British Sgp Decline

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

You have to consider the much larger geographical area speedway covers now. With more nations wanting a slice of the action you would be lucky to have a World Final staged in this country once every 7 or 8 years , maybe even less than that. Would you be happy with that ?

 

There's ANOTHER 'argument' which doesn't hold up in any way!

Tell me, when was the last time the World Championship was decided in the UK..?!

I'll tell you, 1995, when the very first GB Grand Prix was held and Hans Neilsen secured the points he needed to win that first series at the London Stadium in what was that year the final GP.

Every GP at Cardiff has been and is set to continue to be in June/early July and so a million miles away from EVER being possible to seeing the ultimate champ crowned.

So you worry aboiut there only being a World Final in GB once every eight years and yet are apparently happy for there literally NEVER, ever again being a final GP or even a later GP being staged in this country..

 

If you don't mind me saying your argument has kinda collapsed there!!

 

Same old stuff from fans who remember the glory days wanted and thinking that the old stuff will work now ...like the golden helmet, second halfs, test matches etc .

 

Hmm, you might want to use the term "glory days" as an insult but you know what above all signified the "glory days"..? One sh1te lot more poeople paid to go thru' turnstiles to watch the sport than now currently do..

So maybe, just maybe something then was being done right that now, er, isn't..!!

 

If all was rosy in the current state of the world Speedway body politic I'm sure no-one would debate such things, but it ain't!! So we do..

[Trees 2,814]

I'd much rather the world championship was a series of qualifiers and maybe the best of 3 final. More riders would be involved starting from scratch every year, every ride would be absolutely crucial. Sounds more exciting to me than the 11 round series we have now.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

I'd much rather the world championship was a series of qualifiers and maybe the best of 3 final. More riders would be involved starting from scratch every year, every ride would be absolutely crucial. Sounds more exciting to me than the 11 round series we have now.

 

That I think is a sensible, compromise idea...

[fatface 2,586]

The world - not just the Speedway world - became a less exciting place the day this great and iconic event was taken from us...

Indeed. Who will ever forget the grown men crying on the streets after Vojens 94?

 

Some people need a serious reality check. It's all well and good reminiscing about Wembley 72 and the like. The world was a hugely different place. There were only three TV channels, not everyone in the country even had a TV and of those that did, a fair amount were watching black and white. TV finished at around 11pm when we were played "God save the Queen" and then told to get to bed.

 

There were no cinema multi-plexes, no DVDs, not even videos, never mind iPods and iPhones. No internet. There was very little live sport on TV. Indeed, the only live football match to be shown on TV every year would be the FA Cup Final. Hence, there was much greater thirst for live sport...even greyhound racing and county cricket attracted big crowds. The entertainment options in the early 1970s were simply light years behind what we have now.

 

As time passed, the Speedway World Championship as it was had simply not moved with the times and slipped into irrelevance. From 85 onwards, I think only Vojens 88 and 94 actually got any terrestrial coverage and they were one week late in 30 minute BBC Sunday Grandstand highlights packages. The others were hidden away on Eurosport or Screensport, if indeed they were anywhere.

 

I think most people would agree that speedway as a whole has declined in popularity since the 1960s and 1970s - that's a fair point. Some of this is down to the way society has changed, plenty of it is also to do with the way the sport - and in Britain in particular - has managed itself. But I simply cannot accept the decline is down to the loss of "the old World Finals" (and I enjoyed most of five I attended from 83-92). The sport was the lowest ebb it has ever been in the early 1990s. The move to the GP format has given the sport regular presence again in the public eye. Had we not made this move, I simply dread to think where we would be now. My guess would be that Poole and Coventry would have been World Final venues and it would covered exclusively by Re-Run videos.

 

If you really want to convince people then present us with some facts that demonstrate how our World Championship was booming in TV audiences and crowd numbers for those 10-15 years before the GP. Otherwise, all you are doing is rambling on down Memory Lane.

Edited September 3, 2010 by falcace

[orion 7,641]

 

 

 

 

Hmm, you might want to use the term "glory days" as an insult but you know what above all signified the "glory days"..? One sh1te lot more poeople paid to go thru' turnstiles to watch the sport than now currently do..

So maybe, just maybe something then was being done right that now, er, isn't..!!

 

If all was rosy in the current state of the world Speedway body politic I'm sure no-one would debate such things, but it ain't!! So we do..

 

The debate is about how people watch the gp's on tv ...tell me how people were watching the one off finals live on tv in the 90's ?

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

But the GPs (though producing I'll admit, some extremely good racing this year and heading for once for an exciting climax) are far too much of a 'closed shop' to warrant being regarded as a proper World Championship.

 

The number of old men in them is crazy (and yes I am a big Gollob fan so I know that's rich coming from me...) and is at odds with what a vibrant sport should be. At the very least there needs to be a system where a rider at his peak can have a chance at the world title.

 

Look at Hans Andersen a few years back: excluded from the GPs he was perhaps the top rider in the world that year but had no opportunity to challenge for the world title. That's wrong.. In the past, have an exceptional couple of years (like say Simmo in '75 & '76: and yes he was no spring chicken then...) and you have a real chance of winning the world title (Simmo made it to runner-up..). Similar story with late starter John Louis... Or be an incredibly promising teenager , like Ronnie Moore, Peter Collins, Michael Lee and you can see a path ahead for actual world title glory...: not 15 years off like now, but within two or three years...

 

The GP is NOT a good system: it has so many flaws and in particular we're sold short in the UK by having our Round always so early in the series...

I 100% believe that the Olympic Stadium could very easily be secured for a big Speedway meeting after 2012 but do I believe that a GB GP is a big enough event for that..: no In truth I don't.

 

We need to match our ambitions with the product and the GPs let us down. More than that they have let down a lost generation of riders... And will continue to do so unless changes are made..

[WIE-JA 72]

Parsloes, if you look back to the letters pages in speedway magazines from the '70s and '80s, you'll see lots of people campaigning to have a GP style system introduced. People complained about one day world finals being unfair and predictable and not rewarding riders who were consistant throughout a whole season. So now we have a GP system and people complain about that. Just accept that there isn't going to be a system that pleases everyone. Personally I prefer the GPs although it took a season to convert me.

[fatface 2,586]

But the GPs (though producing I'll admit, some extremely good racing this year and heading for once for an exciting climax) are far too much of a 'closed shop' to warrant being regarded as a proper World Championship.

 

The number of old men in them is crazy (and yes I am a big Gollob fan so I know that's rich coming from me...) and is at odds with what a vibrant sport should be. At the very least there needs to be a system where a rider at his peak can have a chance at the world title.

 

Look at Hans Andersen a few years back: excluded from the GPs he was perhaps the top rider in the world that year but had no opportunity to challenge for the world title. That's wrong.. In the past, have an exceptional couple of years (like say Simmo in '75 & '76: and yes he was no spring chicken then...) and you have a real chance of winning the world title (Simmo made it to runner-up..). Similar story with late starter John Louis... Or be an incredibly promising teenager , like Ronnie Moore, Peter Collins, Michael Lee and you can see a path ahead for actual world title glory...: not 15 years off like now, but within two or three years...

 

The GP is NOT a good system: it has so many flaws and in particular we're sold short in the UK by having our Round always so early in the series...

I 100% believe that the Olympic Stadium could very easily be secured for a big Speedway meeting after 2012 but do I believe that a GB GP is a big enough event for that..: no In truth I don't.

 

We need to match our ambitions with the product and the GPs let us down. More than that they have let down a lost generation of riders... And will continue to do so unless changes are made..

Now you're changing tack to avoid the issues you raised. If you can convince us with any evidence that bringing back the old World Finals will increase crowds and attract bigger television audiences in the modern world, then please do it. Saying you 100% believe the Olympic Stadium could hold the World Final is frankly a lame, baseless thought with no grounding in reality. I once 100% believed in Santa Claus.

[orion 7,641]

But the GPs (though producing I'll admit, some extremely good racing this year and heading for once for an exciting climax) are far too much of a 'closed shop' to warrant being regarded as a proper World Championship.

 

The number of old men in them is crazy (and yes I am a big Gollob fan so I know that's rich coming from me...) and is at odds with what a vibrant sport should be. At the very least there needs to be a system where a rider at his peak can have a chance at the world title.

 

Look at Hans Andersen a few years back: excluded from the GPs he was perhaps the top rider in the world that year but had no opportunity to challenge for the world title. That's wrong.. In the past, have an exceptional couple of years (like say Simmo in '75 & '76: and yes he was no spring chicken then...) and you have a real chance of winning the world title (Simmo made it to runner-up..). Similar story with late starter John Louis... Or be an incredibly promising teenager , like Ronnie Moore, Peter Collins, Michael Lee and you can see a path ahead for actual world title glory...: not 15 years off like now, but within two or three years...

 

 

 

 

 

LOL this comes from someone who liked the old system that was really fair ,miss one round and you were out , nearly all the world finals because of the stupid system to get there had 6 no hopers in them and a lot of the riders were pay off halfway into the meeting to drop points .

 

Not sure what you point is about having old men in the Gp's the bottom line is that Gollob ,Hancock etc are still good enough to be them ....are you saying they are not in the best 16 riders in the world at this time ?

 

Since the Gp's have come in we have nearly always had the best rider become World Champion unlike before when could get lucky on the night .

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

Since the Gp's have come in we have nearly always had the best rider become World Champion unlike before when could get lucky on the night .

 

Hmm, it was POSSIBLE that a rider could "get lucky on the night" but actually history shows that in fact that was an extremely rare occasion: actually only ONCE post-war could one say that such a thing happened! In fact the World Championship under the World Final system was extremely consistent at finding the best riders on the rostrum.

Because Speedway is about responding to the massive challenge of each race and each meeting. A true champion shows his mettle in such circumstances..

 

The GP system also produced BTW, a 'World Champion' who throughout a whole season never won a SINGLE WC meeting...! That (by definition!) NEVER happened in the previous system...!!

 

And tell me falcace, why do you consider Speedway at the Olympic Stadium so utterly ridiculous..? If you knew anything about the Olympic authorities' desire for legacy and for maximising use of the main stadium (I actually work for an organisation with day to day contact on these various issues concerning the Olympic Park and surrounding area...) then you wouldn't dismiss this with such ignorant contempt.

 

I can guarantee you if someone turned up tomorrow with a plan and funds to stage a major Speedway meeting at the Olympic Stadium in October 2012 they'd bite that person's hand off..

[Humphrey Appleby 14,000]

You have to consider the much larger geographical area speedway covers now.

 

I'm not sure that speedway is ridden in any more countries than it was years ago, and the main professional circuits are still in the four or five countries they always were. As to whether speedway is more widely watched (geographically) on television, well that's a bit debatable even if BSI do claim it's being shown in Dijbouti or wherever.

 

What certainly changed was that more countries wanted to stage a 'World Final', and in the case of Denmark and Germany they perhaps had a reasonable case at the time. However, taking the showpiece event to backwater stadiums in small countries hastened the decline of the World Final, and frankly shouldn't have been allowed. UEFA wouldn't stage the Champions League Final in Latvia or Slovenia (with all due respect to those countries) because they don't have the facilities or fanbases, yet the FIM were apparently happy to allow the World Final to go to Norden, Pocking and Amsterdam.

 

Even then, despite the supposed decline of the World Final, as many people watched the latter events in Poland and Sweden as go to the GPs there now, and a British World Final would probably have got as many as Cardiff if there had been a decent-sized stadium available at the time. Even Bradford got 25,000 which is an attendance most contemporary GPs would be very happy with.

 

The GP was and is simply about making the competition saleable to television and sponsors, which would be fine if this money actually benefitted the sport rather than enriching a private corporation.

 

I'll fully admit that I lost interest in the World Championship after the SGP was introduced (even pre-BSI), simply because part of the attraction was following the riders from your team through the various qualifying rounds, hopefully eventually to the Final. I never really had a lot of interest in individual racing though, so once that link was broken, my interest waned.

 

Nevertheless, I certainly don't think we should live in the past, and I can see certain advantages to having a GP series. I do think the current format suffers from overkill and a lack of variety, but that's nothing that can't be fixed.

 

However, what absolutely does need to change is for the national leagues to cut themselves in on the deal. You can't blame BSI for exploiting a commercial opportunity, but it's ridiculous that the golden goose was allowed to be sold off by the FIM.

 

Furthermore, not everyone bought into the BSI hype (reserving judgement on the current IMG incarnation). Their success was packaging up the existing events and selling them to television (albeit for a relatively moderate sum) as well as pulling in a few sponsors, but their promotional capabilities didn't seem anything special and fiascos like Gothenburg were just down to poor organisation (regardless of who was supposed to do what).

 

Unfortunately, SGP devotees only seem to see things in black-and-white. Unless you unequivocally praise the SGP then somehow you're 'anti-SGP' even if you might support the basic concept albeit not the way things are currently implemented.

[mickthemuppet 976]

One of the benefits of the old system of one off world finals was that any profits made went back into Speedway. The prize money for the present GP's is a pittance. Where does the rest of the money go,certainly not back into Speedway.

 

Young Orion there are still no hopers in the GP's at present and there has been every year so that is no change on the previous system.

 

Probably Leigh Adams and Tomasz Gollob have been the best two riders in the last decade but neither has been world champion. I bet they both would have been under the old system. Then Mark Loram became become a world champion without winning a GP that year. Any other Sports where you can be World Champion without winning anything.

[Humphrey Appleby 14,000]

As time passed, the Speedway World Championship as it was had simply not moved with the times and slipped into irrelevance. From 85 onwards, I think only Vojens 88 and 94 actually got any terrestrial coverage and they were one week late in 30 minute BBC Sunday Grandstand highlights packages.

 

There's a couple of points to be made here. Firstly, I think there's a reasonable argument that the World Final was run into the ground by the FIM to justify the introduction of a GP system which could be sold. It's reasonable to say that crowds had declined, but neither were they that bad at 'proper' venues either. Certainly the crowds at the likes of Munich, Gothenburg and Wroclaw were as good or better as at modern GPs, and even those at Vojens and Bradford were better than at most GPs now.

 

Secondly, satellite and cable television was still in its infancy in the late-1980s and there was much less scope than now for getting speedway on television. Even live football was a relative rarity, but by the time the SGP came to fruition, channels were proliferating and were desperate for content. The FA Cup is a knockout competition and is shown on television, so there's no reason to believe television wouldn't show the old-style World Championship if was presented in the right way.

[fatface 2,586]

And tell me falcace, why do you consider Speedway at the Olympic Stadium so utterly ridiculous..? If you knew anything about the Olympic authorities' desire for legacy and for maximising use of the main stadium (I actually work for an organisation with day to day contact on these various issues concerning the Olympic Park and surrounding area...) then you wouldn't dismiss this with such ignorant contempt.

Yes I do dismiss the prospect of a World Final being at the Olympic Stadium as you suggested above (re-read if you must) as it was only good enough for the Nordens, Pockings, Bradfords and Vojens of this world until it's inevitable demise. And you dismiss the prospect of a British GP being there (re-read if you must). Which I actually don't think is impossible. So, if not a GP, what is this great big speedway meeting at the Olympic Park that you have in mind then? Golden Greats by chance?

 

It's digressing (as you seem to be increasingly relying upon), but I also work for an organisation with close links to the sporting legacy of the Olympic Park and previously worked as spokesman for a National Governing Body who has a large interest in the stadium legacy. So, yep, I do know a little about that too.

 

Now come on Parsoles...one last chance...tell us how going back to the old World Finals will bring in massive TV audiences and massive crowds. Convince me...please

[orion 7,641]

One of the benefits of the old system of one off world finals was that any profits made went back into Speedway. The prize money for the present GP's is a pittance. Where does the rest of the money go,certainly not back into Speedway.

 

Young Orion there are still no hopers in the GP's at present and there has been every year so that is no change on the previous system.

 

Probably Leigh Adams and Tomasz Gollob have been the best two riders in the last decade but neither has been world champion. I bet they both would have been under the old system. Then Mark Loram became become a world champion without winning a GP that year. Any other Sports where you can be World Champion without winning anything.

 

 

Adams and Gollob have not been the best riders in the last decade and they have never won it because over the season they were never good enough ...you can be a world champion in f1 without winning anythink , you can BE no 1 in the world in golf and not win anythink in a year Just like Tiger Woods has .

 

 

When you come to think of it there are loads of other sports when you don't have win a round to be World Champion ,plus if the people knew they had to win maybe they would have put more effort in to do so ... in Loram case he done what he had to do to become world champion .

Edited September 3, 2010 by orion