Humphrey Appleby

The FA didn't own Wembley at the time though.

The management then (a private company) has absolutely no connection to the management now (the FA). Quite aside from the fact that it all happened over 40 years ago and everyone involved will have moved on. But was speedway actually kicked out of Wembley, especially as it been successfully run there for 50-odd years? I suspect the 'pitch damage' was a convenient excuse because of rising costs and falling attendances. Certainly nothing that couldn't have been resolved, and considering that Rugby League carried on playing there...

Would have thought the former Olympic Stadium would be a better bet, as I think that can be more easily configured as an oval due to the athletics track.

Would think November is a bit of a dead time. No cup (semi-)finals or playoffs, only one international match, and unlikely to be any outdoor concerts then. The Australian Speedway GP has been in late-October several times, so a GP in early November wouldn't be totally out of the question although that time of year is of course late-spring rather than late-autumn in Australia. However, I suspect it was just a throwaway comment by the Stadium Manager in response to a question, without any serious thought having gone into it.

Even if you could get 30-40k spectators, 2 or 3 nights in a row, would it be financially viable? I seem to recall hearing that Wembley costs at least 250k per day to rent (and that was a few years ago), plus it takes 10% of ticket sales. It would probably needed to be rented for a week to install and remove the circuit, and whilst it might be cheaper for set-up days, I doubt there would be much change out of a million quid. Then there would be installation costs of the track and paying the event staff, before you even got to the staging costs of the GP itself. Then any rain, and you could be faced with all these costs with no revenue. Insurance coverage would likely be huge. Would be a brave undertaking in the hope of getting maybe 50k fans at best.

The roof doesn't fully close. It's primarily there to cover the spectators, but it can open so the pitch will (in theory) get light and air.

I think that's really just a bit of spin put on a throwaway comment from the Stadium Director. It would still have to be financial viable to rent the stadium and install the track.

Wembley now is much better than it was then. Whilst there was a lot of romanticism about the old Wembley and it was probably decent for its time, it had become totally inadequate for large events by the end of its life. Football and oval sports (whether speedway or athletics) also don't go well together, and oval sports of any description unfortunately no longer pull the crowds to justify their inclusion in large stadia. This is quite aside from the fact that speedway is very weather dependent.

I think it’s being shown on Discovery+.

The obvious problem would be the difference in the number of meetings. Britain stages the most meetings by far, and outside of the main professional leagues, most countries and clubs will only run a handful of meetings each season. A big commitment from club officials and riders would be necessary to run in a fully professional league.

Happened to pass through Maitland last week...

It is a lovely venue. A few years I cycled my bike around the track on Boxing Day just to say I'd 'ridden' it. You could just walk in - no-one was there.

I lived nearby for a while. Think the main issue is that a lot of high-rise apartments have gone up around the Ekka and the area has become quite residential. As you say, the track is still there although I don't think there's much if any neutral zone and there's lighting columns and other immoveable paraphernalia right next to the boarding. Think it would be quite expensive to put in a track that's up to modern standards, and would the South-East Queensland fanbase these days justify it? The Gabba is also going to be redeveloped for the Olympics, so there's talk that the Ekka will be re-developed to house the Brisbane Lions AFL team which will probably put the final nail in the coffin. The New Cross-River Rail is going to be going right past the Ekka so there will be umpteen trains an hour squealing through the neighbourhood, so would be a bit ridiculous to complain about the noise from speedway.

Rugby League got a bit lucky in that it was small time enough that someone with big pockets was basically able to buy the entire sport to present as a flagship for their new cable/satellite channels. But it already had a reasonable profile by being regularly shown on the BBC and of course was the 'national sport' of NSW and Queensland. In some respects it's squandered that legacy - having never really broken out of its heartlands and traditional fan base - but I'm sure speedway still wouldn't mind being in Rugby League's position today. It was probably a bit organic with cricket in that matches take many hours to play so there was always natural focus on the national team. Plus of course, it can hardly be said that England was a successful national team during its early years on Sky! But I think cricket largely did do things right whether by good luck or judgement. Of course, there wasn't really a lot of 'proper' sport on television in the 1970s so perhaps speedway capitalised on that. It was maybe also bit unlucky that World of Sport got canned a few years before the cable/satellite revolution really got going, but you have to say that speedway is really its own worst enemy.

At the end of the day, speedway largely failed to capitalise on the rise in satellite and cable television as did other sports. Cricket and Rugby League were also reliant on BBC coverage for a long time, but didn't rest on their laurels and managed to greatly increase their revenues whilst speedway declined. Okay, cricket is seen as a more middle class sport with a demographic that's more appealing to sponsors, but you couldn't have said that about rugby league in the mid-80s. Even when speedway did manage to get some half-decent sponsorship, it was promoting coal as everyone was moving to gas central heating. Sums up the sport...

The difference between football and speedway is that a lot of bets (whether the pools or whatever) are put on football so it's essential there's some integrity. The speedway stuff was quite honestly small beer and arguably affected nothing except the riders involved, sensationalised by the tabloids who probably had a slow news week. But if you've openly admitted to manipulating the results of race, then you can't really expect to get away Scot-free and of course it gives free rein to naysayers who already thought the sport was a joke.

Silver Machine anyone?

I seemed to remember Saturday was the race night back in the NL days.

My memory is perhaps failing, but didn't Arena-Essex originally race on Saturdays? It was Friday at 'ackney, and Sunday at Rye House, right? Visited the kart track next to the old Rye House speedway before Christmas, and apart from piles of soil and rubble dumped all over the track, the stadium didn't look too bad.

Swart is an older Dutch spelling for black. Nowadays it would be Zwart, but the spelling of family names often didn't get updated during the various language reforms, especially amongst Afrikaans. Swart is also an old English name (presumably with a connection to Anglo-Saxons and Frisians), so could conceivably be found anywhere where the British went. It's probably more likely this rider would have been Dutch or South African though.

I wouldn't think there would be huge number of ex-riders wanting to get in without paying, but having dabbled in sports promotion (albeit not speedway), it invariably doesn't just stop with the ex-competitors. Can you just let my mate who's with me in, which becomes mates, and then mates of mates and before you know it, you're losing a significant amount of revenue. You wouldn't expect that Hans Nielsen would have to pay to get into Oxford, out of respect for his achievements and because there's probably some promotional benefit if he turns up. You'd probably also wouldn't expect any rider with any significant association with Oxford to pay, but does it apply to riders who did one meeting with the juniors for example...? If I were a ex-rider though, and knowing the perilous state of speedway finances, I'd be fully willing to pay for entry unless I was expected to do some promotional activity at the meeting. I certainly don't understand why ex-officials should be able to get into a meeting without paying, unless that's considered part of their remuneration (a sort of crap pension).

Digital television is great until it isn't. Bruce Springsteen of course sang '57 channels and nothing on' over 30 years ago and I'm sure at the time having that number of channels was almost incomprehensible to those of us living in the UK . But it turned to be an under-estimation as there's now hundreds of channels of crap...

The Oxford Channel was a free-to-air terrestrial channel, later rebranded SixTV. It was an analogue channel though, so went the way of the Dodo after the digital switchover.

I think he was back announcing at Oxford this year. Must be ancient by now...

A percentage reduction would weigh more heavily in favour of keeping riders with the highest averages, when ultimately you want to encourage distribution of some of those riders to other teams at some point. It's the up-and-coming riders that ideally you'd want to stay with their teams. I think a fixed points allowance per retained rider would favour keeping the lower and middle order riders, who'd normally often be sacrificed if they improved their averages.