Mike.Butler

Amazingly it could be that the greatest rivalry in British speedway currently is between 2 National League sides....and one of those tracks is likely to stage more meetings than any other in the UK this season! It feels like here in the South East that the El especially is an irrelevance .. ....most meetings.. but not most heats..lol

trend is that the larger the conurbation the less likely it is they have a speedway club!

Unless there are more teams in whatever league Poole run in, I can't see a solution to this..

The other Jack, JPB said on facebook yday that he was booed by Kent fans on monday and doesnt know why, can anyone shed any light? I silently boo him (even at Perry Barr (cos his name is too long to fit in my results database I use). ..

Many thanx for your thoughts all..I think I now feel its 75% Kent 25% Brummies fault we didn't get 15 heats: as opposed to 75/25 the other way as I left the stadium. LEN - GET A MOVE ON - START AT 6.30 PLEASE AND TELL YOUR RIDERS THEY CAN HAVE A LAP OF HONOUR AFTER 10 heats are done in the first hour......... AND - next week give fans a couple of quid off to make up for the missing races over last couple of weeks..I mean to say, 14 mins racing in 2 HOURS!! (pretty pathetic really don't you think!) Maybe we could get some 2nd half racing if there was proper meeting management taking place. *JOKE*

Are refs ever held to account when meetings run slowly? If not why not????

neutral fan in attendance. * Great racing * Great crowd * Referee and home riders know there's a curfew. the crowd could see from heat 10 what was likely to happen..yet we had an inexplicable tractor break , home riders laying flat out on track for ages before leaping to their feet, a referee who showed no urgency early in in the meeting, and totally predictably ran out of time. Extra laps with flag for heat winners hardly helped either.. It's not Birmingham's fault there is a 2 hr curfew but.. * Drury should hang his head in shame - I often go to Perry Barr (how would he feel if most of his crowd left shaking their heads at the way they were robbed of a finale to this meeting) Yet another example of the fans who pay good money getiting short changed. That's another promoter who should be done on a disrepute charge as behaviour not in the interests of the sport. I know I'm wasting my breath (not to mention my money). Once again the paying public were the last thought on any of the above's mind. I sat with Brummies fans and they were disgusted too.

Is there much to do around West Ham's stadium I wonder?....

squads won't increase the regularity of fixtures. The top riders who are signed up will all want to ride in/ miss the same meetings. Perhaps if we ran our season from Jan-April it might work..

Thoroughly enjoyed it. Thought racing was excellent. Atmosphere on a par with Warsaw. What a shame we rarely get much atmosphere at league matches as fewer and fewer of us attend weekly/fortnighty/monthly* delete as applicable for local track..

maybe the Russian league teams?

The other sports mentioned have a significant worldwide tv audience. Speedway doesn't. Stand-alone GP riders is pie in the sky. Given a few years I suspect that the Polish league will be unable to offer the kind of money the top boys currently enjoy, and it will be interesting to see how many can survive on GP income alone! I suspect full-time speedway riders may not be around at all in 20 years time.

lee dicken

Mis-match I'm afraid - The Stoke fans present were happy enough but I'm not sure Lee Dicken is the answer to Buxton's team problems. So many 1st bend falls from their lower order, its competitive 2nd strings they need as much as a new no.1

As said earlier in an earlier post I drove up from Sussex having checked match was on before I left. It's bigger than just me though isn't it. It's about trust and the effect that this type of balls-up has on other tracks businesses. That is why I sincerely believe that the sport is better off with tracks closed that don't act in a professional manner at all times. I'm sorry but every one of these negative stories takes us further down the road to oblivion. And whilst I'm at it what the heck is going on at Stoke? How many times have I thought about going there only to see 'match postponed' signs up? The latest being yesterday...Matt calls for continuity of fixtures....some promotions can't even manage the odd meeting once in a while!

the problem with squads is that the rich bags all the best riders...sign them up to stop other clubs using them...ok so they may only be able to put a team out on a particular day under the points limit but the majority of clubs won't be able to compete. Unless you envisage there being some kind of restriction on make up of squads? Seems to me this will benefit Poole more than any other club but they will find they have few other teams to race against! Rider control with set pay scales is the answer. (but I'm not holding my breath)

I suppose mildenhall's 'punishment' is the loss of an attractive fixture with revenue to club and riders...+ any chance of the play-off s of course

hope its not sunday revisited and I end up turning around cos Rosco has objected to Cook! hoping for a jolly good time tonight.!

Unfortunately the sport is in such a desperate state that tracks are kept open at whatever cost in the belief that however badly run its better than if they close. The governance of British speedway is fundamentally broken as supporters on this forum have been advising for many, many years. A repeat of the 1965 review is required but who on earth will pay for it?

England playing football Monday night...

actually I was referring to the tv meeting against Poole on a Monday night.

The lunatics running the asylum has gone on long enough.... From what I can see from afar those involved presently are doing on balance a better job than their male counterparts. I can also think of others in the past who knew what they were doing..

Yep, 24 hrs later and looking forward to my next meeting...Didn't see you at Birmingham last meeting?..mind I've only got there once thus far...Trust you're working! I am still! A team manager informed the ref of the reason his team will be riding the match 'under protest' which was often at the make-up of the opposition side. (this public display was as much to appease any disgruntled home fans on the day..) He pays the protest fee and gets a hearing...not sure this is still an option though? At Duplicate Bridge we call similar 'Reserving one's rights'

I drove 2.5 hours to Mildenhall arriving at 2.30 and really looking forward to an attractive meeting..to be met by dozens of cars turning around, and so drove 2.5 hrs home again... I was trying to visit every track this year but what with the weather and now this totally avoidable cock-up my enthusiasm is waning. This on top of attending the Coventry fiasco last season. I am surprised as many like me still attend anything that's not local. Even if a meeting goes ahead I don't even expect to see 15 heats these days let alone the 20+ of old days... With some exceptions supporters seem to be the last people riders and officials ands refs think of.. Why on earth I spend up to £20 plus fuel to possibly see as few as 10 heats i can't quite fathom....the few of us left must be mad. I go to non-league football a lot (and travel long distances), with sometimes paltry crowds watching at step 7, but at least I know the game will go ahead and not be called off for some ridiculous reason. (like the visiting team have a player the home manager doesn't like much!) What happened to riding under protest and paying the appropriate fine? Doesn't seem to happen these days.. Speedway as a whole seems to have a self-destruct mechanism, and i'm afraid it might be better in the long run those found not to be acting with the best interests of the sport in mind to be thrown out of the sport. If tracks close so be it. In the long run it might stop us lurching from one shocking cock-up to another (it is meant to be a professional sport after all) This type of incident affects every Promoters business to some extent, so why on earth others tolerate this year after year beats me! I will continue to go to tracks up and down the country as I love the sport so this isn't a threat in any way...it just breaks my heart that other fans are understandably stopping going because of the shocking way the sport is being run in this country. I think in this case a disrepute charge would be appropriate. One person's actions have cost me and others a significant amount of wasted time and money

I drove 2.5 hours to Mildenhall yesterday, and 2.5 home again... I was trying to visit every track this year but what with the weather and now this totally avoidable cock-up my enthusiasm is waning. This on top of attending the Coventry fiasco last season. I am surprised as many fools like me still attend anything that's not local. Even if a meeting goes ahead I don't even expect to see 15 heats these days let alone the 20+ of old days... Supporters seem to be the last people riders and officials ands refs think of once we're in the stadium. Why on earth I spend up to £20 plus fuel to possibly see as few as 10 heats i can't quite to work out..the few of us left must me mad. I can only see attendances going down tbh..