Kevin Meynell

Not at all. I'm the first to complain about the poor value of money that speedway represents, but I think who actually rides is somewhat irrelevant. If the entertainment is sufficient (e.g. number of heats, exciting, presentation), then people will come regardless. How many people who are not currently hardcore supporters actually know who any of the top riders are anyway? If you get new or former former supporters in, new stars will be created. I've watched racing at every level, and Conference League racing can be as, or even more entertaining than the processional rubbish served-up at higher levels. Even if one argues that the BEL needs to have a few of the riders that casual fans might just have heard of, the second division has traditionally had a low standard of rider, and it's only in recent times that it's included first division standard riders. Which there will be if teams go bankrupt trying to employ a standard of rider above what they can afford.

You'd think people would just be happy there's any speedway at all, against the odds I might add.

Many, if not most of the tracks in Sweden are located in small towns, and then usually outside of them. Their Elite League still manages to get better crowds than ours. It's going to be increasingly difficult to run existing tracks in urban areas, let alone start-up new ones. That said, nimbys and ecomentalists are slowly putting a stop to motor racing in the countryside as well.

Milton Keynes has also grown a lot though in the past 10-15 years. There are successful tracks (insofar as any speedway track is successful) in areas with much smaller populations than Milton Keynes.

The last time Berwick was in Scotland was in the 15th century, but I heard that the speedway team is generally considered to be 'Scottish' because it draws much of its support from neighbouring areas of Scotland. Scotland and Wales are only slightly under-represented by speedway tracks if you compare the number of tracks per capita with England. Of course, it doesn't really work that way, and although you'd have thought the Glasgow-Edinburgh axis could support another team, no tracks lasted long even in speedway's heyday. I'd have thought Swansea might have been able to support a speedway team, but I suppose there isn't that much tradition of speedway around there (although didn't Neath have a track for a while). As for Mid and North Wales, well forget it. You might just get away with something close to Chester/Wirral, but then why go to trouble of putting it in Wales when you could go closer to the areas from where your support is likely to come from.

The original rule was that heat-leaders had to ride at Nos. 1, 3 and 5, and was introduced when the current heat format (pairing the 1 and 5 in Heat 13) was introduced in 1994. This restriction was relaxed to the top two riders at Nos. 1 and 5 from the 2004 season onwards. However, there were different rules for various editions of the KOC before that.

I agree there appears to be little difference between the British and Polish top divisions, and that the Swedish Elite League appears to be marginally tougher these days.

There are still disagreements about the ranking of players who compete in a lot of events, versus those who do well in the major tournaments. However, rankings in golf and tennis are important because those sport do not have world championships as such, and the rankings provide access to certain tournaments at certain entry points. With speedway, I agree it probably could be done, but there's no obvious purpose to it, possibly other than to determine entry to the SGP. Personally though, I'd prefer to see a SGP structure that gave every rider in the world the opportunity to qualify for the SGP the same season.

There was an attempt to introduce official FIM rankings a few years ago, but they seem to have fallen by the wayside. The obvious question is what's the point of rankings unless they're actually used for something, and even then, you need to be careful not to undermine the prestige of existing competitions. To a large extent, the SGP standings should be the world rankings, although their credibility is now somewhat undermined by the closed shop nature of the SGP circus.

A few years ago, I did a comparison of the relative averages of riders who rode in more than one league. It wasn't totally scientific as the heat formats are not the same, but in general, the British Elite League, Polish Ekstraliga and Swedish Elitserien worked-out about the same level. If anything, the figures indicated the Polish league was tougher, with the Swedish league weaker, but the differences were negligible. I would say that the British Elite League is probably now weaker than it was, but equally I'd say the same about the Polish Ekstraliga. The Swedish Elitserien is probably the highest standard these days, but again I don't think there's much in it. For reference, the standards between these three major leagues and the Danish League was about 80%, and with the German and Czech League about 66%. These figures were less accurate though as fewer riders compete in these as well as the major leagues.

A Northern Ireland GP is academic of course, but I think there have been Northern Irish ice racers representing Ireland in the past.

In fact it couldn't be held in Northern Ireland because that's outside the ACU's territory which is just Great Britain, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. Northern Ireland comes under the all-Ireland MCUI.

Sure, as indeed could numerous British riders if they rode regularly in a restructured BEL. I'm not suggested it should. I'm suggesting that we should only use riders who commit to, and actually ride-in in the BEL. They don't necessarily have to be British. We clearly couldn't fill the void with British riders on a like-for-like basis at the moment, but we never will if steps are not taken. The BEL gradually needs to start reducing its dependence on journeymen, whilst encouraging and promoting the use of home-based riders. To honest, I think we're going to hit a crisis point anyway as Adams, Hancock, Hamill, Karlsson, Max, Loram, Louis, Wiltshire and Sullivan are all getting towards the end of their careers now. With Jonsson, Andersen and Lindback also seemingly disinterested in riding here, I don't see a vast number of riders lining-up to take their place as No.1s.

The likes of Niels Kristian Iversen and Piotr Protasiewicz are really the cream of the crop? I'm thinking more of riders who take on multiple league commitments, but who don't intended to fulfill them all. However, if the GP expands any further, the BEL will ultimately have to decide whether individual aspirations are compatible with league competition. Riders can't make a living out of the SGP alone, so they'll need to decide what's important for them. British speedway used to offer more fixtures in the past, but this is not possible these days because so many riders also compete elsewhere. Open meetings are all but dead, test matches are few and far between, formerly prestigious competitions such as the British Championship, Riders' Championship and Pairs are filled with whoever can be bothered to turn-up, and there are less regular team matches in order to fit around GPs and other overseas events. If the majority of regular riders were British-based, then it might be possible to offer them sufficient meetings that they didn't need to ride abroad so much. Sure, but you can still refuse to employ riders who are unable to ride in all your fixtures. In fact, this would have to be a league policy, as there would always be one promoter who'd undermine the system. That might have to be an option if the financial climate in speedway gets any worse. How much longer is it possible to afford full-time professional riders on sub-1,000 and falling crowds? You miss the point. We are already comprising the future of the BEL by employing supposedly top riders who then go missing at inopportune moments. That is far more damaging to the league than employing perhaps (initially) lesser-quality riders who are committed to riding in Britain every week. Furthermore, with enough exposure, many of these riders will eventually become stars in their own right, and people will wonder what all the fuss was about. Now is the moment to make the necessary changes because so many of the top riders are nearing the end of their careers. It might mean missing out on the likes of Lindback and Jonsson, but British speedway can survive without them.

Sure - my comments were aimed at those responsible for withdrawal of the 'Cheetahs' nickname. Whoever was to blame, I still hated the 'Silver Machine' nickname. It conjured-up far too many memories of questionable 70s films about motorcycle racers.

Sure, but the point is that the D/L method is generally agreed to be a fairer method of determining the result of rain-affected matches than the much-easier-to-calculate run rate method. Whilst I generally agree in keeping things as simple as possible, sometimes more complexity is required to achieve a fairer system.

Or Teesside Teessiders? A few more.. sorry if people have already mentioned some of them... Odsal Tudors Leicester Hunters California Poppies Rayleigh Rovers St Austell Gulls Aldershot Shots Wigan Warriors Bradford Panthers/Northern/Barons Neath Welsh Dragons Weymouth Royals/Eagles/Wizards/Wildcats Long Eaton Archers Cowdenbeath Fife Lions Doncaster Stallions/Dragons Rochdale Hornets Sunderland Stars/Gladiators Chesterton Potters Scunthorpe Saints/Stags Barrow Furness Flyers

In the case of Oxford, I believe the 'Cheetahs' nickname was chosen by the fans back when the team started in the 1940s. That's why the whole 'Silver Machine' rebadging was so crap. I'd guess that some teams also ripped-off the nickname of the local football team. It's too much of a coincidence that Swindon Town FC are nicknamed the 'Robins' and so is the speedway team.

The Swedish approach could be relatively simple and clear to understand, but the problem is they've made it more complex than it actually needs to be. If you're just using averages to casually compare riders, then straightforward averages are fine. However, there are a lot of problems with using unadulterated averages in conjunction with the points limit, and factored averages would go some way to solving those problems. They actually haven't, but I'd agree that straight batting and bowling averages are relatively well understood (although I bet many people don't know that an innings is not counted if a batsman is not out). However, I seriously doubt many people know how to calculate strike rates, economy rates, test rankings, and as for Duckworth-Lewis targets, well... Even in speedway, the method of average calculation has changed over the years. The CMA was only invented in the 1960s, and isn't especially intuitive given that it's based on a 12-point maximum and riders often score more than 12 points in a meeting. It just depends on which statistics are pushed over the years, rather than their inherently complexity.

I don't think it's any worse than having a points limit where some riders are on current averages, some on assessed averages, and some on averages from years ago. For that matter, how does one explain how Belle Vue's averages added-up to 42.34 points in September when the points limit is 40 points? The fans don't need to be troubled with calculating the averages, anymore than they need to know how to calculate their PAYE. I'd bet the vast majority of cricket fans have no idea how to work out batting and bowling averages, strike rates, and test ratings. The most important thing is simply that they have some recognisable connection to the sport.

The Swedish way of doing the averages is fairly sensible if you're going to use them for team building. The problem is that they make it more complicated than it needs to be, and their formula seems to have an error which can potentially result in minus averages. The main problem with the British way of doing things, is that we keep the starting GSAs for 12 matches before new ones are issued. This means they apply for two or even three months without changing, and when the new GSAs are finally issued, they can change quite dramatically from those at start of the season. Even worse, some riders don't ride enough matches during a season to get a new average, so end-up retaining one from two or more seasons ago. The Swedish system attempts to incorporate an element of a rider's average at the start of the season into their current average, but this gradually has less importance as a rider completes more matches. In other words, assuming a team rides 18 matches during the season (as they do in the Swedish Elite League), after one match a rider's new average would be made-up of 17/18ths of their starting average, and 1/18th of their actual average. After 9 matches it would 9/18ths of their starting average, and 9/18ths of their actual average. If they manage to ride all 18 matches, their final average would be their actual average. The main advantage is that a current average can always be calculated for a rider regardless of how many matches they've actually ridden in. It also makes manipulation of the points limit much more difficult, although it's less of an issue in Sweden anyway as the starting averages apply all season for team building purposes. There was a program available on the web somewhere that automatically calculate Swedish averages for you, but I can't seem to find it anymore (I have a copy myself). As I said though, an erroneous formula seems to be used, and there is a much simpler way of calculating things anyway.

There were two semi-finals featuring representative club sides from Hungary, Russia, Slovenia, Croatia, Latvia, Germany, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. The Polish team was seeded to the Final. It should be noted that five of these countries don't have team competitions, so the term "Club Champions' Cup" is a bit of misnomer. The major leagues in Britain, Sweden and Denmark don't participate.

No, I don't remember when the rules were ever easy to understand (rider control, double rider replacement etc..).

I haven't actually done any scientific analysis of how tactical rides affect the outcome of matches, but it's certainly been my impression there have been less close matches since the TR rule was introduced, compared with the old TS rule. One explanation might be that tactical subs could be introduced as and when they were needed. With tactical rides, it's not just a case of going nine points (in reality ten points) down, but doing so at the right time when you have a decent rider programmed in the next heat. There is far less flexibility to use your tactical options than in the past.

The best structure for a (theoretical) European League is debatable, although I think a North American structure would work better for an international league. It would still provide plenty of local derbies while maintaining national interests for as long as possible. However, the main point is that any league should be standalone to avoid having two competing 'products', namely an ECC and BEL, with one potentially being perceived to be inferior to the other. Look at the example of BEL and BPL tracks that also ran a BCL side. The BCL fixtures got much lower attendances because people perceived it to be a worse product. I understood that, but whatever way you look at it, you're still effectively tracking different line-ups in different competitions. Where a rider was unable to ride for one team because they'd nominated for another team, you'd need to promote a replacement. If it happened to be your BEL No.1 that was riding elsewhere, you might prefer to also drop another weaker rider in favour of bringing-in two stronger second-strings. You'd very quickly end-up with somewhat different line-ups. Like I said, parallel European and national competitions might work, but only if the European competition some sort of ongoing membership. You could use the national leagues for initial qualification and for determining replacement teams, but the bulk of the member teams would need to stay in European competition on an ongoing basis (in fact, this is how I think the UEFA Champions League should be run, with the UEFA Cup being used as a promotion competition).