moxey63

She got called all names under the sun, but Charlie Webster's disappearance from the speedway scene makes her one wise gal.

It isn't a good idea to have a Heat 10 cut-off. With it, there is a mindset of just getting the damn thing to this point, no matter what slap-stick is going on. It makes promoters gamble, putting on a match they know they can get to Heat 10. It makes fans, in the knowledge of seeing just 10 Heats for their cash with rain forecast later on, stay at home. I have heard Nigel Pearson say it loads of time when there's been a rain threat: "We only have to get to Heat.." Imagine it, if a result could be declared after the first heat. I bet there wouldn't be a match called off anywhere, in a slap-dash attempt to fleece a public of its wads. It is a naive attempt to cover up riders having too many other meetings elsewhere. We mustn't have a re-run, the riders have no dates free for one of those. If a match can't be given its true time, then why bother? I recall matches being rained off and a date for the re-staging being announced as we left the stadium. That possibly can't happen these days. There are so many other factors now - for instance, like many riders not being allowed out next time because of other interests. The other night at Coventry proved once again that speedway is being pulled all over the place in the best interest of various parties and the people that really matter, the paying public, are left to vent their feelings on social network while the money-makers live to ruin another day.

Last night's match, and the rush to get to heat 10, it reminded me of being a kid... when you used to scoff your tea really quick, so you could get back out to play. There was more important things, like being outside with your mates... or, in speedway's case, a flight to catch. In 10 seemed so important to reach. Never mind the paying fans (what there were). It makes a mockery of it being an entertainment, a value-for-money night out, and certainly reduces support the next time there's rain on match day. Who in their right minds will pay admission, travel costs etc, to see 10 races of speedway? Fans' loyalty to speedway has been tested far far too much recently. Last night's antics was another occasion.

You just know it's gonna happen. You prepare to watch speedway, and you know something will only point you in the direction of your reasons why you stopped watching it. It can't be all bad luck. I know there's the weather aspect... guest riders... the usually killers. But never before have I thought speedway needs a complete break. It is just exhausted right now, no zest, mo-jo, or whatever it's called. Last night's events only add weight to my argument. I feel sick when I think of speedway right now. Last night was further embarrassment. I used to feel proud, a long time back, saying I watched speedway. I could argue its cause. But... how can you defend the current model? Speedway is like that hot candle wax you used to let drip on your hand as a kid. You are self abusing in a way, but keep on doing it. Speedway folk are a funny (not in the head kind of way) breed. They don't half put up with some tosh... but, beware speedway promoters, I am getting a deeper feeling, there's a big band out there that are willing to give it one more shot... just one more chance only. People scoffed when I used to laugh at what they put up with. I grew fed up and stopped attending, even hardly watch it on TV even. Funny... the same people are now in a position I was in 10 years ago. Fed up to the back teeth.

Promoters are best off not promoting... especially the state British speedway is currently in. I mean, you go out with a dvd of brilliaint races, latch up all the newcomers for the next home match, and then... Exactly. Meeting held up while work is done on the track. New fans stand about, thinking they have entered a tractor grading competition by mistake and a bunch of clowns in ridiculous coloured overalls that are pretending to know what they are doing but wish instead they'd have paid to get in instead of being a volunteer. After it is announced that the meeting will start, once we know what is what, new fans decide to have a walk about... and see the hilarious sights of well-used-to-it regulars, the natty anoraks, filled with patches of riders of yore and material holding on to the last whiff of Watney Brown Ale stains. As the last trickles of the turnstiles click, it is announced that the match is off for tonight, as the track is unfit, not to mention the people that run the sport We tend to forgot, we are living only what we have expected. It's a sport run as a side-business by moderately wealthy people, with the help of numerous individuals who do there efforts for free. It is a sport that nobody can confine all their time to. It is a sport that is given perhaps 12 hours a week preparation. Without their real businesses, many promoters wouldn't be able to afford running any club. It's a make-do effort. We live in hope that it will be put right, one day, but no one is going to afford sufficient time to really give speedway what it deserves. There is no money,no gain, and when a full week's work can be ruined by a rainy afternoon, you have to commend each and every "Promoter" that puts least alone the security of their outside life in jeopardy?

It does need modernising... but then you force alienating the oldies, folk that have grown tired of much of rhat it offers already. By all means, try to encourage the younger brigade through... but I expect not to be stampeded down in the rush.

Have you seen the average age of the speedway support? Perhaps the sport hasn't lost popularity, as many suggest, perhaps fans have all popped their clogs.

Wow! Belle Vue won away. Can we use that team every week... please! All those that scoffed at our team before last night's result - IN YOUR FACE!!!!! Don't worry about the sport's current state, a Belle Vue away win has to be good for speedway. Nah... several guests and a lower than average Lakeside crowd... people will always moan. If all teams chose their guests as well as Belle Vue did last night, speedway wouldn't have any losers. Now... who's in our team next time?

If speedway fans can't have a say on what is wrong with the sport, how are clubs going to mend what they are doing wrong? John Perrin, Belle Vue promoter for two decades, used to tell fans "If you don't like it, don't come," when fans had the face to complain to him personally. Fans stopped coming. If fans don't moan, and just stop attending, clubs are unaware. Speedway seems so out of time right now. No one is really sure who is their rider, the season is set up with meaningless matches that are designed for the end-of-season Grand Finale of the Play-Offs. It may help increase the coffers for those that make the last two, but what has it done to gates throughout the season? You know, just by the whiff of it, that some clubs are decreasing their scores, so they can pull out a plum signing at the exact moment... It is like the wrestling lark, when you know the guy getting laid-into will come good. Speedway seems to have gone the way of those cheap Channel 5 programme, more there for a novelty kick than anything really serious. But, sadly, the way it's going... the only ending I can see, is a CH5 programme called Speedway Riders On Benefits. You can't sell a sport like speedway on majority of meaningless matches that are kick abouts for two end of season bashes.

Promoters come and go, and clubs are taken over by yet another bright spark with big ideas. They have put their money into the sport and deserve some say... but this method has only dragged the sport to where it is, the likes of John Cook warning his fellow investors that customers are not prepared to give them as much money as before. They have continued to mess up the sport, make out the loyal fans are fools and will show up for anything. But, especially with forums like this, opinions are changing. A lot of fans are seeing the light, and Cook(though it's taken a while) has seen the demise. No more silly rules or ideas. No more playing with a sport that should be simple, attractive and have a basis to sustain supporters' interest without any novelty rules. Fans want a team sport, and riders in that team who have at least a tinting of a bond with that club, not a fleeting spell, just because there's nowhere else for him to ride. Fans are sick of being used.

Come on fellas, give the promoters a bit of support. They have brainwave ideas, some really good ones as well ... Golden Double, Six-Lap nominated heats, Man o' Man races, introducing the green helmet cover... Like some of the shops are doing, on items they are charging the same price for but the packets are smaller, promoters have tried to fool fans into believing they are watching a superior product which they have continued to weaken over the years. By cutting riding costs, they make more money. Perfect idea... But for every decent rider that's no more, I bet what has been saved has been lost... by fans who vote with their feet.

The patient is almost deceased. The Man O' Man race in the Knock-Out Cup helped kill off that competition and impeded speedway's credibility even amongst its hardcore. I wonder... whose idea was that great idea?

BELLE VUE were fined £1,000 by a Speedway Control Board tribunal in December 1991, for refusing to fulfil their end of season trip to Berwick. The match was rearranged to take place the afternoon following Belle Vue’s end of season dinner-dance - but Aces’ promoter John Perrin advised his riders not to travel. Perrin argued that he had not agreed to the date, stating the dinner-dance was one time in the season riders could let their hair down. Berwick riders rode unopposed to successive 5-0s for a 60-0 victory. The match was postponed earlier in the year, Berwick claiming because of a waterlogged track. But the postponement angered Perrin after eyewitnesses informed him that the circuit was ‘bone-dry’ on the day. Perrin, irate by the fine, immediately put the club up for sale - but he was still in charge when the 1992 season came around, eventually selling in 2004.

For their August 11 2001 visit to Eastbourne, Belle Vue had only one regular contracted rider in their line up - Tomasz Jedrzejak. New face in the side, recently signed Tomas Topinka joined him, as Aces were annihilated 64-26. The patched up Manchester side was missing Kaj Laukkanen and Jason Lyons because of the Inter-Continental Final; Peter Karlsson and Jimmy Nilsen were injured; and Matej Ferjan was riding in the Slovenian Championship. Shaun Tacey, Leigh Lanham, Craig Watson and Simon Stead came in as guests, Stead fuelling Belle Vue problems further by picking up injury in only his second ride, forcing his withdrawal. It was certainly a bleak day and a poor advert for the sport… especially as the match was being filmed live on SKY TV.

I always wondered what it was like, for those tracks staging war-time meetings and not knowing what competitors would turn up. Speedway 2015 is very much a case of getting the show on, or at least getting the crowd in the stadium, then decide what to do, no matter what riders are available. It's like the school PE match, when teams were different every week. And they wonder why support is what it is.

Like BWitcher, my affair with speedway is for the sport as a whole, not one particular team, which is Belle Vue, because I am closest to that track. I want what is best for the sport. It annoys me that it is all over the place right now, just cobbled together it seems. I could watch an Ipswich match verses ANOTHER in place of a Belle Vue match. My attraction is wide ranging. You start off supporting your local team, then the rest of the sport just drags you along and you become embroiled in the fabric an dhistory of the sport. But I went slightly off topic. What I'm trying to say... is... we are really all friends with something in common , that just tend to insult each other.

Promotion and relegation has never been given a chance to work, nor were the one big league 20 years ago. It was great seeing all the different sides of the one-big league of 1995 and 1996, as riders of past second string standing became top riders for their clubs. Promotion and relegation, the season it was taken serious (1991), it added something extra to the season. I recall the likes of Oxford, Eastbourne etc, relegation threatened, came to Belle Vue with a real purpose at the end of the season. Relegation fell apart though, when Swindon bellyached their way out of the drop, and the experiment of one up-one down soon vanished. Peoplewill say, rightly or wrongly,that PL sides wouldn't step up due to the cost factor. But who is saying the top league would have to have the running costs of, say, the current EL. Build Promotion and Relegation around finances that every side can conform to, whether it be Poole or Plymouth. It is about time speedway became grown up and serious, not professing to be a professional sport that doesn't even know its true identity.

The Elite League is merely watered down (diluted) water. Sad thing is, it's just as appealing....

Yearbooks also available 1958, 1959, 1965, 1966, 1970-75, 2000, 2011. Filling those missing years.... PM me if you'd like a copy (copies).

No years replicate your initial ones as a speedway fan. Just a shame views get jaundiced as the ensuing years progress. Newcomers should enjoy today's racing, as it won't get better... unless you grab an old dvd from the 70s or 80s!

I can't stomach the two throws of the dice rule (Golden Double). For any serious speedway fan, it's akin to seeing your dad in a woman's dress.

Yes, and I was taught where to place an apostrophe. Maybe you've been hanging with your four-year-old niece for too long... See me later, after school...

Perhaps we can compare things to speedway now and the value for money aspect. We are living in multi-professional times and speedway has been left in the past.. still being run from porto-cabins, a Sunday carboot kind of set-up. You pay £20 or something and expect a decent night, not one in which you have to endure countless waits for re-starts, preparation of the track (which should have been done beforehand), and riders having so many other clubs, they simply cannot summon up that regular heart-on-the-sleeve passion that happened in the past. Speedway does look good, with riders never getting dirty in their expensive helmets and racegear, the bikes that cost an arm and another arm. But the tracks remain back in the day. People will compare speedway to football, but you get a feeling that football is here for good. Speedway is surviving with that ridiculous comb-over many pensioners adopt.

They certainly are!

Thanks Alan Do you know, I had even forgotten some of those stories. I am glad you enjoyed/will enjoy the book. Would love to piece one together for the years 1946-64 (I know Peter Morrish did his) that includes similar info - scorers, cup results, snippets - the same format. There simply ain't enough reference books out there, in my honest opinion. Thanks for the kind words again, Alan