Hacksaw Jim Duggan

Bang on re that first poster you quoted, that guy is one of the biggest rockets going on this place!

I agree to a certain extent, but it has been that way for the best part of 15/20 years, it is as tin pot as lower league football and other local community sports that as a general rule don’t attract massive attendances. If the delusion is removed and people stop comparing attendances to 40/50 years ago and compare them to 10/20 years ago…..more likely to see speedway has been in a pretty consistent place in this country for a long time, it isn’t a big sport, little point thinking about it as one. Speaking about speedway in a way that it is a rule change away from being like the 70's is moon howler behaviour - it is best to make the best small sport it can be, and it seems for the most part fans much prefer the loosing bonus point system

I really don’t think the oft used line about the crowds the sport used to attract is the hammer blow, argument ender some appear to think it is when used as a counter to nuances people don’t like . It is now the best part of 40 years since speedway attracted crowds to brag about, crowds were on the slide wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy before most of the rules that have apparently driven fans away were introduced. I highly doubt crowds would return in their 1,000s as some appear to think if the sport removed tactical rules, doubling up etc.

The aggregate score didn’t offer much of anything other than favouring sides who had home advantage. It didn’t really offer much to fans on the night as most in attendance don’t particularly care about meetings they didn’t attend, the current system makes the in the moment meeting better and adds value to that, which is a good thing. Is it a joke rule etc that wouldn’t work in football or other sports, yeah maybe - but it is a completely different sport with a different set of circumstances and rules, football is more credible than speedway etc and so on but it doesn’t mean I am that bothered for using the offside rule at a speedway meeting, or a scrum – it’s a different sport, it likely will throw up rules other sports don’t use…shock horror.

Yeah, yeah great we all get it - a wee cleek on here think speedway is crap now, used to be great, never go etc – we get it - does it have to be the same dross on every single thread – I mean jesus Christ every single topic the same absolute sh*t, away and live in an echo chamber, you would love it.

Like a speedway rider he would have been doing his job and would have been paid for doing so

If I worked in a restaurant I wouldn’t expect free food every single time I went there for the rest of my life, nor would I expect free drink if I had worked in a bar, free meat if I had worked in a Butchers etc and so on. A bizarre sense of entitlement to assume free entry should be granted to ex-riders given most have contributed less to the club than the fans who pay to get in every week

Ah Del Boy!! "this time next year I'll be attending speedway meetings Rodney"

Has it's down sides though! What dross excuse will TWK talk about to explain away not going to speedway? I'm offering good odds on "they race on bikes"

I assume you were also a fan of 6 man teams and the year sides raced in the ridiculous morph suits, Swindon in green and white squares next season?

I think the addition of Iversen at Kings Lynn and Vaculick at Leicester is far more likely to increase attendances than Edinburgh traveling to Poole or Lakeside to Glasgow in a one league structure. Once the novelty had worn off with one big league it would just be sides who were miles apart in terms of talent and travel distance for fans. It would increase the number of poorly attended meetings across a season as there would be less local fixtures and chances to attract away fans, while likely not growing an organic attendance each week anyway as most teams would be getting thumped each week in a non-competitive league where the rich would be good and the rest wouldn't.

The only real thing to point at between the league play-off and last night is the score from Josh Bates. Bjerre scored more last night than he did against Sheffield, Sheffield were without their top 2 – and faced Newman and Heeps at reserve rather than 3 and 4. It seems pretty natural Leicester would score a lot more than Ipswich given Leicester are a lot better than Ipswich.

I don’t think many clubs, and just as importantly fans care about GP riders anymore. How many clubs in the top flight even meet the criteria now of one GP rider? The implementation of that rule would solve nothing, and alter little in terms of team structure - Swindon, Wolves and Belle Vue albeit not till next season, 3 teams impacted, but not really because they have 1 GP rider as it is anyway. So as it stands, Poole would have the same top 5 with the possible and likely removal of a rider like Lahti and replaced by a rider like – in theory Kim Nilsson, and thus an already weak as it is Leicester are left having to look around for a replacement for Nilsson and in turn become weaker. The creation of a rule where sides have to sign Under 21 riders at reserve would only serve to freeze out the likes of Bates, Newman, Starke, Kerr etc and drive a market where sides would have to give Under 21 riders excessive wages because there are so few who are actually ready for top flight speedway. There is also such a disparity in Under 21 riders, that one side, and likely league winners would have Lambert, and at a push Ellis and other sides would be left looking at Danny Phillips and Josh Bailey – again, more than likely the weakest and sides who are skint. It isn’t like Poland where there is a far wider spread of talent and a wider pool of riders to pick to solve weakness issues in sides. If a step is taken back and the idea is looked at, analysed and assessed it is genuinely quite ridiculous. The addition of averages has been good, the removal of it would actively encourage the rich to get richer and the poor to become poorer.

The Thursday and Saturday split night, set night sounds great until Sheffield, Redcar and Ipswich are the only sides who get council planning permission to run on Thursday – the rest don’t, and if they are lucky enough to get planning permission - have to run on Saturday and you then have 5 or 6 teams racing on a Saturday, losing 5 Saturday nights before the season even starts, drawing a Saturday night side in the Cup at least once, giving up a Saturday for the GP and then factoring in the weather and before you know it they have went months of the season without a home fixture.

No, absolutely not If a lower league side draw someone like Liverpool or Arsenal in the Cup this year they will take with them more fans than they would for a league game most weeks. If a side who doesn’t regularly win the FA Cup makes the Final, they will take more fans with them than they typically would to league games. When Liverpool won the Champions League hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets to welcome them home Huddersfield and Reading played in the Play Off Final last year in front of 76,682 people – each sides average attendance added together came to under 40,000. The reasons these same people don’t attend their football clubs matches each and every week isn’t because of rules in the sport they don’t like, just as that isn’t the sole reason attendances differ in Finals compared to league meetings, and as hard as some on here might find this to believe it is nothing to do with the rules of speedway either!

Oh please! Nothing more i wish for than validation from a man who spends all day on the forum of a sport he doesn't even attend!

I'm not the kind of man to mollycoddle people and place them on a pedestal just because they ride a speeday bike - the two riders I mentioned are both crap, saying that isn't deplorable as mentioned by another poster - christ grow a back bone.

And of course the best way to get crowds flocking back to Workington is removing local hero Craig Cook and Thomas Jorgensen and making them sign utterly sub-standard junk the likes of Jakob Bukkhave and Coty Garcia, be lucky if they got 200.

Imagine a sport where 2 teams can meet in a Cup draw the first game 1-1 then draw the second game 2-2 – both score 3 goals over the 2 games but 1 one side goes through and the other doesn’t…..ow wait. All sports need their own alterations and modifications to add to the value of the product, the additional points for a competitive meeting is one of the good ones speedway has come up with, and in all honesty is about as basic and simple a rule as you can get.

Oh loads of people have “arguments” it doesn’t mean they aren’t talking sh*t..

Why? A side who are 3rd and miss out on promotion to a team who are 6th and 20 points behind them surely have every right to feel as irked as a team who were 1st and miss out to a team who end the season 2nd and 1 point behind? Even removing Football from the situation a sport with credibility like Rugby Union does have Play-Offs to crown their Champions, the idea it is exclusive to joke sports, or sports without credibility is just not true.

Zzzzzzz

It appears most of the people who don’t like them don’t, and haven’t attended for the best part of 5 years plus so who cares and why pander to them. I rarely read a point about scrapping them that I can agree with and people saying they just don’t like them is definitely not one of those points. That just patently is not true - that is the kind of stigma and lie some attach to Play Offs and hope sticks The lower leagues in England have Play-Offs that have generated huge amounts of interest globally and boosted the leagues profile so much so that they just signed a TV deal in excess of 600 million. A “Play Off” for promotion seeing a side ending 3rd and missing out on promotion and the glory of the EPL to a side finishing 6th doesn’t differ that much to a side who end the table top and don’t finish Champions - if you wish to play the credible and morally correct card it surely applies regardless of league position? But then again credible sports that attract millions of paying and attending fans, viewers and interest locally and globally like Football, Rugby Union, Rugby League, NFL would never have Play Offs because they aren’t credible and utterly destroy the sports…..is what isn’t said when these sports play out Play Offs at stadia like Wembley and Twickenham in front of crowds of 75,000 +/

When people, sorry, you , singular – thankfully - post on here, most people battle the will to read this forum – so much content from you, yet so much dross – you don’t even know about the subject matter you talk about – anyone can read updates sites Keep that in mind the next, and, just about every time you post.

The irony of you asking anyone how old they are is hilarious you utter man child.. For one so bumptious. so dismissive of the opinions of so many your “knowledge” of the sport is quite pitiful.