RobMcCaffery

I was saying it over 30 years ago (well, not insulting the BV car park!). It takes time to get a message through sometimes, especially in speedway. At least the racejacket tip was taken up by a few teams. I was watching some baseball after the SEC - needed waking up. You have to wonder how much businesses pay for the ad boards behind the batters and catcher. It's all a matter of studying what goes on screen and for how long and making sure you make money from the opportunity. The Polish tracks' centre greens are full of ranks of boards but you do wonder how many can actually be read as the camera fast pans past or another views them almost end-on.

You do make a very good point. Perhaps familiarity does genuinely breed contempt. I recall Len Silver speaking out about Hull visiting Waterden Road without Ivan Mauger, on the basis that it was his only 'free' appearance. You would expect with Ivan that any appearance apart from a league match would come with a hefty appearance fee. With so many absences it does make you wonder if it does help people see a star rider on the basis that there are two chances? But, with so few open meetings now the maximum number of times you might see another team at your track is four, barring cup replays - (2 league, 1 cup and 1 play-off). Add in guest appearances and you could see one 'away' rider in about 1/3 of your home meetings!

You never know, we might just get 20 heats of entertaining speedway. - okay, maybe a few.

They've departed from the revised schedule! Presumably the tennis finished early. Virgin's epg shows Tennis until 6, as does Digiguide which is usually very accurate. On Eurosport's website they show Speedway 5-6 then the SEC at 6 and that IS what they are showing. They also show an SEC round from ITALY at 6 That website offers 'subscription from £29.99" - I take it if you pay more they tell you the real schedule. So it looks like all is well. The only confusion now will be on co-commentary... That's the scheduled highlights. They don't make i easy, and here we're just talking about the British version. There's several different versions around Europe, all with differing schedules.

Wonderful news. I make no secret of being a huge fan of their work on other sports so am delighted to see our sport becoming a valued part of it. Let's hope for a proper, permanent deal. The tide is turning in pay-TV and judging by the proposals I've seen for a complete reshaping of Sky's sports packages which smack of sheer desperation we would be in much safer hands long-term.

Of course. 12 GP Saturdays plus the 'oh-so-vital practice' session plus 2 SWC Saturdays and that's half the season's weekends wrecked. The fear was that One Sport's made up events would add another six but thankfully they seem to be confined to midweeks now, often on a bank holiday Thursday somewhere near the Carpathians. I still can't believe people here can't see why the BSPA boycotted the One Sport events which essentially only benefit One Sport and their sponsors. We can't live with the GP circus so have to live without it.

Eurosport have changed the schedule at the last minute (tell me something new) so that Eurosport 2 is now showing the qualifying tournament for Wimbledon until 6pm with the European Championship still starting at 6 pm. It looks like their usual scheduling chaos has confused Sky's electronic programme guide. Virgin's is still okay. Those whose boxes are not showing the event should either set up recordings for all the programmes shown from 6 through the evening or do a manual recording. In both cases allow an hour or so beyond 9pm to allow for any over-runs. Eurosport have made up their schedules as they went along since they started in 1991. Until I did a reset of Digiguide it was still showing Eurosport as carrying highlights of the third round of the One Sport Best Pairs from Gniezno, an event called off weeks ago and not being run until next month. You couldn't make it up......best leave it to good old Eurosport Sportowe Fakte say it's on by the way. https://sportowefakty.wp.pl/zuzel/relacja/73430/1-final-sec-w-toruniu Now watch the tennis coverage over-run.......

The beauty of the first bend camera is that it is relatively static, so ideal for an alert promoter to put a well-paid advertisement on the fourth bend, and right in shot rather than being rapidly panned-past. It's the same way with advertising on the tapes, used already by a couple of tracks. In a similar vein, get your team sponsor's name at the top of the race suit or race jacket. That way it's far more likely to be caught during interviews....

I expect when we had to confirm a venue the future of the NSS was still in doubt, as it was up to March.

Regionalisation works okay for those well on one side of the splits but for those literally on the borderline they can be robbed of vital local derbies only to have to face extra journeys to long-distant tracks. Regarding the 1990s fiasco the problem then was that the amalgamation was on Division One's terms and the former NL/D2 teams were unrealistically expected to strengthen up whilst the D1 tracks refused to release assets to allow this to happen. The situation now is that this yewar's partial merger has been based on the old PL, as can be seen from the use of old PL averages or EL averages converted to 'fit'. The next logical step is a single league. Bringing the SGBC and SGBP teams level would take far less pain than twenty years ago. One aspect that has to be considered though is that inevitably the combined league would be dominated by those tracks with greatest fan and cash base. At present some of the less economically powerful SGBC sides have a reasonable chance of being in the fight for honours right up until the play-offs, albeit honours which carry less prestige. In times when people talk about seasons being 'over' once they can't win honours, and not simply enjoying the sport and looking at honours as being essential, not a lovely bonus, I worry that the lower teams will lose this fair-weather support once they decide that they can't cover themselves in reflected glory. To put it simply, a combined league will have too many teams without a chance of winning a title. Okay, in the past it worked but I believe supporters weren't so obsessed with their track winning the league back then and just enjoyed a good night's racing, whether league, challenge, individual pairs or the Easter Egg Cup. Intolerance for 'meaningless' matches has reached crisis proportions. We are starved of fixtures not just because of small leagues and rider commitments elsewhere, but because any extra meetings apart from league fixtures don't pay because the crowds won't turn up. Right now an SGBP track has a minimum of 15 home matches (14 league + 1 cup) while the SGBPC version has 19. Running a combined 18 team league will produce 18 meetings (17 league + 1 cup). Obviously the benefit would be greater variety of opposition but those halcyon days of 30+ home fixtures a season saw only a maximum of 19 home league fixtures (when the NNL briefly had 20 teams). The gap was made up of open meetings and I doubt many modern promoters could trust their crowds to support them now. I despise the word 'meaningless', it's cost us so much entertainment and left us just with the bare bones of league racing. Everyone has to be a winner or it's pointless. Attitudes need to change. Sadly I doubt they will now. Perhaps it's a spin-off from people viewing the sport as too expensive and insufficiently entertaining?

It is true, given I clearly qualified my comment with "when there's no alternative" - principally the need to stage a meeting, especially to plug a huge gap in the fixtures in order to salvage some cash flow.

I was surprised to see the Worralls turning out for Rawicz in the third tier of Polish racing, considering both ride for weekend tracks. Currently Rawicz only use them when they're free but what happens if the lower Polish leagues start to behave like their top level? Robert Lambert also turns out for Lublin in the same league. Obviously it's good for these riders to get experience abroad but this could also develop into a problem in due course. Yes we have become that unimportant for many, except for picking up pin money and practice time. We don't pay enough because our crowds are far too low. I am afraid I can see a small SGBP and equally small SGBC running on one specific night each per week with tracks running 7-10 meeting home seasons plus play-offs fortnightly, just as in Sweden, with fans still wondering why the 'stars' haven't returned. The rest will be running at NL level whenever their riders can get time off work. Either that or we make a stand, refuse to be bullied by the Poles and BSI any further, and put a league format together that will use only riders who will fully commit to British racing, whatever shape that may take. Of course the use of foreign riders means compromise with their federations wanting them home for key events. We've been there before since that was exactly how we worked in the 'glory' years. Of course back then the World Championship was one final plus a handful of qualifiers, not 12 Saturdays a year plus 2 more for the SWC and we didn't have the Polish League juggernaut. Sadly we do We can't live with them so must live without them.

It is still legally a very delicate area since one person involved in the case was a minor at the time and thus their identity has to be kept secret in the UK. No matter what you consider the rights and wrongs are the penalties for contempt of court can be quite severe, not just for the person writing here but for the forum owner, Phil, even if the name has been revealed outside this country. When people discuss Darcy Ward's career in speedway it is inevitable that aspects of this case, his brush with the law in Australia and his lengthy ban for alcohol use will inevitably be brought up, just as his wonderful racing and tragic accident will. It's all part of the story of his career. These matters have been argued to death before and while it's morbidly fascinating to see the Poole fans as usual brush anything critical under the carpet, it's unsafe territory and doesn't really serve any purpose.

If I was "instrumental in putting the sport where it is today" I'd be keeping very quiet about it.

British tracks generally run only when riders don't have more pressing (and profitable) engagements elsewhere, usually in Poland, or have to run with guests and r/r when there's no alternative.

Fits the Poole 'prove it' mentality. No loophole ever ignored. Their riders and management can do or say whatever they like, apart from fix a track it seems. Blind faith can be touching..... ...except in this case.

Rospiggarna v Dackarna (Full English version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0gB-CRKApQ Zielona Gora v Leszno (English) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-GD95boN40

There doesn't seem to be a great deal of interest from Denmark either.

Until riders start throwing points to allow the joker to be used. I've loved the SWC and its predecessor the World Team Cup ever since I saw my first at Wembley in 1973. Some of the blatant attempts to lose points in recent finals have appalled me, hence my attempt at irony.

The two reserve system was introduced in 1969, replacing the old system of one reserve and a 'supplementary reserve' chosen from one of the second strings and used in case of injuries.

The programmes I worked on in the 80s used to have the mickey taken by some of the continuity announcers over the lack of spectators. I did point out that you couldn't see that many people at most of the minor motorsport events - and certainly not at the yachting they used to show ;-) The problem was there, even in the tail end of the boom years. The problem then, as now, was that most of the crowd was either below or behind the main camera so you had to rely on the head-on first bend camera to show the home straight stands. Well, we only had three cameras....I think today's crews would shudder at the budget we had to work to. Sometimes people notice the negatives if they're negative about the sport and vice-versa. Thankfully we had bosses who were looking at the racing, not the crowd...

Nice easy start given the abject state of Rzeszow this year.

I know it was one match but Wilkinson arguably won the match for the Scorpions on Sunday, scoring paid 15 and covering for two injured riders.

It looked to me that they'd given up. It was not the best start especially considering Poole's endless boasting about how perfect they are down there. Putting it in theatrical terms, "There we were on opening night and nobody could be bothered to check the stage".

I'm sure BSI will be broken-hearted