RobMcCaffery

Paul, it is possible to be happy to be out of something without needing therapy, you know? I'm glad to be out of both, mainly because of the type of people I encountered. On the media side (not just sport) I grew very tired of having to deal with what were often cheap hustlers running video companies, although there were one or two guys who were a pleasure to deal with. As for speedway, well sometimes making your hobby your living ruins a good hobby. I still love my speedway but it again its the people who run it and a lot of those who follow it who take a lot of the pleasure away. These days I'm happy to just watch, enjoy and leave others to take all the rest. When you see the ridiculous, spiteful hammering that Pearson and his colleagues take I'm very glad to be out of it all. Back to the speedway, I've really loved this Swedish season, it brings back some great memories of working over in a beautiful and very civilised country, although one of our cameramen did try his best to change all that ;-) Thanks to Premier Sports for taking the risk of buying the rights to an overseas version of a minority sport and for Dave Goddard for making the difficulties of working off a monitor in Dublin while filling in long gaps work so well. Thanks also to lastword for his kind words. I've watched the match on its repeat showing so I've been able finally to see the end of a damn good story.

Very much an 'ex' lastword, but I'd rather watch it with Dave's expert commentary. Thanks to Alan for the help. No question of any 'stooping'. I've just been a viewer and supporter for years now, and very, very happy to be out of it all.

Ah well, I'll have to watch it 'On Demand' later. Shame to pay for a legitimate feed only to have it fail in heat two of the final! Enjoy.

What a time for Premier Sports' player to go down!

Sadly the Somerset Speedway programme has a rather limited circulation so thank you for putting the key points here.

Injury's kept me away from the tracks this year so we didn't get the chance to meet up this year Bryn. Let nature take its course and I let's both look forward to next year. Hope it's a full recovery. Rob.

Yes of course. I've long suspected that the club, as opposed to promoter model would be the way forward over here, but things have probably evolved too far. We did have a go at that with the Rye House revival in '99 - £50 a head and a vote in what the club did but that was soon snuffed-out. Wandering Europe for sport in the 80s it was very frustrating seeing so much sport using excellent facilities provided by local government for the local common good while back over here too often it was every man for himself in dilapidated stadia in the private sector, unless you were one of the 'pure' 'athletic' sports. It IS literally a very, very different playing field over here. I do enjoy the Swedish racing far more than Poland which to me is too fast and ruthless. Sweden brings back a sport I remember so well, strong teams in front of decent crowds on a good variety of racing tracks, and with proper tactical battles being fought using the real tactical substitute rules. How much we have lost!

The general, but not universal principle with 'International feeds' is to go to a wide view on a locked-off camera while the home broadcaster has pieces to camera and interviews which are mainly in the local language. In the case of Premier Sports poor Dave has to keep going, filling in over a pretty useless shot, which isn't the easiest thing in the world, hence his skilful use of social media to fill the gaps. The same applies to David Rowe on GoSpeed's coverage of the Polish play-offs. I've never seen the actual racing coverage differ, just the gaps between. Interesting though that the Poles seem to take the straight Sky feed of the Elite League and talk over Messrs. Pearson and Tatum which would no doubt delight the petty whingers on the British area of the Forum... Not a bad match tonight and I have a soft spot for Vetlanda since it was the first Swedishj track that I visited. Looking forward to seeing the superb Motala circuit tomorrow though. Just one sad sight tonight - flares on the terraces - uncomfortably like the unpleasant side of football for my tastes and Vetlanda were also guilty last week at Malilla. Taking the point about the relative strengths of the Swedish and Polish leagues, I'd love to see the stats. I feel though that Sweden's had a higher level this year. Perhaps the Poles are seeing economic sense a touch - seems there are a lot of 2.5-3.00 averaged Poles in second-string positions over there this year. I do wonder how the Swedes manage to track these teams on gates of 4-5k, although there are suggestions that they can't.

I can't remember the exact years offhand but the first division promotion failed, then there were several blank years as attempts to reopen at the lower level were then met by very stringent safety regulations brought in by Sheffield Council in the wake of Hillsborough. I'm sure the local fans can fill in the details. I seem to remember that when Owlerton did re-open the back straight remained closed. I haven't been for far too long. Can a Tigers fan confirm if it's still the case? At Sheffield RL's current level Owlerton's probably just about large enough but if the unlikely event they were to go to a higher level I doubt it would meet requirements.

Not initially, the speedway was sadly closed for a few years. I presume the RL team is homeless after the closure of the Don Valley Stadium. Let's hope the pitch size regulations haven't been changed. The infield was also used for American Football for a while, wasn't it?

Here's my posting on the other GP Challenge thread. " If anyone is interested there are six more showings, including one genuinely prime-time slot: 17.09 05.05 (yes, 5 am) 19.09 20.00 20.09 04.10 20.09 14.15 27.09 03.40 27.09 09.35 Motors TV UK is on Virgin 545 and Sky 447, but not on Freeview.

Just watched it through. All heats shown but no end titles. It went straight from a shot of the riders opening the champagne to an ad break so thanks to Pete Ballinger for his alternative insight into the production. If anyone is interested there are six more showings, including one genuinely prime-time slot: 17.09 05.05 (yes, 5 am) 19.09 20.00 20.09 04.10 20.09 14.15 27.09 03.40 27.09 09.35 Motors TV UK is on Virgin 545 and Sky 447, but not on Freeview. Hope this is of use to someone.

Despite being omitted from Virgin Media's EPG this programme was given its first airing tonight on Motors TV UK at 11.05 pm. The coverage is better than the ice racing - full heats and it looks like all heats were shown. Picture quality's a bit ropey and the commentator could be better informed, but well worth a viewing. It has been packaged as an FIM production with the FIM graphic present throughout. The replay timings are all over the place during the next week, sadly all well outside peak times. I'll try to confirm the production company and commentator but if it's like the ice racing it'll just be an FIM TV logo as credit to close.

It's simple enough, both meetings are compromised, one by doubts over Swindon and Lakeside's abilities to put on a fair and entertaining fixture, and the second over riders missing the Belle Vue fixture due to other commitments in a lower league. Neither situation is going to impress Sky.

Motors TV are showing a highlights package from Sept 12th - several showings, mainly well outside peak hours. If it's anything like the FIM coverage of the ice racing shown on Motors earlier in the year I wouldn't expect too much either, unfortunately. It's nearly thirty years since I last voiced a speedway video. While there are some excellent productions the market doesn't seem to have come on that far in certain other areas....

"Okay Sky, here's how it is. Next Monday you get two choices: 1 - You go to Swindon hoping that Lakeside aren't as abject as they were at Poole and hoping that the home side don't throw the match to get Poole out of the play-offs. 2 - You go to Belle Vue where several key riders will be missing because they have commitments in a lower league. Oh yes, enclosed is a copy of the 2014 agreement, can you sign where we've almost marked a cross please?. Sorry we've had to call off the social at the local beer factory."

A fourteen meeting season ending on September 9th? My what fine forward strides the sport's made in the past few seasons.

That's been changed since I checked earlier this evening which suggests that the match is indeed off.

Looks like it may well be off. The banner featured the word 'aflyst' after the match title and my on-line translator converts that to 'cancelled'. The club website, Danish Speedway League and Sportowy Fakte sites show it as on though but this could just be a matter of them not being updated yet.

Why, just because you're the most important poster on these threads? Ridiculous. By the way, number 19 Daniil Ivanov is the World Ice Racing Champion. Thought someone might be interested, evidently not.

For a novice, Day's doing a superb job.

It was a different presenter who was so heavily criticised for his summaries up to and including the Copenhagen Grand Prix. I believe his name was Tony Carter. This is Steve Day who presented the Cardiff Grand Prix, has commentated on both European Championship rounds so far and thankfully took over the GP summarising with Scott in Terenzano. It seems it's not only TV presenters who don't know names.... On a different point, anyone else think the meeting might get a little more interesting if number 19 were allowed out on his OTHER speedway bike?

One of the most nauseating aspects of online forums is the way very unpleasant personal attacks are made by people conveniently hiding behind false names. Have you ever actually met Steve? He's a decent, intelligent guy, straight in his dealings, which is probably why he's had so many problems dealing with the BSPA. I would far rather share his company than the vast majority of people I've met in speedway. It is incredibly difficult to discuss the true story of what happened at Wimbledon due to legal bullying by one of the participants. Indeed I cannot even state their name here for fear of causing Phil and his forum severe problems. Still, people will believe what they wish to believe and if nothing else this forum loves a hate figure to focus its sad little vendettas on whether it be promoters, riders or commentators, all conducted from the convenient safety of anonymity. To drag this back on-topic, if someone genuinely has a decent site for speedway in south Wales they should be encouraged and not met with this depressing example of forum members' needs to look important, or heaven forbid, even relevant. What the forum had said in response to the OP is: "Don't bother, we know better and it isn't worth it, and anyway someone we've got a problem with will probably bugger it up anyway. Now let's get the bile out for other matters". I do hope you're proud of yourselves. Now I hope the poison pen letters are going well.... Oh, just spotted a closing point - all is forgiven if Steve re-opens your club? It redefines moral bankruptcy.It's all okay as long as YOU benefit. Disgusting. Rob McCaffery

There are damn good reasons why I turned my back on Rye House after thirty years and anyone there at the time with the faintest of a clue what was going on would know. We used to have some pretty decent fans at Rye House. Seeing the comments on this forum the best decision I ever made was top get out. By the way, next time you see Ron Russell I really do recommend that you tackle him with your whinges over his time at Rye House. You really might learn something. It really does sum up the state this forum has got into. You take the time to come online and explain something and get an ignorant, nasty post in return.

His name is Roy Delaney and he was associated with the 'Friends of Speedway' organisation. When we were bringing the Rockets back in 1999 Roy was superb in giving his support to the venture and we were quite happy for him to his bit as Rocket Man. We needed all the friends and help we could get. Sadly after our year's efforts the successive management did not appear to share our views. Glad to hear he's still about and prepared to spend his money at Rye House.