Plymouth v Redcar - 16th August

[SpeedwayPortal]

14 hours ago, mike baker said:

Thanks for clarifying. Gladiators Website very poor to navigate.

Hi Mike, The Plymouth website, up until some weeks ago, was built, setup and maintained by an outside freelance developer who had sole access.  The club now have the website back under their control, and have been busy revamping and updating the site which can take an age.  I can assure you the club are working hard on this and it will be another step in the improvement direction once this is complete and back up and running again.

Edited yesterday at 03:02 AM by SpeedwayPortal

[SPEEDY69]

Just caught up with the meeting stream. Congratulations to Plymouth for getting so close to winning with such a patched up and below strength side. Redcar should feel disappointed they only won by two. Thomsen was doing well until his falls. Barker will be out for a while so more guests needed for future meetings. Looks to be a great atmosphere and well fun club down there, seemed to be plenty of fans in, well done! 

Edited 16 hours ago by SPEEDY69

[SCS]

Good win by the bears just hope we can do well and get in the playoffs.

[Bellers101]

On 8/16/2025 at 8:14 PM, szkocjasid said:

I see Plymouth included an insert with the correct riders for todays meeting, credit to them for that.

Cosmic. Could they insert their No1 into the home meetings? 

Edited 14 hours ago by Bellers101

[Bellers101]

2 hours ago, SPEEDY69 said:

Just caught up with the meeting stream. Congratulations to Plymouth for getting so close to winning with such a patched up and below strength side. Redcar should feel disappointed they only won by two. Thomsen was doing well until his falls. Barker will be out for a while so more guests needed for future meetings. Looks to be a great atmosphere and well fun club down there, seemed to be plenty of fans in, well done! 

Redcar are massively disappointed that they only won all the match points and the bonus point. 😆 

[IainB]

All these people with their gushing praise at Plymouth do realise that "Plymouth" only tracked 2 of their own riders on Saturday night don't they 🤷‍♂️

Yes, great, they seem to be doing something right in getting some crowd's in and they must be applauded for that, but don't kid yourselves that you're watching a Plymouth team.

 

[paulboy]

54 minutes ago, IainB said:

All these people with their gushing praise at Plymouth do realise that "Plymouth" only tracked 2 of their own riders on Saturday night don't they 🤷‍♂️

Yes, great, they seem to be doing something right in getting some crowd's in and they must be applauded for that, but don't kid yourselves that you're watching a Plymouth team.

 

Not sure what's more predictable, you dissing Plymouth or Gavan moaning about Belle Vue lol

 

Edited 5 hours ago by paulboy

[secsy1]

9 minutes ago, IainB said:

All these people with their gushing praise at Plymouth do realise that "Plymouth" only tracked 2 of their own riders on Saturday night don't they 🤷‍♂️

Yes, great, they seem to be doing something right in getting some crowd's in and they must be applauded for that, but don't kid yourselves that you're watching a Plymouth team.

 

Everyone bar you on this forum will understand why Plymouth fielded such a team!

Maybe they should have waited till next year to stage the meeting when all the riders are fit and available, would that suit you?

[IainB]

10 minutes ago, paulboy said:

Not sure what's more predictable, you dissing Plymouh or Gavan moaning about Belle Vue lol

 

 

3 minutes ago, secsy1 said:

Everyone bar you on this forum will understand why Plymouth fielded such a team!

Maybe they should have waited till next year to stage the meeting when all the riders are fit and available, would that suit you?

First of all, if you took the trouble to read some of my previous posts about the Plymouth "team", you'll see that I have given them praise. I totally understand why Plymouth fielded such a team because they've been ravaged by injury and they've let their Number 1 completely shaft them.

This is not about Plymouth though, don't try and convince me that a "team" of 2 Plymouth riders should be taken seriously in a so called professional team Sport, it was only fit for a Best Pairs event.

If they want to run the meeting, fine, great, get a big crowd in on a Saturday night, I'm happy for them... there's no way on this earth any league points gained by such a team, whoever they may be, should be added to their league tally, the points should have been forfeited before a wheel was turned.

As the guest system is a necessity to run Speedway in the UK, I think 3 guests should be the limit for any team (and even that's not desirable), meaning at least the majority (3 riders + R/R) is riding for the named "team" in an event.

[torpointfanatic22]

3 hours ago, IainB said:

there's no way on this earth any league points gained by such a team, whoever they may be, should be added to their league tally, the points should have been forfeited before a wheel was turned.

As the guest system is a necessity to run Speedway in the UK, I think 3 guests should be the limit for any team (and even that's not desirable), meaning at least the majority (3 riders + R/R) is riding for the named "team" in an event.

And the prize for 'How to contradict oneself in the same post', goes to...

The rules at the end of the day are what they are, do most people agree with them, not really. But the reality is, Plymouth saw two riders injured less than 24 hours before staging this meeting. They also had two others injured from 7 days prior. At this point in the season to suggest they could sign replacements is a bit of a joke (as much of a joke as the guest system but hey ho).

Context is everything.

[IainB]

13 minutes ago, torpointfanatic22 said:

And the prize for 'How to contradict oneself in the same post', goes to...

The rules at the end of the day are what they are, do most people agree with them, not really. But the reality is, Plymouth saw two riders injured less than 24 hours before staging this meeting. They also had two others injured from 7 days prior. At this point in the season to suggest they could sign replacements is a bit of a joke (as much of a joke as the guest system but hey ho).

Context is everything.

I get the context, my point is a sport, that wants to see itself as being taken seriously by the wider sporting public, should not be allowing teams to race for league points when there's only 2 of it's regular members riding. The fact that the rules allow this is why Speedway in the UK is in the state it is. 

Compare Speedway to a professional sport where their ruling body did step in:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/articles/cjeyz09313do

 

[Bellers101]

37 minutes ago, torpointfanatic22 said:

And the prize for 'How to contradict oneself in the same post', goes to...

The rules at the end of the day are what they are, do most people agree with them, not really. But the reality is, Plymouth saw two riders injured less than 24 hours before staging this meeting. They also had two others injured from 7 days prior. At this point in the season to suggest they could sign replacements is a bit of a joke (as much of a joke as the guest system but hey ho).

Context is everything.

Add in a rider who doesn't want to ride in home meetings also.

[foreverblue]

53 minutes ago, IainB said:

I get the context, my point is a sport, that wants to see itself as being taken seriously by the wider sporting public, should not be allowing teams to race for league points when there's only 2 of it's regular members riding. The fact that the rules allow this is why Speedway in the UK is in the state it is. 

Compare Speedway to a professional sport where their ruling body did step in:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/articles/cjeyz09313do

 

Rugby is a contact sport where even players of similar ability get hurt so it is very dangerous to ask players of lesser ability to compete as there is is very high risk of very bad injuries and there is no system to draw players from other teams except the youth teams n your club.

Speedway in this country relies on a guest system  because it is the only cost effective solution to the problem of injuries.  

I get your point though and there should be a maximum guest rule otherwise it could be a team full of guests.

[singy13]

1 hour ago, IainB said:

I get the context, my point is a sport, that wants to see itself as being taken seriously by the wider sporting public, should not be allowing teams to race for league points when there's only 2 of it's regular members riding. The fact that the rules allow this is why Speedway in the UK is in the state it is. 

Compare Speedway to a professional sport where their ruling body did step in:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/articles/cjeyz09313do

 

Absolutely correct IainB..I'm quite shocked that the Plymouth meeting survived with only two of their team available. It makes a mockery of speedway as a serious sport.

I'm a rugby league fan of Workington Town, as well as the Comets, and I have always fought verbal differences with the fellow RL fans who ridicule speedway for so many reasons. One main weapon they'd use against me is the 'guest' system. For example Stoney guesting for a team challenging Comets for the title - how does that happen they ask. And it's so hard to convince non speedway folk it's acceptable (no it's not actually but hey ho) so at the next Town match I'll not supply them with Plymouth bullets to down me. Speedway is a great sport so badly organised.