moxey63

I think only the fifties matched the crisis we are having now. That was just 10 years on from the post-war boom. Since the 70s the sport has had a slow puncture and is struggling right now to keep going without losing its flat tyre. The only positive is the number of tracks we have now compared to the 50s when perhaps there were little more than a handful.

Whip out a magazine from any era and you'll have opinions expressing how far the sport has sunk. Fans tend to believe the sport was better in times gone. Or is it that the sport has really gradually sunk through the decades?

I feel speedway rules change too much. Because I can't recount every change doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Next year, we'll hear of the "losers" who got their Speedway Star late over Christmas!

Promoters put their hard-earned money into the sport... and then make a total cock-up of it. Would you trust them with your money or your sport?

Like many of us at Xmas... give it a few days to dry out.

Yes... like that Santa Watch website.

So true...keep telling it as it is, though not all your claims are nonsense. Merry Christmas!

My latest statistic tells me that BWitcher could start an argument with his own echo in a back entry.

Interesting post. Statistics make up so much of sport, especially speedway, why fill in a programme otherwise? They tell you who's in form or out of it, what football team has just chalked up its 17 win (City!). Unless you just like speedway for the sound of bikes and broadsiding, much of it is statistic based.

The only books I have kept from my speedway collection are yearbooks and reference ones. I love speedway stats and facts... I love all kinds of stats! I try to compile stats for the years speedway doesn't have yearbooks. I am sad...

As I say, too much money goes out of speedway. Superfast engines are ok for GPs, but it's domestic speedway that matters to most. How fast an engine is over another competitor or how finely it's been tuned should be as looked on as strictly and as important as team building regulations.

I knew I had lost it... that night at Kirky Lane about 10 years ago, when a fellow fan of longstanding asked a certain question about one rule or other. I did not know the answer. I felt ashamed... truly ashamed. There is a point when you can't be bothered with another blinking rule change. It's alright attracting a first-nighter, who likes the novelty of motobikes sliding, but the spectacle would get quite boring if the rules weren't there. Do you tell the newcomer that it's best not bothering with the rules... which seemingly are often written on a magic slate at some winter-break by those folk we term promoters.

But those are the basics... a closer inspection will tell the newcomer... it is a sport, but not as you know it.

Maybe set racedays should be weekends, ease the sport back into being a hobby at weekends and to halt this belief that it is as professional as football. It has its fanbase, a fanbase which can't afford professional-riders who can only afford to be professional because they have the comfort of riding in various foreign leagues or, over here, doubling up and down.

Not disagreeing about paying for a number one, but surely that was a big mistake and shows a sport with no forward-thinking. It's like getting a loan from a shark for Christmas. The money chomping promoters didn't contemplate the sport would have to survive after SKY waltzed off. Like normal life... once Christmas is over the loan has to be paid back for most of the following 12 months. Live within your means. The SKY money paying for the number one didn't warrant a vast crowd upturn on the terrace for that club, but the fans who watched from home on TV got value for their subscription. So SKY was happy I suppose. As for now and trying to persuade back the grabbers hat skinned us, I'd say no no no. Make stars of riders who stayed loyal to the UK. It will be a hard slog at first but a future plan could see a more organised sport in five years' time. But I suppose that's too simple.

It will be difficult... as the ship's taking in water at an alarming rate.

I listened to the business hour on LBC radio the other night, and one of the professionals on there mentioned that a business should try to get feedback, good and bad. It is what I've been saying about speedway for a long time. Why oh why have so many fans been allowed to leak away? When, like I do, you voice opinions... all you get back is "You don't go anymore, why should you have a say?" Many fans lost interest when they married, had kids. So could these people be persuaded back? Speedway simply puts the admission prices up to help cover lost fans, adding pressure to those who are already finding admission too high to afford.

... back of the sofa, don't forget down the back of the sofa.

Come to think of it.... I can't think of anything. Sounds like one of those corrupt regimes you often hear in charge of other countries. Somebody gets rich while the sport becomes poor.

We speedway people tend to think that, because we like the sport, everyone else should be tripping over themselves to like it. Speedway... only speedway... could whittle away the millions that SKY pumped into the sport for almost two decades and now see nothing for it. The people who run the sport behaved like they were children handed a fiver to spend but had two minutes to spend it before the shop shut. I'd say the sport is in a fragile state right now after those millions were "invested." It's a mess... like Homer Simpson has been in charge, so I don't hold much criticism for any broadcaster that wants to steer clear of what was once upon a time the second favourite sport in the summer... and the Beeb didn't even want to know it then. So fat chance now.

I think people have become less patient and needless gaps between races, restarts every other heat seem to have become something that the present human form get frustrated with. I for one can't stand sitting through the adverts on TV, whereas I used to sit through all that needless chat during four hours of GP coverage back in the day. The DeanMachine echoes my views on one of his previous posts feeling riders should give their all to whichever club they join if they want similar in return from the fans. It is something the whole of the sport must put right. Give fans a reason to attend the track, a real lure that it is their team and they must be there, a team they feel represents them, and then support may become less flakey. The way the sport is set up right now, is it a wonder rider nor fans feel a regard for any one club.. and therefore this must spill over into what is primarily a team sport.

From what I can gather, there isn't a lot wrong with the racing. But when you attract new supporters to that first match, you have to make sure it's an experience they want to relive. Endless restarts and track work is the last thing you need to make it a memorable experience. Sometimes it can't be helped, but other times it just seems shoddy. It is part of speedway, putting up with endless waits until the next race on the programme. Youngsters, if that's what the sport needs to flourish, simply won't have the attention span to see a sport exists somewhere amongst the haze of track work and memories of the last race that was run ...some 15 minutes before.

We tend to believe that the future of speedway lies with the young. But simply because you are 25-65 doesn't stop so-called promoters trying to educate this age group what the sport is all about. Indeed, they'll be more inclined to stick with it.

For me, personally, the period it started going wrong was in the 90s. I remember being passionate about speedway even then, although there were times I started questioning how loyal the sport was to me, the average fan. It was about 1994, a run-of-the-mill Four Team round at Kirky Lane that had to be delayed while riders were held up dashing back from Swedish commitments the night before. I had turned up, like the other thousand or so that night, in sufficient time before start in case I missed something... and yet the full cast wasn't there as scheduled. To me, at that time. I was merely part of a crowd that was supplementing another paynight for the riders who were en-route, and I questioned their true one-club loyalty. Riders had other irons in the fire - not on the individual front, but for other teams, other countries.That the Polish and Swedish leagues were now importing what had been primarily British-based riders didn't seem right to me. How could riders be team mates in another country and yet opposition over here! That wasn't the rivalry I grew up thinking speedway was about... from now on it was simply riders earning a crust, whenever and wherever, getting the best out of being self-employed (as Scott Nicholls described himself recently). They were putting too many fingers in too many pies. Then over here we had the ludicrous doubling up and down, here, there and everywhere rule, which further took away my belief in team speedway. Even when SKY began doing live matches in 1999, I still adored the sport. My adoration continued being smacked about though. The Golden Double, in which riders purposely slowed down to allow a team mate through and so to earn the double points, the World Cup in which Pedersen and Crump tried to stage-manage their race position so that one country couldn't operate the Joker in the next heat. The last 10-15 years have made me realise that speedway and its ethics have placed a huge cloud over my belief in the sport. Riders spreading themselves too thinly have taken away the true value of a team sport. Thankfully the double points rule has been confined to the sport's tried-but-failed old-rules shelf. albeit 15 years too late.