RobMcCaffery

Maybe ;-)

You and The Weasel really need to keep up with your medication. A cheap shot but about what people expect from you. Sad really. I've done my bit for the sport - what have YOU done apart from be a prat on a forum? Does it compensate for being such an unpleasant moron? My goodness, I knew you were an idiot but not that your insults were THAT lame. Still, it makes me feel young - like being back in the school playground, on a day when they'd the kids visit from the local 'special school'. Try harder. Give it a few years and you might be able to crawl up to stupid. Good luck, but I'd prepare yourself for disappointment. Weasel, I see he made you laugh. I seem to remember having to deal with your stupidity a while back. I'm annoyed with myself for wasting my time on you. Won't happen again. Avoiding reptiles like this makes not being involved in the sport anymore a lot easier. Thank you both. Back on topic. Big decisions in November. Make your postings as simplev as possible so Debbs and The Weasel can understand them without their lips and fingers getting tired. Time to open a window......

I'm waiting for someone to ask Jason Doyle why he chose his racing number.

Even if the BL sides hadn't dropped down and even if there was a surplus of riders I severely doubt that Barrow's budget was anywhere near adequate to sign any of them. Scunthorpe's problems were financial rather than due to rider availability. They really shouldn't have started the season. Yes both needed a third division. The effect of the BL migration wouldn't have hit quite that quickly but a league with Poole, Wimbledon and Barrow and Scunthorpe in it was inevitably going to have strains. This sad story had one personal aspect. I was NL Press Officer that year and had the novel experience of seeing my report on the withdrawals, forced or voluntary, on screen on Oracle within seconds of dictating it over the phone.

Not surprised. After 35 years of inflation our budget would now be just over £3k, less than 1/7 of today's BT budget and isn't that supposed to be a bargain example? Mind you, I once fell asleep on our caption generator during editing of an ice racing meeting. We were in the middle of France on an autoroute travelling from the ice track in Eindhovento the Costa del Sol for a bowls tournament. I hadn't slept since the recording. A few years later I was doing non-speedway work in a studio when I recognised my old pillow had been bought by them. It was seat of the pants stuff. I will write about it properly one day, once the lawyers can tell me what I can leave in. That could take time. Anyway, enough reminiscence, back to this year's AGM. Will any lessons have been learned from the past? The holding of breath is not advised....

A sport that only looks after the successful soon ends up with the successful only having themselves to play with, as nearly happened with the Premiership this year. What about supporters losing weeks of their season just because their team didn't win enough?

Sane would've good start....

BSPA write certain rules which the SCB incorporate in their rule book. You don't like humour, do you? Been around the sport since 1971 so perfectly aware how it's governed. You?

While not quite reaching 22, both leagues had run with 18 teams or more at various over the previous twenty years. Barrow & Scunthorpe would have folded in a league of 8 teams. EDIT: NL had 20 teams in 1975, 1978 and 1980.

I had Chris Roynon as a studio guest before the decision to expel Barrow and Scunthorpe. In this he made it clear that he had not wanted to run in the NL and had only wanted to run on an open licence basis but had been told it was NL or nothing. The Barrow team was very understrength and would have struggled whether or not we had the BL teams dropping down. There were team strength and financial problems at Scunthorpe before the influx, if I remember correctly. The fate of the NL was not determined by the 1985 influx but the later merger with the BL which ultimate;y led to the disastrous single Premier League, based on BL costs and team strengths, unlike more recent proposals. Longer-term fans may recall the reasoning for the initial one league two division merger and single administration was based on "The Stewkesbury Plan", in which the then Poole promoter outlined the future. It was felt at the time that it was a mechanism for Poole to progress, having reached their limit in the NL. Some would argue it might have been wiser for them just to join the BL....... Oh yes, one poster seems to have been confused by my earlier posting. No, I was not proposing ac return to the 1980s NL. Time has moved on. I was merely giving a little depth to how and why we got by with what seem like enormous leagues to the more recent supporters. And, no, I was NOT suggesting that TV coverage should be recorded. That was a necessity, not a choice. The budget for those pioneering days was quite appalling but we were trying to build for the future and rise with cable & satellite TV to get proper budgets after a few years' investment. In any case, we wanted to get league speedway on the TV. 35 years on I think it's safe to quote the budget. £1000 per hour. Now, while modern TV professionals like flagrag wipe the coffee of their screen and keyboard that paid for a three camera, vision-mixed production, so we needed the following crew: 1xProducer/cameraman 1xDirector/equipment and truck owner-cum engineer 2xextra cameramen 1xvision mixer 1xcommentator 1xgofer - usually a kid working for nothing - although Andrew Skeels (now of the Speedway Star) used to help occasionally. My cut was £60. No expenses. You can see why the recorded programmes lasted two hours - and why we couldn't afford live links. We were a bunch of speedway fans wanting to help our sport. Yes there were limitations to our coverage but wse got it all on air................ Back on topic, the NL in the 80s was a great place to be. I don't think we could ever get it back but perhaps we should learn lessons from how we lost it.

I'm still waiting for the BSPA to repeal the laws of gravity.....

I wouldn't put it past One (Let's Make [third rate] Speedway) Sport. ;-)

I worked damn hard for it, having played a leading role in getting it televised from 1984. Having effectively two BSPAs at the time helped the situation. The British League couldn't accept an offer from Screen Sport to cover their league matches because they felt it would conflict with their deal for ITV's coverage of international events,. I lobbied hard for us to go for the NL instead and it paid off. Luckily our boss was Chris Fear, formerly with Westward TV, the ITV station for the south west who used to televise the odd event from Exeter. He knew that NL racing was just as watchable as the BL and as for lack of names our audience probably didn't know any names anyway. We went to the NL management committee and understandably they leapt at the chance. There was one technicality. The deal with ITV specified they were broadcast rights. We argued that at that dawn of cable and satellite (five years before the Sky multichannel service launched) we were not broadcasting but 'narrowcasting'. That won the day and we commenced weekly recorded match coverage plus open events recorded during the year to fill the close season until the ice racing coverage started in February. 52 weeks a year speedway was the result. I know strange things can happen in speedway. First you have to try. Within a year BL tracks were queueing up to join the NL, tempted by lower costs, a still high quality of racing and regular TV coverage. It grieves me to see today's speedway with pathetically short seasons for many. Back then if a track closed in September you knew they were in serious trouble and were likely to be goners. It was fun. It isn't now. How do we get back to enjoying ourselves? That 21 team NL meant that apart from the KO Cup and 4TT there were 20 losers. Now winning is all and anything that doesn't contribute to a possible league title is written off as meaningless. The fun's gone. Winning is far too important and if you try to make a meeting fun you'll probably get hit with a hefty misconduct fine from the BSPA/SCB for improper comment that would write off an entire season's fees or worse if you were doing it for free. At times it's hard not to despair. How DID we let that all go? Speedway - a great idea ruined.

The National League in the 80s reached 21 teams at one point. Goodness knows how we coped! (Well, we enjoyed every minute.....20 league matches plus KO Cup ties, 4TT qualifiers and a load of support meetings now cynically dismissed as 'meaningless') We were far too busy enjoying what we had. Tracks like Hackney used to stage over 30 meetings a season. Goodness knows how today's "Less is more" snowflakes would cope ;-)

Sportowe Fakty regularly run a fan poll to choose which Swedish Elitserien match should be shown on their website. Dackarna are usually the choice, where available. Dackarna track Maciej Janowski, Patryk Dudek, Piotr Pawlicki and Kacper Gomolski plus three Swedes. I think that supports Mike's view on what attracts Polish neutral viewers.......

Yes, Mike is clearly a genuine speedway fan and that makes all the difference with commentating. I did a few sports but it was always a relief to get back to my own sport. I do suspect that if Mike wasn't a fan we'd have lost this service when it slipped off DAB.

What other sports or events are staged at Polish tracks? A couple seem to have football pitches while Wroclaw has an American Football pitch. I think most are single-purpose speedway stadia.

Try reading it properly rather than rudely rejecting it. Sorry if I didn't make it simple enough for you. I tried to point out that they are unlikely to be interested in the UK market. Will that do? I still thank you for clarifying their status. Pity about your follow-up but this is the BSF and you sadly do have to expect such behaviour....

The difference between building from scratch and simply improving the stadium is simple. In one case you are literally having to build from nothing but in the case of Brafield you have a long- established and respected venue with a track already in place and basic stadium facilities. BriSCA hold their European Championship there and while it's a while since I regularly worked there it had facilities that were perfectly adequate for higher stock car crowds with plenty of scope for improvement. It's been around for decades, albeit without speedway since the sixties. There are tracks in the CL and NDL with sparser facilities. As a new Northampton Speedway, yes, despite its fairly isolated location. I doubt whether we'll be seeing a revival of Brafield Badgers, but not a replacement for Coventry and should not be used as an excuse to prevent a Brandon revival. Congratulations to the team carrying on the fight and thank you for your efforts. Both speedway and stock cars desperately need a thriving Brandon.

The place to check is https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live-guide They're doing Wolves on Monday but not Perry Barr. Once the football season started BBC WM's coverage had to take a back seat. At the time they said they hoped to cover play-offs. Bear in mind the speedway coverage is online only and does not appear on the radio station at all, either on FM or DAB. We're lucky to get what we get and I think it's purely on the initiative of the presentation team who of course have to focus on what's going out on the main service, and not just football. Bear in mind they have five football clubs to cover.

There was a time when referee Lew Stripp and Len Silver were not exactly the best of friends. One programme accidentally named him as Lew Stiff. I am certain it was just a typo.....

Thank you. I'm sure they'll both be fascinated by UK opportunities being opened up. Of course they would be looking for any sponsorship to be seen by their Polish audience but I fear that an inferior version of league speedway is unlikely to see them rushing in, cheque books in hand. No it's not a matter of being unfairly cynical but if Polish sponsorship IS being considered as a key aspect of a deal with Eurosport then someone is advising the BSPA very poorly. Still, we will see what we see and as usual in speedway you have to stand back and let them diug their corporate grave - and try not to become totally taken over by morbid fascination. It's about four guys having a race and two teams having a match. Shame about the rest - oh and the monumental egos.....

Surely it shouldn't be a state secret to let the public know? If they are I suggest they change them.

They've always had access to multiple countries since the 80s. Eurosport started out as part of the Eurovision* service so had access to material from national broadcasters all over Europe and their geographical availability reflected this. *Yes there's a lot more to Eurovision than a song contest!

Well Fogo keep their UK activities rather quiet, along with the other Polish sponsors. Not familiar with Cash Broker. Working on your basis that the free advertising on BT has made no effect on gate reveniues then presumably the same has to be said of the match coverage, so why bother at all? Have you considered that gates might be even worse without TV exposure? It's a rather simplistic argument without detailed market research which is an alien concept to British Speedway. As for this persistent understanding of what gets called "watering down", have you considered the disaster we would be really in if we were trying to keep u[p with Polish pay and attract the top stars without Sky money? The sport doesn't run on Monopoply money, you know ;-) I do fear that yet again short term thinking and just chasing the wonga could see us tied into a five year deal when we have no continuity of coverage and the quality can only be guessed at. I simply cannot see speedway getting any airtime during the Olympics or whenever a major event is taking place in Eurosport's major sports like cycling or the various other forms of motorcycle racing. As flagrag acknowledges BT Sport take the sport seriously and firmly include it as a major sport. If only their bid reflected this. Sometimes you have to look at the wider picture. Philip Rising mentions that under Discover Eurosport is likely to be a very different animal. Discovery first took a minority interest in 2012, increasing to a majority stake in 2014 and a full stake in 2015. Well, it's been four years and apart from buying significant rights which need multiple temporary channels to service, I haven't seen much change. It's pretty much the same as when the French (TF1) had control. It really is about time that the BSPA took professional advice on their media rights, rather than just grabbing the biggest cheque. Back in the 80s it was only the cheque from Screen Sport that the BSPA were interested in, and they paid scant attention to the exposure we could have given them. Sadly the slow development of cable at the time and the development of Sky killed the channel before we had the chance to see where we both could go. We were all speedway fans so the intention was certainly there!