: Hi All. We got back from our 19th consecutive visit to the MGP last sunday and can honestly say it gets better every time- we have already booked our passage for next year! We had the privilege to be at the Grandstand to see Ian Hickey receive his Spirit of the Manx award-a great guy and a good friend to all. James Buckett - who nominated Ian for the award crashed in the Junior race at Kerrowmoor and has cracked his breastbone but should be well in a month or so. Glad to see that Shaun Harris is also making good progress. See ya all again soon.

Welome to TTwebsite. I hope this is the first of many, many posts!
See you at the Manx... come down to the bottom of Bray and meet the witch!

Thanx, maybe I will. We often spectate from Quarterbridge when the weather looks like being poor coz we can keep warm and have a bevvy or two!

Hello Witch (Helen I believe), just reading that you marshall at the bottom of Bray Hill.

I watched from there, evening practice 25/8, was walking as fast as I could to get behind the wall near where the marshalls stand and a female marshall shouted 'Get off the footpath', which I did very sharpish !

Honest Helen, I was told by the marshall a bit further up the hill to hurry down and it would be ok. It was a brill position though.

Well if it was you, sorry, I will run next time. Or maybe arrive earlier, ha ha, probably the best option ay.

Anyway, I had a fantastic week, liked it better than the TT, pubs more accessable etc etc.

Watched from quarry bends twice (where my cousin is a marshall), brilliantly fast through there.

Well, I'll sign off now, just thought I'd mention it.

All the best.

Doesn't sound like my style, but if it was after roads closed, and I knew there was a TM coming, it probably was! I am not keen to scrape up bits, so I try very hard to keep people out of harm's way.
Most marshals will tell you crowd control is our biggest and most difficult job. Let's face it, riders really don't fall off that often..thank goodness.
We are there to ensure the spectators safety, but sometimes they don't appreciate that. We get told we are in the way, cos they want to take photos... well, we try not to be, but if we are, sorry, but that's too bad, spectators may have to move a wee bit if we can't.
We are often ignored, or people pretend they don't understand. This TT there were loads of foreign visitors who truly didn't, and that was sometimes fun!
However, I will share with you a funny one. I always try to get the crowd on our side, by explaining why I am asking them to do something, by keeping them up to date on what is happening, and often with some banter.
At TT time we had a rather large man sitting on the wall on the Tromode Road side of the Bottom of Bray. there are no marshals that side so it's a case of shouting across and hoping they do what they're asked. He acted as if he wasn't hearing, or I was calling to someone else. After a couple of tries I was getting annoyed, when a man behind me said "We'll shift him".. I wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he and his 3 big mates all yelled in chorus "HEY... YOU .... YES, YOU, THE FAT BA****D, GET YOUR LEGS OFF THE WALL!". He did! :wink:
Sorry if I yelled at you, hope you will come back and watch there again.. come early and have a chat.

No worries, you didn't yell anyway, just an authoritive raised voice.

Well, what you marshalls have to put up with, besides the obvious reasons you're there for, amazes me.

I was at Sulby crossroads and a chap let his crisp packet blow onto the road (after the TM's had gone by) and it just rested in the middle of the tarmac. Well you know what speeds riders are passing there. Fair enough he didn't do it on purpose but crickey, tell a Marshall (which I did). God knows what a distraction that would have been swirling in the breeze.

Legs over the straw bales at Quarry was another, wow, you've gotta think for them all the time.

Thanks for sharing your 'fattest' story, funny indeed. Probably resulted in him going on a diet too.

Don't get me wrong, we all do it because we enjoy it.
There is a great cameraderie, and a closeness with people you might never have met otherwise. You will have noticed, I am sure, that any marshalling team is a very diverse lot, in age, in appearance and probably in background.
We spend a lot of fairly tense time together, and get to know each other very quickly. We have a laugh... a lot of laughs, and become a very unlikely team, set against the big bad world for two weeks at the TT or Manx, and then we disperse in our different directions to lives that may never touch again.
At the bottom of Bray there are some marshals who have been there for many years and others just a couple. We welcome newbies and most of the recent ones have opted to come back to Bray the next time. I'll be back because I won the sweepstake.. thanks to Ryan F in the classic!

So you're on here somewhere?

Ahem.... L to r Neil, Colin, Dave, Roger (Chief Marshal) Andy (Deputy sector marshal) Me, and with her back to us, Colin's wife (Kaz?)

Scanning the rooftop opposite for seagulls in dangerous positions, are we :?:



8)

Damn, missed me Andy, good piccy though, must have took that when I stepped away to ring the missus.

That's the spot though mate.

Generally view from Quarterbridge but think we may have to come to Bray next year and meet all of you. Incidentally, got in touch with Duke regarding the MGP dvd and they tell me that what footage they have will be on the Road Race Review dvd this year - all 40 minutes of it! Apparently they don't get funding for the Manx as they do for the TT.

Good grief... looks like I'll have two nights out to arrange now... TTwebsite and The Bray Hill Mob!!

The Bray Hill Mob Early Morning Bus Run ??????