Ben91

You may be able to watch it on the ITV player. I’ve never used it to go back and watch episodes of quiz shows but would assume they can be found on there. Edit: https://www.itv.com/hub/the-chase/1a7842a1665 A link to the episode.

As with all quiz questions, they’re easy if you know them. The question did at least narrow down the options by asking which commonwealth country Ivan was from. Brought a smile to my face hearing Speedway mentioned I must say.

I’ve only attended the Emirates as an away fan but it left me underwhelmed. The place was devoid of atmosphere, although that could be down to the home fans I guess. I went to one of the test events at the new Spurs ground and it’s easily the best of the “arena” style football grounds that are popping up now. The fan experience from variety of hospitality options available in the concourse to the atmosphere and views of the pitch were very impressive.

Imagine trying to run a speedway team out of Wembley now. The promotion would be bankrupt before the end of the pre-meeting parade.

Stock Car fans are in uproar because they like Stock Cars so think they should be racing at Silverstone.

I know of a rich man who has a nice house and a poor man who has a not so nice house.

I used to work with a Polish guy, huge Speedway fan, wouldn’t even think of going to Rye House to watch a meeting. Said he’d tried one meeting at Arena Essex in the Elite League, because it was the top league, found it boring and attending in Britain was a waste of time. The bottom bit is also a bit of a misconception among British fans. The very best stadiums in Poland, the purpose built ones are head and shoulders above most that we have to offer but the others aren’t that much better in terms of facilities. The tracks offer better racing generally however.

It was run in tandem for a season or so. Andrew Silver was doing a really good job with the Raiders side but then there was a parting of the ways and the downhill spiral accelerated. Moving into the top tier the novelty would have worn off over time even with a weekend race night. Rye has the potential to be a fantastic motorsport facility but the local area isn’t populated enough to make top tier Speedway financially viable long term. Yet another gym and yet another all purpose football pitch probably won’t work out either. John Warner sports centre offers both facilities and there are plenty of gyms in the local area that are more easily accessible.

Landlords will still want a set level of rent which creates the knock on effect of promotions needing to charge a certain price to pay the bills. There are fans who won’t attend unless they’re seeing the “best” racing here (despite that stopping around 20 years ago). Those riders won’t be happy to standardise equipment to a level for the UK only because they don’t race in the UK only. While it’s a nice idea it’s something of a minefield I suspect. I feel we need to go semi-pro and take a hit quality wise short term to move forwards long term.

None of which has anything to do with the fact that the track at Rye House is being ripped up for no good reason in 2020.

Perhaps nobody put their hand up and made enough noise to the right people when people from other sports were doing so? Speedway would come under the motorsport umbrella, it isn’t a big enough concern for anyone to be handing it a million pounds. Especially when the sport probably haemorrhages money hand over fist. Maybe the sports handed money had to show they could pay the loans back over time and Speedway couldn’t provide such evidence.

No, it isn’t.

He often finishes last too though, the ladies appreciate that...

They may not care, you’re right. But it is short sighted if they don’t. That short sightedness and self-interest could come back to bite them. If Poland is suddenly the only country where the Speedway is good the knock on effect is that over time Poland will be the only country where people care about Speedway. It is easier to kill the popularity of something than increase it. They may have always been well supported but looking to the past is a sure fire way to ruin the future. Look at football, England won the World Cup using a 4-4-2 formation in 1966 and it tooK the best part of 40 years for the national team and those at club level to stop being stubborn and realise this wasn’t the only, nor the best way to be successful any longer.

It’s quite simple logic too. If Poland take the monopoly on the sport then ourselves, Denmark and Sweden will fall even further behind. Less fans means less future riders. A vicious circle which continues to get smaller. That means in 15-20 years a Grand Pix full of solely Polish riders with maybe the anomaly of a breakout natural talent from another nation (a Zagar, Vaculik etc.), but these anomalies will encompass the interest from the previously strong Speedway nations too. It no longer becomes a World Championship because the World is no longer interested, only the Polish. You and I might be interested still because we’re already speedway fans but the next generation won’t be because they won’t have the same exposure to the sport here as have/had growing up. Poland being the mega power closes the shop, if interest in the sport there wanes as as it continues to do here, for example, then the sport as a whole suffers. A slight tangent but look at darts, it was always a reasonably big concern in Britain, the sport has actively looked to increase its fan base abroad. That has led to more players from more countries, in turn leading to more interest, that means more tournaments in more countries, bigger sponsorship etc. A snowball effect. Whether you like the sport or not, darts is massive now in more countries than ever before. Speedway is currently doing the opposite. Let’s not kid ourselves that the Poles want to have all of the pie for the good of the sport as a whole, they’re being selfish. As we can see from our own leagues, self-interest is one of the biggest flaws in Speedway moving forward. How it can then be seen as a good thing because it’s happening in Poland now too is short sighted.

Nothing like learning from history is there...

This goes to show that short sighted thinking is a sport wide issue and not just a British Speedway thing. If Poland want to monopolise the sport, before long it will become a Polish only club and there won’t be a “World Championship” as such because the only people to the standard will be Poles. I could see advantages to riders only having one club if the other top leagues were strong as a Champions League style deal could happen. This hurts everyone long term though, even the Polish.

No, they’re kicking the can down the road by hoping that we will be able to just run the planned 2020 season in 2021 just like they hoped we would have a full season this year until July/August when they finally admitted it wouldn’t happen. I don’t think you understand the point I’m making, to manage expectation levels in life it is best to plan for the worst case scenario and hope things are better. If they do it is easier to adjust. You’re suggesting planning for the absolute best scenario, and that is unlikely to happen sadly. Why do Speedway circuits have safety fences? Why do the riders wear body armour and crash helmets? In case they crash, worst case scenario. Best case scenario is they don’t and nobody gets hurt which as fans we all hope is the case. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. If anyone at the BSPA is reading my posts and feeling demoralised then they are in the wrong job and perhaps they should ask themselves why fans aren’t happy with the product they serve up on the whole. Realistic expectations and negativity are very different things. I’m in the former camp. I’m a Speedway fan, why would I want the sport to fail? I have no issue with debating with you despite us having differing opinions, please don’t descend into personal abuse by calling me sad just because we aren’t in agreement.

Plan for the worst, hope for the best. As far as the comments about planning for British riders only are concerned I’m talking about travel restrictions potentially not allowing riders in and out of the country to race on a weekly basis, which would mean riders would have to stay in one place predominantly as happened in Poland this year. Travel restrictions will hit us more than the Danes, Swedes and Poles because you have to fly here from those countries whereas you can drive between the others should you have the inclination. Jason Doyle’s comments are second hand from Rosco and if Poland run their league in a bubble again he’ll go there for the money and not race for Swindon, let’s not kid ourselves. You may have been to watch Speedway this year, but if you hadn’t noticed, the government (who have slightly more power than the BSPA) have banned fans from sporting events for the second time since March. The only meetings that were run with fans were “amateur.” Blind optimism is helping nobody in this situation. Realism, contingency planning and managing expectation levels has to be the way forward with hopes for the best.

I think it needs to be seriously considered that if we do have a season we will potentially have to use British riders only and/or those who will be based solely in the UK. It would be prudent for the people running the sport to make a plan to go next season using British riders only and with the potential that there could be no fans allowed in to tracks to watch the racing.

When it comes to payment it should be down to supply and demand. This is why footballers earn more exorbitant sums of money for example. Now I’m making some reasoned assumptions here but most clubs seem to struggle to make ends meet, of course there are costs other than rider wages but this suggests the demand for speedway isn’t there sadly. Something has to change, to stop clubs haemorrhaging money and to improve the product for fans. For me that starts with the sport going part-time. Some riders may walk away but not as many as we worry will. A lot will of course try and call the authorities bluff because they won’t want to get a real job or try and secure a ride abroad but if they love riding a Speedway bike they’ll have to get on with it. That of course means a watering down of the product but let’s be honest, the standard now isn’t that great anyway. A lot of the core fan base these days are those who will attend week in, week out regardless of who is riding. It’s a step backwards to move forwards in the mid to long term. If something doesn’t change soon the sport will die. Regardless of the pandemic clubs are falling by the wayside at an alarming rate and it is notoriously difficult to get the necessary permission to open a new track these days. Of course the fact that Speedway is a poor relation these days doesn’t help.

No, it isn’t. It’s logical to plan for the worst and hope for the best. To plan a full season that won’t happen (again) would be foolish and incur more needless expense. The state of the sport here it won’t be hard to pull a season together if we need to come spring. Fixtures are never released until late in the day anyway. This is a forum for opinion, that is why we’re here. Not to blindly just go “Speedway is great isn’t it,” like automatons. Sadly the opinion of most Speedway fans (the most important people), is seemingly that the people running the sport have used up their credit of goodwill and need to pull their finger out and do something positive. And that is regardless of the fact that there is a pandemic going on.

What’s the point in holding it at all, just carry on with the dross we were due to be served as a 2020 season.

This is part of the problem. The sport is bigger than the riders, yet there seems to be the thought process that they are owed a living so can have two teams so they don’t have to get a proper job and race as a hobby. It’s time to put the fans first.

If the plan is to run 2021 as 2020 then a huge opportunity to restructure the sport in a positive way has been missed.