moxey63

That is what finally did me in. Do you know, I think this uncertainty of whether teams/riders were trying to drop points on purpose made me start questioning if even the best races are staged-managed. When we had that Crump v Pedersen slow-race in the World Cup about 10 years back, because one of the countries was trying to fall enough points behind to be able to use a tac-sub, and then we had the other rider purposely slowing so the one trying intentionally to finish behind him didn't (if you know where I'm at) and so to be unable to use double-point tac-sub. It was pathetic. I thought they were both going to get off their machines and try and body push each other over.. even wrestle each other over. One bad apple and all that can tarnish your belief a bit more.

When Wolverhampton were a good side in the mid 90s they sued to bring a lot of fans to Belle Vue. Their number and collective noise created great banter and even keener support from both sets of supporters, and the matches seemed more evenly contested out on the track. I suppose that's why the old Wolves-Cradley matches were so intense. Perhaps encouraging away support by lowering admission for away fans would be worth a try - but it isn't my money and the promoters will have to consider this. I know this could be open to abuse, but there must be away to ensure that only away fans can pass the test. But, again with me, I have a negative. You have to give the fans from both sides a reason to support their teams... and this means riders they connect with. Otherwise it's a case of showing your passions for somebody that's going to leg it for the quickest door once they have chance. Once stung and all that.

Our kid, who I introduced to the sport in 1980, told me the other night that he felt the system was a strange one back in his first season, when PC and Mort missed numerous matches for our club, Belle Vue. It dawned on him quickly, as a 12 year-old, that it wasn't right seeing the likes of Dennis Sigalos, who he knew was a Hull rider, coming to the tapes in a Belle Vue bib. But to many it was easy to handle back then. But with half as many teams now, I don't know, but there seems twice as many guests. Surely less clubs should mean more riders. Or have the lower leagues not produced the men to fill the spots in the top flight? In the 80s, wasn't there the "Old Hands" rules, in which someone who had ridden so many times as a stand-in rider couldn't do it more than a set number of times? Has the attitude of allowing things to pass got us into this state?

Some good points.

Matt... it was I who stated that... but I don't mind Mike BV guesting for me this time! For someone like you who has committed so much work into trying to retrace speedway's past, your views need taking on board. Frigbo has also done a website, I believe, retracing speedway past... and then there's Brian Collins's Test Match site. All have been turned right off by the sport recently. I have also pieced together several compilations about the glory years of speedway... but my passion for the sport today has also pulled off onto the centre green. Someone has got to take control of it. It doesn't need re-branding. It doesn't need a special paint-your-face-night or some unknown group prancing away on the centre green. It just needs certain things trimming back into place. And for those who want a go at me personally. Have a go about me "not going anymore because I have to pay to get in." Think about this for a moment.... we have all the satellite channels at home that can pick up speedway - EL, Swedish, Polish and GPs... and yet I haven't watched one fully or even sat there to watch a race in years. It has that much appeal to me. I know there is some great racing. I know the sport still has that thrill factor. But I wouldn't mind it being boring sometimes... just give me back a sport akin to which I fell in love with. Newcomers may fall for the thrill factor... but will they stick around long enough once they see how it's run? I feel I can't get excited about a great spectacle when it's only a short term thrill and there are so many underlying problems. Especially in the upper league, that a lot of the riders spread themselves too thinly is also a big turn off. They can't kid a kidder... pretending to want to bleed for a club, then the very next day their blood is elsewhere.

Missing four riders, I would say... that is no longer a viable team and therefore the match should be called off. Isn't it because we have accepted instances like this that the sport is in its current state? A few called-off matches and I bet lazy promoters would do something about finding replacements. Why isn't the club fined for sending out a side missing four riders? There is no punishment, just a sense of accepting it that way. My views on guests are this: In 1989 Belle Vue were missing Kelly Moran for a lengthy period. A few times we had Kelvin tatum guesting for him in some important matches at Belle Vue. I didn't particular take to Kelve back then (I do now) and felt sort of strange wishing him on but not really wanting that in real life speedway. It was false. Like being nice to someone but calling them behind their backs.

The feeling of "we're in this together" has long gone. Days when you used to shift down the motorways in support of your club, your boys. People use the football analogy too much... and speedway fans ridicule that sport when comparing the two. But at least you know supporting a football club really means that you are supporting that club, that team. At Man City we are saying goodbye to a legend right now, a bit of a sad time after nine years. But in speedway we have lost that. We have forgotten what it is like to form a bond with a rider we genuinely feel sick in the gut when they depart. And that is what is wrong. If that feeling has gone, then all of us being united in supporting a team must have gone too. A team is there for us to support. Now. seeing the same team every week is like seeing the same GP at my surgery. I can't begin to think who's the longest-serving team man at one club right now. At Belle Vue Craig Cook has put in a shift - but is he a club legend. Is he a PC or Mort, or Wilkie. No... because he rides for another team and merely swells his income and days off by riding for the Aces. And this isn't a dig at Craig... it is a dig that it is allowed to happen. That can't be right.

Maybe it is just me, but speedway 2017 has become more like those X-Stream sports - an individual rush that the participants seem to get more of a kick out of it than anyone else. I had one of the foreign league matches on the other day and just happened to glance up, spotted Chris Holder in the pits in his riding gear of one of the Swedish League sides (I think it was). That is something else I'd kick in the long grass. Then I hear.... "But they need it, there aren't enough fixtures in the UK." Maybe right. But maybe there isn't enough fixtures in the UK, just perhaps, because there isn't sufficient dates available... because of riders riding here, there and blinking every blinking where. Sort it blinking out.

I suppose you'll always need guests in some shape... so how about being unable to use them from the same league? In Britain at least, the two main leagues are growing closer together in strength (or weakness) than ever before.

The Peter Oakes' column in last week's Star highlighted this. The guest rider system nowadays seems to have mixed in with the doubling-up and doubling-down system and has made it worst. It further dilutes what should be a team sport, that nowadays seems more and more to be pasttime which is kept going from March through October. It is more akin to grasstrack. Guests seem worst when riders are already hopping between different sides in different leagues because of this doubling up and down. What has happened to having a set side from the start of the season and not seeing a rider that races for one team and supplemented by another - for a complete season? What has gone wrong, when someone is a fully-fledged rider for two teams (in separate leagues) in the same country? The guest rider system and doubling rider system are a patch on a piece of clothing that gets you by for another day.It is an outlook I don't like (another short term fix)... but what damage is being caused when trying to sell it? A sport that was once primarily a team game has been positioned to a place of just a bunch of individuals getting a pay day. They'll be those that scoff at my views.... I don't go anymore, I didn't pay to get in when I went.... but surely those two statements prove the point. I don't go... and I stopped going even when I didn't have to pay! I, after over 30 years was disillusioned. It was shifting from a team sport, which I fell for, in to a playground for individual riders.

Speedway's lack of crowds means that there isn't really a group of fans at most track to begin a chant as such and therefore it would be left to one man and his dog to whip one up on their lonesome. Can imagine at this point that security would rush over, call social services and then the RSPCA getting involved, when that person suddenly throws their walking aid into the air and begins chanting some insane speedway tune in one corner of an empty stadium. It isn't football... so let's not go there. Stop comparing the two.

But it makes sense WK. Much of the early-season league campaign is about dropping points to allow new signings mid-season, just in time for a Play-Off push and then the Semis and Final. If every league match meant something, then I'd say it is strange to start coverage in June. Some sides only take it seriously when the kids break up for the six weeks holidays. The old way, before Play-Offs, teams would not muck about being hammered by massive scores. The Play-Offs allow a certain amount of... can I say... foreplay. The eve-of-season Speedway Star and all the expert tips gets me. Come the first six weeks I bet half of the sides have had at least one team change.

They argue that speedway should be on television more, it's a sport that everyone would love....then they seek an available internet link to watch it for free! It's free, simply because idiots like me are paying for it!!!!!!!!!

cos the rockers won't allow it?

So true. Same can be said about supporters on the terraces. They are a form of sponsor and often get taken for granted.

Freeloader, scrounger... tell it to my savings account. If I contributed something to Belle Vue, spent my time doing so, my own material... why is this freeloading? Move on...

You cheeky so-and-so. I have no agenda. I was not the person who made speedway slump from the second most watched summer sport to what it is now. It isn't even the second most watched summer sport in our house!

Thought he started in Aussie.

Didn't help. But speedway's had most of its publicity when it's been a negative incident... race-fixing, Kenny Carter.

I was merely trying to point out how British fans get all excited about the next prospect... our next World Champion whose crowning will immediately unlock the media's realisation that speedway is a special sport that not only the odd-bods like. I was highlighting the fact that it was 10 years ago since one of our golden riders actually gave the flag-wavers something worth waving for. I was merely pointing to the fact that domestic speedway is more important than keeping that flag for another 10 years... that George Cross T-shirt, the whacky shorts. Bemoaning the fact that 45,000 half-filled Cardiff and yet the press didn't even mention us. Perhaps it lacks press interest because they see it as a dis-organised sport, a one-day here, the it's gone sort of thing. Without a decent league structure, why would the press bother reporting what most people see as a monster-truck sort of thing in Wales? To them, they see speedway as the great unwashed sport that the strange folk like. In fact, it's that fragile.. I wouldn't buy a season ticket. Coventry..... vanished like that.....

Thank you! And it was back in 2007... 10 years ago. How time flies. Think of all the young lads with we all thought were destined for the top that have since ended their careers after that promise had long gone and the expectations too.. You echo my thinking. A strong league foundation is much more important, I feel to fans, than GPs. Give me seven riders in a side every week, just that side, giving their all, and let those with GP ambitions just let them get on with it. I got into speedway because it was a team sport. The mid-seventies, when your team was your team, all your boys. I lost interest when my team, the riders in it, were tooting and shooting all over the globe in other leagues, all over our domestic leagues in a doubling-up and down pathetic scenario. Not bothered about Britain's next world star. Just give me someone who can be associated with my team... maybe even several

The last world class rider England produced was? And don't say Tai Woffinden.... And how many times since have supporters got excited about the next pretender? And... apart from Tai Woffinden, who doesn't really count, he was tutored in Aussie... who was England's last Grand Prix meeting winner?

Yes, the future looks bright, but how many stars of the future failed miserably in the past, have hit a brick wall in their expected progress and disappeared from a career we all waited to take off. British riders nowadays seem quite content with being a decent loser or maybe struggle with funds for the best equipment. They just seem to only get so far and then... wham! They don't have the strength or will to get over the brick wall.

Gary Peterson was my first speedway-related death, then Tommy Jansson. It really shocked me as a teenager, somebody doing something I loved watching was a t risk of being killed. Kevin Holden was scoring really well in his few matches for new club Poole, I recall, and still know what Star magazine (Steve Bastable on the cover) the news of his death featured. Really does stick in the memory... even 40 years on.

(Lawrence) “Scott” Michie – 1930 BRITISH RECORD June 18, 1930 - Appeared for Rochdale (away at Newcastle (Gosforth)), scored 2 points (2 races) June 27th (Glasgow, White City) WHITE CITY OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP First Round Race Winners: Tom Farndon, Colin Watson, Syd Parsons, Col Stewart, Arthur Mann, Austin Humphries, Jack White, Len Stewart & Harry Whitfield. Non Qualifiers: Norrie Isbister, Drew McQueen, Bert Spencer, Arthur Moser, Arnie Cattell, Scot Michie, Arthur Moore, Alby Taylor, Stan Catlett, Tommy Hatch, Buzz Hibberd, Jimmie Pinkerton, Arthur Atkinson, Sprouts Elder, Tony Golding, Billy Llewellyn, George McKenzie & Cliff Watson. Semi-Final 1: Colin Watson, Tom Farndon, Syd Parsons (f). Semi-Final 2: Col Stewart, Arthur Mann, Austin Humphries (f). Semi-Final 3: Harry Whitfield, Jack White, Len Stewart (f). FINAL: Harry Whitfield, Colin Watson, Col Stewart (f). – Whitfield won a £100 cheque. Consolation Race 1: Sprouts Elder, Arthur Atkinson, Stan Catlett, Austin Humphries. Consolation Race 2: Sprouts Elder, Arthur Atkinson, Col Stewart. June 28th (Edinburgh) 500cc SCOTTISH CHAMPIONSHIP First Round Race Winners: Col Stewart, Tommy Hatch, Stan Catlett, Harry Whitfield, Colin Watson, Arnie Cattell, Arthur Atkinson, Syd Parsons, Len Stewart. Non Qualifiers: George Cumming, Norrie Isbister, Arthur Mann, Sprouts Elder, Cliff Watson, Bill Barclay, Buzz Hibberd, Bill Llewellyn, Austin Humphries, Tony Golding, Arthur Moore, George McKenzie, Alby Taylor, Scott Michie, Harry Butler, Bert Spencer, Tom Farndon, Jimmie Pinkerton. Semi-Final 1: Stan Catlett, Tommy Hatch, Col Stewart (ef). Semi-Final 2: Harry Whitfield, Arnie Cattell, Colin Watson (ef). Semi-Final 3: Syd Parsons, Arthur Atkinson, Len Stewart (f). FINAL: Harry Whitfield, Stan Catlett, Syd Parsons. – Whitfield won £100, Catlett £50 & Parsons £25. Match Race: Sprouts Elder beat George McKenzie. July (Halifax, Thrum Hall) OPEN MEETING Match Race: Frank Varey beat Sprouts Elder 2-0. Halifax Twelve Scratch Final: Jack Atkinson, Scott Michie. Golden Sash Race: Jack Atkinson, others were – Frank Varey (leading, but slow engine finishing third), Walter Hull (ef). Handicap Final: Scott Michie, Jack Atkinson. July 1, 1930 - Appeared for Rochdale v Barnsley, scored 1 point August 2nd (Leeds) OPEN MEETING Star Match Race 1: Ivor Creek beat Max Grosskreutz. Star Match Race 2: Harry Whitfield beat a. n. other (Wembley rider). Star Match Race 3: Scott Michie beat Morian Hansen. Star Match Race 4: Roy Barrowclough & Cliff Watson (dead heat). Star Match Race Final: Ivor Creek, Harry Whitfield, others were – Scott Michie, Roy Barrowclough and/or Cliff Watson. Silver Cuirass Final: Harry Whitfield, Ivor Creek, Max Grosskreutz. Handicap Final: Alec Tidswell, Austin Humphries, Jack Scratcherd. August 6th (Leeds) UNOFFICIAL TEST MATCH CHALLENGE ENGLAND 33: George Greenwood (2 race wins), Ivor Creek (1 race win), Eric Langton (1 race win), Jack Ormston (1 race win). SCOTLAND 20: Drew McQueen 9(3), Len Stewart (1 race win), George McKenzie, Lawrence ‘Scot’ Michie. Match Race: Frank Charles beat George Greenwood. Handicap Final: Albert Brown, Geoff Wilson, Eric Langton. Golden Helmet Final: Eric Langton, George Greenwood, Scot Michie, Jack Ormston. August 9th (Leeds) OPEN MEETING Star Match Race 1: Frank Charles beat Drew McQueen (ef). Star Match Race 2: Buzz Hibberd beat Harry Taft. Star Match Race 3: Les Wotton beat Chun Moore. Star Match Race Final: Les Wotton, Frank Charles, Buzz Hibberd. Handicap Final: Scot Michie, Gus Platts. Golden Gauntlet Final: Frank Charles, Tommy Gambles, Buzz Hibberd. Leeds Twelve Fullerton Cup Final: Harry Watson, Buster Breaks, Billy Dalby. August 23rd (Leeds) CHALLENGE MATCH LEEDS 34: George Greenwood (guest), Harry Watson, Scot Michie & Buster Breaks. WEMBLEY ‘B’ 19: Arthur Atkinson 6(3), Norman Evans (1 race win), Art Warren, Wally Kilmister, Charlie Shelton, Carl Balliol & Albert Brown. Match Race: Arthur Atkinson beat Scot Michie. Golden Helmet Scratch Final: Arthur Atkinson, Scot Michie, Norman Evans. Leeds Twelve Scratch Final: Austin Humphries, Buster Breaks, Jack Atkinson. September 4th (Halifax, Thrum Hall) UNOFFICIAL TEST MATCH CHALLENGE ENGLAND 31: Eric Langton 7+1(3), Gordon Byers 6+1(3), Dusty Haigh 6(?), Clem Cort 5+1(3), Scott Michie 4+1(?), Harry Watson 3(?). AUSTRALIA 23: Billy Lamont 8(3), Dick Wise 6(3), Jack Chapman 3(?), Buzz Hibberd 3(?), Ernie Evans 2+1(?), Bruce McCallum 1(?).