Grand Central

The famous Belle Vue training schools were on Monday nights at Hyde Road. Bizarre really that the in those days the league meeting went on prime Saturday evening and the training school on a dead Monday. Whereas today the team has to race on in the Monday graveyard.

As I made clear. I offered no criticism of TR.

This is not accurate surely. I thought Terry Russell was very much involved in negotiating when Sky decided they wanted out on their deal last year. And was also involved in cobbling together last year's arrangement to salvage the half year arrangement with BT. Actually not criticising TR here ... Just didn't think the sequence of events you state is quite right.

Well ... The trouble is they MAY have a point. If I look through my own diary from the last few years then my speedway attending does seem to vary quite bit along with the TV schedules (as it does for GP and SWC attending). Much more than I thought before checking back on the true data. Fewer meetings attending in the couple of weeks after the SWC , most often after a GP Saturday it is Monday on TV rather than live attending that week and there is no doubt I went to more meetings before June last year and fewer whenev the BT regular Monday's started. In addition, I have avoided going to ANY league match that is being televised for years and years. And I have hardly attending any league meetings on a Saturdays, largely due to TV on alternate weeks. It is quite plausible that some people may forgoe a night at Derwent Park to watch a GP from (say) Poland on the same night combined with a league match from Belle Vue on the following Monday. I would!

I think you are absolutely right. But if I were in some promoters shoes, with my own money on the line i would FEEL quite a bit different and I would be 'bitching' like mad i would imagine. The prospect of running many meetings on (say) graveyard-Monday against TV Speedway elsewhere or (worse still) at my track with no adequate guaranteed compensation if it is unprofitable would give me the real colly wobbles. And all the (correct) talk of the greater good, sponsorship opportunities etc etc would do very little to ease my night's sleep. But then I am not a Promoter. And nor are most of those here who are deriding those poor buggers (whose gonads are on the line) who have misgivings.

I appreciate that. But it would have been preferable to remove the third meeting of the SWC ( or come up with another work-around) to deal with that problem. Rather than this. Although the race off has produced brilliant TV; if it has not been viable to run then it would have been reasonably straightforward to have found three qualifiers going to the SWC Final against the hosts., without a race-off, somehow. Either an extra qualifier (somewhere other than Poland) or highest scoring second team. Perhaps a little innovative thinking could have been used. Similarly, the two-day final of this hodge-potch is unnecessary if there really is any doubt about the viabilty of the first day. Two rounds and a final. Wham bham. Why didn't they just try to tinker with the brilliant SWC a little just to get it to work a little better. Instead of putting it on hold whilst creating a tournament that may have some of the very same issues inherent from the start and (as I believe) introduce other issues that they don't seem to have given much thought to as yet.

Actually that would have been a far superior and more innovative competition. Though not as good as the SWC, admittedly. But be careful, many here feel we are are supposed to find no fault with the ideas of our betters in authority. We must look at them with worshipful positivity. And certainly never ever criticise no matter that our views are only intended to be for the betterment of the sport.

Mr Pairman speaks from genuine experience; and that could be repeated by many other promoters going back decades. And still people here are not prepared to listen. I have lost count of the number of times I have personally taken up a one-off offer to sample something new or different at reduced price. Cinema Tickets, Rugby, Cricket, Football, Local and London Theatre, Restaurants and many more things over many many years And yet I count up very few where I have ever returned to the same venue or event when it is full price on the back of that offer-visit.. Even when I really enjoyed the experience immensely. In fact, the knowledge that a cheaper offer may one day appear in my inbox is reason enough to wait until it does Or take up a totally different offer from somewhere else. I cannot really expect other people to do differently to what I have done myself, often. So why are so many people here convinced otherwise just because it is Speedway

You may be right on that. But we were actually discussing the 'climax' element demanded by TV. Which the SWC managed without for many years producing exciting Speedway that came across brilliantly on TV and seemed to satisfy the media people as well as fans. Of course by having a two day event the organisers are actually ensuring that the first meeting ends with no climax at all. Which is strange if the TV people need it so much

Jos Vaessen must feel vindicated. It has taken thirty years for the FIM to resurrect his failed Amsterdam experiment on real Speedway. I bet it will be another 30 years again before it is repeated. '

Well. The SWC managed very well for over 15years without succumbing to the Grand Final pressure from TV. The team with most points won. And it seemed quite successful.

So the final is not a winner takes all. The guy that wins this final doesn't necessarily get top position in the podium It is really just a final chance for the second places team to it, even if they were miles behind after forty two races and two days ...But only if they get a 4-2.I I know that all makes some sort of sense here. But On TV it will look way too complicated and contrived for the casual viewer.

The TV schedulers would love it.

Perhaps they have not had enough time to think these things through. It has taken them months to get this far, after all. It being such a small, unimportant matter ... Of just how the winner is decided. Can't expect them to have that covered straight away.

Everyone understands that TV wants a decisive final race. We are not stupid. But a Grand Final that may easily end 3-3 is not consistent with that, is It?

I actually agree with you. The 3-2-1-0 system is well suited to a 21 heat meeting where all pairs meet each other once and they final positions are decided on total points scored. Even doing tha twice over successive days (bonkers though that seems) and it would still work fine. But why the hell spoil it by having 'shoot outs' and Grand Finals that, unlike GPS, do not work well with that scoring with pairs to produce decisive results. Quite the opposite. After all this delay and a major flaw seems so obviously at the heart of their big new idea. The combined brainpower applied to this over months .... And negligable results to show for it. Nonsense, it was done on the back of a fag packet in about twenty minutes last night whilst watching Eastenders. It makes Keith Chapman look like MENSA material.

In a more sensible world people would be offended by the grotesque sugar content of the drinks being 'pushed' to kids. Rather than the young women who choose to parade around in their panties for a living harming no one.

That can't possibly be true. We have been told on several occasions here that this new competition is different to anything we have seen before. Innovation and total excitement are promised by people who know more than they have been willing to divulge. What you suggest is a tepid reheating of decades-old leftovers. Two semis and a final. And Poland seeded to the final. Surely not?

The simplest answer to the OP is that OAPs get a discount today, just because they always did in the past. Going back to a time when very few OAPs attending Speedway would have a private pension and would (then) have been on the poor side. That is/was the British tradition. The argument for taking the concession away is a fairly silly one. The negative impact of removing that 'discount' today would piss off so many that the promoters would be stupid to do so as the attandances would be hit badly. But then I would have thought SCB was very able to work that out for himself. So, I assume he just felt like prodding the hornet's nest due to boredom!

Of course it is always wise to take what these old duffers said with a large pinch of salt. The record of Coventry before 1979 under the old Rider Control Committee and after under the CMA formluas is remarkably similar. Actually, perhaps even better in some ways "when the averages came along" Not so much a failing of the avarages based system at all. Those promoters like Bamforth spent oodles more cash and others were (perhaps) just better skilled at working to the new regime than the CEO felt he was, especially after Peter Adams left Brandon. But the Bees still managed well, without the need to lament the change.

If I were to be cursed with so little personal knowledge of the past. That my views had to be shaped by YouTube alone. Then, hopefully, I too could be excused for coming to some pretty daft conclusions.

Actually, even that is only part of the story. We travelled to Wembley from Halifax and were ONLY interested in a KC win. It should have been the worst thing in the world for the despised Penhall to win and in THAT fashion. But he did. And yet even so ... that night remains in the top three Speedway meetings I have attended in my lifetime. And the other two up there are not GPs either. I do really love the SGPs ... but being honest probably only the odd one or two creeps into my Top Ten of best meetings ever. It isn't all about 'the racing'. Never has been The best EXPERIENCE is a combination of so much more that just 'counting up the passes' on the track. Perhaps you just had to be there. But Wembley 1981 really was THAT special. And trying to explain just how tangible that experience was to those who were not present is just utterly futile.

At least you have changed your tack so much that it now makes some sense. The original glib statements. So oft repeated, were just incorrect. Not semantics or opinion.

Yes, it was oddly written. But then Peter Oakes has had a few odd moments this year . I noticed he has even had to bring up the Italian weirdo again, when raking over those particular coals once more seems very ill judged. But his fixation is seemingly very strong. Personally, I would have thought that particular episode's coverage in the The Star would have gone down in the LOSER section itself, alongside the Peter Collins cock-up interview. Which were surely low points of the year to rival at least some of those that were chosen..

I'll informed nonsense yet again.