Humphrey Appleby

I think it would be a disaster. Having a two-tier system will just make the non-elite matches second class in the eyes of fans, and they'll just pick-and-choose their meetings even if British speedway could afford the 'top boys' anyway. Teams need to choose an appropriate level to run at for the entire season, and sign riders who can commit to all the fixtures. Maybe it's possible for the BEL to run a short 14-season home and away season (possibly throwing in some sort of supplementary cup) and be done with it, but I'd expect those teams renting stadiums will have agreements for more than 7 meetings a year.

Then you don't really understand how British speedway needs to be structured in terms of its economics. I think you will find several professional speedway meetings organised every week from March to October in Britsin. Of course the smaller BEL may have flexibility to move to 1 or 2 midweek nights a week, or even run a Swedish or Polish style short programme, but the bread and butter of the sport is actually the BPL that has different dependencies and requirements even if it was desirable to move to s different model.

British Speedway, for better or worse, tries to organise a regular weekly structure of events providing 200 or so riders with paid employment. These European open events are simply being organised by parasitical commercial companies off the back of the professional leagues, who derive no benefit from them. I can't see how speedway events being reduced to running with select teams with no connection to anything other than their sponsors, can really be a step forward for the sport, or understand how people can buy into the concept whilst criticising long established leagues trying to run viable fixture lists.

In the unlikely event that the UK leaves the EU, it'll almost certainly sign an agreement to join the EEA which will mean freedom of movement for workers regardless. There are too many British citizens living and working elsewhere in the EU to pull up the drawbridge, which is something the anti-EUers simply don't grasp. The only difference is the UK will have no say in making those agreements, far less a veto.

Philippe is not the deepest of thinkers sometimes... The rule book was actually slimmed down some years ago, and the situation is no better now than before. There is a case for rethinking and simplifying some aspects of the team building rules, but in general the rule book needs more clarification which implies more complexity.

From the report in this week's Spar, it seems to be shaping up to be another Swindon. So where is this unidentified piece of land, and if planning permission hasn't even been obtained yet, then that doesn't sound too good for the continuation of the sport if this is the last season at Brandon. Also had to smile at the assertion that a local farm would be providing the meat for the stadium. Erm... aren't there regulations that cattle need to be slaughtered in abattoirs?

Where are these riders to strengthen the teams going to come from? All it'll lead to is teams poaching from others in the middle of the season. The point of the point limit is ensure that one team can not be built vastly stronger than another at the beginning of the season, and to ensure the better riders are somewhat shared around. There's nothing wrong with riders improving during the season - that's part of the skill in picking a team in the first place - but it'll just make a farce of the competition if you then let teams build to the level of another team that has improved. I would agree that the points limit as it stands is a bit of joke, and has become an exercise in average manipulation and trying to sign riders on artificially low assessed averages. There's also no encouragement to actually develop a side, but that's a failing of the implementation rather than the concept.

I've no problem with him saying that BSI don't pay enough to make the SGP worth his while, but just come out and say it - not make excuses about wanting to spend more time with the family or whatever.

Thought this thread was going to be about the Speedway Star Knockout Cup...

Family life? That's the oldest excuse in the book. Plenty of time for family when you're retired. Most speedway riders have short careers and a few years at most when they're at their best - you have to make hay whilst the sun shines. It's far more about his lords and masters dictating for whom he should ride.

A credible league is one that's sustainable in the long-term, which means not paying over the odds for riders that don't actually cover their increased costs. British speedway was for a long time living beyond its means, and quite probably still is, but the number of sugar daddies willing to do a wedge are getting hard to come by. What Poland and Sweden do is up to them, although the signs are that costs are unsustainable there too despite the bigger crowds and undoubted higher levels of sponsorship. It astonishes me how British speedway is still able to continue as a professional sport on the grounds and minimal television and sponsorship it gets now. It simply does not have the money to be chasing after riders who will put the British leagues at best third in their list of priorities.

Err.. yes, but the point (according to some) is to have fixed race days to 'bring the top boys back'. Hardly seems much point going to the trouble of re-organising all the race days if you then have to have alternative race days on GP weeks.

It's not just speedway, but any form of motor sport in rural areas is subject to all sorts of irrational opposition. In fairness, it's often just a very small number of people who object, but they're often well resourced and council officers will often err on their side. Nigel Mansell had to take a group of nimbys to the High Court to stop them shutting down his race track in Devon. In the end, the complainers (including Kirsty Allsopp) were exposed as a bunch of liars and fabricators and lost the case, but it cost something like a couple of million in legal costs. Having said that though -

I think the problem with the SGP as it stands is that it's never made the transition into a full-time circuit. If it did and offered full-time employment for the top echelon of riders, then it would solve a lot of the problems of riders picking-and-choosing their meetings as happens now. I've no personal love of individual racing which I think gets quite tedious if there's too much of it, but if the SGP was genuinely able to rejuvenate the sport then it might be beneficial to the lower levels as well. However, speedway is a small market and a tough sell to sponsors and unless Barry Hearn was prepared to run black, the FIM would be expecting its cut too. Just don't think it's worth the hassle and the risk for the relatively limited returns on offer. Unlikely to find anyone decent willing to do it for that sort of money, and if they did and were any good, they wouldn't hang around for very long. I have seen CEO jobs for sports organisations advertised around 45K, but that's very much the bottom end of the market. You'd usually expect to pay 80K and probably much more for that sort of level position. Neither of those sports, whilst played internationally, were really organised internationally or even had much in the way of an established competition structure. Both sports also have very low overheads in terms of what's needed to play them, and what professionals did exist were paid a pittance in prize money. Speedway has none of those advantages. It can't be staged in small or medium sized theatres, track preparation is a black art and takes a lot of effort, you need multiple cameras for television coverage, and there are pre-existing professional competitions in a number of countries. It's also a niche sport played out in a relative handful of venues by specialist competitors, unlike darts and snooker which you can find just about anywhere and which many people have probably played.

Don't dare use the words 'mickey mouse event' though as you'll be accused of being a British speedway dinosaur and non-progressive. This is the start of a new policy - tracks within 200kms of a urban centre are now to be marketed as 'big city venues'...

Football is relatively well run in comparison to speedway, so even if a club isn't, you can fix that and find your level in the league system. Even so, Hearn hasn't stayed in the sport. The problem is speedway is just so badly broken that it needs a complete restructure from top to bottom, but that just can't happen unless you control all the tracks, or at least enough to push through the necessary changes. I expect Barry Hearn has already looked at speedway in the past, but ruled it out as something he can do anything with.

The only realistic alternative for fixed race days are Wednesdays and Thursdays. Fridays are no use as riders will be off to the SGP etc.. nearly half the time. Yes Poland might run the occasional Friday meeting, but they don't run as many rounds and don't use Fridays as a regular race day so can work around these issues. To run on just two race nights, teams would need to be split equally between them unless the plan is to just run a 14-round programme. Going to 28 or more meetings would mean teams riding twice some weeks and that won't work if there's more teams riding on one day than another. However, he question must be asked that even if the intention is to attract the so-called top boys back, how can they be afforded anyway and what they going to bring in terms of increased revenue? And as soon as their Polish team has a crucial match that they insist they're fit for, the sick notes will be produced and there will be no sanctions against either the rider or their Polish team. Spectator preferences and financial conditions are entirely different in Poland. Do Polish fans have to negotiate the M25 or other busy roads on a Friday evening? Similarly why has top-level speedway on Sunday never been that popular in Britain? British teams mostly have to share multi-purpose stadia, so there's no option to have just one race day. Moreover, the nature of the stadium leasing and cost structure of British speedway generally requires a more extensive programme of fixtures than in Poland and Sweden which simply can't be fitted into the season if there's just the one race night. This is aside from the fact that guesting would be impossible with a single race night, as all the other teams would be riding as well (why has nobody thought of that?). Some might say that's a good thing, but nobody's really come up with a viable alternative for short-term replacements at short notice. The simple fact is that even getting back 200 or 300 hundred existing fans a meeting is papering over the cracks. The speedway demographic is ageing and without attracting a young audience will be doomed in 10 years or so beyond a handful of amateur tracks. You only have to look at official attitudes to social media and viral marketing to see how badly the sport is being run by those in charge.

There are plenty of nimbys in the city as well, quite probably Labour voting too. However, the City Council has generally been supportive of speedway down the years. Having 'greasy biker types' making noise in the countryside - do you think the average shire Tory would be supportive?

But Labour doesn't control the area where any stadium would likely to be built.

Can't be any good then...

There's really nowhere in Oxford to build a new speedway stadium. Much of the undeveloped land is green belt and the city whilst Labour controlled, is completely surrounded by nimby Toryshire. Potentially Standlake Arena could be developed into a speedway facility, but it's someway out of the city and in another local authority district. It's also absurd to be knocking down a perfectly good stadium and building another one.

Yes, the amusing sounding Himmelfahrtstag.

Opportunity for another farewell meeting then...

Not suggesting it's the top of the list of issues to address, but the system is broken. The 3-2-1-0 system doesn't encourage team riding, whilst bonus points inflate averages. The casual observer already isn't going to get bonus points and many accepted aspects of the sport. I feel people would get used to team scoring fairly quickly.

I've picked up quite a few Go-Pros off the track. That admittedly was a while back though, so maybe they improved the fixings.