Humphrey Appleby

In any sport, close matches are more interesting than those that are one sided (unless it's the Poms versus the Convicts in the last Ashes when I was happy to see them get a whipping ). However, the issue with speedway is that it's effectively 15 separate matches within a meeting, and a one-sided contest can be magnified significantly more than in other sports. In addition, the mathematical absolutism of the speedway scoring system means a match can conceivably be over after just 8 heats, whereas a football match can still be won right up until the final whistle - "It only takes a second to score a goal" in the immortal words of Brian Clough.

What happened to him? Didn't he go off to the states or something?

Although not in critical comment! In my imagination as well, the Mail had stronger editorials. I've still got quite a lot of Mails in the loft, so I'll have to go and see if my memory is correct. Things must have been hand-to-mouth as even in the 1980s a PC was surely affordable for most businesses? It would presumably have paid for itself in reduced production costs as well.

Perhaps they should be required to have tanks holding enough for several additional laps in case re-runs are needed?

Frankly, 15 heats represents poor value for money nowadays, and would be even more so if if meetings were run at proper pace. It should be possible to run 12 heats per hour, so they'd be finished inside an hour-and-a-quarter if they weren't artificially dragged out. Meetings should be 20 heats or so, and it's even more important given current admission prices and competition from other entertainment, The problem of course is how to make the extra heats meaningful, and how to pay for them. I've watched all sorts of meeting formats over the years, and I certainly didn't grow up with 'traditional second halves'. However, I do think there's still something in running a second-half individual competition with some juniors mixed in to gain experience, but the key would be to link the second-halves up into some sort of meaningful season-long national competition. Something like a 14-heat main match + 6-heat individual competition might provide a reasonable balance, but I suppose the challenge would how it be financed given the marginal nature of most promotions these days?

Surely the difference is that Eurosport will just be taking the BSI-arranged feed, whereas for the BEL, Sky did the production as well?

Probably more because promoters saw a way of cutting costs by ditching the second-half and introducing a juniors league, only to subsequently ditch the juniors league. The 'traditional second-half' probably had got tired, but the races could have been linked into BLRC/NLRC qualification or something meaningful to increase the interest of both riders and fans.

Presumably only during the speedway season. Shouldn't be any employers' business what their employees do out of hours unless it affects their work or is a matter of national security. As much as I think drink/drug driving is grossly irresponsible, it's a matter for the civil authorities to deal with rather than moral guardians.

As much as a prat as he's been, this didn't happen during the Swedish speedway season so it should be none of their business. The matter was taken care of by the Australian authorities and there it should rest. In all honesty, I really wonder whether such clauses would actually stand up under Swedish law, because I don't think they would under certain under European legal systems.

I'm expecting a 'Jason Bunyan' type announcement...

Broadcasting live? Is that for sure? You also can't really compare what happened 20 years ago with now. Satellite and cable was just taking off in the latter days of the World Finals, whilst now there are hundreds of channels looking for content. I very much doubt World Finals wouldn't have got on some TV channel in the past 10 years.

And how many GPs get more than 30,000 today? Far too many are taken in by the SGP hype, when in reality attendances with maybe one exception are no better than the latter days of the World Finals. For that matter, the last World Final was held at Vojens, and just where was the Nordic GP held last year?

Said it before, but it's a bit of myth that World Finals crowds didn't justify decent venues, but the problem was that rota expanded to less mainstream countries that decided to hold their World Finals in glorified fields (e.g. Pocking. They were not attractive destinations for fans, and it became a self-fulfilling prophesy that crowds would fall. The latter World Finals in Munich, Bradford, Wroclaw and Gothenburg pulled crowds that were comparable or better than the more popular GPs today. I can't see any reason why a one-off final couldn't have been held in the Millennium Stadium and not draw crowds of 40K+ had it been available before 2000. A cynical person might think the old World Finals were run into the ground to justify a GP system that favoured particular interest groups.

Not against it per se, but against the way it's been set up and run so that little or no benefits accrue to the grassroots level.

Possibly could have argued that he'd smoked/drank after the plod caught up with him, so they probably just settled for what they could definitely pin on him. Plus AU$ 5500 and a 2-year ban is far more than he'd have got for drink driving in the UK. 'Drug driving' aside, a bit of blow out-of-season hardly makes one a drug head or a danger to others on track. It's the sequence of other stuff...

Is it not one of IMG group's companies - maybe Trans-World Sport?

You don't get rich, or certainly stay rich by throwing your money into a loss-making enterprises. He didn't appear overly happy with how much he lost last year, so one suspects the contracted third GP could be the last unless some public money is put into it, and/or the crowds improve dramatically.

So if he'd murdered someone in Australia, it would still be okay for him to ride in the UK? As I said, it was hardly the crime of the century, but can imagine what the tabloids would say if it had just been some illegal immigrant etc...

That's a bit insulting to amateurs. Plenty of so-called amateur sports are better run than speedway...

Whilst this guy does seem to attract trouble, this particular offence does need to be put in perspective. Larking around on a 50cc minibike in a park with some mates is not really in the same league as driving a car or riding a road bike under the influence. Not the most responsible thing to do, especially considering his erm... track record, but more a danger to oneself. That does not mean though, that people should be making excuses because of his 'superstar' attraction.

Maybe, but whilst philanthropy is admirable, I wouldn't be willing to lose my money to enrich a commercial company without sharing in the returns.

It can't be an astronomical amount because BSI only record a UK revenue of around 4 million (out of about 10 million in total), and significant proportion of that will be attributable to the British GP and the Welsh Tourist Board. My guess would be that Sky were paying something in the order of GBP 1.5 - 2 million per year for the television rights, which shows low speedway falls in the currency stakes. There has been no mention of any sponsorship figures for Monster, so they may not actually be paying very much. Could be goods in kind to have a recognisable name associated with the SGP and raise its profile.

So professional speedway riders can be as reckless and criminal as they like, provided they're exciting? If it had been some local hoon, then people would have been insisting they were locked up and the key thrown away, yet somehow the same rules don't apply for 'superstars'. Okay, this particular offence wasn't the worst in the world (it doesn't sound there was much of a hot pursuit), although riding under the influence of drink/drugs could potentially have been fatal to someone. However, it just seems to be the latest in a long string of things, and whilst he was acquitted in the rape trial and therefore technically innocent, it was still a pretty distasteful episode.

Yes, there are more dimensions to team speedway, and whilst riders come-and-go, teams allow for some sort of continuity.

A bit like the BBC's infamous "there is no news today" broadcast...