enotian

excellent point hopefully discovery will read it and abandon the idea. my take on 'sprint races' in F1, Moto GP and WSB is that they're required because the full length races are dull and they need to fill 3 days content. Only in speedway could the sprint race be the same distance as the normal race.

I recall a stunt rider at Brough Park, probably during the 90's. Evel Kinevel style he jumped over some vans or something. Just about 20 years behind the zeitgeist

Wasn't he on First Dates as well??? I look forward to Alan's business partners examining his proposed investment into BSPL So you don't own any stadiums, haven't got enough riders and the average age of your customers is 88..... .....you don't need £250k mate you need a miracle. Nice pies though.

without a home team to follow? or at least one that would get smashed after being seeded to the final?

I'd imagine that your problem is, as ever, an economic one. League match pay rates are across a range of rider standards as defined by the points limit. I imagine the expectation of a Test Match is always the best seven riders from each country. Now that probably isn't seven number 1 heat leaders nowadays but you'd still expect the pay rates to be higher than a league contest. The crux is would a test match attract more through the gate to cover the increased costs? Or would points limited (or graded) international teams be a more economically viable option?

Something to rattle the purists but with Poland likely to dominate any world cup in the future and the unsavoury jingoism of international competition would the speedway world cup be better made up of twelve teams representing each of the star signs (or calendar months if you don't subscribe to that type of gubbins). Might bring the sport some notoriety and even up the competition (unless all the best speedway riders were born at the same time of year?) After all everyone in the entire world has a star sign so you could naturally migrate to support your own team even if none of its riders were from the same country as you. Afterall if you believe in star signs then you probably have more in common with someone of the same sign that you do with someone from the same country With nationality becoming increasingly more fluid anyway would you support a twelve team star sign world cup? Who'd you support and who'd be in the team?

Similar, apart from the Coventry bit. So long ago I can't quite remember the game play. I'm thinking for each rider you had to decide on their line and riding style (easy or hard) for the four laps.

you're quite right but what else would that incentivise? i'm sure the Torun GP promoters and the broadcasters would all prefer a last round decider for the title. that's how entertainment works now, nobody is bothered about a dead rubber. all feels a bit WWF to me but i'll look forward to the final round

Hi Ben, You're probably best off checking out the official referee scorecard on the BSPA site. Maybe for a match you attended ipswich_21.09.23_res.pdf (britishspeedway.co.uk) hopefully that link works? If not just go to britishspeedway.co.uk, click on results and fixtures then click on the fixture and the official referee scorecard will be at the bottom. You can then see how it's officially done. It's not too tricky and it always added to my enjoyment of a meeting. Hope that helps

same always wondered why team matches are almost always run using the same format within any given season, with the current format prevalent for a number of years now, more or less. in a world of A and B fixtures you'd have thought a different format might add some intrigue. It's no wonder people stopped attending cup ties when its perhaps the third match between the same teams using the same format. Especially when the current 15 heat format can be somewhat predictable. i've said before that if the future is streaming then the events you stream need to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, i.e. more than two teams, so maybe 4TT or pairs is the way to go. basically the more teams being represented the wider the possible streaming audience. include nomad teams from defunct tracks. whilst the affiliation would be tenuous at best I might be tempted to cheer on (i.e. stream) a Diamonds branded pair or team if it was a legit competition even if they never had a home fixture.

you're right. it's a little like when they do team events in snooker and darts etc. it's really just individuals doing their own thing which consequently is added to another individuals contribution. there's no real in game interaction. however, that's not quite true for speedway team racing or pairs. or at least it shouldn't be because in those events the art of team riding on track is one of the greatest examples of team work in all of sports. it just doesn't happen anymore!!! and that's purely down to the pay per point system adopted imo. why would a rider jeopardise being paid for three points by slowing down to help a team mate score more points. there's no incentive whatsoever. just go and score as many points as you can to earn as much as you can. if the team wins great if it doesn't nevermind. what if instead of pay per point each heat had a prize pot? a team who wins the heat takes the prize pot, if it's drawn the prize pot is shared. each team then decides how they split the total prize money. a little like tour cycling albeit those riders are salaried. in reality supporting any team is the ultimate in living vicariously. claiming victory off the back of the team you support winning, feeling superior to the opposition supporters when in reality you contributed absolutely nothing to the victory. you wouldn't claim to be an amazing chef if you bought a nice meal at a restaurant. but there's just something about nailing your colours to a mast and putting your hopes and dreams in the hands of your favourite team. it would be a shame if that element disappeared from speedway in this country.

At what point do Discovery Sports intervene? Or in Lambert and Bewley do they have enough British interest for the duration of their tenure? From their perspective having British involvement in SGP, SON/SWC must be an important market to maintain. Much harder to do without a British supply chain/valid domestic league. They also need content for their streaming/cable channel, Personally I think a Euro League (16 teams 4TT format) where each team has five home and 15 away fixtures. If there were three British teams (North (Belle Vue) Midlands (?) and South (Poole)) there'd be only 15 gp standard meetings in the UK. That gives you space to market these events properly. Less is more so hopefully these events will attract bumper crowds. Which makes for a better spectacle which hopefully attracts a bigger audience. Below that the twelve or so last clubs standing form a sustainable league without the gp stars which provides a career path for young British talent to progress.

Well Discovery have bought BT Sport. Sounds like they're merging Eurosport and BT Sports channels to form TNT Sports. Whereas last season the SGP series was on Discovery Plus Sport and Eurosport, this season it'll be available on Discovery Plus Sport and TNT Sports... ...I suspect. Can't imagine they'll remove content from Discovery Plus and I imagine TNT Sports will be available via the normal platforms. Unless SGP doesn't feature on TNT Sports given they will adopt BT Sports content like EPL and ECL. Gallagher Premiership Rugby, MotoGp etc and might not retain the same number of broadcast channels. SGP might find itself confined to Discovery Plus Sport only.

Not so sure they wouldn't have passed the BSPA fit and proper owners test. Mr Grant might have been a shyster but I'm not aware of him running a tyrannical regime of misogyny and homophobia I know speedway is desperate for investment but you've got to draw a line somewhere. #justjealous

He signed and rode for Newcastle after winning the World U21 Championship at Brandon on 30 September 1991. As a result only rode in challenge matches or even match singular. But the Diamonds were the first club he represented in the UK. Definitely rode at Brough I'm 99% sure. The more informed on here will have details I'm sure. Can't remember who he replaced (was Dicko injured?) but it was a good Diamonds team that year winning the Gold Cup early in the season with the legendary Bargh/Thorpe 5-1 in the last heat to seal it. Was the season Thorpe and Lamb started at reserve and ended up heat leaders. Good memories. Would be nice to think we could see his son line up for the Diamonds one day but memories are all we've got right now.

What he was or wasn't last season is entirely irrelevant. By virtue of the Diamonds expulsion he effectively didn't exist last season. There was a lot of misinformation from the Diamonds promotion so who really knows but my understanding was that the Diamonds promotion didn't have a licence to employ work permit riders but could sign Congreve because he was able to take out an ACU licence. Not sure on what basis. There was plenty of content about it on the Diamonds 2022 thread at the time with most expecting his to be an assessed 2.00 as a result. The fact that he ended up being an assessed 4.00 didn't really matter as the Diamonds were incredibly under strength anyway. As I stated before it probably made the Diamonds line up look more acceptable than it ever was in practice. I think the key point is he couldn't have been a foreign rider because the Diamonds promotion didn't have the appropriate sponsors licence to employ such a rider. There really is no point in trying to make sense of any of this. The fact that he appears to have been given an assessed NL average which doesn't fit any known criteria tells you everything you need to know. It's all just made up to suit.

Congreve didn't have a CL average though. All his meetings were expunged from the records. To all intents and purposes he has never existed as a speedway rider in this country before 2023.

Doesn't he have an ACU licence though. He represented Great Britain in some pointless (as most of his meetings were) FIM meeting. I think he was only a 4 in the CL so the Diamonds appeared somewhere close to the points limit. Effectively he's not a commonwealth rider if that's the case. As he hasn't ridden in any official fixtures he should be assessed the same as any other new ACU licensed rider in the NL. In true speedway regulation fashion they've done neither of the two plausible options and gome up with a compromise.

What would everyone think about a grading system for the SWC? To even the competition a little. Every other speedway team competition has some kind of team building limit. Top 20 riders - Grade 4 Riders ranked 21 to 40 - Grade 3 Any other rider not in the other four categories - Grade 2 Riders U25 - Grade 1 Riders U21 - Grade 0. Each five man team to total up to 10 grade points. Poland would probably still win as they've got good riders in each grade but it might make it more competitive for more nations. However, you'd not get to see all the top riders (i.e. GB would only be able to select two from Woffinden, Bewley and Lambert who'd all be Grade 4). Worth some thought?

depends on who he's guesting for

Kharchenko was probably the best debut performance at Brough Park ever. I was hoping he would defect and join the Diamonds who were a third heatleader short of being any good that year. I think there was a whip round at some point to buy some of the Soviet lads gloves. Must have miffed John Wainwright whose leathers were always taped together. That's how I remember it anyway,

It was an enjoyable meeting but then 4TT's always tend to be. I've no idea why they all but vanished from the UK (we know internationally because Poland were too dominant). Could be something to do with having to pay for 16 (plus 4 reserves) riders instead of 14 and those 16 were made up of, most likely, the 4 highest paid riders from each team. Oh and at least 1 extra heat to pay for. Clearly these additional costs weren't offset against having 3 sets of away supporters. In a world of streaming that might have changed the balance. Those supporters who wouldn't normally travel can now pay to access fixtures involving their team from the comfort of their own homes. The future of streaming has to be involving more than two teams in fixtures to widen the audience appeal. You could even involve teams representing clubs no longer with a home track (but with a defined set of exclusive riders) to further increase the potential audience. And at the same time get rid of doubling up (in a fashion) and guest-a-rama.

I guess the timing of the 'indoor' Cardiff round could determine how many might do both? Hold Cardiff out of season and there might be the demand. Trouble is with 6 Nations in February & March and Autumn Internationals in November I'm not sure when an out of season Cardiff GP could be scheduled.

where? or is there a more extensive list?

In which case wouldn't a whole host of other sponsors appear as creditors? Can't imagine he'd be the biggest sponsor? This would relate to a payment due to Nick Brown MP, for services provided, which is outstanding? Interesting. I recall Nick Brown chaired an All Party Speedway Commons Committee way back. Wonder if it relates in some way to that? Or perhaps Grant was seeking political support in securing an alternative site. Anyone fancy doing a FOI on this one?