harleynut

as a wide eyed 13 year old I can remember my grand parents taking me to the full two seasons of the Wembley Lions; what seemed huge crowds on a Saturday night and a number of last heat deciders involving Bert Harkins getting us a 40-38 result; those were the days! Proper tactical substitutes, a team manager having to work it all out, changing your gate positions, elbows flying, or am I just delusional! I can still see laps from Ove Fundin and then Gote Nordin with his easy armchair style, Reidar Eide, Sverre Harrfeldt, Tony Clarke, Brian Leonard and a very young Dave Jessup. I have all the Lions home programmes and every now again succumb to nostalgia and have to get them out to re enact those seasons (what a sad old git) It set me up for travelling to Hackney, Wimbledon and then White City but like many others I have fallen out of love with the sport in the last 15 years.

I would much rather see a formula based on Top 6 retained in the GP joined by the U21 Champion - at least it is won on the track and one GP wildcard as now The other 8 places come from some form of qualification rounds leading up to two 'Semi Finals' in which each of the top four go through. Could make much more of cut throat semi final; good for TV Of course will never happen because of TV money determing the 'right and needed' mix of nationalities; as TV is footing the bill we will always have those in power needing to manipulate who is worthy of racing on track. Bring back selction being earned by racing

thoughts on restructuring of the GP anyone? could not find the right thread for this and sure it has been debated but wanted to put my two pence in so here goes.... Assume we stay with the current format of X number of GPs in a season, involving 16 riders. It seems to me there are multiple benefits of changing the way to get into the series so how about: 1. Top 5 stay in for the following year - makes the competition that much more focused 2. Plus the World U21 Champion - brings in new, young blood and improves the stature of the U21 compettion 3. Plus 10 riders that come straight from two GP Semifinals - capitalises on the interest provoked by the current GP Challenge, more sellable to TV and does away with the stupid idea of the IMG 'picks'- the top 5 in each semi are then genuinely deserving of a place. Each country gets an allotted number of places in the semi finals line up (dont know how that works!) and each governing authority can decide how to do that ie we might decide it is through the top 5 finishes in the British Final whereas Sweden might decide to nominate or some combination of the two. The semi final make up is done in a transparent way on TV such as picking riders names out of a bag for each semi Well now I feel better!!

Norbold - you are right; I did mean Sjosten in terms of a few occasions with the Lions but remember seeing Lofqvist in the second halves and he also cleaned up with a 15pt maximum when West Ham visited in 1970 Also a very young Tommy Jansson had a couple of second half outings I think??

reading the recent post from Wembley Lion was like looking at something I could have written - very spooky. As a teenager living in Wembley my grandparents introduced me to the first two seasons at the old stadium and I can still see those old favourites of Bert Harkins, Gote Nordin, Tony Clarke and a very young Christer Lofqvist - those were the days!! I too have then been a wandering nomad by going across to see the Hackney Hawks, and another couple of great seasons with the White City Rebels - remembering the first sighting of Kai Niemi, the talent of Steve weatherley and of course the master Mr Kennett. Then ,when the Rebels shut up shop it was off to see the Dons followed by a long period of disillusionment with speeedway. In the last 6 or 7 years I got back to it following the Racers and the odd trip to Oxford. looking at my speedway history one thing seems to stand out - all of the clubs I have followed have all shut down and now there is no track in striking distance of Heathrow for me to regulalry visit. So to all those supporters on the forum who can sometimes have a right old whinge and moan and groan about 'thier riders, track or management' I say........... just be grateful you have a team to support and enjoy it

Note to IMG: how about a long overdue restructuring of the whole GP so that you can make more out of hyping up the qualifiers (customer interest and TV interest) and get out of this stupid idea of 'picking' who should be in the GP. Picks seem to be based on politics/ country presence. So an idea....... have two GP Challenges which you could call GP Semi finals (!!!!) rotated around different countries, run on the same weekend (Sat and Sun) with the top 4 from each going through to join the 8 from the previous GP. Or take the top 3 from each Semi, keep the top 9 from previous year and hold one back for the winner of the world U 21. Sturture the rounds that feed into the two semi finals - have a sreies of quarter finals and brand them all which will also increase the potential TV exposure. The quarter finals can then be fed by some riders from the Country finals (ie British final feeds top 6 into the QFs etc)

oh yes ,remember those great days with Gordon Kennett at no 1, an emerging Kai Niemi, the stylish Steve Weatherley (what a tragedy), a track that seemed to take forever to get around and the cock up over Capital radio sponsorship being leaked and they took their ball home to be replaced by LBC Rebels. Have all the programmes tucked away somewhere and some of the away matches in the league winning season.

U23 international matches - what a great idea. Really looking forwrad to it for a number of reasons 1. give some youngsters the experience in this type of competitive arena 2. do not have to worry about Elite league performers not being availabel to ride for thier country because of previous commitments 3. much prefer the 'old' test match to the current world cup - I know they are two different things but all the effort seems to be in the WTC How about making U23 test series a proper part of the yearly calender? So next year lets have a three test series against Aus; three tests aginst Poland ( hoem and away)?

looks like a cracker with Nicki Pedersen, Lindback and Crump only dropping 1 point each in first 3 rides; Hans has a mountain to climb with 3 points at this stage