E I Addio

I think that sums it up. Lakeside -v-Peterboro matches are nearly always a bit naff whether they are at Lakeside or EOES, it just seems each team can rarely manage the others track. On the hand when Swindon come to Lakeside they are nearly always good matches. Wolves are nearly always a good side to watch and quite often Poole, especially Darcy are good entertainment.

I don't want to wander too far off topic but that comment shows how the discussion is entering the realms of fantasy. So Szczakiel's performance wasn't a one -off? Can you just remind us of his consistently world class performances outside of Poland ? Apart from his 0 points in the '71 Final that is. I can't find any reference to him in any other World Finals, unless he paid to get in.. And what did he score in the Daily Mirror World Series two moths before the winning the World Final ? Zero I believe. He then rode at Wembley in the WTC a couple of weeks after becoming world champion and managed another world class 0.. Hardly puts him among the all time greats but more importantly suggests his WC win was a bit of a one off performance. His infamous run off with Mauger for the title is on youtube. Look at it carefully http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQplGWLW7Zw Was the Pole allowed to get a roller or whatt ? The rules require the riders to have an equal start. Is right that in a run-off to decide the Speedway Championship of the World this sort of roller should be allowed ? Look at the start marshal. He stands still and doesn't even raise his arms to signify the riders are under starters orders, Szczakiel rolls and the ref lets the tapes go. Look at Maugers throttle hand. The riders are supposed to be allowed 1.5 seconds between coming under starters orders and the tapes going up, to allow them to get their engines spinning. Mauger is only just opening his throttle as he sees Szczakiel starting to roll. Clearly there was no proper signal to put the riders under starters orders. The whole attitude of the referee is shown after Mauger crashes. He is lying unconscious on the track being attended by a doctor, For all anyone knew at that stage Maugers life could have hung in the balance yet the referee allows the "race" to continue. Szczakiel then demonstrates his arrogance by coming round on the next lap, on seeing the unconscious Mauger and the medics on the track , instead of shutting off he deliberately rides wide to within a couple of feet of Mauger and showers both him and the medics with shale. Disgraceful behaviour Earlier in the meeting even Dave Lanning had commented that the Polish authorities were making up the rules as they went along. Putting all these facts together there is no doubt in my mind that the whole thing was a stitch up. The Poles were desperate to have a world champion and Szczakiel knew the ref was going to let the tapes go when he rolled.. To my mind this was the event that makes the case for the GP system. We had some good one-off finals after that but it was increasingly a game of chance.

Absolutely spot on.

That post is a classic example of the narrow minded view that seems to prevail amongst certain blinkered fans. Personally I don't like the double points rule, in fact I loath it and have said so many times on here. Nobody would be happier than me to see the back of it. But the plain fact is that various fans have come on here and said they like it and it should stay, so who am I or you, to say our opinion is better than theirs and they are wrong. They are still fans with their opinions. Bottom line is, it won't stop me going to speedway. You are right, the sport has been in a healthier state, but PC has apparently not suggested any new ideas, just going back to the old ones.

I don't know if you have read the whole thread but nobody has said he doesn't have something to offer. This is what SCB posted yesterday;- "Nobody has said he should have no opinion. everyone is entitled to an opinion. But just because he could ride a speedway bike better than most 30-odd years ago doesn't mean he knows how to make the sport a success now " He has an opinion but the trouble is some on here think it is think it is the only opinion worth listening to. .

The point was running a speedway club in the modern world. Not sure why PC's opinion should be revered any more than Chris Morton's or Chris Louis who have to find a way of making the books balance in the speedway world of 2014, or for that matter ex-riders like Rosco or Muddlo. who still have a day-to-day hands on role. All PC has done is to articulate the views of certain fans, but that still doesn't make those views more valid than those who disagree. You can bet your life SS won't provide any balance by publishing an interview with a senior figure in the sport with an opposing view, or an explanation of why things are as they are. Just to take up the point about riders being called back ,for example, yes, it is frustrating for the fans when a start gets called back but the real reason is that riders all too often DO jump the start and if they were too stay still the majority of false starts wouldn't happen. The trouble is certain fans think they have a better view of who is rolling and who isn't from 50 or 100 metres away than from the refs box which is usually the best view in the stadium, and this are the same ones that only want top see one side of the problem. I would love to see an interview with someone like Mick Bates, an ex-rider now a ref giving his thoughts on the subject, but of course SS would never publish anything like that because their readership now seems to consist almost entirely of the "bring back the old days brigade" who are only interested in one side of the argument.

I agree with that. It would have been more informative if SS had published an interview with someone like Chris Morton or John and Chris Louis.. They have ridden at the top level and have also seen at first hand the problems of running a speedway club in the modern world.

It all depends on the terms of the contract, but basically if no money has changed hands there is no contract.

I don't think I've ever seen the words "Auty " and "natural ability" mentioned in the same sentence before. I always thought natural ability had something to do with staying on the bike for four laps, without knocking anyone else off.

Yes, but Rosco and his promotion were part of the decision making process that brought the rule in. As to the second line of your post I think most people would agree that out of all the young British riders Ashley probably has a better case than any one for some kind of special attention or help, considering that at this time last year he was fairly close to Richie Worralls standard at the time, now there is a big difference so one thing that probably wasn't thought out was what to do with riders like him. Its a pity to be getting young riders through the front door and then possibly losing riders like Ashley out the back door. I think everyone agrees on that.

Whether it actually saves money remains to be seen and as you say, depending on how the crowds pan out. The point is that Swindon knew that changes were coming , they were involved in the AGM so, if true, it is basically yet another case of a promotion offering a job and then reneging on their promise. Swindon are not the first club to do this and probably won't be the last.

The promoters have never said otherwise. It was made crystal clear even before the AGM that the over-riding objective was to the save cost per meeting and everything else was secondary to that. Everyone who bothered to read the press releases or this forum knew something like this was on the way. Yet we still have people trying to tell us that it was some clandestine way to cut costs, when in fact we were told in advance that costs were being cut. I have yet to hear anyone complain that they want to keep the ridiculous old method of only 14 home league matches meeting some teams twice and some teams once . Swindon fans were as vociferous as everybody else last season in complaining about the lack of league fixtures but if the number of fixtures had been increased without cutting the cost per meeting Swindon would probably have been one of the first clubs to go under ,bearing in mind their inability to pay riders. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs and there are bound to be inconstancies in almost any changes. Its a great shame for Ashley but he is not the first rider to be stitched up by a club after being told he had a job even before the new rule. Its been happening for years. Rosco knew costs had to be cut at the AGM and if he went round promising riders jobs before he knew how things were going to work out, that's down to him for making promises he couldn't keep.

Bigger points limits ? We had a points limit of 42.5 in 2013 and several clubs were suffering massive losses. How high do you have to raise the points limit to stop massive losses? How much do you have to spend on foreign riders to build a team to 45 ? I take your point about Eastie, but what about Brum who had well publicised money problems, or Swindon and BV who had trouble paying riders ? Where do you draw the line? We certainly need all clubs to put a few hundred on the gate at least but whatever you do attendances are only going to come back gradually at best. Something has to be done in the short term to stop these big losses. All this should have been sorted out in 2010 but it wasn't. Nothing we can do about that now , and no point in crying over spilt milk,we have to go with what we have.

I wasn't particularly pointing at you, more backing you because posters still keep banging on with their own ideas and some are saying its some kind of secret agenda but clearly cards were on the table before the AGM as to the over-riding. objective. Yes a business plan to increase attendances is needed but nobody on here or elsewhere has come up with one. If Rick Frost invested the thick end of a million quid in Peterboro on and off track and still finished up with an average gate of 700 then obviously there is no easy answer. We certainly do need to increase attendances in the long term but a short term measure is needed between now and next season is needed to stop clubs going under. One of the major, if not the major problem last season was not enough meetings and even regular fans were getting out of the speedway habit. That has now ben addressed. IMO the jury is still out on the rest of the package. We will have to see how it goes but people forget that half the time last season we were seeing the likes of Ales Dryml getting lost at the back of the field so some NL races might be tolerable, especially the better lads. I am not over the moon with it all but unless anyone comes up with a viable alternative its the only show in town just now.

Of course its a cost cutting measure. There was never any secret about that . This a section of Jon Cook's statement on the Lakeside site a week before the AGM, making it crystal clear that cost would have to be cut in order to have more meetings . People may or mar not agree with what has been done but there never was any secret about what was the priority. :- "He continued “For our own club and many others, we are now running at too large an expense per meeting and as a result of other clubs wishes, have reduced our league programme to below a level acceptable to our landlords, our riders, who don’t have the luxury of riding in multiple leagues, our sponsors and most importantly our fans. The problem we now have is that expense is too great to add in another half a dozen meetings at the current levels, as we have all got business plans dependent upon dividing our off-track revenues by 14 meetings and not 20. Therefore, real change is required to return to regular Friday speedway, regardless of what future TV contracts bring to the sport. That is our priority over the coming weekend. At the very least we want three meetings a month with the fourth week free for potential rain offs. Team strengths should be secondary to that need. Let the riders that want to commit to British speedway first and foremost and not hide behind the international calendar when it suits, be our priority too". Plenty of people lining up to criticise the new rules on team strengths but I don't see anyone coming up with a business plan to show how we can increase meetings to suit landlords and riders without cutting costs per meeting. Speedway is drinking in the Last Chance Saloon. It couldn't carry on as it was.

What I said was that Lawson is a reasonable gater. No, I am not happy that inferior riders are coming into the EL but I would rather have 2 NL riders in the side and !8 Home league matches with all teams playing each other twice than the old system of 14 matches and playing some teams twice and some teams once.

oh, Sidney read what I am saying in the context of the discussion and the earlier posts. I am simply pointing out that however you frame the rules riders like Auty are going to find it hard to get an EL job at reserve once you lower the points limit. I only mentioned Lawson because he is on a similar sort of average to Auty and has had to go into the1-5. I am not comparing their abilities as riders.

But doesn't that lead to other problems though ? For one thing it means your NL guy won't usually get near the likes of Roynon, let alone Auty, so will spend most matches scratching out 3rd or 4th places with almost no chance of a win and little chance the spectators will see roughly evenly matched riders in the reserve races. The bigger problem though is that to get Auty in somewhere at reserve you would have to raise the points limit to 37 for your 1-6 and then you open the door to teams juggling things around to maybe get a 3 pointer at reserve and another 6/7 pointer in the top 5 and you are defeating the object of the exercise (especially if its a foreign rider that comes in). The problem as far as Auty is concerned is that once they decided to reduce the points limit even by a small amount Auty is going to find it difficult to get a job in the EL because he really doesn't seem to have the abilty to be any more than a 4/5point rider. Richard Lawson on the same sort of average as Auty has got an EL job riding in the 1-5 but he at least is a reasonable gater, with evidence of a years improvement and a reasonable expectation of more improvement but as long as we have a low points limit I can't see many EL promoters wanting Auty unless he really works at his game in the PL and overcomes some of his flaws especially gating. I can see the argument for Birks and Roynon on their lower averages but I can't see how you could accommodate them without opening another can of worms .

http://www.lakesidehammers.co/content/?p=6634

If I am reading his post #350 correctly it seems he does indeed spend his time looking at stuffed birds, on fast broadband apparently

I never said ignore the past but this is where we are now and we can't change what's happened by moaning about it. I never said they have come up with a master plan either. At best it is a transitional arrangement that may or may not be successful in leading to a more tenable arrangement. All I am saying is that the deal is cut costs to give more meetings and people have to recognise we can't have more meetings with last years line-ups and rider costs.. However much we want to we can't turn the clock back to 2006 .

I don't think there was ever any pretence that it wasn't a cost saving exercise. The point is to provide more meetings For the last 3 years we have had this utterly ridiculous league system of only 14 home league matches meeting some teams twice and some teams once. Probably one of the most unpopular decisions ever which caused big gaps in the fixture list and caused fans to get out of the speedway habit. Its been public knowledge since at least last July that the promoters , or at least some of them, were working on ways to provide more fixtures but its clear that something has to give. Do the sums. On published figures Eastbourne were losing £5000 per meeting, Peterborough were losing over £7000 per meeting. Swindon and Belle Vue were known to be losing big money. Now, it stands to reason that if you are losing £5000 per meeting and you put on another 4 meetings you lose another £20,000 so some way has to be found to reduce the cost per meeting. There is no point in raking over past history that led to this situation , we are where we are. The choice facing us is more meetings at lower losses per meeting or sticking with the old 14 home meeting formula with promoters still suffering eye watering losses.. Personally, although I don't like the idea of 2 NL races per meeting but I would prefer that to 14 meetings of the old system. Others may feel different which is fair enough but one thing that is for sure is that we can't have our cake and eat it. , No point in moaning about the draft unless you are content with fewer meetings.

My understanding is that the PL promoters rejected it for geographical reasons. The EL covers an area from Poole to Manchester, the PL covers Plymouth to Glasgow/Edinburgh. There are apparently not enough suitable riders based in the North to make it viable.

I agree. I can't remember when Auty first rode in the EL but I remember seeing him as reserve for Coventry at Brandon in 2009. 5 seasons later he is still reserve/barely second string standard, still can't gate, still taking people off, still very little evidence of him using his head, still nowhere near even Barker or Kennett. What reason is there to believe 2014 would be any different?

You just reminded me of one of Mark Twain's satirical comments--" Why are people happy at a birth and sad at a funeral ?........Because they are not the person involved" (its called black humour). Made me laugh anyway.