moxey63

I started watching speedway because it wasn't like most motor sports, it had a league, a team ethic like other team sports, and was for the sort of bread-and-butter guy (or gal). In recent years though it has become too flashy, too sanitized, really like formula one and other types of sport I didn't want speedway to go like. You don't have to like motorbikes to like speedway. I mean, how many actual motor cycles do you see parked at a speedway? Would it be such a bad thing, the top riders just racing for themselves and cutting away from team speedway. Then perhaps the leagues could get back to running themselves? Then again, team speedway should be about supporting your team, full of your riders.. and that chance ain't been happening too many time lately.

Regarding promotion and relegation and the opinion that some teams may not want to move up, surely it is best to build all teams to suit the clubs that may not want to move up, even if it means an even weaker top league than now. It seems a waste of time having the idea, if some teams don't want to move up. Surely the thing will fail when teams begin saying they can't afford to move up. WE remember the Swindon thing of 1991 when they threatened to withdraw when they were relegated from Division One and then Second Division clubs refused to take their place in the top flight. If it's going to work, look at the expected hurdles. For me, even without the top boys, speedway surviving is better than pandering to those who don't really want to be here.

I can't believe grown men behave so badly. We are all on here following the same sport... and yet, snidey remarks are made when you offer a different opinion to theirs. I haven't said anything to offend anyone, call names to anyone. So what is this with John Leslie? No wonder so many have walked away... free admission or not. The thing about it, I often posted on the Belle Vue forum about how badly fans were being treated... and I wasn't even paying to get in. Now, 10 years on, it is amazing how many of those fans, that argued with me saying it wasn't so, they have vanished from the scene and the present BV forum is full of the expressions they were calling me for having! The internet, and these forums, they are like being a driver of a car - you can say whatever you like to another user, as you feel safe. But face to face, you'd behave totally different. We deserve the sport we have, speedway, as... as grown individuals, we behave so pathetically. Why must we always be right and mock others' views?

I used to post as moxey63 when I was getting in for free. My opinions were the same back then. Even posted on the Belle Vue forum. But, John Leslie, whoever you really are - you are so delighted at trying to "out" me - why are you being so childish. Who are you... really? You can't take delight in telling people I ain't who I am posting as... and yet you are hiding behind a fake name. If you have any further discussions.... PM me... please do. I have just PM'd you... coward!!!! I'll meet up and buy you a pint or tea, coffee. Money doesn't matter to me. Stop hiding behind a false name.

Ok.. I'll own up. As I don't know John Leslie's identity, I'll take his knowledge of my feelings with a pinch of salt. I am Alan... Alan Robertson. And I'm... well... I'm an ex-speedway follower. Now... that's better. It's in the open. Now, that is all that's true about Mr Leslie's post. When someone has an opinion, let's attack the person and not the real reasons he's posting. I see the creepy fella who pasted this myth... has also been kicked in to touch at Belle Vue... The real Alan Robertson story is in The Speedway Memories book, produced a few years ago by Retro Speedway... I wrote it all... and for nothing. You don't have to get paid for doing something... and I ain't bitter that I didn't get paid. Now... let's keep to the subject....

Thanks Colin Mills I am not saying that my opinion is right. In fact, the only thing right about it... is that it has the word "my" in it!

For god's sake, some people. I am not saying that the sport isn't exciting. I have never said that. I am saying, I don't believe in it anymore. I don't believe in a sport where riders race every where and there is no loyalty to your team, as many riders have minds on their next fixture, perhaps in Sweden, maybe Poland. I can't believe a sport that encourages teams to drop points to allow them to have a shake up, just about the right time for a Play-Off challenge. The sport has lost its true identity. I have just had a think, and we have riders now dressed in motor cross gear. We have a sport that is more fashioned and aimed at formula one or motorcycling. Perhaps I fell for the sport when your team was as important to the men who actually rode for it. I didn't start watching it as an individual sport, which it has now become. Riders will ride here, there and blinking everywhere. I bet some even have to peer at their bib they have on, see who they are riding for! Speedway used to be different than other forms of motor sport. I can't say it is now. To me, anyway, just watching a race because it gives me a reason to fill in a programme at the end of it, that is long gone. You won't change my view, as I won't change yours. I gave my reasons for why I chose to stop attending, but you feel I should still attend, an "eat your greens" type of defence. I thought he topic was about the way the sport was being run, and I gave my experience of what put me off. What a ridiculous idea, go to Belle Vue and enjoy it. I bet you'll tell me next to enjoy the music you do. Speedway certainly is entertaining... they are having to put the "Stadium Full" signs up at most tracks nowadays. As I mentioned earlier, this has turned into a playground spat. Perhaps this post should be renamed Moxey Making Sport Look So Amateurish or ASK BWITCHER WHAT MOXEY SHOULD LIKE We got of topic at one point.

I subscribe to SKY for the football. I just downgraded my subs and lost Europsport and the Swedish Elite matches, which I wasn't disappointed about. I don't subscribe to the magazine, Speedway Star. My brother buys from ASDA or WH Smiths and gives it to me when he's flicked through it! I have every magazine from day one, silly as I am, that's why he gives it to me. and am interested now in the history of the sport more than the present. I keep mags for reference matter and because I like it! Now, please try harder to trip me up.... You are one of those "Don't call my sport" people ain't you? I knew it... I knew it. You rotter!

May I refer you to post 52, kind sir? Yet again, a post attacking an ex-attendee and not wishing to inspect the core reasons they stopped attending. If there aren't people like me, who diver between not attending and not stopping contact completely, then how can you resolve the problem of a failing sport? For decades fans have been allowed to disappear. What was their reasons and why didn't the people that run the sport have a customer care department or something? Treat it as a missing person case, each one, and find out why they disappeared. We have all met one - a "I used to go to speedway" person. Some of the time life just got in the way of some. But there are others who (and I'm sure a number have been lost due to Belle Vue's new stadium mess in March), who have just been allowed to stew on their growing frustrations with the sport and then allowed to pass on into being an ex-fan. But speedway fans, the small band that still exist, still treat people having an opinion opposite to theirs as being a playground spat. It happens on here. "Don't call my sport." That is the attitude. "As long as I still like it, then I think it's wonderfull." It is the opinion they have, often one they think is right and then fail to see the ever-growing gaps on the terraces. But one lost fan means charges going up next season on admission, means some can't afford to go any more. Speedway 2016 is in the worst state I can remember. Whatever happened to the boom promised and expected... if only speedway got more publicity? Wall-to-wall TV coverage has not done a jot of good to introducing new fans. It is like the old opinion that speedway needed a British world champion for the media to notice it.

The problem with speedway (and fans) is.. when a forum question is asked, about the way the sport is being run, and someone of 40 years' watching has his opinions criticised on why he stopped attending, airing his views on what turned him off, they think he has no right to have an opinion... because he doesn't pay to watch and doesn't know how bad speedway is being run right now! Believe me, chaps, it was being run quite badly when I last went... I still get the Speedway Star and have access to this thing called the internet. So I keep up to date with things. Please let me have an opinion. Now... back to the stop watch subject... While on the subject of stopwatches and times... how long before old moxey63 is beaten up on here?

Some fans will watch anything, accept anything... so long as they have a pen and scoresheet to fill in! Come on fellas, what's more important - a properly run sport or getting the time for the last race?

It's like somebody going on one of those Facebook sites, recalling memories of days gone. You don't live in them there days, wish you did, and therefore keep strolling back thanks to the site. Or it's like fetching out those holiday snaps we keep. You never throw them away but never go back to the resort. I also feel, as a person that can still be bothered and hasn't completely washed their hands, that speedway is still a fine sport. With a bit of tuning, and the dumping of the Double Points and return of tac subs is a start, perhaps one day I may rekindle my fondness of the holiday resort that is speedway. At the moment though... it is like Blackpool. Please... back to the topic in hand.

Yes, and you're still telling that joke! Move on, Phil, for Pete's sake. I won't pay for anything I don't enjoy. I used to get in for "free" as I contributed to the prog but had actually stopped attending before I stopped doing the prog, so there is the real answer, not something you are led to believe. So I was turning down a so-called "freebie" but still doing the prog! If you class it as a "freebie" then so be it... but the research, time, using my own material that I collected for yonks. I suppose it's like Belle Vue requesting ex-champs to pay for all the time they've given. You don't do things for nowt... not for long anyway. Unless you are doormat material. I also have speedway on SKY, all the stuff, and I pay for it... but I never watch that either! So why would I travel, take time, pay to get in the new place... but, as I do at home, play about doing something else while the lad's are racing a few yards away. And, by the way, I have pondered on trying the new place...a new broom and fresh chance perhaps to win me back. But the Frank Spencer impression of the speedway first night doused any of those thoughts. Same old, same old (a bit like you, Phil) Modern speedway, Phil, for me anyway, is like that joke about the rival football team. I'd draw the curtains if there was a track in my garden.

Any sport or game is as only as good as its foundations. Speedway, its rules, who rides for what team in what league or country.. it has got too much for me, someone who wants it simple. For example, teams are like the moment all the balls are put into the lottery machine. It isn't long before a rider gets thrown out. Supporting a team now is flimsy. A sense of whoever is available has dragged down the sport and reduced team/club speedway less important than individual competition. When fans react by trying to win an argument by referring to the rulebook, we know it's gone a bit too far. When pre-season forecasts in the Speedway Star are worthless and pointless, as it ain't long before the first team change arrives, just shows the short term problem that speedway has. When, to me, the whole domestic season is just a total spin and directed towards a few crowd-pulling fixtures in October, when it feels like much of the time teams are cobbled together like the war-time meetings, when promoters just booked whoever was available, it has lost my 53 year-old full attention. I can't stop thinking many of the league bashes on the way to the Play-Offs are simply used as practice, see who can drop enough points, a bit of thinkering and whether a team can magically introduce a Play-Off-winning capture or two before September. I read a story in the Star, about promoters and a radical change to the sport - six man teams, 15 heats and... wait for it... the scrapping of the double-bubble rule and a return to the old tac-sub (six points behind). The only problem is, in 1997 when six man teams were tried many sides put out five men! Almost 15 years on and the goofs in charge have only just worked out supporters don't like the double-points thing. Imagine... another decade from now, we may even get 13 heats back!

Yes, Norbold, it is either North or Midlands vs South, depending on where you look! Speedway facts are like that troublesome splinter that is so enjoyable at prizing out! Be nice to have a detailed list of all the competitions that took place between 1946-64, the meaningful ones, so nothing is left to chance and something may be left out. I have some side-of-the-plate ones that I was going to include but am finding it hard to fathom whether all the seasons are complete. So maybe I'm best sticking to the major tournaments, ones I can vouch for the winners of! Incidentally, the Final of the North/South Cup 1947 must have been penciled in as one legged, as the 1948 conclusion was also one-legged between Hull and Southampton at Cradley Heath's track.

Thanks for that impressive break down BL65, and also for the help offered from Dave Allan, and Norbold too! I am always amazed by the knowledge of some speedway folk. The only thing that baffles me, is the fact that Southampton surely would have tried to run the match with Plymouth as they had chance of making the final.Don't you just love the quirkiness and strange things that happen in speedway? I am trying to do a book featuring everything my one does for 1991-2016 covering 1946-64 and just want it to be as correct as possible. I may be back!

I was thinking that maybe Eastbourne closed prematurely for some reason, hence needing to race their "home" match vs Exeter at The County Ground. It could explain being the one leg of the Final, at Tamworth.

Thanks for replying.. According to Speedway Researcher, Southampton and Eastbourne finished on the same points but Soton had a better race-point difference. The only question mark, is the Plymouth v Southampton match (Soton won) in the group. One part of the Researcher (Club section) has as North v South fixture, and yet another (Year by Year) has it as a Challenge. If this were a Challenge and not NvS, then Soton would have not have finished on the same points as Eastbourne.

Can anybody shed light on the 1947 Division Three North v South Cup. It was two groups, which were won by Southampton and Tamworth. But the Final was between Eastbourne (who finished second behind Southampton in the group) and Tamworth. Does anybody know why Southampton did not take part in the Final... and why was the Final (Tamworth v Eastbourne) one leg only?

Can anybody shed light on the 1947 Division Three North v South Cup. It was two groups, which were won by Southampton and Tamworth. But the Final was between Eastbourne (who finished second behind Southampton in the group) and Tamworth. Does anybody know why Southampton did not take part in the Final... and why was the Final (Tamworth v Eastbourne) one leg only?

Surely, though, it's too big of an ask for one man to solve. Speedway needs, and here goes, a root and branch review of how it's going to survive. Nothing against Keith Chapman, but he has been part for the problem the past 25 years. We need an independent investigation into why a decent sport has been fiddled about with to a point where getting by for another year, let alone a week, is a success. We, as fans, have different ideas of what we like and don't like, as I expect Keith has. But why not just refer to what has worked in the past. Too many things have been changed for changing sake. I am not going to go on about what I prefer, but speedway is a sport right now, and I'll use another analogy, where all its colours has been put in with its whites. It is a right old mess. One example, as such, is the breath of fresh air and boost the National Stadium would offer. But that bubble has quickly been popped by the birth it was given. Now, with it up and running, does anybody actually know Belle Vue's chosen racenight? Like the sport, it is all over the place....

Let's get rid of Double Points and make it a sport capable of doubling its crowds.

Characters like Gresham are needed in the sport. As sales of Cadbury creme eggs have nosedived after the ingredients was changed, Speedway Star has discovered that reliving older stuff in their magazines is perhaps the only thing worth reading of what is a format designed for the modern-day. And it ain't SS fault either, as the characters of today are.... B-O-R-I-N-G!

All the worry of late Speedway Stars. I find the best ones are the 40 year-old editions anyway.

More races? Sorry but there is only so many races even a speedway fan can stand in one sitting The 1979 Four Team Championship, two semis and final, was 48 races if I remember and wasn't repeated. Perhaps it is just me, but after so many heats I get fatigued and begin yawning. ]