moxey63

My last dvd was the superb Icy Racers documentary, mainly about Per Serenius. I have thousands of meetings on dvd, many which I have transferred from VHS tape over the years and still collect title to my archive, although, strange to say, rarely watch any of them. I love the old Screensport, KM Video stuff, all the old things, but don't always shy away from more recent action.

Sometimes a speedway fixture gets scrubbed... even when the weather is fine. I recall last year's Belle Vue opener and one scorching-hot Good Friday match against Wolves, also at Belle Vue. Perhaps it's the belief that we don't have competent people running the show that sometimes counts.

For years I have felt speedway should have invested for its future. All the thousands that watched the sport before and after WW2, where did all that money go? Then we had the lull of the 50s, which should have sound warning bells that the sport needs to plan, get its table in order, and build a more sustainable future and sounder base. But it didn't, even during the halcyon days of the seventies. Then we had another lull, before SKY's millions came in. But where have the millions gone? And the sport is again facing a major crisis, as promoters, who come and go, many with new ideas that will save the sport (yawn), but are merely speedway fans with a little money to throw and opportunity to front a real speedway club. After all, the Flyin' Shale game for the PC was good enough fun. It is a live for today plan that sees the sport what it is in 2017.

There was a time, some while back, I got offended when people laughed at me because I followed speedway. Now, I no longer follow speedway... and they still laugh at me. Least I had an excuse before.....

Is this the thread where one come to when wishing to take offence? If so.... then I'm offended. Now... where do I set up a petition?

But speedway is better than those sports, that we all know. It is like some are drawn to Strictly and X-Factor, which I most certainly ain't, some are pulled along by sports that have flashing lights and fueled by a booze-swigging audience. Speedway should raise the bar higher. It allowed itself to wonder into novelty-value territory with the Double Points, the silly Man O' Man races in the KO Cup a few years back. It is better as a serious sport, which has enough going for it than grabbing idiots from the street who like flashing lights and loud music to introduce the performers. Thing is, sad as it is, the idiots have already got the keys and are in charge of the show.

Have I missed something.... but where did the idea of the new race format go? Was there behind closed doors trials last summer? Weren't they supposedly the big kick-start on a new (another one) dawn for the sport? Slap me in the face and tell me I imagined it...

Why would anyone in their right mind want to bring back speedway at Odsal? The team failed to attract the fans, despite winning the Championship in its final season. Twenty years since, it'd be a brave person to put hard cash into a venture, especially after the sport's gradual decline in the two decades. It is easy... pleading for someone to put their hard-fought money into. It wouldn't be our risk... as ours stands at about £20 a match entrance fee. Running a speedway track, I suspect, warrants a little more... like the risk of losing the roof over one's head, if it goes tats up.

So who wins.... fans who are willing to have a school PE pick-on-the-day sort of league, or a serious product, so alright, which is weakened, but gets back to the ethics of what team speedway, speedway as a whole, is really all based upon in this country? Like you, I am not bothered about seeing the likes of Hancock and Woffy, if they feel the league in the UK is not big enough for them. Just a believable product, is what most want. Let the so-called Stars earn their living elsewhere, while those shores can accommodate them, as it won't last forever. It is important to re-set British speedway. Afterall, someone will fill the boots of the Too-Good-For-The-UK Stars.... just look at what Jason Doyle almost achieved before he was struck down last year. Someone will still have to score those double-figure points for your team that Pedersen would score... but at least you'll know, he wont be galavanting all over the globe, doing the same for another set of fans, another set of colours. It just doesn't feel right, even after all these years, to a long-in-the-tooth speedway fan... or, I bet, even the newbies we're trying to entice.

Just been thinking, back the the glorious seventies and the years they did the Daily Mirror Grand Prix at every track, in which riders rode in the same amount of meetings at each British League track in a series of qualifying meetings. I remember them fondly. It isn't the rehash of these meetings that will help inflate speedway's (British speedway) leaky tyre... it is that they could be held back then, without the requirement of finding what rider would actually be in the country and not riding in Poland, Sweden or even Denmark. They were simple days... and I'm not harking back with those rose-tinted specs I got a few Christmas Days ago. British speedway must focus on employing riders only willing to assure they are here for every match... and hastily re-arranged ones. In other words, willing to commit to Britain. Full stop.

Boring? No... not at all! The Aces' side had some really thrilling action-merchants who couldn't gate to save their lives - Collins, Morton, Peter Carr, Smith, Courtney - and many races by these chaps had overtakes. I remember one meeting, Steve, in which the Oxford boys made the gate and the Aces' just pipped them off, yet again posting another 50-plus score. Simon Wigg was interviewed for then then Piccadilly Radio station, and I still have the tape, in which he said (and I paraphrase) "Bloomin' hell, it was so frustrating. You had to watch everywhere (when you gated) and had one Belle Vue rider on the inside breathing down your neck, and the other on the outside."

A new fan of modern day speedway has the luxury, the comfort of knowing not a lot of the halcyon days. Keep it that way. You won't realise how low the sport has sunk. how fast. Stay happy... don't ever trawl back.. back to a time before clapping eyes on speedway racing. Those were Golden Days. This is the best it should get for you. There is nothing like your initial years of watching your new sport. Enjoy it while it lasts...

Speedway's demise seems mirrored with the Christmas viewing figures from Coronation Street and Eastenders, which attracted just seven million viewers. Not long ago they would get over double that. Perhaps there is just more to do nowadays.

People like Bryn keep speedway running. Sad loss.

Aye, come on, things change. Because you were once popular, that counts for nowt. Where's Woolworths now? Woolies took its customer for granted, maybe. I think speedway definitely did.

Speedway has some of the best produced and lavish programmes ever enjoyed.... something we can dig out in days to come, when people ask "what's speedway?" Programmes are made to last.... wish they took as much times getting the sport as professional.

Belle Vue got their brand new stadium. Where were they? Those missing fans that wouldn't attend Kirky Lane, because it wasn't Hyde Road, or those no longer going because it was not Saturday nights as of 30 years ago... look what happened to those expectations and promises. Look where Belle Vue is now. So a new Cradley, 20 years after its demise... no. We are wishing for a different era. It is two decades too late. Like I do, many live in speedway's past. We yearn for Wembley and one-off World Final. But that is as likely as ABBA reforming. All most fans really want... is a credible sport, which is simple. But with every annual conference that the promoters throw, hope is ignored. Indeed, this time round we got a complete renaming of the three leagues. What good is that. I am confused as to which is which. What happened to Division One, Two and Three?

The people who run the sport, the promoters, they are making rules which in the long run make it easier for what are, afterall, their businesses to run as easy as possible, hence the doubling upper and downer, the multi-country men. I suppose, with it being their livelihood, their business comes before the general well-being of the sport, and they are all pulling their own directions.

Dean, you echo my views entirely. I love the sport... but it's not the one I fell in love with. How can you support a team sport when it ain't so? I was an adult when I used to be really angry when Belle Vue lost. But when you start to look at line-ups and feel the men you are cheering have no connection with your team, then what is the point supporting a side? The BSPA needs to address this..... It got so bad, I used to go not really feeling anything if BV won or lost. In fact, I used to chuckle at the ones on the terracing who were angry that they were losing! Perhaps in the years that have passed, the same ones have cottoned on. It is a waste of time getting upset, for this time next year the same way of throwing sides together will be as of now... PE football matches at High School, exactly how I've described it in the past.

Is it because we have become too damn lazy to go out and watch anything? Twenty years ago we had to at least leave our seat to take out a video cassette and put in another, to change a long-playing record onto side two, or flip an audio cassette over. The actual thought of leaving the house to travel even five miles, and then all the hassle of gaps between heats, then travelling home... it is easier to watch the speedway updates site or a live stream, if available. And do you know what? They'll be a time when we can't be bothered switching on the device to watch those live streams. The downward roll of speedway popularity has many reasons.

Yeah, you are right. Norden didn't put me off speedway but it seemed the start of the sport's gradual demise; the following year The Sunday People thing and then, 1984, World of Sport going off air. I still loved speedway then but the People thing tarnished it in some eyes, I wasn't bothered, and the occasional airing that WoS offered ended and therefore took its existence out of the public glare. Then we lost Kenny Carter and Billy Sanders.

Just popped back from all the Christmas partying at ours, to try and help save speedway. My lips are sore with kissing the ladies under that mistletoe anyway, all that grub and wine... I think the Norden world final of 1983 and when World of Sport stopped screening, that was another start of the end. Oh yeah... and the Penhall retirement... followed by all those other household names the sport bid farewell to over the next decade and we've never really replaced.

Shoulder to shoulder? At most tracks, shoulder to shoulder is a car ride away from the nearest chap or lass.

It was when the Speedway Star stopped doing those wonderful Christmas covers. Now all year round they look the same! Seriously though, we all have varying times we feel the sport started to wane. Is it the longer you watch, the more cracks you see, the more cynical you become. I could take the ridding of the 13 heats, the guests, but it was when my boys started having other clubs names beside them when they featured in various publications, world championship programmes - clubs as far apart as Denmark, Sweden and Poland, as well as here. My boys couldn't really give their all for my team. My team wasn't entirely their team anymore. There's only so much you can give, both as a rider and a supporter. If they aren't fully focused on your support, the it raises concerns about your support for them is deserving. But for someone else, my reasons will be scoffed at. They will have other reasons, and therefore it is a big mix of why we fell out with the sport. For example, there are pop groups I liked a certain period but not another part. In speedway, I can guess I like anything post-2000s is a give or take for my speedway memory. It just seems my love of the sport, initially because it is a team game, has been scoffed at by riders who choose it as an individual game in which they are simply earning a living as agency workers. Most teams nowadays are puzzled together like some kind of testimonial event for one day and without any desire to formulate a team that can grow a bond with the fans, that the sport needs to survive.

Is that you, Sting?