Humphrey Appleby

I could be wrong, but wasn't Hampden closed for redevelopment in the mid-1990s, and of course the RFU won't let their precious turf be used for anything other than egg chasing. Twickenham wouldn't have been suitable anyway, as it's a compact square shape where the turf can't be lifted. The simple fact of the matter is that roofed stadiums suitable for speedway didn't exist in Europe until the latter half of the 1990s. I suspect that BSI also got the Millenium Stadium rather cheap, as it was known to have a paucity of events after its expensive redevelopment. In addition, it had the advantage that the edges of the pitch were on pallets that could be lifted out.

There are two separate issues here. Firstly, if it weren't for the GPs, some of the riders would be working for their employers during those weekends. The fact is that tracks can no longer run on one of the most profitable days of the weeks because the GP has the pick of them. Secondly, if I were involved in work for a third party which stood a good chance of me getting injured and being unable to work for my main employer, they'd most definitely have something to say about it. In my particular case, I'm also required to be available for work as and when necessary, and not to undertake work that directly conflicts with my employer's business. That's not the point. In the past, the World Final profits went to associations and promoters who actually ran speedway on a day-to-day basis, not some third party taking the money out of the sport. The simple fact is there would be no SGP without the national leagues paying the bulk of the wages, because they certainly couldn't live off the SGP prize money. Firstly, I'm not against the SGP per se, just the way in which it was given away by the FIM to a third-party that actually isn't that good at running it. Your question though is impossible to answer because the SGP existed for a few years before BSI came along, and then only after the World Final had been run into the ground. However, as I tire of pointing out, Cardiff and Copenhagen aside, BSI have actually done little with the SGP, which is largely still held in provincial backwaters in front of small crowds. The Polish GPs get decent crowds, but then they always did before BSI came along. Even the attendance at much hyped Cardiff isn't much higher than that of the 1992 World Final, supposedly at a time when the World Final couldn't fill medium-sized stadiums any more. The rot set-in with the World Final when it was taken to a succession of backwater venues outside the main speedway countries. If it had stayed in Britain, Poland and Sweden, then I don't think it would unrealistic to maintain crowd levels around those of the GPs in these countries today. No-one would deny the people running the World Final in the latter years lacked vision, but had somewhere like the Millenium Stadium been available to stage the World Final with the hype that British GP gets, then I don't think it would be a greatly different situation. Of course, neither the Millenium Stadium or Parken (in their current incarnations) were built then, and so it's all a moot point. There were too many qualifiers, but the latter rounds were often some of the best meetings, and the crowds even towards the end were often as good as some of the GPs today. You also can't compare the television situation then, with the situation now. There wasn't the plethora of cable and satellite channels with airtime to fill, and I suspect many of the qualifiers would have been televised in this day-and-age. After all, they even show racing from local kart clubs on Motors TV these days.

The symptoms of a company in trouble, one suspects...

That's pretty incompetent in itself.

Again, I'm amazed that anyone caught by this weekend's debacle is prepared to fork over even more money to BSI.

There's an old saying about fools and their money being easily parted. After being treated the way you were this weekend, you're happy to give the BSI shower even more of your money?

Which is why one wonders, they got involved with speedway in the first place? Money of course, is an object with the whole thing. And surely all the track laying practice in the world won't help if you do something as basic as leaving the shale out to get wet? I agree. The lack of vision and foresight is why the speedway promoters allowed the SGP concept to be hijacked by outsiders in the first place.

Not necessarily. I remain to be convinced the SGP does as well as people think, so it may eventually die a death of its own, particularly with fiascos like this weekend. Nevertheless, the power to change things lies with the national leagues who ultimately hold the balance of power because they're the ones paying the living wages to the riders. If all the main leagues stuck together and made it a condition of contract that their riders only exclusively rode for their teams, I think you'd find the SGP would die a pretty quick death. The SGP doesn't generate enough money to sustain a full-time circus, so even if IMG/BSI have the rights for the next 18 years (or whatever), they'd be pretty worthless without the top riders. I'm not especially against the concept of the SGP (although I do think it's overblown), but it's ridiculous that the rights were sold to a third-party for them to make money without having to return a thing to the sport. I doubt Gelsenkirchen will be a nail in the coffin of the SGP any more than Gothenburg was, but it's certainly punctured the myth of BSI being a professional promotional organisation.

Hope that philosophy doesn't apply to your lifts.

After that debacle, I think many fans indeed never returned.

I have been to a few GPs, and besides the one at the Millenium Stadium, they've not been massively impressive. The track is often rubbish, the extra entertainment third-rate, and very little promotion of the event in the locality. Better than the average speedway meeting I'll grant you, but then that isn't really that hard. The great achievement of BSI has been sell a television product at relatively minimal cost to themselves, but they're no promotional geniuses, and only look good because the rest of speedway is so poor. It's a great business model for them, but the cost to the rest of speedway has been incalculable, and now as we've seen, even the SGP isn't so wonderful either. The SGP is basically built on a pack of cards - one way contract that guarantees speedway nothing over a long period, yet gives IMG/BSI a get out clause when the SGP doesn't pay anymore. It also allows the competitors to be picked-up a below market rates, gives the organisers pick of dates, and to hell with anyone else who actually pays the real wages.

It's actually 2 in 100 events, because Gothenburg was cancelled a few years ago due to a poor track. To put in perspective though, when was the last time an F1 GP was cancelled? Difference is, the SGP only has to sort out 11 meetings a season, with the advantage of being under a roof for three of those rounds, and undoubtedly with more than one bloke turning up on a tractor the day before a meeting. It would actually be interesting to compare the percentage of British meetings called off due to incompetence given how many more are staged per year, with BSI's more than 1 in 50 failure rate with the supposed premier event of the sport.

Yes quite, as happened at Gothenburg. However, they at least had the get out that the track preparation was the responsibility of the local organisers then, but now this quite clearly falls with IMG/BSI because the responsibilities were changed after the Ullevi fiasco. I therefore wonder how they'll manage to wriggle out of this one. IMG may now be the parent company, but I think the SGP is still largely organised by the former BSI people (although has anyone seen or heard from Postlethwaite recently?). I suspected IMG may not really have understood what they bought into, and quite what they must be thinking now is anyone's guess.

I think it once again demonstrates BSI is not all it's cracked up to be.

Claiming you've sold 10,000 tickets does not make it so. Claiming that the barge shipping the shale got wet is also pretty lame. Have they not heard of covering it?

I believe Norwegian is closer to Danish written wise, but closer to Swedish spoken wise. I think the three Scandinavian languages are reasonably mutually intelligible though.

I thought Crump went down a bit easily to be honest, but Gollob did contact him, and I guess you couldn't really make any other decision. Pedersen's exclusion was fair enough, as even if he did get his shoe caught on Crump's bike, then it was only his own fault.

The trouble is, how would it all be paid for? The SGP has already been cut from 24 to 16 riders to save money, so I don't imagine the series organisers are going to do anything that would increase their costs. In reality, I doubt many riders would buy a slot given the relatively poor rewards on offer - BSI had that idea already, and it's been pretty much a non-starter.

The trouble is, any national champion from outside (say) the top eight countries would simply be taking the place of a better rider. Furthermore, I think you'd find more riders adopting flags of convenience to get an easier route in the SGP.

The problem is that would be before the European season had started, and I can't see that riders would want to go straight into a GP race rusty. Each World Championship was a standalone competition each season, so not really comparable. If the GP qualifier was at the start of season then fair enough, but imagine if the No.2 rider got injured in the last GP of the season and then couldn't ride in the GP Challenge? Yes, I know it could be argued this was the case with 9th to 16th placed riders in old days of the GP Challenge (and indeed Andy Smith always requalified at the expense of someone better), but I think it's less of credibility problem for the lower order riders to miss out than the riders who stood on the GP rostrum only a week or two earlier. So why not just seed them and be done with it? Why go through the pretence of a competitive qualification process, if you're just going to hand them their place back anyway?

How absurd would it be if a rider who's finished 2nd after 11 rounds, then goes out in a one-off meeting whilst the 11th placed rider re-qualifies? The need to ride in a couple of GP Challenge rounds would also severely complicate the holding of GPs in places like Australia, which realistically need to be staged towards the end of, or after the European season.

There are only about six countries in the world that could track half-competitive seven-rider teams. Furthermore, speedway meetings without local interest are never well supported, which is why the SWC moved away from staging all the rounds in one country. I doubt there are even seven riders in Croatia.

Although of course the Spar has not always been reliable with respect to where FIM events will be held.

In the days of the old World Championship, it used to be an interesting adjunct to what was primarily a team sport, and I'm sure it probably also helped promote day-to-day racing. However, with so many individual events these days, people just seem to think it's the be-all and end-all of the sport, even though it actually rides roughshod over the parts of the sport that pay the real wages. I don't think it's much different from the past, except that other national leagues have gained greater prominence and prestige at the expense of the British leagues. Speedway is set up different to other sports, and is almost unique in that its competitors ride for multiple teams in different countries. That makes a Champions' League type competition impractical, although there may be scope for a European Super League or similar.

There are simply too many rounds. There should be no more than 6-8 GPs per year. Hardly. It was a cost-cutting exercise so that riders could be given a pay rise without the overall prize money having to go up. I have long been of the belief that BSI only look good because the rest of speedway is so bad. However, I think the SGP ultimately has limited appeal beyond a few countries, and BSI found they got diminishing returns. Probably still a reasonable earner, but whether it can deliver the return that IMG expect, I have my doubts. One wonders if IMG really knew what they were buying into.