manchesterpaul

???? YAWNNNNN PLEASE EXPAND? OR WAS THIS JUST A LONG AWAITED CHANCE TO TRY AND POST AN IINSTANT NEGATIVE RESPONSE TO ANY POST OF MINE? LOL TOUGH LUCK THIS A RARE DROPPING BY IN THE OFF-SEASON BY ME. AWWWWWW SHAME. WHAT'S BAFFLING???????????????? WHAT ARE YOU UNABLE TO UNDERSTAND?

The originals are NOT Excel based but use the similar OpenOffice.org applications which has many of the features, and more superior ones than Excel, available for free. Apart from the emailed ones via Premier Sports the pdf versions are available online at http://speedway.manc.../racecards.html Just click on the Swedish League link at the top of the page. GHOSTWALKER IS THE ORACLE FOR ALL NEWS OF SWEDISH THINGS (OK HE DOES HAVE AN UNFORGIVABLE EPIC FAIL IN NOT SUPPLYING ME WITH AGNETHA ÅSE FÄLTSKOG'S PHONE NUMBER).

Or tune into the frequently 'HD' quality free feeds online. £200 why on earth pay that? I'm going to be a little annoyed if, despite subscribing to every known Sky channel to man, i have to add yet another subscription fee in order to watch my favourite sports because an online official channel might be the only way one could 'officially' watch the series in 2013. It was bad enough with the ESPN and Premier Sports standalones. It might be more frugal to invest in a Polish language course so i can watch the online streams. I think i'd get more understanding of what is going on by listening to the commentators in my limited 'pidgen Polish' than our usual screaming duo anyway. That is a great shame we've had a couple of years now of superb entertainment with the GP's.

And HOPEFULLY you forgot to mention that you will fall in line with pretty much every sports publication preview in history and provide us with an index this year? It a bit irksome to have to cobble together one's own every year. Alternatively just do each league in alphabetical order? Hey let's make it a sticky of the highest order. I'm even considering having a tattoo advertising this superb annual edition emblazoned across my chest. Glad i not done it yet as it's pretty heavy sleet in Manchester today to be strolling around bare-chested in the name of a good cause. Seriously though i think everyone should do their utmost to advertise this issue on behalf of the Speedway Star. Only downside (yeah apart form the lack of an index) is the wierd traditional fans view where it seems that the qualification of 90% of the fans is to be over 85 years of age. Instead of the fans view can we not have a promoters view or a description of the track regarding racing lines (or 100% lack of them) etc. One of the most richest sports in the world NASCAR doesn't hold back from describing a tracks race-ability or lack of. A technical insight on the way to ride/race a track - as the Speedway Star often touches on in it's GP previews - would be far preferable than this fans view we have at present in the precious space allotted..

My heart just leapt joyfully when idly browsing to see the betting prices for this seasons GP on William Hill and saw this 2013 Speedway GP Series World Championship Starts 31 March - live on Sky Sports Chris Holder will attempt to do what no man has done since 2008, successfully defend the Speedway GP Series. Nicki Pedersen was the last rider to win back-to-back titles, will he provide the biggest challenge? Oucheeee! though, check the date obviously a remnant from last season. Oh well at least Billy Hill provides us with LIVE 24 hour speedway that you can also bet on. The various camera angles are very good, the commentator is ok albeit a bit exciteable. It's also heartwarming to see such good crowds in attendance. Above all the quality of racing is excellent. Check it out at http://sports.williamhill.com/bet/en-gb/virtualworld/VWSPEEDWAY

There was a superb 'speedway' edition of the very popular American website Bike Week Radio Show ahead of this meeting http://www.bikeweekradioshow.com/sounds/BWRSwk28.mp3 There was great praise for the sport of speedway from the presenters. Greg Hancock and Billy Hamill were excellent to listen to. The latter is doing great things for the future of speedway with his training academy.

Probably my only off-season post but on the subject of TV coverage it's great to see EUROSPORT giving LIVE coverage to the revamped Speedway European Championship meetings. Nicki Pedersen, Tomasz Gollob, Emil Sayfutdinov and Andreas Jonsson already signed up for the series. http://speedwayeuro.com/index.php Hope not counting chickens before they have hatched mind as maybe we should keep fingers crossed, as 'Eurosport UK' can often differ in it's live broadcasting deals and hopefully they will receive the live transmissions? Part of press release... "One Sport Ltd. as the exclusive organiser of SEC ensures great promotion of the competition, mainly thanks to contract signed with Eurosport, which will be official LIVE broadcaster to 59 countries. Official broadcaster of Speedway European Championships in following years will be Eurosport. Thanks to 3-years deal, this TV with unprecedented, 59-countries range, will show all 4 tournaments LIVE on its main channel – We are very happy that speedway, so important sport for Polish fans, will finally find its place on Eurosport. Thanks to our co-operation, speedway will be present in 59 European countries and Meditteranean area, including so important markets like Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Great Britain and of course Poland."

Going by the updates site with 'FTG' tagged on to the majority of heats (including at least 8 of the first 10!), and the possibility of the few changes in position being due to engine failures or falls, i think it would have put newcomers off going to speedway. Great to hear of a good crowd though.

Further clashes in the SWC/SGP calendar from the dates i've seen given at the moment are; 20 May World Cup Qualifier & Grand Prix Qualifier. Not seen which teams are involved in the SWC meeting yet other than Hungary but a possibility of a low teams clear top rider or a middle grade rider being involved in both? not sure. Saturday 15 June Speedway Grand Prix Gorzow & SGP Qualifier Debrecen, Hungary. Would mean a middle or lower end GP rider needing to be placed into another GP qualifier.

Me too it was a massive downer when i read it.

Duhhhhh! of course i knew that regarding 16 heats everyone meets everyone else lol. Don't know why it didn't sink in at the time of posting. To be honest the first 16 heats 'all meeting all' is great, sometimes tradition is good. Then i guess that this year's change to have the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st top scorer races was quite a nice touch too. Don't know if it really needs tweaking to nominated line-ups though. Above all the sickest thing is the continuation of the Joker. Never has anything been so aptly named and without a doubt it's well worse in the sheer abonimation stakes than Batman's one!

Got a mental blank right now on something i should know as a matter of course. Isn't it the case that at the moment the format allows for each rider to meet every other rider once as in the standard individual formats?. Managers nominating the last four heats will totally trash the previous fair way of doing things. Regarding who nominates riders first they may well let the fourth team decide first and so on. Cue an advertisement break as with the SGP series when they work out who is in the top eight lol.

UPDATE BECAUSE WHILST I WAS POSTING I SEE THAT...... NOOOOOOOOO! i can't breathe for laughing the whole CREW is here making an appearaNce now. Wow i guess there have been a few phone alerts flying around the....whole clique is gathering LOL.....hey there Arson not had the pleasure of your company for a few threads Ok been fun got to go second half of the Champions League matches about to start and i trying to watch more than one to say the least.

How did EVERYONE know? How did those MANY Ipswich fans who not unnaturally go to their own club website and don't go looking out for Rye House press releases know? How did fans who were looking for a similar BSPA 'Premier league news' item that have been issued for previous instances of clubs abandoning fixtures and competitions know? You now mention Sheffield mentioned they were struggling to find a date for their Ipswich meeting. I live in Manchester should i expect to find out Manchester news by going to a neighbouring city and buy Liverpool's newspapers?

Don't know why you are trying to create such an inane angle that i should be told. It's a pretty feeble attempt at trying to manufacture a campaign against me as you have tried to in the past on various scores. You need to hurry to come up with a good one, whilst unlike last year i'm not dashing off on a three month holiday in the first week of November, i do stay away from the forums during the off-season. It matters not a jot to me as i was never going to attend the meetings, i never paid to attend prior meetings in the presumption that they mattered in the chase for a competition much trumpeted by the authorities and clubs. But surely even you can understand it's not acceptable that, as one example, the Ipswich club site totally ignores that they were in the midst of a chase to the final and then it's erased out of history lol lol. Tsunami and Squall come in combination to mash up the nation hee hee.

Don't forget as with the other smaller/tiny speedway nations we would have a British rider at the British Grand Prix courtesy of the Wild Card. So those who only go to cheer on a Brit more than going to see the world's elite ride would be ok even without a regular representative in the series. Incidentally to be honest i'm one of those who simply do not see Tai as a Brit at all. However, that's been debated to the death many a time so fair enough, i think we're all deeply entrenched in our opinions on that. Also, in the modern age of sportspeople flying a 'Flag Of Convinience' speedway is no different. I still can't get over how many of the England cricket team have spoken with deep South African accents over the years. The USA seemed to snap up any eastern european Tennis player or gymnast amongst many other sports too.

So fans of Ipswich receive no information from their club that their fixture with Sheffield will not take place, and instead have to go trawling for Rye House releases! Whilst i think the BSPA site is very good not all fans visit it, they just use their own club site. Similar to a lot of Belle Vue fans use their own forum and not the BSF. Although i'm the opposite to be honest in that during the main part of the season i'll come on here most days but quite rarely visit the two Belle Vue sites. I just went to the BSPA 'Premier League Headlines' list and there is a whole page of them in list form, none of them indicating that Ipswich's fixture will not take place and none of them imparting the very important news that Ipswich will not be able to attempt qualify for the final. Indeed the latest headline i can find is the 'Two finals for the witches' which is written in the mode of a third of the Challenge fixtures never existed. I went to the official Ipswich site and on a very healthily full page of news items i see a write up on their win over Rye House in their last Challenge fixture raced. However, nada about them no longer being able to pursue a place in the final. The fixture list, like the BSPA's shows the postponed fixture against Sheffield but absolutely no reference to a restaging or note to say it won't be restaged. I don't know how many Ipswich fans would look to Rye House press releases for information on a witches outstanding meeting with Sheffield? Surely they don't all of a sudden have mass amnesia when seeing the article (also reproduced on the Ipswich site) 'Two finals for the witches'. Will it never cross their minds that they attended Challenge meetings in the hope that their team would qualify for the final? To save people ploughing through permutations of various results in the unridden matches, don't bother as my post was addressing why fans weren't informed matches are not to be raced and Ipswich can't attempt to qualify for the final. I certainly think it deserved a headline all of it's own for the Ipswich fans and not expect them to decide to look for a Rye House release on their final with Berwick lol. No it isn't so what's with the rolling eyes? We may not have seen the last of the EL KOC mess if we get bad weather again this week.

As replied to above (to backless at the time)..... "The Emperor's New Clothes reference and (new chapter) angle of the post is to the lack of statements being issued saying that the fixtures won't be taking place etc." Are you capable of comprehending that now that it has been printed twice? Don't know where you get the devious plan to deprive Ipswich aspect from anything i wrote.

The Emperor's New Clothes reference and (new chapter) angle of the post is to the lack of statements being issued saying that the fixtures won't be taking place etc. Instead we just get subsequent releases as if they had never been planned to have taken place. We get to see the two final fixtures in the side window of a site or in a fixture list when fans are probably looking there and elsewhere on the site for when the missing fixtures are taking place. Ooops bit of a shock for some Ipswich fans! I had a quick look at the Ipswich site and see mention in a press release article referring to them taking part in two cup finals but no reference of the missing third final they could well have been in!

Don't want to be the little kid in the Emperor's New Clothes tale or pointing out some sort of Twilight Zone thing going on but......errrrm.....anyone see something missing pre-final of the challenge trophy? You know a little thing like in one of the groups a third of the fixtures not having been staged. Another little thing that Ipswich can qualify for the final with their match in hand. Yet i see Berwick are racing against Rye House in the final!

Greatest credit to him and hope he does well. Thanks for the indirect link to that website too, i've bookmaked it now

Does that make him happy or furious and penniless lol?

Very interesting to read your comments on the influx of young people within the clubs. At the end of the day you can't deny that young(er) people do have more drive and get up and go. One thing that most of us can tend to be guilty of is judging sporting crowds using football as a yardstick and in particular the major leagues. I posted on here a few years ago when someone was critical of one of the GP attendances, i went and studied attendances for all sports in that country including the National football team and it compared favourably. Speedway often receives scant mention in the national media and does not get the mass multiple media daily coverage heaped upon our senses from birth to death that football receives in most countries lol.

Thank you. I see there a few comments appearing on the page of the article, hmmm where's my Google Finnish translator. At the least got to let them know that a couple or so on here have already worked out their travel route/plans

In case you missed it i posted elsewhere last week that the commentary will be online. Just bumping this for those who might have missed the late news of the commentary now being made available online. UPDATE THE BBC HAS STARTED THEIR NEW ONLINE iRADIO PLAYER. HEADLINE PICTURE RIGHT NOW IS THEIR NEXT BROADCAST....YEP! SWINDON Vs POOLE http://www.bbc.co.uk/5livesportsextra/ Other Availability; Don't forget you can listen to the channel on any Freeview box whilst watching the Sky tv broadcast on your main TV. BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Broadcast area United Kingdom - Nationally via Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) Frequency DAB: 12B Freeview: 706 Freesat: 706 Sky (UK only): 0144 Virgin Media: 908 TalkTalk TV: 607 UPC Ireland: 928