waiheke1

Met him at the last speedway gp in nz, and he seemed in excellent health - surprised that he's 80 he could have passed for ten yeard younger. happy birthday to a kiwi sporting legend.

Yes - but as matt pointed out all riders today have a chance too. question twk: would you say champions league football teams QUALIFY for the competition, or are they SELECTED?

Yes. But my point is I am a kiwi interested in sport and I had never heard of him, and I doubt most kiwis have. This was response to your suggestion that more would have heard of him than briggs and mauger - which frankly is nonsense. briggs and mauger still get mentioned when all time great nz sportspeople are discussed, as I say I have never heard barry butterworths name mentioned.

Hang on. Weren't you using jason doyle as an example of how much weaker speedway was these days, when a rider could be number one in both pl and el.how much weaker must it have been in the 50s then for young to do that?!?

I've never heard of barry butterworth (had to google hom), doubt most kiwis have. Suspect most would wonder if brad butterworth was who you were referring to. Mauger and briggs are still names familiar to most kiwis over the age of say 35.

yet the money riders were paid in the old world championship days was no better, and worse in the qualifying rounds.can you give examples of how the world chsmpionship proceeds were put to good use in benefitting speedway as a whole?

Saying that only the finsl round of yhe gp series determines the winner is like saying only the last four heats of a world finsl detetmined the winner - utter nonsense. that said, I'm sure if the uk had a suitable venue available in october then they would get a finsl round every few years - any suggestions parsloes?

Wembley 81 was the last truly great world final. However, it wasn’t 92000 (i think it was around 71000?). and of course by 95 wembley was no longer available. So the issue wasn’t truly there in 81, but it was quite different by 95. How many world finals in between 82-94 exceeded the 45000 Cardiff generates? Odsal never did, and while ODsal was an excellent race track, it hardly compares with the Millenium stadium as a venue. Still a big improvement stadium wise on the likes of Norden which also hosted world finals. As for your other points. Britain would get a world final at best every four year, as opposed to a GP every year. We still have the british final. So we miss the overseas/commonwealth final which was annual, and the inter-continental/European final, which would be held in the UK every 4 years or so. So yes, Britian is missing out on around 0.5 world championship meetings per year BUT of course speedway fans now get to see 12 GP meetings live on TV. As for internationals, while the GP series may have contributed by removing some Friday/Saturday dates, the reality is that these were no longer commecrically viable towards the end, or able to be fitted into riders schedules due to their other domestic leagues – much simpler when all the top riders were Britain based. So really I think the only way the GP has been to the detriment of British speedway is removal of a number of Friday/Saturday dates from the calendar. The main issue (IMHO) has been the establishment of rival leagues in Poland and Sweden, as well as the failure of speedway governing bodies to invest in long term infrastructure (stadiums, training tracks) during the peak years. So, while I agree that no GP is ever likelt to re-create the magic of the 81 Wembley final, overallthe product which has resulted is far superior (in terms of racing, quality of field and finding a worthy winner) system to the old one, which much as I love it, had had it’s day. which of course was Matt K's point. What is the difference between an outside company (BSI) taking profits from the sport, and individual promoters benefitting from a world final payday and then taking the money out of the sport? which world class teenager is being denied a chance of qualifying for the G series. Or what rider ? Reality is, it is probably easier to finish top three through the GP challenge to qualify for the GP series than it was to finish top 11 in the inter-continental final in the old days.

he was my choice above as best all rounder.probably not going to be nominated as best gater as he wasnt renowned as being a start tart, but similatly not going to be nominated as best racer as he did far less work from the back than the likes of emil, ward, gollob, pc x2 etc.

I can never work out whether you are a troll or just the village idiot...

Bwitcher is talking about absolute standards here, not relative standards. Relative to world standards you are correct, but you are missing his point. Just as in relative terms the 70 Brazil footbsll team is the greatest of all time, but would be played off the park by an average 2014 premier league side. id also add that doyle was in the top 15 riders in the world last year. A top 15 rider in the 70s would have ridden only bl, but had they ridden in the national league also would have likrly been number one for both teams.

but noone is using the british final to argue why harris is better thsn davey. The key reasons are that harris has won a gp, finished 5th in the world, and regularly qualified for gp series. None of those are due to britain being weaker now thsn thrn.fwiw, id rank both nicholls and harris below the likes of morton,louis, jessup etc. But ahead of davey who I would rank similarly to the likes of phil collins and thr grahame brothers.

best team rider: would have to be pc or mort, or ideally both togetherbest all rounder: t rick

Bwitcher already acknowledged that ftr reserves may be weaker than their predecessors. fwiw, glanz was rubbish round hyde rd. courtney hunter and willmott spent very little time at reserve as they quickly gained/regained second string status. And courtney was part of the strongest (in depth) aces side of that era. You could have named instead crang ayres whittaker graves and it doesnt look so strong.

If we are going all time then id go with mauger and peter collins respectively. t rick pretty close to top in both categories.

would remove the need for the surface materials to be stored in a climate and moisture controlled facility.in fact, you could stack it in a variety of shapes, not just a cylinder.

Ok but you stated that davey would be 30th in the world today because the standard is lower. That implies you are talking global standard. Everyone agrees that british standards are lower now than in the 70s (comparable to world standards).

Twk - your argument seems to be based on tbe standard of british riders and riders in uk. I would agree it is considerably weaker. But denmark, poland, russia and Australia are all considerably stronger. I disagree that at a global level speedway is weaker gban previously. By my ranking system, freddie lindgren was 30th best rider in the world in 2014. Was davey as good as lindgren? Personally I don't believe so. as an example twk: mjj kenny bjerre hans andersen pawlicki brothers gollob zmarzlick are all riders who are not automatic picks for their nations. You cant tell me they are not international class?

No one is saying he wasnt a good rider. But in that era where would he rank - just inside thr top 50 riders of the decade? In comparison, I suspect harris would be top 30 riders of the first decade of the 2000s

Tbf, in 78 davey's average was around the tenth best, so he would have been a number one at most teams that year. Most other seasons though he would have been a second or third heatleader regardless of team. I note also that he never made the podium of the golden sovereign meeting at ipswich, wheras sanders/louis were most years. Davey was good, but not of the very highest standard.

and back to the original topic. Has anyone viewed all of the Mort DVD,the Shooey DVD and this one, and if so, which would you recommend as the pick of the bunch? The former are amongst my favourite riders of all time, wheras KC was certainly not a favourite, but without a doubt "box office."

I can't think of a single sport which isn't more professional now than in the 70s (in terms of the sportspeople, not the administration!). I'd include speedway in that. The result (in my view) is that the general standard in all sports has risen. In speedway, this would specifically relate to the equipment and fitness of riders which I think are indisputable, and overall ability which is certainly subject to more debate. Certainly when you get to GP level, riders preparation levels are far superior to in the past - most would have say three bikes specifically for GPS, wheras in the past riders outside the very top echelon would maybe have jut one "special" bike. Overall, I'd say it's harder to make an instant impact than in the past. the issue with a similar approach for speedway would be that for riders to really compete at the GP level, they need time to prepare and arrange sponsors, plan their schedules etc. If you had the qualifiers for the "other places" at the start of the new season rather than in the previous season, these riders would come in at a serious disadvantage. To go back to Henry W's query, is there any sport where all qualification happens in the same year as the World final (i.e. no seeding based on prior year perfromances)?

we've had this debate before. Firstly, I'm not sure Mike Lee is good as an example, because simply he was, in the nicest possible way, a freak - probably the most naturally gifted rider of all time - and as such not representative of a general situation. BUT... if Robert Lambert as a 16 year old this year had averaged 9 in the Elite league as Lee did in 1976 in the British League, he would 100% without a doubt have been included in the 2015 GP series. Similarly,had the GP series been in effect in the 70s, Lee would have had a very good shot of ghaving been included in the 77 series, - if not it would have been a season later in 78. There's an argument of course that it would have been better for Lee if success had not come so early. Note also that Emil finished on the podium of the GP series as a 19 year old, the same age as Lee when he made his first rostrum appearance, and younger than the likes of Peter Collins. And of course, we've seen teenagers such as Zmaralik win one off GPs. So frankly, I don't think your argument stacks up.

Harris has finished 5th in the world, won a GP, and regularly qualified for the GP series. Davey never made a world final, and didn't win any equivalent major meeting. Harris has shone on a number of occasions for England/GP in major events, Davey rarely ade England appearances (admittedly in a very tough era to make an England team). Harris tbf has never really dominated at a domestic level, but neither did Davey ever achieve the 10 point average that at that time was the mark of a true world class rider (and only once averaged ovr 9, which was generally the standard for a true international class rider). For me, Davey's record just doesn't compare with Harris's. I don't think anyone would dispute that Louis was far superior to Cook, if this is a reference to the earlier comparisions between the two you've missed the point being made. Louis is also > Harris by some margin IMHO. Music charts are about commercial appeal and taste of the mass market. No comparison to speedway where we are looking at results. Davey would have only ridden against Louis/Sanders once or at post twice a meeting, so rarely would he have had to battle them" for points, espeicially given that bonus points were included in averages. Riding in a strong team was generally beneficial for your average not a hindrance. I agree that Onedirection are rubbish though. It is disputable though. In fact this was dealt with in quite a bit of detail earlier in the thread. Again, we are talking about speedway as a whole, not just the EL.

World cup should be for the strongest possible side. But bspa should be putting an engla d team into the pairs, and ideally organising test series. Surely a series against aussie or sweden could pay for itself? That would be the opportunity to give youngsters a chance.