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The most despised person at Borussia Monchengladbach? The one who shouts... "Give us a B!".... The sport is tiny, with no major sponsors, an ageing white middle aged, and above demographic fanbase, hardly any competitor's, and an operating model ran with a credibility rating akin to pro Wrestling... A credibility rating which reduces any silverware success to fhe level of "Sunday League" sports who have a similar "lets bring in ringers" philosophy... Eg Thank you NKI for playing a significant role in Belle Vue becoming Champions, but Boool!!! For Bomber for helping Ipswich beat the Aces in the semi the year before... Before he then helped Sheffield beat Ipswich in the final.. . All played out in a wide ranging level of stadium standards and comfort, often miles away from what a 1995 audience, let alone a 2025 audience, would expect... Good luck with selling that product... Cannot see anyone pitching it on Dragons Den..

The legendary Polish former National speedway team coach, Marek Cieslak, commented in sportowefakty.pl results of Poland’s sport Personality 2024 plebiscite announced yesterday. When mentioning fifth placed achieved by the 5-times world champion, Bartosz Zmarzlik, and problems with speedway, Marek Cieslak said this: It is a complex issue. We need the successes of our national teams, which we do not have. We have achieved the best league in the world, which has great viewership. The problem is that the Grand Prix series cannot keep up with this at all, and it is folding down. This is visible, for example, in the locations. There are no new ones, and in addition, large stadiums are slowly disappearing. The FIM and the promoter Discovery are responsible for this. In addition, the best riders in the world do not ride in the series. The recent nominations for wild cards and their translation into geographical terms are a joke. All this means that the Grand Prix arouses interest in fewer and fewer countries. I have the impression that even here (i.e. in Poland) it does not generate the same emotions as it used to. If it were, the successes and the phenomenon of Zmarzlik would have a much greater echo in the country. Do you think that it is time for Artiom Łaguta and Emil Sajfutdinov to return to the series? Initially I was against them, but now I think they should be in the series. Zmarzlik would also benefit from the presence of Artiom Łaguta or Emil Sayfutdinov. I have no doubt that he would still win, but then his successes, this rivalry with the Russians would arouse much more emotions. In this way, the audience would be larger. Please remember what rivals Tomasz Gollob had. He had to compete with Tony Rickardsson, Greg Hancock, Billy Hamill, Jason Crump, Mark Loram, Hans Nielsen, Leigh Adams, Ryan Sullivan and many other great stars. Each of them had papers for the title. Now the series lacks such figures.

Speedway is the only sport that penalise anyone who shows improvement, look what happened to Jack SMITH and Nathan Ablitt, both riders came up from N D L to reserves in the championship and both improved their averages ,and claimed places in the top five of their teams. Then after all the time and effort they put in sees them both frozen out of team places i would not be surprised if one or both decide its not worth putting all the time and money into speedway. I dont know of any other sport were improving goes against you surly something must be done to stop such ridiculous things happening to riders.

I used to be involved in the promotion of one of the stock car organisations and used to get onto both local BBC and commercial radio stations on a fairly regular basis. I also know that at least two other local promotions were also successful in getting on the local radio stations. Providing you didn't just make it a free advert and gave them a story about local drivers with reference to recent results, then even the BBC stations would accept mention of forthcoming meetings where the drivers you had mentioned would be in action again. Speedway would be a lot easier with the team format at most meetings meaning you are automatically talking about something local even if the riders come from the four corners of the world. It does however mean you have to cultivate interest from one of the presenters and give them information on a regular basis. The promotion I worked for had two tracks in the same area so I only ever mentioned one track on the local BBC station and the other track on the local commercial station, that way both stations were happy to interview me every two or three weeks during the season.

Speedway is not one of the BBC’s sports, ie not one they broadcast. Sport, as pointed out above by Mikebv has wrong demographics for Beeb.

we hadn't won the league for 30 years but we have now twice in the last 3 years so winning it in 2017 really doesn't matter we can win it 2025 😉👍♣️🏆

Are you planning a monthly attack on the Speedway Star? For the record I think they do a very good job.

You make me laugh....you sound like a kid in a school play ground ? Not sure what you mean by 'true' fan? .....I can definitely say that I'm a fan of 'speedway'! I go to different tracks/meetings up and down the country...it supports other clubs too.... Not really fussed if that makes me an 'untrue' fan? LOL 😄 Thanks for making me smile today ! 😄

Having said that have seen many fans who get upset, whinge and moan and walk out before the end of the match if the team is not winning , rather a team to watch than no team at all.

This is the bit that I don't understand, visas should only be issued when their are no British riders are available, so long as there are British riders out of work then no visas should be issued.

I see this a lot and to be honest, it annoys me. Absolutely it does and not just the supporters either. At the end of the day, this is sport, it’s win or lose and it’s competitive. Ask Chris Louis off record if he’s bothered if Ipswich finally win the title or not..

I am always impressed that both the teams get to the final each year...