Grand Central

Unfortunately the post of mine you quoted was one trying to counter a couple of others who were proposing that it was ONLY wholesale changes to almost every track that would drive the punters through the door. Hence my rather absolutist tone about teams. BUT I notice that I did say team 'comes above everything else' ... That is a phrase that is meant to recognise there ARE multiple factors (just that IMHO 'team' is top of that list). It is NOT a phrase used to indicate that it is ONE single factor alone to the exclusion of any other. The truth is I do agree with much of what you say.

TBH I do not think that the product is dire. That is really your view, not mine. But at the same time I do not think that there IS ANY specific thing that can be done to to 'attract people'. That, I fear, may be an unsurmountable problem. People are just not receptive to any message on the Speedway front. And most of the reasons for that are actually nothing to do with the internal workings of the sport itself. They are much more to do with the seismic generational changes that have occured in the 'outside world'; of which most Speedway folk seem to be oblivious. One thing is for certain. It does not lead me to believe ANY of the nonsense you keep talking about altering 'tracks' as being any form of answer either. Making the best of what we have still has some milage in saving something of this sport. But that prospect will be lost if people listen to the fairy story that it is the tracks that need changing to drive people through the turnstiles. That is is just fiction.

Really??? I think you are totally wrong. All team sport is like this and just as much today as at any time in the past. In all team sports people have THEIR 'Team' and that comes above everything else. I dont think I am saying anything perculiar; and certainly nothing that is at odds with how youngsters think. Just today there was a table in the papers showing that all the PL Fottball clubs Kit Pricing for the new season ... all costing upwards of £80 for Kidsand some double for adults To be dressed like this years team. It matters that much to be like your heroes that is what you pay. I know Footbal 'is different' in many respects. But ALL team sports are about team loyalty.... if they are getting it right. Tuning into that is the future. The only one. Worrying about the 'track' and 'racing' will get us absolutely nowhere.

I cannot say how much I disagree with your thinking. I am not basing this on ANY experience of Poland, Polish people or their similarties with the British. Iam basing it on BRITISH people. And how it has always been and always will. We want to support a team (and individuals, true) but a Team is King. We want it to win. And it is the 'joint experience' of an entusiastic crown willing that to happen that gives the buzz FAR FAR more than the 'racing'. I've only been watching since the mid 1960s, mainly at The Shay and much as people want to wax lyrical about the quality of racing from the past. That was not what got me going every week. Not one bit. IT WAS THE TEAM. And the riders; all of which I could still name for every single year. The racing has always been a side issue ... they make memories true, but the real BIG memories are about the atmosphere and tension relating to the TEAM/RIDERS and whether we could pull off a win or get another 5-1. Scrape or storm it. It was alll about the 'DUKES'(Team/Riders) NOT the bloody stadium, track or bikes.

IMHO Dean has got it spot on and this understanding of the fan's identification with a local, consistent team that it THEIRS is the imperitive for the future. IMHO totally wrong.

Hancock £50 LESS Doyle £50 LESS Holder £50 MORE Janowski £50 MORE

Just when it was safe to forget what an absolute mess-up GB made of the tactics. You have reopened the can of worms. No change in my opinion. I imagine that Painter et al will have additional media puppets on board and Roscoe kitted out in a waistcoat next time to solve all the problems. Rather than just getting someone with a brain to understand the tactics required to pull off a win that was eminently possible.

Naughty. But HIS choice, again.

Pedantry is alive and well. I am sure his tracks interests hve not gone unrerpresented. But even worse ... That he would bleat in public now if he has chosen to NOT remain a voice of influence in the GC with a vote of his own. More fool him.

Oh i agree and fully understand that his comments may be born of frustration. But complaining about the absurdity of the loan/asset system in speedway especially with doubling up/down; and the added 2018 complications of fixed nights and the adddedThursday/Wednesday split is a bit rich coming from him. From a new promoter, green around the gills and without a GC vote. Yes I would sympathise at his frustration. But from one of the longest standing promoters whose fingerprints are still visible across the whole sport. No he can button it.

But the rules that set that in train have been created by the institution of which he is a member - and has been Chairman and President of - and has a vote in all decisions. It's just idiotic of him to complain about such simple consequences of where he, as much as anyone, has taken the sport.

I am not someone who thinks that TR is the antichrist or has swindled money out of the sport as other seem to do. Quite the reverse i would say. But his comments in the Star this week just made him sound like a bit of a pillock tbh. The BSPA voted for fixed nights and in the end after switching around made Monday and Wednesday the nights that the PL would have all to themselves. Withthe Cl getting priority on Thursday onwards. It was Swindon who got their wish to stick with SOME Thursdays in the full knowledge that matches that night would not get priority over CL. And now the daft bugger moans about that exact thing happening. I despair.

Thank God for that. Of course those running it wont make it work. That is a cert.

Now you have persuaded me that this will work swimmingly. I feel thoroughly reassured.

Unfortunately a 'one league solution' is only ever taken when there is no real alternative. It is, in itself, an indication of there not being any good answer. Not even a least worse. Just the only, quite pitiful one, we can take. But just as in the nineties it will only shift the problems from one place to another. There won't be enough riders to go round, there will be unbalanced teams, very uncompetitive races between the best and the worst riders and any extra financial burden placed on the lower tier clubs will kill them. Perhaps the only route. But not one to salvation.

Your despair voiced here and in The Star today is totally understandable. But one thing we all have to face is that they haven't got a clue what to do. so putting that in a press release would be pretty pointless. A note handed out by the BSPA saying 'We're all doomed!' would be accurate ... But not tell us anything we don't already know.

Well, you could do if it that would make you feel better. But the Red Blazers predate Sky's involvement by a couple of years or more. They have been with us longer than things like dirt deflectors. I remember the 1996 fours day at Peterborough when they were just everywhere you looked. It had the appearence of a bizarre Butlins reunion. With all the redcoats who never 'made it' in entertainment meeting up in old age wearing outfits from a bygone age.

Just about everyone - perhaps bar the OP - agrees that it was the Speedway Promoters themselves that did not make best use of the Sky Money when it was flowing into the sport freely. And that some better choices should have been made to 'invest' for the future. But this oft repeated criticism that it was wasted by just being given to the riders needs a little more scrutiny surely. I think it's true that it did go to them and then to engine tuners and travel costs etc. But isn't that how WE wanted it spent at the time, if we are honest. Didn't we all want to our own club to pay the money to the top guys to have them in our team in those years. Wouldn't we have all voted with our feet back then in even greater numbers sooner if the big money was not spent on a strong team like they rest? If we had a big TV deal starting today isn't the first thing we would want it spent on is getting Tai, Emil, Freddie and the rest back ASAP. I think we are just being a bit 'holier than thou' when we scream at the promoters today for doing what really was our bidding then.

Jonsson £50 more Woffinden £50 more Lindgren £50 more

Yes. The only way I was able to stick with Horsens to the end was to half-watch it on the lap top and have Uraguay-Portugal on the main TV. I'm not a big football fan and even with an obviously-likely British winner in Denmark I really couldnt give it my full attention. No idea what KT/NP said this time - or this year years awaful interviewer - as the sound was down. It would be a difficult sell for BSI to make to advertisers if that is how people were to watch it.

Sayfutdinov £50 MORE Vaculik £50 MORE Laguta £50 MORE

Yes, of course. If Manzares had said "it was all entirely made up, the journalist is lying" ... then you could decide to believe him, or not. That could be possible. But to say "what I said was twisted" ... then that is not about believing him or not now, he must be telling fibs. That is not possible at all.

Perhaps they do. But I'm just really interested in the ONE with a brain capable of dealing with the simple 'tactics' of which we speak here. Clearly that ONE single person was absent. Tbh if they had taken 500 backroom staff but left THAT guy at home. No matter how good their diet or fitness. They could ONLY come second.

I wonder ... You could have it spot on. Spelling it out like that may have actually been all that it needed for them to realise the best tactics. I bet it would have made them think it WAS different. If only the riders had a group of people around them to help.

Even the Yanks understand that a bit of 'backtracking' can be the best tactic.