Humphrey Appleby

The 13-heat format was more balanced than the current 15-heat format for the top 5 riders, except ironically the No. 2 position. But I suspect the idea may have been to ensure a stronger Heat 8 in the obvious place to make a tactical substitution.

Why would anyone want to continue to work for an employer that failed to pay them?

One could argue that it was always traditional in speedway to have the support event during the 'second half'...

Because he was an exceptionally good driver from a relatively middle class background who couldn't be ignored. I honestly don't think there's any particular racism in motorsport, but the fact remains there are very few ethnic minorities who participate for whatever reason. That is changing a bit - maybe because of Lewis Hamilton - but it can't simply be down to money.

The SCB is not really an independent body, nor is its role to be running the sport. It's there as a sort of regulatory and judicial body. An independent body would something that which oversees the day-to-day running of the sport in line with agreed principles, and whose members have no (longer any) affiliation with any track. Most major sports have moved in that direction, although some have mix of independent directors and club representatives. Ideally it would also make recommendations as towards the best way to run the sport, with some experienced financial and marketing people on board. However, a major issue is that speedway just doesn't have the money or cachet to attract such people.

We've discussed before, but the narrative has tended to be written from the John Berry perspective. We don't fully know what the demands and conditions were, and I don't think it's realistic to expect complete autonomy as has been alluded to. John Berry was undoubtedly a good promoter, certainly had good if not visionary ideas on how the wider sport should be run, and was familiar with US sports practices which he suggested should been the model for speedway. However, any multi-stakeholder organisation needs a leader who is patient and persuasive, not one that quickly gets frustrated and falls out with people at the drop of hat. He also appears to have been reactionary about developments in other sports (e.g. World Series Cricket) that arguably revolutionised them (even if his underlying point about the demise of existing competitions was correct), so how things like the advent of satellite/cable television and the SGP would have been handled would have been interesting. I do think much of his vision for the way forward was correct, but i don't think his tenure would have lasted that long in that sort of role though. Plus speedway had already started on its long road to decline at that point, so it would have been in an environment of long under-capitalisation and increasing financial pressures.

I may have remembered this wrong, but I think it was closer to 50k per track per year. Terence got his cut of course, and I think I heard that aside from the fixed amount paid to each promotion, additional payments were made to teams when they were shown live to compensate for lower crowds.

Speedway had, and probably still could have basic appeal as it can be viewed on different levels - from 4 riders racing for 4 laps, to the different match tactics, to the intricacies of team building and heat formulas. It clearly got me interested at some point, although looking back the presentation was a bit dated even in the 1980s, and some of the rules have always been a joke. It's hard to know at what point it lost youth interest, but I suspect it's a combination of becoming somewhat expensive whilst the stadiums and presentation stayed the same (or even got worse). The rise of football along with its generally improved stadiums may also have had something to do with it, although that's also suffering from an increasing aged viewership. The loss of urban tracks probably didn't help. My father probably didn't even know about speedway so if I hadn't been able to cycle to the local track with all the kids that also went from my neighbourhood, then I may never have got interested in the first place. The same when I later went to Hackney and Rye House - only because I could get there on public transport.

I think many venues were tried and were financial failures. Others certainly disappeared due to development, being kicked out by the dogs or other sports.

The number of tracks that have disappeared over the years would suggest that the good old days were not always as good as popularly remembered...

The answer is probably nearly a hundred. I've probably even missed a few tracks from this list (permanent tracks only), but it gives an indication of how many venues have staged speedway in the British Isles (at least 111 by my count). Some were of course very short lived or only raced a handful of open meetings, whilst other tracks were effectively replaced by another track. However, there are still quite a few on the list that staged regular racing for many years that are no longer with us... Aldershot Tongham Armadale Armadale Stadium Ashington Portland Park Barrow Holker Street Barrow Park Road Belle Vue Hyde Road Belle Vue Kirkmanshulme Lane Belle Vue National Speedway Stadium Berwick Shielfield Park Berwick Berrington Lough Birmingham Alexander Stadium Birmingham Bordesley Green Birmingham Perry Barr Boston New Hammond Beck Road Bradford Odsal Stadium Bradford Greenfield Stadium Brafield Brafield on the Green Bristol Knowle Stadium Bristol Eastville Buxton High Edge 1 Buxton High Edge 2 California Wokingham Canterbury Kingsmead Carmarthen United Counties Showground Castleford Whitewood Stadium Coatbridge Cliftonhill Stadium Coventry Brandon Stadium Cowdenbeath Central Park Cradley Heath Dudley Wood Crayford Crayford Stadium Crewe Earle Street Doncaster York Road Eastbourne Arlington Edinburgh Meadowbank Edinburgh Powerhall Ellesmore Port Thornton Road Exeter County Ground Glasgow Ibrox Glasgow Hampden Park Glasgow Blantyre Greyhound Stadium Glasgow Rutherglen Glasgow Ashfield Stadium Glasgow White City Hackney Waterden Road Halifax The Shay Harringay Green Lanes Highbridge Oak Tree Arena Hull The Boulevard Hull Craven Park Ipswich Foxhall Heath Ryde Smallbrook Iwade Ferry Road Kings Lynn Saddlebow Road Leicester Blackbird Road Leicester Beaumont Park Linlithgow Heathersfield Stadium Liverpool Stanley Stadium Long Eaton Station Road Lydd Belgar Farm Middlesbrough Cleveland Park Mildenhall West Row Milton Keynes Groveway Stadium Milton Keynes Elfield Park Motherwell Milton Street Neath Neath Abbey Nelson Seedhill Stadium New Cross Old Kent Road Stadium Newcastle Brough Park Newport Somerton Road Newport Queensway Meadows Newtongrange Victoria Park Norwich Firs Stadium Oxford Cowley Paisley Love Street Peterborough East of England Showground Plymouth Pennycross Stadium Plymouth Plymouth Coliseum Poole Poole Stadium Purfleet Arena Essex Rayleigh Arterial Road Reading Tilehurst Reading Smallmead Redcar South Tees Motorsport Park Ringwood Matchams Park Rochdale Athletic Ground Romford Brooklands Stadium Rye House Hoddesdon Scunthorpe Quibell Park Scunthorpe Normanby Road Scunthorpe Ashby Ville Sheffield Owlerton Shelbourne Shelbourne Park Sittingbourne Central Park Skegness Marsh Lane Southampton Banister Court St Austell Cornish Stadium Stoke Sun Street Stoke Loomer Road Sunderland East Bolden Swindon Abbey Stadium Trelawny Clay Country Moto Parc Wembley Wembley Stadium West Ham Custom House Weymouth Radipole Lane White City White City Stadium Wigan Poolstock Wimbledon Plough Lane Wolverhampton Monmore Green Wombwell Station Road Workington Derwent Park Yarmouth Caister Road

You did state an opinion about 'wokes' and 'snowflakes', and you've just repeated it regardless of what the thread was originally about. That was in response to HackneyHawk stating an opinion which you disagreed with.

I will just quickly say, the trouble with anti-'wokes' is that they seem to think that no-one should disagree with their opinion. No-one has stopped you stating your opinion on here, but others equally have the right to take issue with it.

I think the key point though, is those stadiums no longer became viable for running speedway. I'd agree much of it is down to the dogs, erm... going to the dogs, but the fact that speedway is often symbiotic with another sport and can't sustain venues by itself, sums up much of the issue. In particular, the loss of Coventry which was the 'jewel' in the speedway crown, really demonstrates how far the sport has fallen, and the loss of 'urban' venues such as Swindon shows the sport is unable to resist demand for re-development. I'd suggest the loss of those long-standing circuits is far more significant than circuits that have tended to come-and-go over the years. Even though new venues have been considered because of inadequacies of their inner city sites, no-one would serious suggest closing down Goodison Park, Aston Villa, Chelsea or Fulham even if their clubs are in debt. There's still too much at stake for it to be a realistic prospect. Which is no model for any sport to follow. By comparison, I think over half the NFL teams are able to make a profit, and probably only 25% of those make ongoing losses.

Yes, because it wasn't offensive in Australia in the past because it wasn't used in an offensive way. The term really isn't used though now as the media there has become more aware of the international connotations. I'm sure you know very well that the P-word is a highly derogatory term in the UK, and has been for at least 50 years. What makes any word offensive - who knows - but the fact that some are trying to argue that it's just some sort of endearment really demonstrates a lot of the issue.

I think it's reasonable that sports organisation can be a labour of love and you shouldn't necessarily (or even at all) be in it for money. So if you're running an activity that loses money in itself, but your wider facility attracts enough other revenue to subsidise it, then that can be a reasonable business decision. What is daft, is continuing to throw money at a loss making enterprise. It's a zero sum game, not only for you but for many of the other promoters who have to try to match the prevailing cost levels.

Sure, but you're also far less likely to get a really wealthy backer in the sport, which in turn means the likelihood of turning the sport around or even making stadiums fit for human habitation is pretty slim. It's one thing to lose money whilst you're still basking in winning the FA Cup or something, but whatever passes for the Speedway Star Knockout Cup these days doesn't have quite the same prestige or reflected glory. It is somewhat surprising what has been invested in a couple of speedway tracks in the current climate, but the calamitous loss of teams would suggest speedway is not an attractive proposition for many.

The difference between football and speedway is that there's usually plenty of other mugs willing to do a wedge once the previous owners have tired of losing so much money, or have simply run out of it. And as clubs fall down the divisions, there's plenty of others behind them in the pyramid to replace them. Just because Ipswich and most other football clubs are perpetually run at a loss, that's hardly a recipe for speedway or indeed any other sport to follow. Indeed, speedway simply hasn't got that luxury as there aren't queues of wealthy backers lining up to take over tracks, and there's also really nowhere for them to fall except out of the sport completely. The sport needs to be run in a sustainable way, not as an expensive hobby for the local businessmen who's made a few bob...

Because Aussie isn't a racist term, whilst P**i clearly is and always has been used in derogatory and insulting manner in the UK (even if it didn't have these connations in Australia historically). I'm not sure why anyone is really trying to argue otherwise, whether it's said directly or otherwise. The Rafiq case is obviously complicated because he's angry about his failed career, there are possibly lifestyle factors involved there, and sports teams are full of immature laddish behaviour. I think he's being a bit unfair to Root for example, as he's not been accused of racism but probably made the wrong choice of words when trying to smooth things over. He'd also have been a young man in that environment, so it's actually to Root's credit if he wasn't part of it all. However, no-one should have to put up with idiotic comments in the workplace, especially of the sort attributed to Ballance, whether a first, second or third rate player. It's pathetic even if was intended to be banter. Of course Rafiq is not likely to complain whilst he's playing, and especially not in team with a culture like that, because he probably feared for his job. Not hard to understand.

Yorkshire v Lancashire, Sussex v Kent? Think the problem is the same reason why the SGP contracted back to 16 riders - it's got to be affordable for the organisers and paying for 16 teams to be there, with the risk that the host team or Poland goes out early, is not going to fly. Plus, the pairs format is not really conducive to a knockout competition - it's pretty unsatisfactory that you can be knocked out even though one of your riders wins a race.

6 teams would only make for 15 heats and would mean an odd number of qualifiers from 2 semi-finals if you included a host team. 8 teams would need 28 heats, so probably too many for a single meeting. I suppose you could go for 10 teams which is 45 heats which could be split over a couple of days, but then you wouldn't really have any natural conclusion to the first day. The World Pairs worked quite well with 9 pairs when it had 6 rider races, but there were few tracks that could safely accommodate the races.

No doubt, but test cricket is realistically only played by 9 nations (despite Zimbabwe, Ireland and Afghanistan allegedly being test nations) and no-one would seriously question that. I don't think 7 vs 7 is suitable for the SWC for various reasons, and neither is it the format used by all national leagues. But I do think that a 4TT or 5TT format is a reasonable compromise between having enough competitive teams whilst constituting a proper team competition. If they want to run a 'best pairs' format in parallel, or as a lower division competition, then that's fair enough.

It's played between full teams/squads though. Not as an 8 v 8 Arena Football match, nor is the NBL played as a 3-on-3 basketball tournament.

I'm not sure Britain exactly 'deprived' other countries of their top riders in the 70s. Poland was behind the Iron Curtain, and I don't think the Swedish Leagues allowed riders to make a decent living by itself. Even then, apart from a brief period, I think Swedish riders in the BL also competed in the Swedish leagues, and I'd guess German Longtracks also pulled a lot of the top speedway riders in those days. The Danish and German leagues started to professionalise in the 1980s, but even then, I doubt any riders could make a living in them by themselves.

It's still a glorified best pairs competition, however it's dressed up...