Humphrey Appleby

That must have taken him all of five minutes to work out. I suspect most riders lose money on the SGP, even with sponsorship taken into consideration. Presumably they do it for the glory, or as a loss-leader to give their sponsors more exposure, but they're a long way from being able to make a living out of it. The SGP has been losing sponsors in the last couple of years (even before the 'credit crunch'), and seems to have hardly any major sponsors left. As to the reason why - perhaps it's down to complacency on the part of BSI, or maybe speedway simply isn't marketable enough. There's one (former?) title sponsor on here, so perhaps he 'knows' the reason.

I've never been able to find a copy of the report, but Lord Shawcross was also the chief British prosecutor at the Nuremburg War Trials. I guess he never reached those heights again if he ended-up writing speedway reports! He actually only died about five years ago at the age of 101, having creating a bit of scandal by marrying his housekeeper at the age of 95. He lived in the same village as my partner's aunt who knew him in passing.

For the tracks in the smaller countries, I suspect it's mostly a prestige thing. I'd be amazed if they aren't subsidising the GPs from their club funds.

Few about disagree that Havelock had an exceptionally good season in 1992, but he was not in the same league as any of the World Champions I can remember. Muller I don't know about, because he hardly ever rode in Britain, and I was not watching continental speedway when he was at his peak.

But is it? I don't think the current bunch of dwindling sponsors are especially better than the sponsors of the old World Final. You can perhaps point to television, but the value of those contracts seem to be falling, and what's to say the World and qualifying rounds won't get similar coverage in this day-and-age where there's lots of airtime to fill? It's popular with certain fans, but others largely lost interest after the SGP came in. I made the point to go the World Final most years, but with a GP every couple of weeks, it just didn't have the same appeal. We shall see. The SGP doesn't pay anything like a living wage, and seems to have no prospect of doing so, so it'll be interesting to see what gets priority if the likes of Poland and Sweden start getting selective about who they can afford.

I'd say the SGP should optimally be a maximum of 8 rounds, with no more than one GP per country, and 1-2 GPs outside of Europe (e.g. Australia and the US). Of course, the reality appears to be that far from taking the sport to new heights as many soothsayers predicted, BSI are scratching around for cheap places to stage the requisite number of GPs which won't be a financial disaster. I recently read an interesting article by, I think, Jeff Scott who pointed out that BSI have actually only increased average attendances by 15% compared to the SGP before they were involved. Of course, it's now also staged live on television, but I suspect that may well have happened anyway in this day and age. The SGP is increasingly looking a bit like Woolworths did in its latter years...

Since the SGP was introduced, the various national championships (at least in the major countries) have not been taken as seriously as they once were. If they promised the reward of a SGP place, perhaps they'd be more prestigious and therefore be harder fought. That said, I don't think you could seed the national champions of any more than the top 4-6 countries, as the quality of the champions would rapidly drop off after that. It is, but as you say, there's usually more than 16 competitors as well. I'm certainly not one to suggest the solution is to return to a one-off World Final, but I certainly had more interest in the World Championship when you didn't know which 16 riders would qualify each year. Yes, certain riders always made it, but there was usually the odd shock and/or unknown rider to add variety. The SGP is now so predictable that even Mrs Appleby knows the names of all the riders, and that Scott Nicholls never does very well. I think that sums it up.

Although strangely, the television contracts seem to be falling in value. The whole thing peaked about 5-6 years ago, and since then has lacked much in the way of imagination. Too much complacency, or too many other distractions perhaps...?

I can't see the one-off World Final returning, but I can see the SGP being scaled back, and possibly IMG not being involved in future. It seemed to have 2-3 good years a while back, but it just seems to have been on a downturn ever since (certainly before the current financial crisis came along). I don't have a problem with the concept, but there are too many rounds, and whole thing needs to be more closely linked with the national leagues. Of course, the national leagues are run just as poorly (if not worse), but we can live in hope of a brighter future...

I thought for a moment, I'd stumbled on the religion/atheism discussion in another section.

Every airline does until they go bankrupt, and it's often over-expansion that's the cause of it. Plans are one thing, reality is another. Why is Budapest Airport currently laying off huge numbers of workers if they expect passenger numbers to increase? Not really. Nearly all airlines are ultimately owned by American or British venture capitalists, as indeed Wizzair is. Varadi (any relation to Imre of Sheffield Wednesday fame?) is just the frontman.

Might not be the case in speedway, but presumably advertising must work otherwise companies wouldn't spend a fortune on doing it. I wouldn't disagree that quality, customer service and reputation can take you a long way, but I've seen many a good product fail through poor marketing. Conversely, I've seen poor products do far better than they should because through clever marketing. Lift installation and maintenance though, must be a utterly specialist market that will never have any currency with the general public. The same with the Danish Metalworkers Union, and whilst I can understand it's probably about more about corporate entertainment than anything else, in all honesty I'd have thought there are cheaper and better places to entertain people than a speedway GP. I'm not knocking the fact that some sponsors may simply be speedway fans and believe in doing their bit to help promote the sport, but I can't see that relying on charity is really the future... Even with this, it has to be said that the SGP sponsors cupboard is beginning to look increasingly bare, and things wouldn't seem to be so great on the television front either...

Didn't help with Sterling Airlines.

I don't claim any inside knowledge with respect to Wizzair, but I'm not sure I'd take a chance that far ahead with any budget airline at the moment - even if the airline survives, the route may not. In fact, I suspect a few of the more traditional airlines may not be around for much longer either.

No. Hotel prices have gone through the roof in the past couple of years, for whatever reason. I suspect it's the reliance on Internet booking sites that tends to focus interest on a relative handful of hotels in each city, which basically means if a hotel is not listed, they lose out. With respect to Prague, it's still a relatively cheap place off the beaten track, but it's increasingly becoming a ripoff place. Copenhagen was always expensive from what I remember.

And with the Polish League talking of a big financial crisis and having to cut back, I wonder how long it'll be before some of the riders who've decided to give Britain a miss will return cap-in-hand?

How many mistakes has Olsen now made then, and how many lessons has he learned from them... ?

I did actually know that lifts have safety mechanisms to prevent this, but you take my point. However, the real point is how much longer do the IMG/BSI management give Olsen, given the crap tracks he continually produces, and that he's seemingly responsible for unimaginative wildcard choices? [i will be fair and concede that it may simply not be possible to produce decent temporary tracks in the timescales available, but for the permanent circuits there's much less excuse.]

You're comparing apples and oranges again. A World Final was an annual one-off event, staged in Britain once every few years. By contrast, Olsen prepares 11 tracks (even more if you include the SWC) every season, so has far less excuse for stuffing up than Len Silver.

To be honest though, what did you expect? They're not going to tell you anything beyond what they're already said, particularly if there's a potential of opening themselves up to compensation claims. And why isn't Nicola Sands responsible? She's a fairly senior person responsible for the organisation of GPs isn't she?

So no management accountability whatsoever then? I guess that the next time my office lift falls down its shaft, I should simply blame the technician then?

I've never understood why team speedway isn't scored on the basis of the opposition riders beaten, rather than simply 3-2-1-0. Then there would be no need for bonus points, and you wouldn't have the nonsense of a team scoring a point for not doing anything except finishing a race.

The other problem is that the averages listed on 'speedway.nu' whilst being the official ones used for team building, are factored averages rather than real ones. If I'm not mistaken, the starting average (Ingångssnitt) has a bearing on the final average unless a rider competes in all 18 matches.

I don't think I'd even give it five years...

Wasn't Russia postulated for 2010? However, don't underestimate the logistical difficulties in holding anything in Russia - it's a nightmare even if you've good locals to help you, and I speak from experience. Surely the question should be more like who is willing to host it?