RobMcCaffery

So, you all boycott and help to kill it off. You'll then have plenty of time as the bulldozers and houses to move in to say "Well, we showed them". You have a golden opportunity to show that there is still a genuine interest in the Bees. It's sad that so many of you are throwing it away.

A friend mentioned team riding to the new manager last year and got a baffled response.....

Great news and thanks for letting us know. Talking Pictures is a charming channel, run by a small business who love old film and TV so it's a labour of love which is thankfully gaining respect and viewers. Readers may be interested to know that another classic film featuring speedway (at Lea Bridge/Clapton) is freely available to watch online at the BFI website. https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-britannia-of-billingsgate-1933-online

The World Cup requires careful scheduling, not abject surrender, but then the extreme, simplistic response is always the easiest when you're too lazy to think things through properly as you so ably prove. By contrast, one of our respected members recently reported on a conversation with a TV sport editor who explained his station's lack of speedway news coverage was because speedway was not a "serious sport". I rather suspect that ours is the only summer sport planning to virtually close down in the face of another sport's tournament. I can't see even the much-maligned stock car racing behaving in such a manner. Next you'll be telling me that the top tier of speedway lost Saturday nights because of Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor. It doesn't reflect well on the BSPA's confidence in being able to get people through their gates, does it? Continuity was always speedway's strength - the public knew each week or at least there would be a meeting on the same night each week, so say Friday night WAS speedway night. Losing that has been a very important contribution to the sport's near demise. Traditionally you never let the fans think there were other things to do in season on your racenight. Now the promoters pick and choose when to run. Is it no surprise that supporters in turn pick and choose when to go? We've given people too many excuses to stop going to speedway, and haven't so many seized on just that?

I'd have thought it was obviously a ploy to demolish the current stadium then find some good reason why a new stadium can't be built on top of the smoking ruins and how they will sadly be forced into completing the housing estate instead of a new stadium. I hate to be cynical but this plan has stunk to high heaven ever since the initial proposal was to put the new stadium car park on the centre 'green'!

And we'd have plenty more if we didn't keep forcing British riders out of the sport because their average doesn't fit.

Having taken a look through the Premiership fixtures there are still some alarming gaps mid-season at several tracks with more than one case of only one home date in June and others similarly 'thin' in July. For a 'summer' sport we certainly manage to avoid the best weeks of the year. Progress has been made but continuity is still desperately weak at crucial times in the season. As ever it comes across as a desperate rush to get fixtures in before FIM events start and then to rush to catch up after they wind down.

Well, after being told that it would be SGBP only on Good Friday and SGBC on Easter Monday reality turns out to be completely different. After all these years I really should have seen it coming.....

The Polish racing calendar has now been issued and while there's no league racing on Easter Monday they are intending to stage an international test match that day. There's no mention yet of who the opposition will be. I expect the BSPA were aware of this when they avoided scheduling SGBP matches that day after all.

I was just wandering through the old posts in this section and found this. The coach survives and is kept at the Transport Museum, Wythall, south of Birmingham. It's back in Midland Red colours but in store, not operational. A model was produced of it in the yellow and black colours.

You forget to mention that they will be standing in the puddle by the shack to show the huge obstacle that's so far prevented it being built.

He can't even spell a basic word like rubbish. It doesn't say much for his intelligence does it?

A very sad aspect of the BSF is the loudmouths who love to insult all and sundry in the sport who are actually trying to make it work, while very conveniently hiding behind stupid false names and claiming 'freedom of speech'. When someone working in the sport and prepared to talk openly under their own name here then tackles them they then hide behind accusations of 'unprofessionalism'. Yes, this is a forum. No it doesn't give you the right to behave like a poisonous anonymous coward and squeal when someone rightly stands up for themselves and bites back. Good luck to Laurence in his new job. I had no idea he had the divine power to shut tracks though ;-)

By preventing the collapse in supporters and the handful of sponsors from being far worse.

Apologies, this is one year when with an early Easter the Poles won't be hijacking that Monday. I wonder if the BSPA made the same mistake?

It's one Friday, and a response to the Poles taking Easter Monday. Of course it makes sense to use it as an alternative. Surely even the speedway market won't be confused by one week's variation from the regular schedule? Why race on Tuesday night when you can race on a holiday?

When it was announced that Swindon would be allowed to race on certain Thursdays the phrase "protected Thursdays" was used, suggesting that these would be nights when only they could run to avoid clashes with SGBC meetings. There's so few fixtures in the SGBC this year that it would seem an easy job to have frequent missing Thursdays such is the wretched state of the Championship schedule this year.

SCB's thin veneer of intelligence is once more stripped away by his rancid and repugnant ageism. It's a familiar argument - "I know a pensioner who's well-off so every one of them must be." It's as intellectually and morally bankrupt as "All these foreigners are taking our jobs". I do wonder if he's got a problem with his parents or other elderly relatives, given the sick bitterness and prejudice he continually shows to the elderly. In another recent thread he came up with what were superficially intelligent comments about the way forward but which were invalidated by his comment "Stop pandering to the old, they'll be dead soon", or words to that effect. I'll leave you to consider for a moment just how repugnant that is. Don't be taken in by someone who is obsessed withe speedway rule book and averages. It doesn't make them intelligent, merely fixated. I had to correct him ages ago when he was spouting this regulation and that to point out that he was completely ignoring the key part of the rule book, the supplementary regulations which are issued during a season and regularly amend those rules., I remember SCB complaining about the car park at a certain track on the basis that it was damaging his very expensive car. Lovely chap. I'd park mine outside ;-) If people were singled out for such abuse on the grounds of race, gender or sexuality they would be rightly condemned by most reasonable people in society and in many cases prosecuted. So why is ageism allowed? Speedway may have an age profile that could do with reducing. The SCB's of this world would achieve that by making the sport hostile to the elderly and forcing them out on the basis that the young and 'cool' (i.e. his own perception of himself) are put off by the sight of geriatrics viciously sitting down because they can't stand up for two hours and callously drinking hot drinks from a flask because they know that the stuff on sale at the track is awful quality and overpriced. Shame on them! It's not the elderly that are the problem, it's the shallow, ignorant outlook of certain people at the other end of the age spectrum. Still, there's one consolation, given the modern trend to despise the old by the time he gets to be in that age group life's going to be pretty appalling for him. Yes I have attacked the poster, and I have not one iota of apology for doing this. I've posted some strong views on here over the years but they have all been based on a deep love of and concern for the sport, and not my ego. I had my brief spell in the spotlight and I can tell you I am much, much happier sitting quietly in the shadows now. When I see SCB's posts I see raw ego. I worked with a few TV technicians like him in the past and you would sometimes get those who developed appalling arrogance through working in the industry. I thought I'd seen the worst.......until now. I remember years back Sittingbourne getting their only away Conference League win at Newport. Almost everyone on the BSF were congratulating the then Crusaders on finally getting a win. One kid wasn't though. He went through every decision made in the match, every pass and incident, desperately trying to prove that the Kent side hadn't deserved their win. Ever since then I've been waiting for SCB to grow up. Seems like I've got a longer to go. Still, I'll probably be dead first, eh? Rob McCaffery - aged 60 and expecting the basic state pension only, if that when I can finally afford to retire. You see, instead of building up a career I spent too much time with speedway. I'm now partially disabled so have to have a seat at a track even if it's a folding one which SCB so despises. After 46 years of course I don't deserve a small concession on the admission in my advancing old age.....It would be nice to be able to enjoy the sport in my final years without having to put up with prejudice from this shallow clown.

Well, it's been a few years since I received my Honours Degree in Economic History - 38 years this summer (Liverpool if you ask - great pubs plus proximity to the far more essential 'schools' at Belle Vue and Ellesmere Port), but I'd say most sports show distinct inelasticity of demand given the huge rise in prices that it and other sports have got away with over, say those 38 years. Assessing such inelasticity of course is dependent on the reasons for the decline in purchasers of the product, price or quality of supply. There I knew some of it might come in useful one day.... Do not make me resort to econometrics ;-)

As others have said Eurosport certainly isn't free, it's just included in the cheaper packages. Sacrificing quality but still having it on a pay TV channel and one that has shown scant regard for speedway even after it has agreed a deal to show it is not progress. In the UK BT's highest viewing figures reach above 1.5 million, for football of course and that is a high, not an average. However Eurosport's best is around 1 million, and that is for the whole of Europe. It may be cheaper but despite its Olympic deals and significant financial backing (Discovery) after nearly 30 years it's still very much a minority service. I do wonder if those wanting speedway on Eurosport are those who already have it as part of their Sky package but won't pay extra for BT.....

Yes, let's lose a quality production, expertly presented by an experienced presenter with a solid speedway pedigree and programmes shown consistently as advertised and matches covered reliably and complete. Let's go for a service that can't be relied on to show matches reliably in a regular time slot and often delays coverage until late at night, often cutting out heats and whose basic presentation leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. It's also a station that rarely actually covers the meetings themselves, relying on taking the World Feed from BSI when they showed the Grand Prixs and simply took a feed from CMore when they showed Swedish speedway. The only speedway they've covered themselves has been the OneSport SEC and Pairs events. Yes, let's go from quality to third-rate and unreliable.....

It's fascinating to see the cynicism of Premiership fans here, and quite simply breathtaking arrogance that they are superior beings whose needs must be met. The second division was shafted by such arrogance in the nineties and you can understand a certain wariness now. In some ways you can draw parallels with the National League/Provincial League in the sixties when the dying NL acted as if it had the right to force Wolverhampton to join them. Their arrogance failed and the merged league that brought so much success was forged on the second tier's terms. The same is needed today but our 'elite' promoters and fans won't accept that, crying 'watered down' and demanding everyone spend money they haven't got like they do. A merger will only come after a genuine crisis. We're not quite there yet. Perhaps an acceptance that we're all just one small sport fighting for survival might be a starting point, and an understanding that just because your team is in the top division it doesn't make the management and fans some superior race.....

Those are convenient years HT. In 1971 there were 36 professional tracks. In 2018 you can only get to 28 by including amateur NL tracks. In 1957 there were 11 professional tracks. Things HAVE changed.

I was talking of 1981 and did mention Penhall. Carter & Gundersen was one heat out of 20. Jessup's Jubilee clip was an incident but didn't exactly 'make' the meeting, although it affected the outcome. Things happened but there wasn't a great deal of excellent racing, as ever at Wembley, bar Penhall's remarkable riding. That's what astonished people - good racing at Wembley! Sadly it was only a handful of heats. Yes it was the last Wembley World Final. How exactly did that make it a great meeting? Apart from ITV, KM Video filmed the meeting and when I joined them the following year this was one of the first meetings I wanted to watch. I soon learned that memory can play tricks. People remember the Penhall races but there was little else to enthuse over, unless you like bike failures...

Poland and the SGPs were yet to wreak their havoc. The weaknesses were already there, it's just that we were still the best payers. The 81 World Final is rather over-rated and relied almost totally on Penhall's brilliance. Those other stars were support players.