Humphrey Appleby

A surprising number of officials in sport don't have a great grasp of the rules, although in fairness it's difficult to keep up with some of them in speedway. Reading the judicial reports from motorsports federations is comically funny sometimes, and quite often the officials make themselves look foolish when a competitor appeals against a decision they've made. Unfortunately though, this is just reality and regardless of how good or bad officials might be, they're also necessary to the running of a meeting. It's also harder than most fans (and evidently journalists) think to judge racing incidents - there are actually a lot of things to think about and observe beyond two competitors racing side-by-side, and it's well known that human beings can only process a limited number of things at once which is why you sometimes see GP drivers (and referees) making what seem to be apparently ridiculous mistakes. The same with football which nowadays has professional referees, but who still make mistakes. The bottom line is that just as competitors make mistakes because they're human, so do officials. I have less tolerance for officials that can't be bothered to acquaint themselves with the rules or who are unnecessarily jobsworth'ish, but I've every sympathy for officials who just make honest mistakes of judgement. I've also occasionally been asked to clerk motor sports events and whilst you do get paid, it's basically expenses and a bit of beer money. You're not going to make any sort of living unless you're doing Formula 1, and even then probably not.

Heerenveen is considered the Wembley of speed skating, hence the investment in the facilities in a small town.

I made a perfectly reasonable point about the sport's premier event being run for the benefit of those who run the sport day-to-day, as indeed happens in many if not most sports. You merely responded with your usual shilling for the incumbent organiser, without actually explaining why you think others are incapable of doing similar. And it wasn't me that made those ridiculous excuses for a litany of organisational screw-ups.

Yes, it's much more complex to arrange shale in a pyramid shape than we can imagine... and it's difficult to avoid women's basketball tournaments.

I've more than a fair idea about event organisation. There's nothing inherently complex about running the GP series, and BSI have hardly always been the best exponents of it over the years. The most difficult part is undoubtedly the track construction at temporary venues, and there's a bit to think about with respect to television. But that's why they hire in specialists to deal with that aspect, and it primarily comes down to being organised. Why on earth do you think that leagues that stage far more meetings per year and manage to televise them, wouldn't be capable of doing the same if they put their minds to it? I know that BSI probably look good when compared to the BSPA, but nothing they're doing is rocket science for a moderately capable events management company.

The main change that needs to happen to the SGP, is being run by a consortium of the professional speedway leagues for their benefit. A competitive qualification system is also needed whereby riders qualify via their performances in national leagues rather than the current handpicking of those whose faces fit. The rest is just tinkering around the edges.

Nice deflection, but no doubt one of the conditions of hosting a GP is contracting with Speedsport to provide the track. I'd certainly not carry the can for their incompetence.

So BSI don't agree to do provide anything at a GP then - like the riders for example? What about Speedsport who no doubt BSI insisted on building the track? If the PZM didn't have contracts in places for these things, then more fool them, but astonishing that you think the BSI shouldn't carry any responsibility for the whole fiasco.

The local organiser was PZM, so they're the ones who get shafted. Maybe they can countersue BSI for breach of contract.

I went there last week. The problem is primarily the original preservation solution that was sprayed on the ship which seems to slowly be dissolving the ship, plus the humidity from all the visitors was encouraging mould to grow (although new air conditioning has apparently reduced the problem). The irony is that the ship was much better preserved when it was underwater in the harbour because the pollution prevented anything from growing..

Just about everything... http://www.ukad.org.uk/resources/document/the-prohibited-list-2016

None of the motor sports federations seem to be listed by UKAD. Could be any number of reasons - they've haven't signed up with UKAD, they're not considered high risk sports in terms of doping by UKAD, or the sports themselves are just too irrelevant for UKAD to expend resources on. UKAD maybe received the tipoffs but hasn't got any authority to test in speedway, so could only pass on the information to the SCB.

Alcohol prices are ridiculous in Australia.

Surely those sort of drugs would only be beneficial if the effects were present during a meeting? Would have thought riders would be better off trying to rest as much as possible when they weren't racing?

Although not cheap, it's not as expensive as it once was. The beer prices didn't seem to be much above those in London when I went recently, and you could eat out in the centre of town for 25-30 quid a head.

The problem is that's expensive. In some sports, there are clear performance advantages to be gained by sustained drug use in training, but I'd struggle to see the benefits in most motor sports. This is quite aside from the fact that speedway riders probably don't do too much training, but are often racing several times per week. I'd say the biggest concern in speedway would be whether riders are under the influence of alcohol or recreational drugs before a meeting. Anything beyond this could probably be picked up if there was regular testing at meetings alone, as riders' patterns of competition are very different to (say) athletics or cycling. As a matter of interest, I've held an MSA race licence for 13 years and never been tested for anything in or out of competition.

Is the World Twenty20 Championship not a 'major' World Cup?

I don't think fans forums are really going to provide the solutions to the sport's ills. You get too many different opinions mixed with some random ravings about why the team isn't doing well etc.., but ultimately they're mostly representative of the diehards who'll go anyway. It's the people who don't go, or at least don't go regularly whose opinions are more useful. Bottom line though, is that an experienced promoter should have an innate sense of what will work and what won't. Tesco's don't consult me about what to put on the shelves - they select products they think customers will be interested in, price them at a level they think they'll sell at, and in some cases do a little or lot of advertising (whether conventionally or through viral campaigns etc..). If the product isn't right, people go elsewhere and then Tescos have to rethink their strategy or ultimately go out of business. Yes, some companies do consult 'focus groups' as Microsoft did, and they ended-up producing software that pleased few and alienated their long-standing customers. The result has been them losing market share. By contrast, when Steve Jobs returned to a lacklustre Apple, he made them produce products that he thought people should have, not what they thought they wanted. The result was massively rising revenues year-after-year. If public feel speedway provides good entertainment at the right price and at the right time, then they're just not going to care that much about the details.

The fundamental difference between rugby union and speedway is that even in the shamateur days, the top clubs were always connected with money. Everyone knew that even if money wasn't actually being stuffed in players' boots, players were attracted to clubs on the back of jobs arranged for them by wealthy backers. It wasn't much of a jump from a so-called amateur sport to a professional one in reality, and as far as I recall, there had long been established leagues in Wales and Scotland. Even England had de-facto leagues thinly disguised as so-called merit tables. Fair enough, rugby union draws some crowds that speedway would envy, but it always did at Five Nations level and in some regions. And I'd argue it's still largely regionally based popularity - I'm not sure that club rugby even at the highest level holds a lot of interest for the average sports follower.

Of course we all now know it was kafabee, so I'm not sure it would have the same effect these days.

We've just been told on another thread that an independent Supremo will not work.

As usual these days, you go off on a tangent to the actual response. I don't blame promoters one iota if they choose not to engage with this forum, and there's few posters that could actually promote in reality even if they were actually willing to put up their own money. It's funny though, how they always seem to know what's being discussed, and I've certainly had responses from lurkers in the past to set the record straight or occasionally even agree with something I've posted. So it seems you don't know as much as you think either. Of course it works both ways sometimes. There's been the odd promoter on here with a laughable attitude to public relations, and they've thoroughly deserved the ridicule. And yes, I agree with Halifax Tiger that for all the nonsense on here, it has played an important role in fans being able to discuss issues that would never appear in the Spar. If promoters don't like it then that's just tough, even though I appreciate most are probably in it to keep the sport alive.

Of course many of them are lurking on here and have been for years. That's how they know what people are talking about when they complain about the Internet trolls in the pages of the Spar.

Buy the DVD and then make a ripped version of it, which is what I did. There's several programs around that allow you to make a copy or ripped version of a copy-protected DVD.

He also had very good players in the side as well. It's very difficult for outsiders to really gauge the ability of a cricket captain, but someone like Vaughan led a good but inferior side to victory over what had been an almost invincible Australian team. Strauss won the Ashes away, but it was a poor Australian side by comparison, and it's subsequently come out there was conflict between different factions in the England camp. I'm not sure that's the sign of a great captain.