It's been the talk of the speedway town in the last few weeks. A succession of catastrophic performances by defending champions Poole Pirates have sent them plunging towards the foot of the Elite League table and led to widespread allegations that they were deliberately throwing away matches in order to reduce their averages and allow them to bring in another star rider (note to non-speedway fans: all riders have a points-per-match rating and at the start of the season a team's combined total may not exceed a certain figure. Averages for the new season come into play after 12 matches and, if the combined total is then lower than the starting figure, they can make changes to strengthen their line-up to the permitted total).

Poole, of course, deny doing anything of the sort. Fair enough. Their riders were inexplicably out of touch and, once they reached the 13th match, they found form again. It can happen. Meanwhile, the drop in their averages allowed them to bring in Grand Prix star Hans Andersen and now, with Andersen joining Bjarne Pedersen and Chris Holder, they have arguably the strongest spearhead since Ipswich tracked Gollob, Rickardsson, Nicholls and Louis in 1998 (a year of six-man teams, at that).


Meanwhile, Poole boss Matt Ford is complaining that his crowds have dropped. Well, when I was at Poole recently all the fans I met seemed to believe that dodgy dealings were taking place. Whether they were right or wrong, it's hardly surprising that some of them had voted with their feet. No doubt Andersen's arrival will being them many of them back.

Once upon a time, a minor competition was held at the start of the top-division season and averages in that counted, allowing teams to pull all sorts of strokes before the actual league racing got under way.

Action was taken to stop that; now it's straight into league action. That should have ruled out any fiddling. Poole, for example, have now ridden 14 of their 32 league matches and are already 20 points behind table-topping Wolverhampton, who also have a match in hand. However strong their team, they have little chance of closing that gap. But they don't have to, do they?

The team finishing top of the table aren't the champions any more. Oh no. They just qualify for the play-offs which decide the official champions. And this year six of the nine teams will make the play-offs. The Pirates will be there for sure and, even if they finish sixth, it will take a great side to beat them in a two-leg play-off (in previous seasons, remember, only four teams made the play-offs and the semi-finals were single-leg affairs on the track of the higher-placed teams, as a result of which the top two in the table invariably made the final. Which is how it should be).

Alas, TV demands an exciting finish to the season so no doubt the play-offs are here to stay. But let's have some reward for the league winners, please.


One other note: despite their wretched start and all the consequent finger-pointing, Poole aren't actually bottom of the table. Belle Vue are, thanks to some startling inept performances from thir top men. And which team 'owns' Jason Crump, another of the big names who has, so far, decided not to ride in the Elite League this season? Ah, that would be Belle Vue.