Woofy returns in 2024

[SPEEDY69 1,260]

13 hours ago, Gambo said:

Playing Devil's Advocate here.

In my working career I was trained by Rolls Royce (a GREAT company to work for BTW) as an apprentice and paid a wage whilst doing so.

Similar to a NL rider.

At the end of my apprenticeship, I was taken on as a full time machinist and paid a great deal more than my apprenticeship wage.

Similar to NL rider progressing to be a CL and/or PL rider.

If another company offered me, (now with a young family to support), a vastly increased wage to induce me to leave RR would I have changed jobs?  Of course I would.

Wouldn't you?

Not mutually exclusive, he could be employed in both jobs. We are not all mercenaries. 

[bellevueace 913]

10 hours ago, bloom89 said:

I get that but we have to be realistic and speedway in this country is now not a popular sport well gone are the 60/70s where you had tens of thousands of people at league meetings. It’s never going to get back to those days yes you have the odd meeting here and there where a good line up will draw the crowds but in the main apart from the people who go it’s a sport nobody cares about and that isn’t going to change. 

At the rate we’re going be lucky if there’s a dozen tracks between the “top” two leagues next year but it’s fine because we have a couple of the gp riders over here. Looking at the crowds I don’t even know how some of the teams can afford them.

IMO we should just go to one league next season 5 man teams and number 5 rider has to be British and under 23 stop all this doubling up nonsense and have the ndl for teams who just want to stay in that league with no intention of stepping up but this is all fairytale stuff and will never happen. They’ll bury there heads in the sand again and probably bring in a squad system for number one and in there mind everything will be hunky dory because we have Doyle, holder, bewley and woffy riding here.

I agree with you but your first paragraph sums it up, the sport isnt as popular as it was, crowds are woeful, nobody cares about it, hence the reason a British world champion with the charisma to connect to the generations it needs to rebuild and to put the sport back into the media headlines would have been a great asset, that he didnt chose to do that but now is happy to come back when hes on the wane is just another example of riders using the British league to suit themselves, when he could have made a big difference in promoting speedway he was nowhere to be seen and i wonder how much it will cost a team to employ him? Will he ride for next to nothing as clubs in this country are struggling financially or take a big chunk of a budget a club cant really afford?

[bellevueace 913]

13 hours ago, Bojangles said:

While I agree with most of what you say, he's not coming back to top up his pension pot is he. He's giving up Sweden, so he'll probably be earning less.

Arent clubs in Sweden also struggling due to employing GP riders in their sides on crowds that are even worse than here when you look at their publicised figures?

[Skidder1 7,637]

Maybe his preference for British speedway now rather than Sweden is down to the increased chances of getting paid what he's contracted for?????

[bloom89 496]

4 hours ago, bellevueace said:

I agree with you but your first paragraph sums it up, the sport isnt as popular as it was, crowds are woeful, nobody cares about it, hence the reason a British world champion with the charisma to connect to the generations it needs to rebuild and to put the sport back into the media headlines would have been a great asset, that he didnt chose to do that but now is happy to come back when hes on the wane is just another example of riders using the British league to suit themselves, when he could have made a big difference in promoting speedway he was nowhere to be seen and i wonder how much it will cost a team to employ him? Will he ride for next to nothing as clubs in this country are struggling financially or take a big chunk of a budget a club cant really afford?

But didn’t he appear on bbc news and I’m sure he’s been on question of sport although someone may correct me if I’m wrong. He was in numerous tabloids doing interviews after winning his world titles but people just aren’t bothered about speedway that is the problem, you might’ve got a few hundred people up and down the country going when they discovered what it was and the novelty factor because they hadn’t seen it before and it looked exciting on the tv the clips they’d seen or whatever then they go to a uk meeting the track is unfit for racing and meeting gets delayed an hour while work gets done to it and said people won’t return. Or the ludicrous guest rules your trying to explain to a newbie that Chris Harris is employed by Coventry but tonight he’s guesting for Swindon because there rider is riding in Poland instead of the uk. People won’t understand and just think it’s a joke (which it is)…. imo the sports problems are far bigger than woffy advertising it. When do you ever see any of the current promoters promoting the sport anywhere? Why can’t they all chip in and get a proper advert out on bbc or itv or channel 4 or whatever it may be? They can’t or don’t know how to promote it in some cases yet why should that fall back on to the riders to promote the sport for them? The top riders will promote it to gain sponsorship but the vast majority of sponsor’s already know about speedway or are already involved in it.

Edited June 29, 2023 by bloom89

[bellevueace 913]

1 hour ago, bloom89 said:

But didn’t he appear on bbc news and I’m sure he’s been on question of sport although someone may correct me if I’m wrong. He was in numerous tabloids doing interviews after winning his world titles but people just aren’t bothered about speedway that is the problem, you might’ve got a few hundred people up and down the country going when they discovered what it was and the novelty factor because they hadn’t seen it before and it looked exciting on the tv the clips they’d seen or whatever then they go to a uk meeting the track is unfit for racing and meeting gets delayed an hour while work gets done to it and said people won’t return. Or the ludicrous guest rules your trying to explain to a newbie that Chris Harris is employed by Coventry but tonight he’s guesting for Swindon because there rider is riding in Poland instead of the uk. People won’t understand and just think it’s a joke (which it is)…. imo the sports problems are far bigger than woffy advertising it. When do you ever see any of the current promoters promoting the sport anywhere? Why can’t they all chip in and get a proper advert out on bbc or itv or channel 4 or whatever it may be? They can’t or don’t know how to promote it in some cases yet why should that fall back on to the riders to promote the sport for them? The top riders will promote it to gain sponsorship but the vast majority of sponsor’s already know about speedway or are already involved in it.

Despite all the other problems that has dragged the sport to where it is the fact that a three time world champion took no interest in supporting his home countrys league cannot be denied. Jason Doyle has been far more loyal to this country and only missed riding here when Swindon didnt run, Anyway as long as Belle Vue dont sign him, que así sea.

[bloom89 496]

23 minutes ago, bellevueace said:

Despite all the other problems that has dragged the sport to where it is the fact that a three time world champion took no interest in supporting his home countrys league cannot be denied. Jason Doyle has been far more loyal to this country and only missed riding here when Swindon didnt run, Anyway as long as Belle Vue dont sign him, que así sea.

If you could do the same job and get paid possibly 3 or 4 times more than you do in your current job would you turn it down? Whether you or I like it or not Poland is the place to be they pay the most and that will always attract the top riders. If the uk could pay what Poland does then they’d all be riding here. It is what it is… let’s just enjoy it while we can because in 10 years time we will be lucky if we have enough teams for league racing over here. 
 

Yes it wasn’t great that a 3 time world champion wasn’t riding in his home league but I don’t begrudge him that at all it’s a shambles in this country the majority of the tracks and stadia are poor and he used to carry us during the world cups. His choice he didn’t want to ride here and we have to accept that, yes it does look like he’s coming back probably because it suits him now and it tops his bank balance up blame the current regime for allowing it to happen imo.

Edited June 29, 2023 by bloom89

[iainb 5,023]

21 minutes ago, bloom89 said:

If you could do the same job and get paid possibly 3 or 4 times more than you do in your current job would you turn it down? Whether you or I like it or not Poland is the place to be they pay the most and that will always attract the top riders. If the uk could pay what Poland does then they’d all be riding here. It is what it is… let’s just enjoy it while we can because in 10 years time we will be lucky if we have enough teams for league racing over here. 
 

Yes it wasn’t great that a 3 time world champion wasn’t riding in his home league but I don’t begrudge him that at all it’s a shambles in this country the majority of the tracks and stadia are poor and he used to carry us during the world cups. His choice he didn’t want to ride here and we have to accept that, yes it does look like he’s coming back probably because it suits him now and it tops his bank balance up blame the current regime for allowing it to happen imo.

Also let's not forget that he was heavily involved in turning the Great Britain Speedway from also-rans to consitent medalists and World Champions!

[bloom89 496]

1 hour ago, iainb said:

Also let's not forget that he was heavily involved in turning the Great Britain Speedway from also-rans to consitent medalists and World Champions!

Absolutely! Always remember one of his interviews where he said after a World Cup and the whole gb squad were eating kebabs while he had his own food haha. That just shows had bad and unprofessional we actually were.

[TINYS 292]

4 hours ago, Skidder1 said:

Maybe his preference for British speedway now rather than Sweden is down to the increased chances of getting paid what he's contracted for?????

Also less travelling.

[SPEEDY69 1,260]

5 hours ago, bloom89 said:

If you could do the same job and get paid possibly 3 or 4 times more than you do in your current job would you turn it down? Whether you or I like it or not Poland is the place to be they pay the most and that will always attract the top riders. If the uk could pay what Poland does then they’d all be riding here. It is what it is… let’s just enjoy it while we can because in 10 years time we will be lucky if we have enough teams for league racing over here. 
 

Yes it wasn’t great that a 3 time world champion wasn’t riding in his home league but I don’t begrudge him that at all it’s a shambles in this country the majority of the tracks and stadia are poor and he used to carry us during the world cups. His choice he didn’t want to ride here and we have to accept that, yes it does look like he’s coming back probably because it suits him now and it tops his bank balance up blame the current regime for allowing it to happen imo.

Doyle rides in Poland and the UK, what's your point? 

[bloom89 496]

47 minutes ago, SPEEDY69 said:

Doyle rides in Poland and the UK, what's your point? 

It suits Doyle because he lives here as it does holder. You know as well as I do if we paid what Poland do everyone would ride here. 

[The Dog 413]

As good a rider he is, I've always had the impression a lot of it is attention seeking on a personal front rather than for the good of the sport. Now he's not the top English rider in Poland, thanks to Bewley and Lambert, he wants to return to be a big fish in a little pond 

[StarBoy 165]

7 hours ago, The Dog said:

As good a rider he is, I've always had the impression a lot of it is attention seeking on a personal front rather than for the good of the sport. Now he's not the top English rider in Poland, thanks to Bewley and Lambert, he wants to return to be a big fish in a little pond 

He wouldn't even be the biggest fish in this small pond if Bewley, Doyle, Emil, Holder and co remain next season.

[DazS 431]

and Laguta and Tarasenko