BSPL Management Committee? Maybe he's got too many fingers in too many pies to give them his full attention, a bit of plate spinning going on maybe?