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Think that's how the lower league should be with one old hand in each team for knowledge and advice. Riders like Howe Schramm would be great for that role.

YOU should

You obviously haven’t been to Warsaw, Torun or seen the improvements at Bydgoszcz or Gdańsk or a few others for that matter . Polish fans are very knowledgable and very keen to talk to British fans, if you make the effort. Travel broadens the mind. if you think Kings Lynn is good, you need to get around more.

Thats one thing that could be done, stop the playing with FMN licenses.

Isn't this how Superbikes came about? I don't know and the PDC Darts split from the BDO and weren't Snooker also looking at splitting away from the WSC, and the Football Premier League are always floating ideas about splitting away and it's been talked about by F1 in the past also. In the majority of the above cases it was about the players/clubs in the higher echelons wanting to break away to cream off more of the money, where in Speedway's case it seems to be the opposite with the lower echelons breaking away from an all controlling league that poaches most of their assets

THAT has always been the 64,000 dollar question. Without affiliation to the FIM, riders from GB would not be able to race anywhere outside these Isles, no international competition, World Championship participation, etc. And riders from other countries couldn't risk coming here if it closed all other doors.

I wasn’t having a pop at Belle Vue in the slightest the point I was making with a great race track like you have you should be getting much bigger crowds but if you can’t get bigger crowds what chance does others have ?as you say you have many other sporting events as well

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/55057985 Looks like Bradford Bulls want to go back to odsal. Deal agreed with stock cars & they also want speedway... Good luck with the latter....

Amazing really - not that long ago you would've been considered mad to suggest Foxhall is a better race track than compost corner Now it's a given.......

About 1 in 3000 people (at most), in the UK attend domestic Speedway each week nationally.. Imagine if they could get just 2 in every 3000? 100% increase in gates and revenue.. The Aces get around 1200 with the conurbation of Gtr Manchester having 2.5 million living within it, with the extremeties of it being around 45 mins away by car.. The attendance figures for domestic Speedway are pitiful really when you consider that the 'local track' is invariably the only one for miles and miles, and has a complete monopoly in that area, with no other teams competing for a fan's following like for example football has with lots of cities having more than one team.. Maybe one day the sport will wake up and properly invest in a true national, joined up, collective, marketing campaign, rather than many clubs doing their own thing on a pretty basic level locally.. 100's of Thousands of pounds are spent on paying 'employees' when hardly anyone knows your business even exists, and minimal seems to be invested in changing that lack of awareness.. A very strange business plan..

Never a truer sentence was said No one said that any club should be penalised and I'm not sure what penalty could be applied or for what reason. Or for that matter what penalty you could be referring to... The issue faced by all clubs IMHO will be a reduction of the team build points therefore meaning a minimum of one rider being swapped out... so whether you consider that being a penalty it will be a one faced by all clubs not just Glasgow and again IMHO the current Glasgow team will unfortunately exceed whatever BSPL build figure they come up with for teams... Then there will be the issue of work permits and Visas which wont (or shouldn't) be a problem for Glasgow as they must have a sponsors licence as they have brought commonwealth riders into their team in the past but may be for other sides. Finally if Glasgow end up trying to use a 2020 rider who has a Polish commitment this will also have a potential impact on their original 2020 selection (but again maybe not)... So no one is saying they should be penalised for anything the unfortunate fact of the matter is due to factors outwith their control they will have to make a change of some description. Whether that is one rider or six of them they are in the same boat as everyone else... Regards THJ

The meeting was also heavily advertised in the Daily Mirror the week leading up to the meeting. If you have access to the British Newspaper Archive website they also published some terrific photos after the event showing both singles and sidecar action during the day.

No problems only solutions.

Dont really understand this. As long as licences are used to control or grade riders in/to teams in any league, granting them to foreigners should not be allowed.

Meanwhile, back in Glasgow.

I appreciate how much work Buster has done at Saddlebow road, turning what was a rundown venue into a more modern enterprise, but unfortunately the same cannot be said about the track. Itself. What use to be regarded as one of the best around when every rider wanted to race on , now is nothing more than a clay base follow the leader track. I accept the stockcar issue and the viability of everything, but it just illustrates the state the sport is in. When thinking about the reality of it all. In a place with a vast population like Manchester , having one of the best race tracks in the world, and seeing the dismal attendance figures they attract, you understand the popularity has all but gone. Only us old die hard fans remain...... What chance has the remaining clubs got....

Great article by Peter Schroeck too.

We need to have a look at ourselves instead of moaning about what the Poles are doing.Sort ourselves out .

If you had gone again in 2020 you wouldn`t have recognised the place- the back straight stand is magnificent along with the new pits complex. the improvements are not finished there the 1st/2nd bend is being done next. the racing was brilliant there in 2020, here is an example.

It's interesting what you say... I wonder if anyone of you heard of referee being persuaded to change his original verdict on something that happened on a speedway track. With reference to Zenon Plech's premature passing there quitea few article being published in Poland. In one of them https://www.speedwaynews.pl/aktualnosci/item/70913-to-byl-bieg-30-wierze-ze-zrobie-to-na-co-wszyscy-licza?fbclid=IwAR31iZCICd_EmMhAM-nJoxtY_70DTzHeAfNk6P0y_0a4mD_lPoyodfLuVdk respectful Polish journalist claims just that...and it happened - in his words - after the infamous race in the Katowice 1973 world final in which Zenon Plech was knocked down by Khlynovski . Anyway, read it for yourself ( in my translation): (...) The English used to call Plech – a Golden Boy. The Golden Boy entered the speedway world like a hurricane, and his riding style electrified fans around the world. Unbridled, crazy and extravagant - that's how Plech was on the track. He used the entire width of the track and the entire saddle on his motorcycle, the long characteristic saddle of the time in the Czech ESO speedway bikes. - I liked them because I could move freely back and forth - said Zuper Zenon a few years ago. All the described values were on show to over a hundred thousand fans during the final in Chorzów. In the second race of the day - next to the Sweden’s Michanek – lined up the biggest favourites of the tournament's: Plech, Mauger and Olsen. The New Zealander was the fastest at the start , so Plech began competition with a point loss, but with a victory over Olsen. In the following heats, Plech was unstoppable, whilst his rivals began to lose points. The united forces of Szczakiel-Waloszek stopped Mauger in the eighth heat, while in the last series, Olsen defeated Szczakiel. As a result, two heats before the end of the competition, the classification was as follows: Szczakiel and Mauger on 13 points, Ole Olsen and Zenem Plech on 11, and Grigorij Khlynowski on 10. The last two had one more race up their sleeve. They both came up to the tapes in heat 19. At the starting line everyone was surprised by Peter Collins, whose style of entering world class riders resembled that of Plech. So far the Englishman riding was an average. Plech starting from the outside chose a wide lane and picked up speed on the opposite straight and as he entered the second bend he sharply rode under the Brit. Plech withstood the challenge, rode close to a foul and in speedway jargon - pushed Collin wide on the outside. So Plech , with deafening cheering took the lead. Behind him was Khlynowski, who began to sense his chance of overtaking leading Plech. If this was the end of the race, Plech would have joined the race-off for the gold medal. Khlynowski, however, would not give up. He closed on the Pole and finally rode very close to his rival on the bend that started the fourth lap. At the exit of that bend Russian staggered a bit, then he blocked Plech’s racing lane and the Pole consequently fell onto the track, and landed on the fence. At first, the referee from the GDR (East Germany) excluded Khlynowski and awarded three points to Plech, two to Collins, and one to Gorideyev . It is known in speedway that once the referee makes a decision, there is no point in protesting , because he will not change it. This time however it was different. Immediately after the referee verdict, the Anglo-Saxon camp started to defend the Ivan Mauger’s interests . They assumed that in the run-off Mauger would defeat Szczakiel, (…) who, incidentally, was a huge revelation of the tournament. They realised that it would be more difficult with Plech, and moreover, Mauger would have a coalition of opponents rather than having to settle for a one-to-one duel. The leaders of the protests turned out to be Ole Olsen (Mauger's close friend), the leading British journalist Phil Rising and the influential man in British speedway, Reg Fearman. The telephone line between the referee's booth and the pits got heated up. There were arguments that throughout the tournament the referee favoured the Russians and the Poles. That he did not care about the flying starts of his Eastern friends, and kept the Western stars under the tape. Sharp words and accusations began to fall without limitation. Words about scandal, lack of fair-play and protests to the FIM. In the end referee bowed down and changed his original decision in favour of a new, daring interpretation! Well, Khlynowski remained disqualified, but three points went to Collins, two to Plech, who did not finish the race, and one point for Gordeyev who at the time of Plech’s crash was in fourth position . "This interpretation had no logic," said Plech later on. - It is difficult to justify why the German referee decided in this way. To this day, I don't know and I wonder how the run-off with my participation would go. Unfortunately, I will never know - said Super Zenon years later, who finally finished the competition in third place, and the title was won by his countryman Jerzy Szczakiel.

Ipswich had crowds in excess of 5k for the play off and Cup finals in recent seasons and I seem to remember a couple of good Friday meetings vs Lynn in the early 90s attracting crowds in access of 5k. However getting those numbers regularly mid 80s I would guess.

Are you on drugs

But almost by definition lesser known Europeans wouldn't qualify for work permits.

I am not aware of the exact location of the venue in Weston, but in the 1930s the Taunton Motor Club staged grass track racing described as ‘speedway’ at a number of locations in Somerset. In 1936 Taunton MC staged meetings described as ‘speedway’ on the grass, with the second meeting being held at Shoreditch, Taunton Dene on 10th June. Taunton MC again ran ‘speedway’ meetings in 1937. The first meeting staged at Holway Hill, Taunton, on Thursday, 3rd June was reported as grass track speedway, with Ivan Kessell, the grass track and speedway rider from Cornwall competing. A meeting described as speedway was held on the grass at Bridgwater Rugby Club on Sunday, 13th June 1937, comprising a mix of motorcycle and cycle races. The following week, on 20th June 1937, a ‘speedway’ meeting was held on the grass at Halcon Corner, Taunton. In August 1937 the local vicar complained about the adverse effects on attendance at Sunday Schools in Taunton which Sunday afternoon speedway would have and the owner of land subsequently withdrew permission for a field to be used for the ‘speedway’. Halcon Corner was the venue for ‘speedway’ on grass in 1938 on 8th May, 19th June, 10th July, 14th August (specifically advertised as grass track speedway) and 18th September, which was the last event of the season, attracting 165 entries in the various classes. On 14th July grass track speedway at Taunton Road, Bridgwater was abandoned when rain made the course too slippery. The final Bridgwater meeting took place at Castle Park on 1st September. In a team event at Halcon Corner on 13th August 1939, Taunton met Holbeach and Spalding (from the Bell End track) in a grass speedway match, Taunton winning 71-36. Reg Beer, Mike Erskine, Ivan Kessell and Broncho Slade were the leading scorers for Taunton, with Ted English, Roy Duke, Alan Smith and Buster Yeomans riding for ‘The Tulips’. On 24th August more ‘speedway’ racing was staged on the cricket field at North Curry, Taunton as part of the annual fete.

Danish riders have to ride in the Danish Leagues to be able to get the permission to ride in places like Poland, UK, Sweden, etc. Without the stars riding at home, it would be doubtful that speedway could continue in Denmark. It's a bit like respecting what you were given to make it where you are now.

I hate Polish stadiums, just cold and concrete, the racing feels so far away, no close contact with the riders, no hanging over the pit area or chatting with those standing in the riders stand for Polish fans, nah not for me. Can't bloody wait to get back supporting King's Lynn Stars, absence has made the heart grow fonder. Yes the racing needs to be great at every stadium, no fan wants to watch follow the leader, equally I don't want to watch riders just making mistakes for the passes to happen, lots of racing lines is the way to go for our sport .........