moxey63

Wolves deserved winners over the two legs... but the win-at-all-costs mentality of speedway in bringing Woffenden back leaves a sour taste and really questions why fans bother with anything that happens before August, when riders can be signed purely for the "business part of the season." Woffenden upsets some because there's a myth doing the rounds... that he has used British Speedway. Belle Vue fans were naturally annoyed last night... because he had only afforded them his presence because his racing diary was throwing out all sorts of blank pages. Wolves fans, and who can blame them, welcome anyone who can score the points. Cracking occasion though. But is it worth devaluing all that has gone before? And, yes, Tai created a lot of interest last night and will encourage Belle Vue fans to turn up and jeer him, whenever he graces these shores again. That is good for the sport... a flashback to the Kenny Carter days perhaps.

Zagar had a mirror with him last night, make sure he was actually there.

Advertising does work... I didn't know of Monster Energy drink 10 years ago, for example. I do now, but steer clear of it. Perhaps the same will happen if more know of speedway. It is alright knowing it exists, but are we capable of keeping new fans?

Tai... is that you?

"Just promote it a bit more," call the fans. Then the crowds will come flocking back. But it isn't that simple. We are being forced-fed so many things we should try these days and speedway surely has had its best days at dragging them in. Fans demand that everyone who hasn't seen speedway must like it, they just need showing what it is. It is a "I like it, everyone will;" scenario. But just tune yourself away from being a fan for one moment. The SKY channels are on and a new sport is on in the background. Do you cock up your head and take notice, put down what you are doing and begin to swat up on this new-found thing you didn't know about? I doubt very much. Those that go fishing are probably having the same argument... "Why don't we see more about fishing?" they wonder. One of the joys of my cottoning on to speedway was that I found it myself, by accident. Nobody was there, prodding me towards the nearest track. But then I spent my early years bemoaning the fact that it wasn't covered enough! A post further back on this thread refers to riders, 20 years ago, that mingled in the bar with fans. But 20 years ago we were in a dire old strait. We asked the same questions then. And, don't forget, the sport didn't have all the lavish coverage from satellite channels it has now, all that publicity. And people call for more coverage to entice new fans! The new age of speedway live on that box in the corner came at the same time people had more thing to do, as always through the speedway ages. There is no quick answer.. maybe there isn't an answer. But for a sport that needs more fans, it certainly has enough clubs running every week for seven months with the ones it has. In politics, this week Labour has told its members to be ready for a snap election. Well, speedway must be ready for its next trickle of new fans, and must shake itself down and sort out the rules, regs etc, and try and act as if it want to keep any new fan it may attract. Waste of time, a new fan turning up, and watching more tractor activity than actual speedway bikes.

Speedway has always moaned about things. But remember, 40 years ago there were a lot more moaners as there were a lot more fans there to moan. Through the decades many have been lost through getting pee'd off. The 50s were supposedly bad, but now is far worst, and I am guessing British racing has never been as unpopular as it is now? I always say, the sport gives you your best times in your first few years. Then the cracks begin... Hasn't all this been tried? The problem with speedway, is that throughout its history it has messed about with things that didn't need touching. For starters, we have had six-rider teams and they lasted two years at most, 1997 and '98. There must have been a reason they didn't stick with them. Regional competitions still exist, do they not. And we'll never sort out guest riders, who and who can't ride within a certain time frame. The sport really needs to review everything over the next two/three years, not make a ground-breaking change in one winter and then need another one the next. We on this forum have so many different ideas, but only the men with their money in will make the decisions that will take the sport forward. We, as fans, either stick with it or fade away. But speedway is in m ore of a state than the labour party right now. Perhaps the best way, for the promoters, is to make the sport as simple as possible... not for the present fans, who know everything anyway, but for any newcomer that stumbles across a speedway track during a meeting, thinking it's some carboot sale. If they can stick 15 heats, make the meeting as simple so that a newcomer can grasp what's going on, because even long-standing supporters aren't really sure.

Test Matches, Pairs, Four Team Champs, were all part of the speedway schedule not that long ago, but they aren't important anymore. I think the GPs and even the Word Cup have put British speedway in a position to look at itself and improve its pulling power. Because there is an open date, is it doing more harm than good to plonk in it what is obviously to entice the diehard to part with even more dosh. Personally I'd never miss a match at Belle Vue through the years, whatever name it carried. I don't know if it's just me, but the most important thing now must be league racing. Don't fool the public. Days of endless individual meetings, match race competitions and pointless second-halves served their purpose and we liked them back then, but I think a speedway season is best served with important fixtures only, just league fixtures. A British speedway season is like one of those Best Of albums by a pop singer... a lot of good stuff we like, but some that just dilute the product, as fillers. Let's just have the best stuff.

Perhaps it is time to make a shorter season of entirely league matches. Is there really an appetite for the side-of-the-plate meetings any more, four team events, pairs and challenge match fillers? The British season could perhaps mean more if it were trimmed a little. Less is more...

Having been brought up in the 3, 2, 1 system, and a keen collector of speedway facts and figures type of stuff, I haven't been able to accept the double-bubble system one bit. A rule that encourages a team mate to slow down to allow his double-pointer team mate to win a heat and get the maximum double points was one punch more than I could accept from my speedway. Supposed to be a race, but you often got the scenario of a would-he, wouldn't he slow down to allow his double-pointer partner passed on the run-in, or, if they couldn't understand the rule, some riders just went out and won the heat to the annoyance of his double-bubble partner and team boss. We have been forced in life to accept certain things... but no way, no way, will I ever accept the double-bubble blinking joker. I mean, women parading round holding aloft that giant joker playing card up for god's sake... and that's a good image for a sport supposedly trying to claim new fans? It ain't prime time Saturday night TV - X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing. It is meant to be blooming serious (speedway, that is, not X-Factor).

Perhaps it's the messing about with the stuck-in-stone 3, 2, 1 scoring method in exchange for It's A Knockout type of thing, which gives you a two-throws-of-the-dice scenario in one go. The sport may as well have promoters running round dressed as clowns, for god's sake... It's like men dressing up as women for a laugh on a boys' night out. Don't know whether it's serious or cringeworthy.

You're only right again...

I knew it all along, I should listen to someone like you Orion... to tell me what sort of sport I should like. My love of speedway has returned, thanks to our chat, despite going off it in the first place because I actually witnessed things I didn't like, but am being told that it would have happened whichever way. Perhaps I was being fooled all along and only spotted it with that Reading match... but I feel better knowing someone as highly regarded as Orion is in the same boat. What's worst... not going because you felt fooled, or still going (like Orion) and telling others they attend, even knowing they're being fooled? Over to you Orion mate....

It isn't made up... it was witnessed by my eyes. Reading had won the match at Smallmead 55-40 against the Aces three weeks earlier and were expected to secure the aggregate bonus point in the return at Belle Vue, especially having lost by only 12 there earlier. But the return at BV saw Bulldogs losing 59-34 and they lost the agg. bonus. the chance of winning the table to Peterborough, winners on race points. They then beat Swindon in the one-legged semi, their chosen opponents, remembering they had lost both home matches to Coventry that season but won both vs Swindon. That made me feel at the time, that the match at Belle Vue, the one I highlight, was one Reading were not interested in performing. They didn't want the bonus point and the potential semi against Coventry, who finished fourth in the table but had beaten Reading at Smallmead twice. Does it make sense now? As for the 2006 Reading v Peterborough Final The Joker, Golden Joker, Golden Double or Tactical Double – whatever it’s been called down the years, it is a rule that is detested by the vast majority of speedway traditionalists. First initiated in Knock-Out Cup matches in 1997, golden double races were introduced across the board for all matches in 1999. From now, a side falling eight points or more behind could utilize the golden points rule, allowing it to introducing one rider off a 15-yard handicap, where any points he scored would be doubled. The 15-metre golden double race has been available for sluggish sides since its 1997 inception. The conventional Tactical Substitute rule was phased out after the 2003 season. In its place for 2004 came a rule allowing a team to nominate (from the grid) a maximum of two programmed riders to try to gain double points - as long as the side was at least eight points behind (nine points in 2005). In 2006 the rule was slightly changed – from now a nominated rider had to beat at least one opponent to secure double points. Then, in 2007, the rule was again altered. Now a team could nominate a rider for double points just the once a meeting from the grid... and even then, that team had to be 10-points behind and not nine, as was the case in 2006. The 2007 change was brought about after the 2006 Elite Final play-off final between Peterborough and Reading had highlighted the problem with the 2006 rule, where a team could potentially claw back a staggering 14-points from two races and drastically turn a meeting in its favour. Now, I loved speedway for the sport itself, the spectacle... not as a form of past time, to have a wee bet and make a few quid out of, as you suggest you do. The sport is more important than making me a few quid, but there you are... I want a serious sport.... and the examples above, I wasn't getting that.

It is things like this that finally makes us bite the bullet and, even though we don't want it, makes our belief in speedway finally waver. Mine occurred in the mid-2000s, the Golden Doubles, trashing of the old tactical-subs and the night Reading came to Belle Vue chasing Play-Off glory and couldn't have cared less if they had tried. My piece in the Retro Speedway Speedway Memories book explains: Reading were chasing Elite League glory when they arrived in Manchester for a mid-September match in 2006. They needed just the aggregate bonus point to clinch top spot in the table on arrival in Manchester. But it was irrelevant to them. When the Bulldogs unloaded their machines that night, their main intention was steering as far away as possible from the aggregate bonus point, giving them second in the table and an easier semi-final passage. I had seen stunts like this before – Bruce Penhall, 1982 Overseas Final, for one. But the latest one came when I was at the end of my tether with the sport. Reading had a cosmopolitan and attractive line-up, and I had honestly looked forward to a keenly fought encounter, hopefully good speedway with the best side winning. Events of that night left a lousy taste. Reading folded like a cheap Christmas card. I couldn’t be bothered anymore, standing for hours on often-chilly terraces when stunts like that were happening. Perhaps I am wrong and maybe my cynicism really does call for medical attention, but the damage of that night is irreparable Reading, and who can blame them, had no stomach for the fight. The lackadaisical attitude was all too evident from the off. Their intentions reeked. Imagine how others felt, people who paid good money. I wasn’t one of them but was disappointed. Speedway had turned into something resembling Professional Wrestling. It was the final straw. My days on the terraces were nearing a conclusion. You could say with hindsight, justice was done in the Play-Off Final weeks later, when the Bulldogs were robbed against Peterborough, who played perfectly the Golden Double rule and overhauled Reading’s lead at the death. Reading were much the better team over two legs but, unlike the Belle Vue fiasco, their mistake this time was that they were deadly serious about amassing as many points as possible… and it turned sour on them. Peterborough sufficiently went enough behind to play a couple of Golden Doubles and overhaul Reading right at the death of the second leg. Great TV, even for the neutral, but for me it was a cheap method of providing some for-the-moment thrill-factor and wasn’t in the best interest of the sport’s credibility. The World Cup a few years ago, when Crump and Pedersen slowed going over the line so that both countries could make a tactical move, I really thought the sport’s authorities would finally ditch Golden Double and Jokers. But what do I know? There were a few instances of play-acting in the 2013 World Cup, and moves like this make me question just what races are or aren’t real.

Exactly.

Seriously, I have never been so offended and upset... I will visit this forum again.

Still there are you. I know.. my posts a riveting.. and I don't mind that you find them so... What does Bastian mean... I have parents, so you're wrong.

Oh dear, mustn't call speedway, must we... some people need to protect their right to wear anoraks and collect yearbars. All the money you've spent. Bet you put your programmes in plastic bags an' all, keep them pristine clean. I am here, doing a service, as a fan of speedway (past). Imagine all the others who have just disappeared and can't offer reasons why they stopped attending. I will go on doing my service. The question was asked, on this specific thread, and you didn't have to read it. Sometimes, it is good to see why something is going so wrong that even diehard fans are getting disillusioned. Or shall we just carry on... until you become disillusioned. That's fine then...

Do you normally charge for arguing... and if so, why are you happy to give so many free samples? Can't understand why you, kind sir, wish to read a post about walking away from the sport. Just sniffing, were we?

Speedway isn't for me anymore, so I should move on... I accept that. But why are you, someone who still loves speedway, reading threads about people walking away from it? And you're criticising people. Don't read these threads. Simples....

Think your keyboard's sticking there, matey!

This comes to a lot of people. It did to me, and I no longer go. Still watch from the sidelines though, just out of interest and because it's been my life. But don't think I have it in me anymore, to wait between the heats while they mess about to come out for the heat, for example. Speedway has become a bit like those shows you watch, in which you see something and believe it's really happening - the Osbornes, for example, from about 15 years ago. As time went by, I began to realise a lot of it was scripted. It's like that Made In Chelsea sort of thing. I think the riders often get more out of it than the ones who pay on the terraces. Speedway - I don't believe in it anymore. The basis of it being a team sport has gone, and the whole part of me becoming interested was that it was a team sport. You see old team photos from the past and, wow, it hits you... they were teams. I don't get that with today's line-ups. Many faces are there because it suits other engagements, or are in the line-up until he ejector seat button gets pressed and the averages allow another, a fresher face to land. I wasn't even paying to get into speedway when I began losing interest. I just started getting a sickly feeling of not wanting to go, everytime Monday came at Belle Vue. I had to though, as I felt guilt if I missed a match. It was routine, my life of 30-odd years. I have read on this site discussions regarding various rules, and I just can't be bothered anymore. I want things simple.. but now rules seem designed by those that run the sport to make things a bit skull scratching to normal fans who just want to see the basics. How many fans now only go because they have nothing better to do, out of guilt, or think the next match may see them regain their interest?

Correct, Shale Searcher. The Play-Offs are the current vogue, they have helped save British speedway.... NOT. What they have done, is they have watered down the rest of the domestic season. Fans and SKY commentators jump with glee that speedway fans come out in force for the Play-Offs, they queue round the block for those dates. However, what precedes these money-spinners, is a run of fixtures that ain't as important as the old league system, pre-Play-Offs. For example, last week we had a top of the table confrontation, Belle Vue v Poole. Meant not a thing in real life, as both were in the last stages of the season. Now, imagine had it been in the days before the P/Os. Certainly would have been more resting on it. The Play-Offs leave me empty. We aim for the dates, late September, and then, when finished, fans are left in the wild. Is the season over or can their respective teams be bothered to put on a few more dates? In days of old, the last day of October was it. Now, haven't some teams already packed up on pulled down shutters before October arrives? SKY pretend they are in it big style.. but after a season of what seems lukewarm interest, they rush the two semis together on one night, making old-timers like me suffer double vision and minor brain wobble. And, let's not forget... Play-Offs killed the Speedway Star Knock-Out Cup, in my opinion. RIP SSKOC

Come on... be honest... speedway is a quirky sport, it's like stamp collecting, looking for rare birds... it is looked on strangely by those who don't find attraction in it. It isn't helped by men in anoraks, looking studiously down at programmes after every heat as though keeping track of what's going on with your biro hand is more important than anything the previous four laps delivered. For many, perhaps, it is a conveyor belt mentality from March to October, go to track, stand in same place, watch every one else take up usual spots, give your head a four lap twirl watching the racing like a loop-de-loop motion, then it's home until the next time. Not only do we resist missing the next meeting, but how do we ever sleep if our programme is missing even one race time from that last match. We get set in our ways.

I used to believe that speedway deserved wider coverage and deeper acclaim. But was that because i was already a fan of the sport? For those of us who are already followers, isn't it easy to expect everyone else to like it? I like it, why don't they? I believe speedway is best served getting its house in some sort of order before fans start getting all chatty about offering this or that competition to different TV networks. The sport is all over the show at present, and I don't mean on TV and the internet. Long established fans aren't always clear on what, even to their vast experience of watching, what should be the simplest of rules are mysteries to even them. The last 15 years, speedway has never had as much push by various TV networks. I think anyone that it could persuade to become a fan probably already had that chance. I find it annoying, speedway fans practically demanding the sport be shown on telly or the next person they meet should like it. It is a blinkered view - "I like it, so everyone else must as well." Me, personally, I like to discover things on my own, from music, films etc. Find it off-putting when someone says: "You should hear this song.. or watch this film." I mean, imagine it if a football fan told speedway followers that they are watching the wrong sport, why not try football. It's much better... or, say, questioning why you married your wife and not her prettier sister? Speedway isn't to everyone's taste, so stop thinking it is a hidden gem. It is a good sport, but it has had its chance to shine. Let's just consider it a cult sport, try and keep it going and rebuild a rule book etc so that the loyal fans don't continue getting frustrated by it.