Humphrey Appleby

It is a lovely venue. A few years I cycled my bike around the track on Boxing Day just to say I'd 'ridden' it. You could just walk in - no-one was there.

I lived nearby for a while. Think the main issue is that a lot of high-rise apartments have gone up around the Ekka and the area has become quite residential. As you say, the track is still there although I don't think there's much if any neutral zone and there's lighting columns and other immoveable paraphernalia right next to the boarding. Think it would be quite expensive to put in a track that's up to modern standards, and would the South-East Queensland fanbase these days justify it? The Gabba is also going to be redeveloped for the Olympics, so there's talk that the Ekka will be re-developed to house the Brisbane Lions AFL team which will probably put the final nail in the coffin. The New Cross-River Rail is going to be going right past the Ekka so there will be umpteen trains an hour squealing through the neighbourhood, so would be a bit ridiculous to complain about the noise from speedway.

Rugby League got a bit lucky in that it was small time enough that someone with big pockets was basically able to buy the entire sport to present as a flagship for their new cable/satellite channels. But it already had a reasonable profile by being regularly shown on the BBC and of course was the 'national sport' of NSW and Queensland. In some respects it's squandered that legacy - having never really broken out of its heartlands and traditional fan base - but I'm sure speedway still wouldn't mind being in Rugby League's position today. It was probably a bit organic with cricket in that matches take many hours to play so there was always natural focus on the national team. Plus of course, it can hardly be said that England was a successful national team during its early years on Sky! But I think cricket largely did do things right whether by good luck or judgement. Of course, there wasn't really a lot of 'proper' sport on television in the 1970s so perhaps speedway capitalised on that. It was maybe also bit unlucky that World of Sport got canned a few years before the cable/satellite revolution really got going, but you have to say that speedway is really its own worst enemy.

At the end of the day, speedway largely failed to capitalise on the rise in satellite and cable television as did other sports. Cricket and Rugby League were also reliant on BBC coverage for a long time, but didn't rest on their laurels and managed to greatly increase their revenues whilst speedway declined. Okay, cricket is seen as a more middle class sport with a demographic that's more appealing to sponsors, but you couldn't have said that about rugby league in the mid-80s. Even when speedway did manage to get some half-decent sponsorship, it was promoting coal as everyone was moving to gas central heating. Sums up the sport...

The difference between football and speedway is that a lot of bets (whether the pools or whatever) are put on football so it's essential there's some integrity. The speedway stuff was quite honestly small beer and arguably affected nothing except the riders involved, sensationalised by the tabloids who probably had a slow news week. But if you've openly admitted to manipulating the results of race, then you can't really expect to get away Scot-free and of course it gives free rein to naysayers who already thought the sport was a joke.

Silver Machine anyone?

I seemed to remember Saturday was the race night back in the NL days.

My memory is perhaps failing, but didn't Arena-Essex originally race on Saturdays? It was Friday at 'ackney, and Sunday at Rye House, right? Visited the kart track next to the old Rye House speedway before Christmas, and apart from piles of soil and rubble dumped all over the track, the stadium didn't look too bad.

Swart is an older Dutch spelling for black. Nowadays it would be Zwart, but the spelling of family names often didn't get updated during the various language reforms, especially amongst Afrikaans. Swart is also an old English name (presumably with a connection to Anglo-Saxons and Frisians), so could conceivably be found anywhere where the British went. It's probably more likely this rider would have been Dutch or South African though.

I wouldn't think there would be huge number of ex-riders wanting to get in without paying, but having dabbled in sports promotion (albeit not speedway), it invariably doesn't just stop with the ex-competitors. Can you just let my mate who's with me in, which becomes mates, and then mates of mates and before you know it, you're losing a significant amount of revenue. You wouldn't expect that Hans Nielsen would have to pay to get into Oxford, out of respect for his achievements and because there's probably some promotional benefit if he turns up. You'd probably also wouldn't expect any rider with any significant association with Oxford to pay, but does it apply to riders who did one meeting with the juniors for example...? If I were a ex-rider though, and knowing the perilous state of speedway finances, I'd be fully willing to pay for entry unless I was expected to do some promotional activity at the meeting. I certainly don't understand why ex-officials should be able to get into a meeting without paying, unless that's considered part of their remuneration (a sort of crap pension).

Digital television is great until it isn't. Bruce Springsteen of course sang '57 channels and nothing on' over 30 years ago and I'm sure at the time having that number of channels was almost incomprehensible to those of us living in the UK . But it turned to be an under-estimation as there's now hundreds of channels of crap...

The Oxford Channel was a free-to-air terrestrial channel, later rebranded SixTV. It was an analogue channel though, so went the way of the Dodo after the digital switchover.

I think he was back announcing at Oxford this year. Must be ancient by now...

A percentage reduction would weigh more heavily in favour of keeping riders with the highest averages, when ultimately you want to encourage distribution of some of those riders to other teams at some point. It's the up-and-coming riders that ideally you'd want to stay with their teams. I think a fixed points allowance per retained rider would favour keeping the lower and middle order riders, who'd normally often be sacrificed if they improved their averages.

Because sports leagues stand-and-fall by the competitive and financial health of the majority of the teams, not the ones that can buy their way to success. There will always be those teams with a bigger budget - whether because they have a bigger fanbase and more sponsors, or simply because they're got a rich owner using the team as a plaything - and that either forces the teams to spend above their means, or they become uncompetitive and lose fans and sponsors as a result. Just because some leagues are apparently able to do this, does not mean it's a sensible model or one that should be aspired to. You could implement a wage cap, but that only really works if you're able to do some expensive auditing which speedway can't really afford. And no doubt a lot of speedway still works cash-in-hand which is pretty difficult to audit. So averages are not the worst method, although they have been misused as a punitive tool rather than one that's used to prevent teams becoming overly strong. There should be encouragement to develop riders over a period time without having to lose them, which could be done with a more intelligent use of a variable points limit and fixed nominal averages for developing riders.

If a rider has been excluded from a heat then technically they have raced. As far as I'm aware, no points are awarded for 17th or 18th place, so presumably an rider withdrawing before the heats would be replaced by a reserve who likely finish in the top 16 and be awarded points accordingly. Similarly, riders getting injured during the Heats 1-20 would be awarded points according to where they were classified.

How is it different to (say) an F1 driver getting injured and the reserve driver coming in and scoring points instead? The paying public should get to see 16 riders out on the track, and the reserves also need some incentive to turn up and try if they have the opportunity to ride. It's unfortunate when riders get injured, but it's the nature of the sport. In the worst case scenario, what if 3 or 4 riders got injured during a GP and you ended up with heats with only a couple of riders, or even worse no riders...?

Why would it be unfair? If a rider gets injured after their first, second, third and fourth heats it will likely push them down the classification anyway. Why should it be different for the Semi-Finals and Finals if you're unable to complete the meeting? The top 8 should have first option to race in the semi-finals, but if they're unable to take their place or are excluded (2 minutes or tapes), then the slot should go to the next rider in-line. Same for the Final for that matter.

Riders placed 9th downwards should be considered reserves for the Semi-Final. Whether to replace injuries or exclusions (where replacements are allowed).

Thought that rule was deleted some years ago, but I haven't checked recently. Seemed a bit pointless as you're unlikely to be at the races if you need to be push started.

Averages including bonus points are a better reflection of individual rider ability, but shouldn't be used for team building.

But it's all relative. If you only awarded points for finishing ahead of an opposition rider, and structured pay rates accordingly, bonus points wouldn't be necessary. The absurdity of bonus points is illustrated by the fact that in a 45-45 draw, one team could be paying out for 60 points whilst the other is only paying out for 45. In general, bonus points inflate CMAs by about 5 points on average, but weighed more heavily on teams that more commonly team rode (although that seems to be a thing of the past nowadays). So they should really be removed from team building calculations.

I think points should only be scored for finishing ahead of an opposition rider. There shouldn't be any reward for finishing 3rd and 4th and would avoid the inflationary problem of bonus points.

Surely people know this is speedway, and in the speedway all the promises in the world invariably add up to absolutely nothing...

They also did a great job of renovating the stadium as well, which had fallen into quite a state of disrepair. In many respects it's better than what it was like before the closure.