E I Addio

I don't know if you have read the whole thread but nobody has said he doesn't have something to offer. This is what SCB posted yesterday;- "Nobody has said he should have no opinion. everyone is entitled to an opinion. But just because he could ride a speedway bike better than most 30-odd years ago doesn't mean he knows how to make the sport a success now " He has an opinion but the trouble is some on here think it is think it is the only opinion worth listening to. .

The point was running a speedway club in the modern world. Not sure why PC's opinion should be revered any more than Chris Morton's or Chris Louis who have to find a way of making the books balance in the speedway world of 2014, or for that matter ex-riders like Rosco or Muddlo. who still have a day-to-day hands on role. All PC has done is to articulate the views of certain fans, but that still doesn't make those views more valid than those who disagree. You can bet your life SS won't provide any balance by publishing an interview with a senior figure in the sport with an opposing view, or an explanation of why things are as they are. Just to take up the point about riders being called back ,for example, yes, it is frustrating for the fans when a start gets called back but the real reason is that riders all too often DO jump the start and if they were too stay still the majority of false starts wouldn't happen. The trouble is certain fans think they have a better view of who is rolling and who isn't from 50 or 100 metres away than from the refs box which is usually the best view in the stadium, and this are the same ones that only want top see one side of the problem. I would love to see an interview with someone like Mick Bates, an ex-rider now a ref giving his thoughts on the subject, but of course SS would never publish anything like that because their readership now seems to consist almost entirely of the "bring back the old days brigade" who are only interested in one side of the argument.

I agree with that. It would have been more informative if SS had published an interview with someone like Chris Morton or John and Chris Louis.. They have ridden at the top level and have also seen at first hand the problems of running a speedway club in the modern world.

If I am reading his post #350 correctly it seems he does indeed spend his time looking at stuffed birds, on fast broadband apparently

You just reminded me of one of Mark Twain's satirical comments--" Why are people happy at a birth and sad at a funeral ?........Because they are not the person involved" (its called black humour). Made me laugh anyway.

I understand the point you make which was fair enough back in the days of straight win or lose when a team only had to win get 7points up in real terms on the final scoresheet in order to defeat 2 successful tacticals but now we have a scoring system which to my mind is excellent in giving a gallant loser something from the match. You haven't commented on that aspect but surely giving two bites of the cherry as we now do (through tacticals and league points) is giving a failing team too much ? And does an 8-1 really galvanise a team more than a 5-1 ? If a team is 10 points down and get a 5-1 they only have to share the remaining heats to get something out of the match. If that doesn't galvanise them they don't deserve anything IMO. Above all having t/r's in a two leg match really does seem to be a ridiculous extreme to me, and surely reduces it to a lottery?

It's one thing to keep a meeting alive, but a totally different and a rather unattractive proposition to hand an undeserving team league points. To my mind any possible merit the tactical ride may have once had is negated by the introduction of the present system of league points. In the example you give the T/R rule would have made no difference to the quality of the racing. You do not state the final score but it is clear that even without the T/R rule Glasgow would have taken at least a league point from it which is fair reward for putting up a decent fight and Sheffield get two points for a deserved win but a "must do better" lecture from the TM for not getting all 3 points. For a team to get a 3 league points getting a 7-point win is a reasonable ask but be sure of overcoming two T/R's means they have to achieve what is in real terms a13-point advantage to win by 7 on the score sheet and get all 3 league points. The worst aspect of the t/r rule IMO is that it favours top heavy teams. A good solid strength in depth team is probably going to stay in striking distance and have limited chances of a t/r but a team with a strong top two and a weaker tail can get two successful t/r rides then be able to come on strong in heats13 and 15. For that reason especially I don't think you can ever have a fairly balanced league competition while you have a rule that favours one team against another I understand what you say as a neutral but the fact is that it is the week-in, week-out regulars that keep a club afloat and from that perspective I think there is nothing more demoralising than seeing your team win on the track but lose under the t/r rule. I can see the merit in making the t/r go off 15 metres to add an element of risk in the tactic,

I know about F1 but its got nothing to do with what immediately went before and orions question which is still not answered.

Give up before you make yourself look more stupid. 3 is still not worth more than 8.

Nobody is defending the promoters, merely suggesting you get a few facts straight. The real boom years were in the immediate post war period for just a few years before crowds were driven away by the crippling cost of the governments entertainment tax (passed on to admission charges) and the growth of television.By the end of the 1950's the sport had all but ceased to exist and was only saved by the founding on the cut price Provincial League, which of necessity was in rented stadiums. Whist a few clubs may have been comfortable speedway in general existed on a shoestring from that point on. If you read Len Silvers book he has always led a pretty much hand to mouth existence as a promoter, often subsidising the sport from his outside interests, especially in recent years. Over the last 50 years the promoters have been collectively responsible for many things but being awash with money is not one of them. As usual you again peddle the untrue line about people believing there is nothing wrong with speedway. Those of us that still go (which doesn't include yourself, as you never tire of telling us) are fully aware of the problems because we are confronted with them all the time. The last thing we need is those like yourself, who no longer have time for the sport doing your best to put the boot in and belittling those who still enjoy it by twisting the facts of speedway history instead of bothering with constructive discussion.

Read my post carefully and you will see I was not talking about you, I was talking about the poster you were commenting on i.e the one that commented on the state of the stadiums.. You raised question, I was answering that, not criticising you at all.

He blames the promoters for the state of the stadiums because, as a chronic complainer who hasn't been to a meeting in years, he always posts the first thing that comes into his head, rather than to take the time to put forward constructive criticism,.

Edinburgh have someone with a good potential in Sedgie. He was badly treated at Redcar but performed well at Lakeside, where on one occasion he came from the back to pass and beat Freddie Lindgren no less, so he has the ability but just needs to keep hid confidence going.. A really nice bloke and I am sure the fans will love him. Well done to the Edinburgh promotion in getting him in.

I totally agree and I know many others that do. The one thing that could be said in favour of the tac/sub in its day is that at least the fans got to see an on-form rider out in place of s struggling rider (usually) and the tac/ride doesn't even do that but times have changed , the world has moved on and its time to consign all the tacticals to history.

Has the rule of attacking the post not the poster been abolished, or is that another ban I see on the horizon ?

When did you ever get a different response from non-speedway fans in a pub ? Maybe in the late 40's early 50's but not in my lifetime. Mention football to non-football fans in a pub (e.g. me) and you get "22 overpaid prima donnas kicking a bag of wind about and behaving like kids" Mention cricket to non cricket fans and you get "Boring game" and so it goes on with non- fans of golf, boxing, stock-cars etc, The thing that's different about speedway is not the reaction of the non-fans its the number of so-called fans that can't wait to slag the sport off for imaginary reasons. Like the OP of this thread for example.

Never was on the side of promoting NL riders as such, but given the state of British speedway, if that is the price we have to pay for 36 league meetings a season a instead of 28 then we have to get behind the idea and run with it. Its the only show in town. At least I'll be there every meeting to see how it works out in practice before passing judgment, unlike the moaning minnies who tell us its doomed to fail before a wheel is turned. As for Jon Cook he has, unlike other promoters, at least bothered to go out and organise a fans forum for his club within a week after the AGM finishing to explain the new formats and answer anything else the fans wanted to ask.

I I creased up at that one. Poor old Sidney. Walks straight into them every time

... maybe they don't like the often unjustified criticism (and abuse) from people who proudly proclaim they haven't been for years, but will only post when they see the opportunity to put the boot in. Sometimes I don't know whether .to laugh or cry, there are so many genuine problems with the sport that are worthy of intelligent discussion yet so many posts are on the lines of "Whoa yeah gor blimey mate I fink the promoters are a bunch of idiots........" then go off on some incorrect tangent about some rule they think exists but doesn't or that Golden era when only Englishmen won the world final. The T/R ,Tac sub is classic example. SCB and Bwitcher have explained in the clearest possible terms, that even I can understand why the Tac Sub rule was even more unfair than the T/r rule but still we get people banging on about tac subs, and of course we get thread after thread like this one where mythical friends or blokes in the office are collapsing with laughter because of guest riders or something. That fact is that there are maybe a dozen or so posters that are really on the ball with different aspects of the sport and come up with some really constructive criticisms or realistic suggestions which make for interesting debate, whether you agree with them or not but many more only seem intent on chipping away at our favourite port with nonsense like this thread.

Let's try to concentrate on the topic under discussion.. The OP is not about ""speedway fans" and it is not about whether idiosyncrasies within the sport appear to be increasing. It is specifically about whether riders riding in different leagues reduce the sport to ridicule in the eyes of those on the outside. That is not a difficult concept for the average person to grasp. What fans within the sport think about other idiosyncrasies is irrelevant to this discussion.

Ah, so you don't know about the rule on bonus points then?

You are completely missing the point as usual.. Please read the title of the thread. The issue is not whether it is typical of the questions people new to speedway often raise. The issue is whether riders riding in different clubs in different leagues reduce the sport to ridicule. The overwhelming balance of opinion on the thread is that it does not. As has been pointed out, many sports have their own idiosyncrasies,

How precisely does it lose the sport credibility ? Are you not aware that a cricketer can play for his county in one league and club in another? What difference does it make if he does his job and entertains the crowd.? The other thing as John Leslie pointed out is the reality of this conversation with a "friend" who apparently knows about sport and has been to speedway meetings but until your "conversation " with him he apparently never questioned how come so many foreign riders were in the meeting in front of a crowd that obviously couldn't pay vast sums of money. And as a sports fan he wouldn't ever have watched it on Sky and got the gist of how it all works would he.? I have discussed the sport with a number of general sports fans and can honestly say the only thing they have found particularly odd is the T/R rule. None of them thought it odd that riders race for different teams in different countries.

I have on DVD an interview with Stuart Robson after a critical heat in a close match in which he said "I have absolutely no idea what the score is." The reason was he had been out 3 times in about 5 or 6 heats and checking the score was low on his list of priorities when he had probably no more than 7 or 8 minutes between races to get himself and his bike sorted and re-focussed on his next ride before going out again. If you had any idea at all what goes on in the pits you would know why the riders, more often than not, don't necessarily know what the team score is at a particular moment in a match.

Having done a little research it seems we were both wrong and the award is for the sportsperson who has most captured the publics imagination.. Even that is a bit of a nebulous term but I would have thought that someone who wins any sort of World Championship with a twice broken collar bone must have an irrefutable case to be included, unless you throw in the fact that most of the public are unaware of who he is but that surely must apply also to Ainslie and a whole range of other sports. When the programme was first introduced in 1954 it was limited to those sports shown on BBC's Sportsview programme, so as Speedway is no longer featured on BBC that might have something to do with it.. I seem to recall that when Mark Loram won the World title he didn't even get a mention. Whichever way you look at it the inclusion of Ben Ainslie , and a few of the others without widening out to a wider range of voters choices reduces it to a stitch-up IMO.