RobMcCaffery

This kind of discussion really is pointless. The reason why I've enjoyed the NL/PL over the years is exactly that - it's been enjoyable, and one of the largest contributions to that enjoyment has been the attitude of people within it, whether officials or fans. The ruthless, cynical approach that infects not only the EL but also too many of its fans and will be its eventual downfall has been largely absent. The result matters, but not at the cost of the sport itself. I realised why we had the black and white helmet colour is nothing to do with double points but so that the likes of BWitcher can entertain themselves by arguing that its actually white and black. Well you have to do something to enjoy yourself when you're cut off from the sport you claim such expert knowledge of....

Meanwhile, outside the Twilight Zone in the real world......So they throw their jobs away just to please a few clueless keyboard warriors. Dream on, their business doesn't work that way. You do what you are told if you want to broadcast.

If anyone thinks the racing at Berwick is typical of the PL then they really have got a lot to learn. That was a dreadful meeting but to use it to score petty points by blinkered EL fans is pretty desperate. One of the best things about the PL is that with a couple of idiotic exceptions we don't have the type of 'supporters' who pollute the EL, and some of whom have brought their poison into this thread.

It had all the signs of an emergency edit. I expect the match ended between 20.00 and 20.30 and with an air time of the latter they must have edited while the meeting was in progress. Dave and Sam would commentate live as the pictures arrived from Sweden. There were a few cases where they mentioned events that we hadn't seen such as a tape exclusion. I noticed that about 30 minutes in they'd got to heat 13, leaving the other half hour for the last two heats. It does look like it was a case of shove a few races in the first half hour and then let the final 30 minutes run unedited. As for starting mid-race, that's just sloppy. It was a typical piece of Eurosport bargain basement production. They're good at taking feeds and finding decent commentators to voice-over in studio but in terms of production standards and scheduling they're rank amateurs, even after nearly 30 years on air.

There is a superb way to handicap Poole. Make Starman their manager.....

Of course but the bias is not normally this extreme.

it looks to me like he hacked out several races then once he had x minutes of footage left to fill the same amount of airtime just let it roll, presumably because it was getting close to transmission time at 20.30 or simply was watching the cycling on the other Eurosport channel...... At least he had the luxury of a studio. I once helped edit an ice racing meeting while in a Renault Trafic van with a generator on the roof while heading down the French Autoroutes racing to get from Eindhoven to Malaga. I think we did a better job even though I eventually fell asleep on the caption generator, but then we gave a damn.

Sadly nothing at all. The next coverage isn't until July 21st. At least that will be a live match, the second in 11 rounds. They're missing next week's round totally, but still have room to show an hour's highlights from Cardiff, followed by an hour from next Saturday's SEC round next Tuesday! It's beyond a joke.

This is probably your best post of many excellent posts yet HA. Totally agree. Another excellent analysis. Speedway needs to find a new generation of supporter and most will have no idea who the 'names' are in the sport. When I started out my second division team had its heroes and we supported them. The fact that they weren't the world's finest was irrelevant. A race between Geoff Maloney and Hugh Saunders and Malcolm Ballard and Gordon Kennett meant enough. It was a race between Rayleigh and Eastbourne, and we HAD to beat them. I didn't see Ivan Mauger and Ole Olsen who were the world's best back in '71 but that was irrelevant. I could maybe catch them on their oner appearance at Hackney that year or go to an international event. In this modern shallow world names are important and a great deal has been invested in Tai Woffinden to make him a recognised 'name' outside the sport. Unless the product is supported by a vigorous, healthy sport or by an excellent PR management (ref. Guy Martin) it's sadly wasted effort. People do tend to find their own heroes, and in any case while some are impressed by 'names' riding round half a lap in front of the rest the vital potential new fan will rightly say "First out of the gate wins" and head off for a more sensible sport. The racing is vital. Sadly Scunthorpe's situation proves that it's not all though. Unique amongst motor sports we rely on having winning teams to draw in crowds. Not everyone can win and in a sport with such a weak foundation as speedway (lack of security of tenure, sponsorship and capital to build proper foundations - literally- such as providing a good race track) losing kills. It's going to be fascinating to see whether giving up the 'names' has been a success for Eastbourne and Birmingham. It's all about four guys racing. The rest should enhance the product, not kill it.

Congratulations on finding a new obsession. I'm sure Nigel Pearson will be relieved.

You like reading books with several chapters missing or films cut down to half their length? Really? Some of us want to watch the whole story. Is it too much for your attention span?

Sky's choice of matches has been particularly lamentable this year, apart from obvious choices like King's Lynn v Poole. I do wonder who is the person who decides. Wednesday's even worse with Peterborough heading for Berwick with half the team missing because they're Danes who have their own league to race in on that day of the week. That should have been forseen and the match changed.

Sadly, more lousy service from British Eurosport tomorrow with the Tour de France and the European u-19 Football taking precedence, which is understandable. However there's a two hour gap afterwards which would be ideal for delayed coverage of the whole match. Instead we get an hour, presumably missing several heats again, then an hour of Cardiff highlights. That really defies logic, except that the GP highlights won't be on the main international Eurosport service unlike the Swedish match which will be. So, we're heading for week 9 of the league programme and we have seen the princely sum of one whole meeting. It's just not good enough.

Yes, it spoiled the meeting but thankfully didn't ruin it and as you say the one who overcame the handicap best was a worthy winner. Better a meeting spoiled by gate bias than what happened at Warsaw. I did feel again though that these Cardiff events reminded me of Wembley........................Arena. I know that's unkind but to me it's not real speedway as we would see on the great Polish and Swedish tracks, and I pray at the new Belle Vue. Maybe I watched too many meetings at Hackney (pre-Kestrels)..... I suspect the cost of the meeting soared with the extra time and effort needed to lay a worthy track over the pitch as opposed to instead of. I know plenty enjoyed it but give me a good close league match any time over atmosphere and hyped spectacle, but that's just my personal preference. I'm not surprised the cost of the pre-meeting entertainment had to go though. So, BSI saved their necks after Poland but I suspect it was at a high cost. We're mid-season and the GPs are only a third of the way through. Let's hope some momentum can now be gained on the proper speedway tracks. The sport needs a great World Championship as its shop window. I was elsewhere in Wales on Saturday and bought a copy of the Welsh national newspaper, the Western Mail. About six pages from the back there's a less than quarter page piece on the meeting, chiefly reassuring its rugby-mad readers that their pitch would not be ruined. Apart from mentioning how the GP is the second-longest staged event at the Millennium Stadium, that's it. We still have such a very long road to go.

People as usual here prattle about 'facts', apart from paranoid Poles who have as much understanding of the sport as a wood louse. Here's four: Red/Gate 1 59 points Blue/Gate 2 34 points White/Gate 3 23 points Yellow/Gate 4 22 points And following those, here's a few opinions: That gate bias is not acceptable. Despite this we got some good racing, but mainly for the minor positions behind red. Tai and NKI's racing in the closing stages was quite superb and NKI's overcoming having gate 4 twice and gate 3 in the final really made him a very worthy winner. I've seen far worse speedway and the track held up well but the gate in which a rider started was just far too important for a genuine sport, rather than a heavily hyped fan get together with plenty of booze and shouting, oh yes plus a bit of speedway, some of which was interesting. I'm just glad I didn't pay those prices.....

I hope r&r doesn't mind me straying onto his territory but last Sunday's Ekstraliga matches are now on You Tube: Gorzow v Grudziadz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtkCxJUwXuU Torun v Zielona Gora https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4PJLIBWkzI

Now, now, that's not playing the game, forming your own positive opinion and not following the usual herd who think it's clever to tear everything to pieces, or the BEL fans desperately trying to convince themselves that they are superior just because their team races in a higher if shambolic league. It was a perfectly enjoyable meeting and fascinating to see how the Panthers could get home with just five heat-winners. It all depends on what you want really, and what you choose to see. Perhaps if you tried to watch it without the blinkers?

I take it all back - they're obviously connoisseurs..... Yes, whole matches are what's needed, and maybe some repeats. Satellite TV lives on repeats, but not in this case. I wonder if they pay C-More by the hour?

It's always been a chaotic channel, right back to the early days when it was Sky's original sports channel in the late 80s. It's clearly run on the cheap, certainly compared to Sky and BT, and even Setanta/Premier Sports. It has always relied on cheap live events, especially ones that can take all day, such as tennis, golf, cycling and motorcycling. As we saw on Saturday they'd rather show people talking about superbikes after the racing had finished rather than go to Torun. The Swedish coverage has been shameful. Okay, there were a couple of rain-offs to open the season but it's going to be July before we get to see a live Swedish match. Last night's programme was clearly a 'rush job'. David and Sam were referring to races and interviews that had been cut from the programme and clearly the editing paid little heed to creating a worthwhile programme. Why only an hour? All they had afterwards was some recorded rallying then their overnight news service? If they're going to take over a contract it would be useful if they actually used it! I watched some F1 Stock Cars on Premier the other night and was reminded of what a decent job they and Dave Goddard did. If only Eurosport hadn't taken it up. No doubt we'll be missing more matches later in the year, like the early play-offs last year. Speedway doesn't count for much and often unnecessarily makes enemies in the media but it does deserve better than Eurosport. There's the Jack Burnicle fiasco too.... Yes, they picked up the sport after Sky dropped it but we're seeing the same problems now that we had then. It could be handled so much better with a little respect shown to the sport, even if it so often bites the hand that feeds it.

Sadly there's nothing scheduled on Eurosport. Very poor, sadly.

Not if they were paying then costs of such an event.

It's a genuine concern of mine for the rider and the sport that, unless matters change, he will join the sad 'greatest riders not to win the World Championship' group.

The racing was over by 6. I doubt if many were still there to see a leisurely wind-up of the event after.

This year we've seen many weeks where UK tracks have not run when GPs and SWC are being staged. Those that have run meetings have had joke teams. It's not just about rider absences making matches into mockeries but about the sheer lack of acceptable dates. Many EL tracks running this week are staging their first for 2-3 weeks, at a prime time of year. Just standing by and letting it get worse will make any intangible rewards from international and TV exposure rather too late by the time they filter through. Whether by boycott of events or ceasing to use riders who take part in these events British Speedway must realise that the EL is simply unsustainable and sadly the PL is heading the same way unless action is taken soon. To me, Birmingham and Eastbourne have it right this year, regrouping at a lower level, using local youngsters and forgetting about 'names' who simply don't earn their money. We have to separate ourselves from the international scene and rebuild on sensible, sustainable lines. Anyway, it's a great meeting tonight that illustrates the point that it's having an even spread of talent rather than the very best names to make a great speedway meeting.

A bunch of guys talking's more important.