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Humphrey Appleby

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Everything posted by Humphrey Appleby

  1. No-one's mentioned Jimmy Nilsen. Wasn't he quite handy for a while?
  2. Havelock also had his brush with authority and got banned for a year. Difference was that he came back better, kept his nose clean, and was probably a deserving winner in 1992. Few riders ever had the ability of Lee, but it's what you make of it.
  3. John Jorgensen was a multiple World Team Champion by virtue of being in victorious Danish teams, but I'm afraid few outside of Coventry would put him on any list of great riders. Team events can't really be used in judgement of a rider's standing. Billy Sanders didn't even qualify for three of the World Finals that Nielsen was in, so I'm not sure how he was stopping Nielsen from winning it.
  4. I think Lee was a great speedway talent, and I enjoyed reading his book where he comes over as articulate and thoughtful as well. However, you only have to look at the trouble he seems to get himself into, and it can't all be down to happenstance and speedway officialdom. Great champions can't just have talent, but also need discipline, the right lifestyle, and positive influences around them. Whilst I do smile at sportsmen who still win things despite doing all the wrong things (e.g. James Hunt), they invariably don't go onto become multiple champions. Unlike many of the riders we've discussed, Lee's decline was largely self-inflicted and sadly I think the judgement must be that he wasted his talent. And of course, when he did make a come-back, he no longer looked like a world beater despite being a similar age to Nielsen and Ermolenko who both went on to win further world titles.
  5. I didn't actually say he was league above. I'd agree that Jonsson and Ermolenko had fairly comparable World Final records, and from memory, Ermolenko may even just shade the two when they rode together. I'd also fully agree that Ermolenko was outstanding in 1993 and was a deserved winner that year. Conversely though, Ermolenko had twice as many bites at the cherry as Jonsson, although I'd also accept he missed a couple of World Finals through injury at the peak of his career. I think what it comes down to for me, is if I needed someone to win a race to save my life, I'd probably pick Jonsson. Jonsson is one rider who could beat Nielsen regularly when he was at his peak, whereas I don't think the same could be said with Ermolenko. Ermolenko also somehow sticks in my mind as a home track specialist, although obviously 10-11 point averages would suggest he must won quite a few races elsewhere!
  6. Nielsen had a rare injury in 1992 which meant he didn't qualify for the World Final for the first time since 1980. I seem to recall he might also have been riding with an injury in 1994 as well.
  7. Nielsen was in the early part of his career when all those riders were around, but still managed to share three titles apiece with Gundersen before he was forced to retire. So he was clearly at least as good as Gundersen by any measure. Lee is I think a similar age to Nielsen, but despite his undoubted talent, Lee's career petered out through lifestyle choice. There's little evidence to suggest Lee would have gone on to greater and better things. Sanders was a few years older than Nielsen, and had not won a World title by the time of his death. Sigalos - forced to retire too young and too early, so can't say one way or the other. Nielsen also rode against Per Jonsson and Tony Rickardsson for the significant part of his career, who were absolutely amongst the best riders of all time. Ermolenko, Knudsen, Pedersen and even Tatum were also not rubbish either, although I'd not quite put them in the same league.
  8. Numerous dead people have been named as Ripper suspects down the years, many without any foundation whatsoever, including Prince Clarence. Getting back to Penhall and Carter though, was never a fan of either to be honest, but I don't see why Penhall should pull any punches if he despised Carter. Carter always came over as being somewhat unhinged, and whilst madness is often never far away from brilliance, he seemed to be a ticking time bomb. It seems possible he had some sort of personality disorder, which might have been better diagnosed today.
  9. Knudsen always gave the appearance of being in the Nielsen-Gundersen echelon, but was really never there. Gundersen despite an inferior league record against Nielsen, always seemed to be able to pull something special out of the bag in World Finals. Knudsen was the sort of opposite. From memory, Knudsen was one of the few riders who could actually beat Nielsen in league racing on any sort of regular basis, but seemed to be the Leigh Adams of the 1980s.
  10. I wouldn't disagree that Aussie/NZ riders are usually good servants to British speedway, but Brits can't go to work in Australian industries without extensive qualifications regardless of our cultural and economic ties. Speedway can't be exempt from the regulations that apply to every other industry, and in fact Australia already receives special treatment in that we allow qualification from state rather than national titles.
  11. Australia actually poses reasonably strict requirements on Brits wanting to work there. British and Australian speedway are also not really comparable in terms of employment prospects. You can't make a living riding speedway in Australia, so a few European riders going over for a 2 or 3-month working holiday cannot really be said to be taking employment away from the locals. In fact, they probably help bolster the meetings in many cases. By contrast, Britain has a professional speedway set-up offering 8 months of fairly regular employment, and it's not unreasonable that if Australia has restrictions on Brits working there, then speedway should not be exempted as a professional industry. I'd have no problem with reciprocal working rights between the UK, Australia and New Zealand (after a certain qualification period), but given the fuss about immigration in both countries, I can't see that happening any time soon.
  12. If you were going to implement some form of inter-league competition, the 4TT would be a better format.
  13. Using the criteria of a state championship to award work permits is quite frankly ridiculous anyway. It should be done on Australian Championship positions only, even if it means going down the field a bit. The Australian Championship is at least over 4 rounds and should be a better measure of ability.
  14. Domestic rules can be different. I think there's no maximum or minimum size for tracks specified in the SCB regulations, and possibly Australia is the same.
  15. I think the historical FIM definition was 285-400 metres for a speedway track, and anything above was a long track. However, the minimum size for a speedway was reduced to 260 metres to accommodate indoor GP circuits, and the upper size was raised to 425 metres at some point, possibly to accommodate proposed Australian GP circuits. There were always domestic exceptions though, such as Claremont which I think was over 500 metres. These days though, it seems anything goes for longtrack.
  16. The fatal flaw, aside from who'd pay for these meetings, is that Australian riders would have the expense of shipping equipment and setting themselves up in the UK for a few meetings. Few are going to be interested in doing that without any guarantee of a contract.
  17. It isn't just that, but the geographical restrictions placed on viewing. For those of us who travel all over the place, we have to rely on these sort of tricks even if we'd be willing to pay to watch.
  18. It's a very basic stadium, but if Teterow is holding a GP next year, then there's hope for anything... Seems to be quite a hub of motor sport in Invercargill though. Teretonga Park is next door to the speedway and hosted GP level car racing in the past, plus of course Bert Munro was from there (and his modified Indian bike is on show in the town). You can still go racing on the beach.
  19. When I looked at this about 10 or more years ago, the cost of running an Elite League team appeared to be in the order of 400-500k per year. I recall hearing the television money amounted to about 50k per year, plus additional payments when a track was television live. There would be some sponsorship revenue in there, but I doubt that much given the type of 'used car salesmen' sponsors that speedway leverages, so clearly most of the revenue must be coming from gate money and/or a promoter putting their hand in their pocket. Not sure what it would cost to run a Premier League team, but maybe 2/3rds of the cost at a rough guesstimate. However, probably very little or no television money, so gate revenue would be even more important.
  20. I'd rather teams race each other home and away than 'play', but this also pre-supposes teams are at full strength for every match. In reality, riders go AWOL for all sorts of reasons during the season, then you have all sorts of weird and wonderful replacements who actually ride for other teams and who could potentially distort the table. So whereas you'd expect a 28-match programme to be 'fairer' than deciding a title over (say) 4 matches, in reality the 'playoffs' are just an extension of what's not an inherently fair process to begin with.
  21. Queensland alone is huge. Brisbane to Cairns is nearly as far as London to Moscow, and even up to Rockhampton is as far as London to Glasgow. It's simply not viable for what's a part-time sport.
  22. Just let a reserve ride for any reason - the way it used to be. If you avoid a team putting a ringer there, then limit the number of rides to less than what the 1-4 will each ride.
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