Humphrey Appleby

Broomco was possibly an off-the-shelf company, which used to be a popular way of creating the illusion of a trading record. BSI or Benfield Sports International has gone through various renamings and legal restructures down the years, but BSI Speedway is currently the legal entity holding the SGP rights. It is in turn owned by a dormant holding company (something like BSI Holdings) that I think was originally the umbrella for all John Postlethwaite's speedway ventures like BSI Reading, but is now directly owned by IMG(UK) which is in turn owned by its US parent IMG. IMG is ultimately owned by another US corporation - possibly some sort of venture capitalist. BSI Speedway was probably kept around as a company after the transfer of ownership to IMG(UK) as the long term agreement for the SGP rights was between it and the FIM. IMG(UK) provide all the staff and administrative support to the SGP, and other companies in the IMG group do other things like television production, each of course charging costs to BSI. So in fact IMG make substantially more from the SGP than the audited profits might show. Although it's oft-claimed that John Postlethwaite's was the owner of BSI, it appears that Benfield Re-Insurance (of Chelsea Matthew Harding fame) put up most of the capital, and in fact there were several other minor owners from memory as well. At some point though, Benfield agreed to waive their rights in BSI, seemingly without getting any money back, so there's presumably some story behind that. IMG(UK) has something of a troubled recent history. It lost millions on failed ventures into a Wembley tie-up, the Ricoh Arena at Coventry, and golf courses. Edit - Just checked, and the parent IMG company used to be owned by Forstmann Little which was a venture capitalist company specialising in leveraged buyouts. It suffered a series of losses and was successfully sued for mismanagement by the State of Connecticut which ultimately resulted in its demise, which I assume is why IMG was sold to William Morris Endeavour Entertainment in 2013. WME is apparently a large LA-based talent agency. IMG itself was of course founded by Mark McCormack who started out by managing professional golfers and tennis players. The company was sold upon his death in 2003.

Doesn't Daugavpils ride in the Polish League, so presumably a reasonable speedway scene there? Can't vouch for Prelog, but thought there were a few meetings held there each year. Don't think there's ever been a speedway track in Bruges, or even Brussels for that matter.

It was not an official international event. Perhaps they accepted the invitation with the idea to take a look at certain riders, but maybe the money and timing wasn't good enough to interest riders in an unofficial event. You can easily drive from Germany to Esbjerg, but it's a long old trip from Britain.

Yes, but GPs are held at established tracks where the fanbases are in those countries, and they all have a moderately active scene. Belgium has one occasional track and I think runs no more than a couple of meetings a year at best, and even then, I think many of the fans come from Holland.

Not really much speedway in Belgium though - only the track at Zolder.

Far for me to defend Philippe, but BSI payments to riders have been made for some years - supposedly for expenses relating to running in the SGP, but in reality to make up for the pitiful prize money on offer. Of the course, the timing is pretty poor considering there will be thousands of fans still out of pocket from Warsaw that have been fobbed off to the PZM. Of course Philippe is not just a messenger. He is the (former?) Deputy Race Director, his company produces the programmes for the SGP, and possibly has some sort of media relationship with BSI to manage the publicity. Don't expect any real or sustained criticism.

Aren't test matches just bilateral arrangements, even though they might be inscribed on the FIM calendar? There was also an 'England' versus 'Australasia' test series in the mid-80s as I recall.

Why just do it for the GPs? Transponder systems are not particularly expensive and available off the shelf, and would probably work out cheaper than bespoke starting gates over time. It therefore wouldn't be impractical to do away with starting gates at all meetings. Riders would soon adjust. I remember all the fuss about the tape touching rules in the 80s, but most riders got the hang of it quite quickly.

I like Best Pairs meetings and if it had been convenient for me then I might be interested in watching/going, but it would be interest in the same way that I'd watch any other speedway meeting. I don't consider this particular competition to be anything more than a glorified open meeting, and I'm certainly not going to get concerned by who's in the made-up teams.

Who really cares? It wasn't a serious international event.

I'm not sure there's ever been an official England team in the World Team Cup, but rather an ACU representative team which included Australia and New Zealand until the mid-70s. I think the FIM officially lists participation as being 'Great Britain' regardless of what the team was actually billed as. Whilst there were WTC rounds involving 'England', 'Scotland', 'Australia' and 'New Zealand', I think this was to select the ACU representative for the rest of the competition. Not sure there are any other aberrations, unless you mean Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union which were of course countries at the time? The World Pairs of course often had B teams to make up the numbers in the qualifying rounds, including Scotland...

Yes, but unlike the SGP and SWC, the 'Best Pairs' is not a official title and is just masquerading as one. If some 'countries' want to take it seriously, that's up to them, but others shouldn't be condemned for treating it with the lack of seriousness it deserves. Whilst I do think the previous homogeny of BSI does need to be challenged because I don't think they do a particularly good job, neither do I think OneSport are the answer either.

So if I organise a made-up speedway event and bill it as between 'national teams', should it still be taken seriously?

He wouldn't have been representing his country though. He'd be riding for a nominally named 'GB select' in a glorified open meeting. The professional leagues paying wages of the riders should be well within their rights to insist their competitions and obligations take priority. FIM Europe are just a pointless non-entity looking to justify their existence but sanctioning all sort of nonsense competitions.

Why do people get so hung up on this? Strauss and Prior may have been born in South Africa, but spent their formative years in England which to my mind is more important than an accident of birth. Pietersen also had an English mother, so that only leaves Trott as someone without any strong connection to England. Morgan admittedly is a bit of mercenary given that he actually played for Ireland before playing for England, but Ireland aren't a test side so you can hardly blame him for having some ambition. Plenty of foreign born players have also played for Australia down the years, and for other test sides as well. It's what happened because of the Empire connections. International competition is becoming farcical anyway, what with ever increasing mobility and passport tourism. It was an odd concept in the first place, that you should represent your country of birth rather than where you spend your formativeyears. Well not exactly, as Kiwis certainly rode for Great Britain in the past, but that was more because it was an ACU representative side in those days (Australia and NZ coming under the auspices of the ACU until 1975 and 1984? respectively). There was also a Scottish side in the World Pairs for a few years, and there were no Scottish passport or licenses then (or now). As with so much in speedway, the rules have been made up as the sport goes along.

Well the Polish media apparently named it as the 'Celtic Warrior', which was reported earlier in this thread. I suspect an alternative version of the story is that Bill Buckley balked at being asked to cough up £250K (presumably excluding the costs to ship it halfway around the world), when there were perfectly good sources of shale in New Zealand.

That's being slightly disingenuous because other than Wembley, Bradford was probably the largest capacity stadium that could stage speedway at the time. It could only hold less 25,000 though, but it must have been near to capacity for the 1990 World Final. I think few would disagree that 'big' city venues are more attractive for the casual spectator (even if Bradford is actually a much bigger city than Cardiff), but there's still only so many times you can let people down, as with Gothenburg which died a slow death after the 2003 fiasco. In fact, screwing-up at these venues does far more damage than if it happened out in a field in front of a few thousand diehards.

Isn't the official story that the same shale does several temporary circuits during the season? I suppose being the first GP of the season, it could have been brought straight from Britain, but you do have to question how cost effective that can be. Surely Poland must have suitable sources of shale as well? However, even if the shale is re-used, bits of the story as reported don't add up, and not for the first time either.

He didn't admit he got it wrong though. He said the FIM Jury signed-off on the track, so it's their responsibility. Of course not, but something is obviously not right with their preparation or quality control. When you're doing something professionally, good intentions are not good enough. I'm sure he's also very concerned about the potential to be sued, as much as anything else. And the transport of the shale on the ghost ship? Where was it kept? They'll always have the power - they just have to refuse to ride and the show's over.

The ship that reportedly transported the shale from King's Lynn to Gdansk does not appear to have docked at either port in the 2 or 3 weeks preceding the GP. One therefore wonders whether it was delivered earlier and sat somewhere, which of course would then not explain why there appears to be have been a delay in starting work on the track. Maybe something went wrong with the storage, and some local shale had to be found in a hurry? Even if the shale was shipped just before the GP, I can't see that transporting it a damp maritime environment is ideal.

Of course you also have to lift the temporary tracks at the end of the meeting as well, and if the material has to be re-used, presumably you'd then need a process of sifting out the different grades of material that have got mixed together. This may also be an issue.

It appears to make sense because that's how you construct roads, but whether it's appropriate or practical for a temporary track is another matter. I can well imagine the top layer of fine shale will initially sink through the coarser lower layers which bind it together, and you have to keep building it up over several weeks until there's a consistent well supported layer on top. Maybe you simply cannot do this in the few days you have before a GP, so just have to rely on heavily compacting a single layer and hope for the best.

Wouldn't need to be controlled by the FIM. Sign up a group of teams or promoters' bodies to run the competition. The British authorities would likely be persuaded if there was reasonable money on the table, but otherwise ignore them and just get with it. Ultimately, the group should aim to take control of the promotional rights of the SGP and SWC as well, so the profits come back to speedway. If the FIM don't like it, then breakaway as it's very difficult to understand how their involvement actually benefits to the sport, although I'd prefer the groups to come to an arrangement like between the FIA and the F1 teams.

It's all about the money, money, money... It's becoming a predictable pattern. Crap track or abandoned meeting and the stops are pulled out to deflect the blame and convince the public that 'lessons will be learned', hoping that the suckers will have forgotten by the following year. Because after all, most fans go for the beer anyway, don't they? The trouble is, it just keeps happening and people are starting to remember what was said the previous year. Now they just need to make the connection that BSI really aren't very good at their job after all.

Are you really an impartial messenger given that you are (one way or another) in the pay of the organiser? Do you ever actually investigate the veracity of what you get told? Isn't 'checking your sources' one of the basic rules of journalism? Well I don't really believe the organisers' claims in that case. I might be persuaded there were concerns about damaging the pitch, if there was actually a pitch to damage, but surely they could cover any drainage to protect it? Next we'll be told there's a womens' basketball tournament in town...