Humphrey Appleby

Thought something similar years ago, although speedway should be about racing rather than timed qualifying. Could still have a few qualifying races during the practice session though. Maybe 8 riders in a repechage format racing for 4 places in the GP proper. That of course would cost more money, so isn't likely to happen.

We're certainly not going to get the answers from the Speedway Star which doesn't want to ask the difficult questions. Whilst I'm not the greatest fan of the FIM/BSI arrangements, I do think it's a wider concern that even a commercial organisation can't make serious inroads into expanding revenue and the fan base.

Really? I go to Poland, Denmark and Sweden regularly, and have barely seen any speedway coverage in the mainstream media in those countries. Even in Poland, you largely have to go to speedway cities to even know the sport exists. It's generally acknowledged that Wembley World Finals attracted in the order of 70-80K fans. I appreciate we now live in different times, but equally in an era of satellite television and Millenium Stadiums, do we really think that a World Final wouldn't attract a similar size crowd to the British GP? I don't think I've ever suggested that we should revert to the World Final system now, but the old system was run into the ground because Finals unnecessarily started being held in small venues with poor facilities in the middle-of-nowhere like Norden, Vojens and Pocking. Not very attractive for the casual fan, even if they could work out where the places actually were. The fact though, that the last World Final to be held in a first class stadium (Munich) still attracted something like 50K fans, which is something the SGP has still to achieve. Yes, but because there's hardly any speedway fans left, and those that do still go are pretty much the diehards now.

Who are the press these days beyond the Speedway Star, who are hardly impartial in the matter? I don't think the mainstream media could give two hoots one way or the other. With respect to the fans, I suspect you'd need to ask the 40,000 missing from the Cardiff GP.

I struggle to understand what you're railing against here. Norbold and Ross have not tried to denigrate Johnnie Hoskins or the West Maitland legend, but merely attempted to find the actual origins of the sport. I've read a couple of Norbold's books on other subjects and I've found them to be well researched and well written, so I've little doubt that he's done his homework. Ross I don't know personally, but he has a long background of historical research on various speedway fora, so I'd be willing to assume that he's well informed on the subject as well. The simple fact of the matter is that in any historical research, you cannot entirely rely on claims made by individuals, recollections of associated individuals, and certainly not reguritated secondary information. That does not made this information valueless, but it has to be balanced against credible written sources. However, even if one is not intimate with the primary sources, intutition would suggest that the claim of West Maitland being the birthplace of speedway is a bit unlikely. Sports are rarely invented but evolve from a variety of similiar games and activities, and even where you can date codification of the sport as we know it (as in cricket and football), that is clearly just a clarification of existing practices. Moreover, even in those cases, the sport continued to evolve over a number of years, to the extent that football played in the late-19th century would be almost unrecognisable from the modern game. Anyway, back to the point. Motorcycles and trotting tracks had been around for years before West Maitland, and it seems utterly inconceivable that no-one thought to race around them on bikes prior to 1923. I had still assumed that the meeting on 15 December 1923 had certain facets that distinguished it from other forms of oval dirt track racing (e.g. floodlights, anti-clockwise running, was called 'speedway') and thus could be reasonably said to be the first speedway meeting. It's now quite apparent though, that even that's not the case and there's very little (if anything) to distinguish that meeting it from other similar events held elsewhere. With respect to the 'invention' claim, I suppose it's possible that Johnnie Hoskins (and others) independently thought of the idea of oval motorcycle racing without knowledge of other events. However, in the unlikely event that were true, it would be remiss to ignore the other events when discussing the origins of the sport, otherwise we might as well believe in pixies and fairies and that Abner Doubleday really did invent baseball...

The problem with World Finals was that the draw for each round was (as far as I know) made and published for in advance. Why on earth the FIM did that, I don't know, but seem to remember it was changed in the latter years. I think it was as much to get more evenly spaced rides as it was to get favourable gates. No-one wants the four riding positions that have two rides on the trot. Trying to get favourable gates is a double edged sword as they can change with the conditions.

There's a lot of talk about gate positions influencing World Final results, but I don't see the SGP rotating the race positions in any fair way over the series. As the race positions for each GP are determined by a draw, surely it's possible for one rider to get more favourable positions over the course of the season compared to another...?

What about having two 16-heat semi-finals at the same venue on the same day? Then you could hold the Race-Off and Final at another venue using the same format, but seeding the host nation to the Race-Off if they failed to qualify directly for the Final. This way, the host nation would be represented in all the meetings.

What would be interesting to know, is why did this legend of Johnnie Hoskins arise in the first place? Did he actually claim to have invented the sport himself (or is that another legend), and if so, why would such a claim be taken at face value in light of other evidence?

I think I'm missing how the SGP has revolutionised the sport. Are the riders now earning more (seems unlikely as the prize money has hardly increased in years), has overall revenue increased in the sport, and is top-flight speedway ridden in more countries than previously? With respect to the WSC, I think the general consensus is that the early matches were poor quality - played on sub-standard pitches where hostile bowling was encouraged (hence the need to introduce helmets) and in front of very poor crowds. The breakthrough was when limited overs floodlit cricket was introduced the following year, and the rest as they say is history.

Adams was the equivalent of Tommy Knudsen. Fairly unbeatable in league racing, but never cut it when it came to the World Championship. Similarly, Nicki Pedersen is perhaps the equivalent of Erik Gundersen who was never the better of Hans Nielsen in league competition (or indeed most competition), but who had the ability to pull something out of the bag in World Finals.

Actually, anyone born in the UK before 1983 is automatically a British citizen. Crump may also qualify for Australian citizenship and may choose to not have a British passport, but he's still a British citizen nonetheless.

There were very few real shocks in terms of winners under the old World FInal system. Given the number of riders starting out in the competition though, the knockout nature of the qualifying rounds, and then the fact that one bad race in the Final would put you out of contention, I think those who did win were just as worthy, if not more so than under the SGP system. Even more so those who won multiple titles. I think the strength of the old system though, was that it was less predictable than the SGP and did spring surprises in terms of shock qualifiers from time-to-time. Usually the best rider that year still won, but it was not guaranteed. In these more televised times, quite clearly a SGP series is more attractive to corporate markets, but I disagree that the old style system couldn't be marketed. After all, the FA Cup is a knockout competition whereby the best teams can go out in the first (third) round, and there's no guarantee at all that the two best teams will be in the Final. Moreover, who'd have believed a game played over 5 whole days but where there's no guarantee that it'll run that distance, nor that the best performers will bat or bowl on every day, could be sold to television for vastly more money than speedway can dream of?

I think people are missing the point on the corruption issue. Given what we know, it would seem that most of it revolved around riders 'helping' other riders to qualify in particular meetings, and it would seem largely at points in those meetings when the way the results had gone meant rider x needed a helping hand from rider y. What is to say that couldn't (or even hasn't) happened in the final round of a GP?

This would be the same SGP in which riders don't want to ride and the organisers are having to scrape the barrel to get a full field? I believe Kroeze was a wildcard because the Netherlands didn't have a qualified rider in the 1987 Final. He was also years past his best by then, and hadn't actually been a bad rider in his prime. The Continental section actually had far more riders to start with than the Intercontinental section, so if more Brits, Yanks and Scandinavians got the opportunity to ride in the competition (as opposed to being eliminated in their national rounds), then it may have been even tougher for Continental riders to go through. However, the lopsided nature of the qualifying system doesn't mean the entire system was bad, or wasn't something that couldn't have been fixed.

I think the knockout aspect of the qualifying rounds lead to more desperate and spectacular racing, especially as you got closer to the World Final. There was also the element of following your own team's riders round-by-round which added to the interest. Of course there were rubbish qualifying rounds as well, especially those where nearly all the field went through. For example, the Commonwealth Final was usually a complete waste of time. However, the British Final always seemed special, and I have quite good memories of Overseas Finals as well (more so than Intercontinental Finals). I have been to the odd Continental round, but I was less familiar with the riders and don't think I've ever seen a good speedway meeting in Germany (although I haven't in fairness seen many). I must say that for me though, individual meetings are just a novelty diversion from the real business of team racing. They're one-dimensional in comparison, and too many would get boring.

Yes, but British Finals (even until quite late on) were often ridden in front of large crowds and with very strong line-ups.

It's true that Intercontinental Final often had a stronger line-up than the World Final itself, but it's nothing that couldn't have been fixed by tweaking the qualifying system slightly, That said, not all the Continental qualifiers were no hopers and some would have undoubtedly qualified in their own right even with a 'fairer' qualifying system.

I saw many qualifying rounds that were infinitely more exciting than most of the GPs. The British rounds were often amongst the best.

You should know by now, that the SGP is close to perfection and that speedway only achieved true salvation when the BSI messiah came along...

What does that say about the SGP at the moment? The 16 riders immediately outside the GP should all be capable of making up the numbers, even if they're unlikely to immediately challenge for honours. If the SGP organisers start thinking they have to look elsewhere, that would send a dreadful message to those interested in entering the qualifiers.

I don't really remember the weather being cited as an issue at the time, and the view of many was that the 20-25,000 (or whatever they actually got) largely met expectations. A more likely problem was holding the GP in such a vast (and presumably not cheap) stadium, and in a city with limited speedway support. Australia is not like the UK where you can drive to a GP and back in a day, and I don't think the budget flight market had really taken off Down Under at that point. It was frankly ill-conceived from the beginning, and it's astonishing that BSI ever thought it could be a goer. Going somewhere like Adelaide or Brisbane where there's bigger solo fanbases would have seemed more sensible, but I suppose that didn't fit with the grandiose plans of the time...

The losses incurred by the host of the Sydney GP are well documented. How much did BSI contribute to the extra costs of staging a GP Down Under?

Then why did they schedule a GP in Australia? BSI are happy for others to lose money though...

Nothing to do with their staging fees then, or levels of financial support to ship competitors and officials halfway around the world?