Adder

Good column in today's Swindon Adver: THE ANDY WARREN COLUMN: Speedway must stay on our screens 6:00am Wednesday 6th March 2013 in Sport IT would be a complete disaster for all involved with speedway if the Grand Prix series isn’t screened in this county in 2013. It’s looking more and more certain Sky Sports will not be renewing their deal to show the series, which expired at the end of last season, with key members of the broadcaster’s team having already been told their services will not be required. We can’t blame Sky for not wanting to renew their deal, it’s their right to schedule what they want, but the fact more and more rounds of the series were being shown in full or in part behind the red button shows exactly what regard they held it in in Isleworth. Sky have spent a fortune renewing their football deal and buying the rights to Formula One, which no doubt has taken up the majority of their budget, and speedway faces a vast amount of competition for the Saturday early evening slot with even WWE beating it in the ratings battle on some occasions. But there are other channels out there, and say what you like about speedway, it remains an attractive proposition for broadcasters and advertisers alike. The sport has a reasonably large and very loyal fanbase, and while the racing in 2012 was nothing short of remarkable, 2013 could be even better. There is interest from other broadcasters, and we have to hope for the sake of the sport one of them takes the plunge. What will the likes of Red Bull and Monster think if Chris Holder, Greg Hancock and Tomasz Gollob were not able to flash their sponsored water battles at the camera and influence viewers in Great Britain? Would they still want to be involved in the sport? British speedway is the poor relation to the likes of Sweden and Poland, but the Cardiff GP remains the series’ flagship event which makes it invaluable to BSI. Ticket sales will surely be hit if we are unable to watch any of the rounds leading up to the event, and depending on how badly they drop, racing at the Millennium Stadium could be living on borrowed time. Young fans getting into the sport need to watch the best riders in the world battle it out to be world champion, especially given most of them no longer grace our shores for league racing. Youngsters watch the glamorous GP rounds from Parken and the new Swedish national stadium and want a piece of the action, and where do they go for that? Blunsdon, Monmore Green, Wimborne Road. What impact will the lack of Grand Prix exposure have clubs? Every sport needs a new generation of fans to come through, speedway perhaps more than most, and the GPs play a vital role in doing it. The beauty of having the Grand Prix on Sky Sports was that casual fans who bought packages mainly to watch the football could flick over by accident and end up getting hooked, I know at least two of my friend who have found the sport in that way, but maybe a move will do the sport good? Maybe if Grand Prix speedway moved to another channel, Eurosport, BT Vision, or Premier Sports, it might take on a more prominent role and not get pushed behind the red button? Sky are the masters of sports broadcasting, but there was also a lot of frustration at the way the events were squashed into a small time window, with no build-up, no real analysis at the end, and constant toing and froing between the track and the studio. Maybe a move to a new, admittedly less high profile, channel will give Grand Prix speedway a new identity it badly needs? Hopefully we get the chance to find out.

I hear that the new BT Sports Channel are interested although they aren't due to launch until the summer.

What is the point with brining in the kids and then dropping them a few years later to, er, bring in the kids? Steady has a proven track record in SWC and would certainly show a lot more nous than immature hot-heads like Barker and Woffinden (the lattter being such a true Brit that he has an Australian flag tattoed on his back!!).

Cheers!

Has this meeting finished yet? I'm assuming the 5th January is nearly over down under? Anyone know the result?

For one day only I agree with Shovler. It is a shocking decision to include Harris, he has done nothing to warrant a place. The likes of Lindback and Zagar at the very least should have been above him in the pecking order and it appears that a selection has been made to his nationality rather than on merit. Another bit of my enthusiasm for speedway has been chipped away. The pile of chippings is getting pretty big now

Apologies if the answer is buried somewhere within the thread but when do the Wildcards get announced?

I think it is time to make alcohol compulsory at Cardiff. Anyone who is not tanked up and is liable to be a miserable sod who then logs on to an Internet forum a few days later moaning about his/her day out should be excluded from the stadium. I am sure that I not on my own in getting fed up with having to tolerate these teetotal puritans.

Another boring GP i'm afraid. As pointed out it was a good job there was the alternative of the T20 crickat and the golf to keep me entertained. The SGP format has become very stale now. Same old riders, processional tracks, Millard doing the commentary, it all adds up to a boring three hours. Time to bring back the old 'two strikes and you're out' format which may liven it up a bit. As for the Sky thing, fair enough in my opinion. The sports which speedway had to make way for are all more popular in the UK than speedway i'm afraid which, despite the cycloptic views of some on this forum, is very much a minority interest sport.

And the Australian tattoo on his back? Are pit crews forced to go under the needle as well now then

What a perfectly composed and eloquent post

I'm no great fan of the way Sky present speedway or the presenters they use most of the time but I have to say that on this occasion they went beyond the call of duty in a) clearing a big gap in their schedule yesterday morning at short notice, and B ) sticking with the live coverage even when it overan by almost 2 hours. The original poster says he/she is getting fed up with Sky? Well Sky must be getting pretty p***ed off with having to rearrange their schedules at short notice because of speedway!!

Totally agree. He is only riding for GB to further his own interests as he wouldn't get in the Australian side. Disgraceful.

Don't be daft, she's northern!

She has got a face like a robber's dog!!!

Rob Lyon has had his chance and blown it big time. He looked like a very small fishh in a big pond last night. Absolutely no presence about him, his body language was hardly going to inspire those in his charge. To my mind he didn't pick Scott because Scott has something that Lyon is lacking in spades, and that is personality. He seemed happier to pick young kids who he wouldn't feel intimidated by rather than the best man for the job.

Totally agree. She reached her zenith of rubbishness last night with her inane questioning of riders. A total embarrassment.

I do not blame Scott Nicholls for not showing his face after being snubbed by the sad excuse of a manager that is Rob Lyon. There is no doubt whatsoever that if Scott had been selected last night instead of King then Team GB would be looking forward to a World Cup Final on Saturday evening. And I am saying this as no great fan of Scott believe me. Lyon Out, Rosco In.

2nd spot up for grabs my a**e. Aus and Sweden will qualify comfortably with GB battling it out with Denmark for the evening's wooden spoon. No question. Absolutely.

It is ridiculous. People have got bets to decide on and scorecards to print and i'm only in the office until 3.45 today!!

Harris only gets 3 points and not 6 from his tactical ride for betting purposes so his de facto score was 8.

Pretty no win situation trying to answer that one in a way that someone who doesn't read newspapers could understand. Speedway did get quite a bit of coverage on Monday before Event 1 in the papers that I read although said event finished too late on Monday for them to get any news into Tuesday's morning press. A couple of the later editions I read did report that we had qualified for the Race Off as if it was some incredible achievement so I assume that particular press release was spun by someone from the Alastair Campbell school of media manipulation!

They are almost certainly going to track the same 5 riders as they did in the Semi's although it is also remiss that they too have not declared their confirmed line-ups. Regards Team GB, if they had announced their team today they could have garnered some column inches in the press tomorrow if it was spun with a decent press release. As it is the daily papers will have gone to print before the team is announced so an opportunity for publicity is once again lost.

Still no news on the GB line-up I take it? Pretty poor show really.

I assumed he had been dropped.