Humphrey Appleby

Neither Hackney nor Wimbledon were knocked down for shopping centres or housing, and were replaced by other sports facilities. Well okay Hackney ended up being the Olympic media centre as far as I'm aware, but it could potentially have been relocated within the complex if the right representations had been made.

Oxford speedway, in many respects, has always been Oxford's sports team and is situated right at the heart of its core demographic within the city. Oxford United - even though it's had its successes (and many failures) is always going to be a lower league team, whereas the Cheetahs have featured world-class riders and been amongst the best teams in the world in the past.

In truth it was always a fairly marginal sport with few or no wealthy benefactors, and to a certain extent has fallen victim to land pressures and environmental concerns that have forced it from prime locations. But Hackney in particular was basically situated within what became the London Olympic park and the sport apparently did nothing to ensure it was included amongst the other minority sports that had facilities built for them. That sums up the mismanagement of speedway down the years.

F1 doesn't have a track operating in London either, but still gets plenty of attention. The 'mass media' is much less important than it once was. Few under the age of 50 read newspapers or even watch mainstream TV these days, so the opportunities are there for sports that can gain attention through other channels. The problem of course, is that speedway is largely followed by people well over 50 and unfortunately has been unable or unwilling to address that underlying issue for the past 20-30 years. Just as an example, any sport of any credibility has an app where you can get news and live results, but does British speedway? The SGP now has one which is a start, but even that's somewhat lame (e.g. its developers are apparently unable to even make a proper logo for it).

Does it? GPs have been held in Norway, Finland, Italy, Slovenia, Germany, New Zealand and Australia over the years and I think it's highly questionable whether it's done a thing for the sport in those countries. The interest in speedway really never encompassed that many countries - maybe at it's peak around 10-15 where there was significant interest, and perhaps another 15 where speedway was ridden - but this largely seems to have contracted during the GP era. I also doubt the series rights holders, whether Discovery or IMG/BSI before them, are much interested in what's better for the sport and far more interested in making a few extra quid - whether that's from the hosts and/or minimising the costs of putting together material for their television channels. Having a GP in the likes Teterow has little to do with bringing exposure to the sport in Germany, and everything to do with being a lower cost venue to pad out the series. Do we even know where the supposed Australian GP is going to be held in 4 months time? How are Australian fans supposed to plan their time off and travel...?

Why would the FIM or more likely the series rights holders want to restrict how many lucrative GPs they stage each year? As you say, it's all about maximising revenue and very little to do with sharing things around, quite aside from the fact hardly anyone else actually wants to stage a GP.

Using a transponder system that's used by just about every other motorsport would solve such problems. Don't even need video replays, even if they can also be linked to a timing system as a backup check.

Filling in the programme, ranking the riders (in individual meetings) was always part of the 'fun' for me, and helped pass the indeterminable delays between heats. It was a bit of shock going to Costa Mesa where the next race starts pretty much as soon as the riders have got off the track from the previous one. Heat formats in individual meetings also represent a complex permutational challenge and thinking about how to optimise them (whilst waiting around for next heat to start) subsequently proved invaluable in my professional career. So each to their own...!

Apologies - I read that you said head-to-head took precedence over race finishes.

That's what I thought, but the 2022 SGP regs say the following... 9.2. Ties After the completion of heats 16 or 20 When establishing the order between the riders in the list of intermediate classification at the conclusion of heat 16, 20, a) Precedence will be given to the riders (tied on race points) having the most number of 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th placings (a “0” for last placing is better than M-R-F-T-d-N). b) If the tie still persists and involves only 2 riders, precedence will be given to the better placed rider in the heat or heats where the 2 riders met. c) If the tie still persists and involves more than 2 riders, it shall be checked whether there is a possibility to determine a proper precedence (e.g. 3 riders tied on points: A, B, C: • Rider A has beaten rider B • Rider A has beaten rider C • Rider B has beaten rider C Then the precedence will be: best position for rider A, then rider B and then rider C. d) If solutions a), b) and c) cannot resolve the tie, then the rider with the lowest allocated SGP number will be deemed the better placed rider.

1st, 4th, 6th and 7th to Semi-Final 1 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 8th to Semi-Final 2 Where the confusion may come in is when two or more riders are tied on points after Heat 20, in which case the ranking goes on most wins, most seconds and so on. If that doesn't break the tie, then precedence goes to the higher ranked rider at the start of the season (lowest race jacket number).

It also happened some years ago at Coventry from memory. 3 riders were excluded and only Rick Miller was left in the race, who was then excluded for pulling wheelies!

The 'not trying to race' regulation is there for a specific reason and I don't think really intended for riders still in the race. I suppose they could theoretically be excluded from the race under that regulation, but what's to say they're not having engine issues of their own? So provided they complete the race within the time limit, it's reasonable to award the point.

They wave the last lap and chequered flags? That could of course be done with a digiboard these days, although there's probably still some need to make sure riders are lined-up inside their gates.

He wasn't entirely my cup of tea for various reasons, but you could never doubt his commitment to speedway. I think commentary, and particularly speedway commentary where there are long gaps to fill, followed by quick bursts of action, is a thankless task and fair play to him for not only stepping up but anchoring the role for a long time. His passing at just 52 is of course also very sad for all those around him. RIP

I don't know how many it times it has to be said, but speedway isn't football anymore than cricket is football. There's at least 4 different types of professional cricket match currently played in England lasting from 3 hours to 5 days (even if don't always know whether the last couple of days will actually happen), and even more formats if you take club cricket into account. Half the attraction of speedway for me is the different types of meeting, different formats, and that you can scale things to fit around the time / spectator attention span available. But it's not unreasonable to ask what you're actually getting for your money, and even just because you're an anorak is a perfectly acceptable reason.

I seem to remember 6-pair formats occasionally being run in open meetings, not to mention that it's been used in Poland and I'm sure other countries as well in the past. Pretty much every 3TT, 4TT, 5TT and pairs events of varying numbers format (certainly 6, 7 and 9) has been run at some point in speedway's history.

In fact this is a curious thing. Australia and some EU countries have much more relaxed visa conditions for 'working holidays' than the UK and Australia have.

That's a subset of the Commonwealth and still represents 60 million people. If "30 million Romanians and Bulgarians coming to Britain" were a Brexit issue, then how is 60 million (plus an additional 5 million from Hong Kong of course) not going to be? And the fact remains there would have to be reciprocity, and those countries only want the 'brightest and best' from the UK... Sadly, when it's all said and done, speedway makes no significant economic, social or cultural contribution to the UK and doesn't warrant any special treatment.

No more than Australia wanted to allow 65 million Britons to go to Australia ;-)

Doesn't fit with UN or EHRC law either. Discriminating against those of an accident of birth who've spoken against the policies of their country of the birth, is not only moralisticly wrong, but plays into the victimhood narrative of Putin.

You can come as a regular visitor for a sports tournament or event provided only expenses and/or prize money are paid. For paid employment over 6 months, a visa that will basically cost you a minimum of GBP 868 for a year and takes up to 3 months to process, is now required. I suppose you might get conceivably get away with claiming you're just on holiday, but if you've already got a pending visa application it's going to look suspicious. It used to be simple and now it's not since Brexit.

Well he didn't succeed with that, and now will be a target of the Russian regime. I think it's quite dangerous for high(ish) profile people to speak out against the Putin regime, and I think would not have been done lightly.

Boris Johnson was born in New York. Do you consider him to be American? Ben Stokes was born in New Zealand but plays for the England cricket team.

The Russian constitution prohibits the revocation of Russian citizenship from anyone born in Russia, assuming that some lip service is still paid to the legalities there.