Humphrey Appleby

The FIM does charge BSI a fee, and pays the GP prize money out of it. The rest goes into its coffers. The relationship of OneSport is with FIM Europe, which is the former UEM. Presumably they pay some sort of fee was well. Been watching it since the eighties

BSI is owned by IMG's UK subsidiary (actually via another holding company) which made substantial losses on other activities in recent years, so one suspects that's where the profits ended up. The AFL is guaranteeing 2 or 3 matches a week in the Etihad over a long term period, and the AFL teams feel they should be getting a better deal. They've also been grumbling about the state of the pitch, cost of catering, and problems with the roof. Having said that, the AFL will assume ownership of the stadium for a token $1 at the end of 2025, and how quickly the reasons from moving from VFL Park have been forgotten. All of these issues though, may be less of a concern with a one-off event, although I'm surprised that BSI think they can make it pay. I don't think anyone would disagree with that, and if there's only one realistic timeslot, then that's the way it's got to be.

Surely journeyman can be stars, solid dependable middle order riders, or mediocrities? I can think of riders in all those classes who went from track-to-track during their career, as indeed most speedway riders do. There were even the so-called professional juniors in the past, who were essentially journeymen as well.

It seemed to go largely unnoticed, but we recently lost James Best. Him and Boss Hogg were the real stars of that show.

From memory, the NL in the period 1986 to 1990 had some good riders. Up-and-coming riders like Mark Loram, Chris Louis, Todd Wiltshire, Paul Thorp, Andrew Silver, Martin Dugard and Troy Butler who did pretty well when they moved in the BL, and some older riders who'd dropped down from the BL but who were probably still heat leader status (Preben Eriksen, Les Collins and Andy Grahame come to mind). NL 'regulars' such as Steve Schofield, Mick Poole, Kenny McKinna and to a lesser extent Andy Galvin were also a fairly decent standard when they rode in BL, and of course you also had the likes of Steve Lawson and Peter Carr who could probably have held down a BL place. The BL contracted quite substantially in 1986 and again 1989, so there were a fair few decent riders squeezed downwards to the NL. They might be considered 'average journeymen' in the sense they weren't first choice picks for BL teams and were the sort of riders that often moved around because of the points limit, but the nature of speedway is that very few riders spend most or all of their careers with one team.

Nice try, but the FIM are not the promoters of the series. I might lease my property for building, but if the developer doesn't deliver on the construction, then that's nothing to with me. IMG/BSI are the promoters of the series, and either organise themselves, or contract with host organisations to run the individual GPs. I think they're morally and possibly even legally responsible for the problems, regardless of who they might have sub-contracted.

I'd imagine there's far fewer circuses than speedway tracks, and they travel from place-to-place so any given audience would only get to see them very occasionally.

There were many in Wehrmacht and undoubtedly even in the SS as well who fought honourably and bravely during WW2, but few would suggest that's a reason to retain the symbols of the Nazi regime. The Confederacy was also a separatist and some might even say treasonous entity that resulted in families (especially in the border areas) being forced to fight on different sides, and it was not for some noble gesture of political freedom or emancipation, but to preserve the system of slavery. We argue about the rights and wrongs of using Confederate flag, and frankly it doesn't bother me one way or the other, but if society ultimately deems it to be offensive, I don't think the fact that people fought under it should come into it. It's the problem when people attach far to much symbolism to a piece of cloth. Flags were devised to identify warring parties and ships on the high seas, and should remain their primary purpose.

How hard is it for a referee to press a button whilst watching the starting grid at the same time?

AFL starts in March, and the Ethiad is the home stadium for about four teams so is used every weekend during the season.

Astonishing how people think going back to tape touching would be improving things. It was got rid off because riders kept going backwards and forwards trying to get a flyer, and there was endless complaining about delays and unfair starts. The tape touching rule was one of the few rules of recent times that's been any good.

Well I would actually expect the members of the speedway fourth estate to investigate and report on these sorts of things, otherwise the journal-of-record will just end-up being a bunch of recycled press releases. Equally though, checking one's sources is a basic journalistic principle.

It was that high to start with?

Vojens is reasonably well appointed as speedway stadiums go, but it's still situated in an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere. Horsens appears to be a bit more luxurious and is at least in a town with some facilities. Maybe the clue though, is that Horsens and Vojens are in different regions. Perhaps the Horsens municipality or the local region was willing to offer some sort of financial support that Vojens wasn't.

That's sort of like saying how long is a piece of string?

One suspects Philippe's fact checking amounts to a round of golf with Briggo at times, but I think people are making a bit of mountain out of a molehill here. I don't think he was trashing anyone's name, regardless of the accuracy of the reported so-called facts.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Reduce the number of opportunities for riders, and eventually less riders will be competing for those opportunities. Doubling-up was originally intended to address the lack of riders wanting to move-up into the BEL, which itself was a result of lack of cooperation and vision between the BPL and BEL. However, it's simply become an extension of the guest system and failed in its purpose.

So what is you want to say about black people, muslims and assorted others not conforming to your sociopolitical beliefs?

You might have the freedom to think what you like, although there are laws against inciting racist hatred which used to be commonplace 'in your day'. More generally though, freedom of expression comes with responsibility of expression, and a lot of those protesting about so-called political correctness, simply just want to be offensive.

You don't want to have balanced teams, and it's not achievable as demonstrated by the fact that you still get teams at the top and bottom of the leagues regardless of how punitive the points limit is. What you want to avoid is complete mismatches and years of dominance by a single team, whilst providing some encouragement for teams to develop their sides. Any system must allow teams to develop over 2 or 3 seasons without fear of being broken-up if they merely finish above mid-table, allow them to genuinely develop without needing to resort to average fiddling (e.g. through manipulated assessed averages), and protect young riders from the vagaries of team equalisation. Equally though, teams shouldn't be allowed to strengthen indefinitely, and there should be an upper limit whereby they have to relinquish a rider or riders if they become too dominant. I think it's difficult to get away from a system based on averages, although some sort of draft system might be considered whereby teams are allowed to retain a certain number of riders at the end of each season, with the rest released into a pool along with any new riders, whereby they're picked by teams in reverse finishing order. However, a draft system only really works well where there's a single dominant league that everyone aspires to ride in, and that doesn't really happen in speedway. The other oft-suggested alternative is grading, but that's just crude averages and makes riders near the top of their grades more in demand than ones at the bottom. For me it's no improvement on the points limit. So I'd introduce an a variable points limit that allows teams to build to different limits depending on how many riders they retain from the previous season. The basic points limit would be set around the break even point (i.e. 42 points) to which every team would be allowed to build, but teams would be allowed to build to a higher level depending on how many riders they retained from the previous season. A suitable tariff would need to be worked-out, but let's say 0.5 points per rider, which would in principle allow a team to build up to a maximum of 45.5 points. The idea behind this is that it would prevent teams from simply going-out and signing a strong side, but it would allow up-and-coming teams to develop over two or three years without being penalised. Teams only finishing mid-table would be able to keep their sides together as it would be unlikely they'd improve by more than a couple of points in a season, whilst the upper limit (45.5) would still prevent successful teams from becoming overly dominant. It should also prevent middle- and lower-order riders who improve their averages, from being squeezed out of teams as their continued presence would allow a higher points total. Equally, this might encourage more rider loyalty as it would be advantageous average-wise for riders to stay with the same team. Combined with this should be an incentive for teams to develop new riders. So, I'd allow U21 riders or those in the first three years of their careers to ride on a low fixed average (e.g. 3.00), but only if they stay with the same team. Having said this, they'd be allowed to be loaned to one team in another league (either upwards or downwards) for a maximum of (say) one or two seasons to gain experience without losing their 'junior' status. Average manipulation is almost impossible to entirely eradicate, but could be mitigated by using factored averages. In other words, a rider's team building average would be comprised of two components - their starting average and their actual average for the season. At the beginning of the season, the starting average would be weighted more heavily, but towards the end of the season their actual average would be more significant. The weighting would depend on how many matches had been ridden, so if a rider managed to ride in all league matches, their team building average would be their actual average. The factored average at the end of the season would then constitute the starting average for the following season. The lower averaged team could be the better team, but I don't think you can get close to the 39 points using the 13 heat formula used in 1976. So 12 x 3 (no bonus points scored) + 4 = 40 which is a combined CMA of 43.08, and 12 x 3 (with 12 bonus points) + 2 = 50 which is a combined CMA of 53.85.

Football (and speedway) was a relatively cheap form of entertainment until the early-90s, standards were lower, and treating people like cattle seemed to be acceptable. There was also something exciting about going to football as a young person, being part of baying mob and surging up and down the terraces, but Bradford and Hillsborough brought home the fact that people could die. I also cringe now at the racist abuse, plus of course there was (and to some extent still is) an appalling hooligan element. It's commonly said that hooligans only fought other hooligans, but that's frankly not true and regular fans were taking their lives into their hands almost every time they went to a big match. The reality was that attendances were falling throughout the 70s and 80s because football was not a nice place to go for women, families and ethnic minorities, and that whilst I find the football experience much more sterile than in my youth, I'm glad I can now sit in some comfort, not get crushed, suffocated or burned to a crisp, and not have to run the gauntlet of post-match violence (as much perpetrated by the police as anyone else). I suspect though, speedway wishes it has the problems of there being enough people to cause a crush in the first place...

When it is not preferable to be off gate 1, and since when is gate 3 ever any good at most tracks? I think BSI will just be happy to have a rideable track and the starting gate working.

Why is obviously why your link says it's a flag designed by the Council of Europe to represent Europe. I'm sure we know by now that the Council of Europe is not the EU, even if the EU adopted the flag, but then so did the Ryder Cup. Except it wasn't made up for the European Union. And what flags are not made-up? In your day it was also acceptable to put up "no dogs, no blacks, no Irish" posters, but fortunately times have changed.

Speedway has to be just about the only sport where the grassroots subsidises the premier event.

No roof though. The cost of hiring a large stadium is likely to be such that the organisers need to guarantee that it'll go ahead. Well okay, BSI have admittedly managed to have two abandoned meetings in indoor stadia, and one that was nearly abandoned, but you get the picture...