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Post by schumi on Jul 22, 2009 5:42:55 GMT
Hans Andersen returns to Wimborne Road to face his old team, Peterborough, tonight. But bad news for Kenneth Hansen, who has a suspected case of swine flu - Panthers will be using R/R to cover for him.
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Post by schumi on Jul 22, 2009 6:56:37 GMT
Matt Ford hits out at Peterborough in today's Bournemouth Echo:
IF Pirates are the Manchester United of speedway, then Sir Alex Ferguson’s men could find themselves embroiled in a Premier League relegation battle next season.
The dramatic demise of Matt Ford’s reigning Elite League champions, who have gone from the top of the world to the bottom of the pile in the space of eight months, has hit the Poole Castle Cover chief hard.
And coupled with recent accusations of average manipulation from Peterborough's promoters, crazy mid-season rule changes and the bite of the credit crunch, Ford has been left exasperated by a season that promised so much but has delivered little.
Ford opted to keep a dignified silence following the Speedway Control Bureau’s recent exoneration of Pirates over the averages row, simply re-printing the SCB statement with a ‘Nuff Said’ footer in a recent meeting programme.
But the Wimborne Road supremo has now repeated his pledge to pull Pirates out of the Elite League – as well as launching a fresh attack on the Peterborough promotion ahead of tonight’s home Elite League clash with Panthers (7.30pm).
“I always knew what the result would be,” said Ford.
“The SCB came down and spoke to all of the riders concerned and spoke to the management and once they had all the details they realised there isn’t anything to answer.
“In terms of skulduggery, the accusations were just a total sham.
“I really have no time whatsoever for the Peterborough promotion and I’m not worried what they think. It was absolutely crazy and I take no notice of what they say. But they are one of the main reasons I am thinking of taking the club down to a lower league.
“These people come into the sport and within five minutes they start throwing accusations around. They shouldn’t be in the sport and if speedway is just becoming a rich man’s sport then it will very quickly fall flat on its face.
“It’s run very well for 80 years without these people and I’m quite sure it could have run for another 80 without these people.
“It’s very easy to use the word ‘allegedly’ and I could tell you things now that I have ‘allegedly’ heard about other promoters, but you can’t shoot from the hip and you need to be able to sleep at night.”
Ford first revealed his intentions to pull Poole Castle Cover out of the top-flight just over a month ago.
And while some critics simply saw the pledge as a ‘toys out of the pram’ moment, the Poole chief insists it was not an “empty threat” and that more clubs could follow suit.
Ford added: “We’re having a tough time and we have made quite a large financial commitment to get the club out of the position it’s in and I would still hope that we can get off the bottom of the league and make sure we aren’t down there.
“Any decision that is made will largely come down to finance and everybody is struggling on that front. The gate receipt goes nowhere near covering rider costs, but the second part is when you lose confidence in your colleagues (promoters).
“I ask myself if I want to be in business with these people and there are two in particular I don’t want to be in business with. I’ll do a lot of soul searching, but it wasn’t an empty threat. I brought it up a month ago and I still feel the same.
“I think if we go then others could follow – I know there are two Elite clubs thinking about it because they called me last week.
“There is still a need for a top league, but I’m not sure if I want to be in it.”
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Post by schumi on Jul 23, 2009 7:30:16 GMT
As expected, Poole won the meeting, 52-41. Poole = 52 1. Hans Andersen...............3,2,3,2* = 10+1 2. Joe Screen.....................1,1*,1,1 = 4+1 3. Daniel Davidsson............3,0,3,1* = 7+1 4. Bjarne Pedersen.............2*,3,2*,3,1* = 11+3 5. Chris Holder..................3,3,3,3,2 = 14 6. Ben Wilson..................0,1,1,0 = 2 7. Steve Boxall.................1,1,0,2 = 4 Peterborough = 41 1. Niel K Iversen ...............2,2,2,1,0 = 7 2. Ales Dryml....................0,1,1*,2*,0 = 4+2 3. Mads Korneliussen.........0,2,2,6!,2 = 12 4. RR 5. Kenneth Bjerre...............2,3,0,0,3 = 8 6. Henning Bager...............2*,0,1 = 3+1 7. Claus Vissing..................3,0,0,3,0,0,1* = 7+1 speedwayupdates.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Poole&action=display&thread=4844&page=1 |
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