Humphrey Appleby

Indeed - what's the big secret? The answer of course is the lists would be laughable and hasten the end of the nonsensical system.

Because it's a breach of contract unless their contract specifically states the meetings they're allowed to miss (although aren't BSPA contracts all fairly standard and probably say they have to be available for all meetings). Most people would be fired for not turning up to work.

Averages don't really help here. Gundersen was never really one of those who had an exceptional league average, and Hans Nielsen would beat him 'hans down' in normal run-of-the-mill racing. Gundersen's ability was to pull World Final wins out of the bag, which was something that Nielsen was relatively poor at despite his unbelievable consistency in everything else. Rickardsson was of a similar mould.

That's a different matter. It's not illegal for individual teams to contract riders and insist they're available when required, or at least subject the terms of that contract. They can even state that a rider can't ride for another team, but then riders would then ask for more money or find another profession if they can't make the sport pay. It's quite another thing for a governing body who's not employing the riders to be putting artificial restrictions in place. I don't think the assertion about FIFA/UEFA restricting players to two clubs per season is entirely correct - the transfer windows effectively enforce that, but out-of-contract/unattached/amateur players can be signed at any time.

You believe far too much what you read in the papers, and I frankly think you're confusing Romanians and Romanis. I've worked with and known a number of Romanians in both the UK and elsewhere, and without exception found them to thoroughly decent, honest and hardworking people. Their country was ruined by a bizarre form of Communism, which was promoted by a dictator who was a darling of the west for far too long, but go out to the Romanian countryside and you'll see people doing long hard shifts in the fields, the likes of which would be unthinkable for us in the UK. Bulgarians I'm admittedly less fond of on the whole, but the UK is not a favoured destination for them anyway. Richer than they are now then, with a vibrant tourist industry? I'm sure they'll settle for that.

I don't think anyone has anything against Australian riders. The issue is that rules have been broken, the spotlight has been turned on the issue of visas, and people are reasonably starting to ask whether there's a genuine need for some of these riders at the expense of British riders. Whether they might be replaced by EU riders is irrelevant. The law allows citizens of those countries to work visa-free in the UK, not Australians.

But wasn't that over some sillyness between the BSPA and SVEMO over commuting Swedes and air fares or something?

That's a self-fulfilling prophecy though - there never will be enough riders if the same riders take all the places. I don't think this will fly though as it's a restraint of trade issue, plus which leagues would thus apply to? Would riding in the German or Russian League count as one of the two, or would this only apply to the 3 or 4 main leagues, in which case it would be discriminatory. If the FIM are so concerned by this, then they should look at reducing the number of SGP and SEC rounds, not to mention all the other Mickey Mouse events they run...

My mistake. There was me thinking Eastern Europe comprised a number of countries rather than just that maligned pair, not to mention they're actually in South-East Europe and hardly new. Remind me as well - how many Bulgarians and Romanians are riding in Britain and taking team places from our gallant lads and Antipodean comrades-in-arms?

They're now British citizens, although scandalously were stripped of it just before the Falklands War which was one of the things that encouraged Argentina to invade.

The authorities should not share any of blame. The onus is on the employer to know the law, and if not, employ an advisor to help them. I'm sure the UK immigration authorities are also underfunded and undermanned, so can't be running around holding the hand of what is a very small employment sector. It's been obvious to many of us for a number of years that regulations were probably being broken by speedway. Finally the authorities have either got tired of the breaches or simply scrutinised the sport and found it wanting.

The UK has a long historical association with the Dutch, Belgians, Germans, Poles and Baltic countries.. even the Russians. We've also long been involved with Greece and Balkans, but the vast majority of people in the modern era have no idea about our extensive engagement with Europe in the past. We even ruled parts of what's now Germany, Greece (which is why cricket is played in Corfu) and Spain, quite aside from Malta and Cyprus which most people know about. Quite aside from all the free Polish and Czech forces (not to mention from other occupied European countries) who fought with the Allies in WW2, has no-one ever heard of the British German Legion in the 19th century? The Germans often fought on our side (usually against the French) in the past. The World has moved on. There's a lot more engagement with Europe through trade and business links nowadays, people holiday there much more, and there's also increasing family connections. Commonwealth countries are evolving in a different direction, and whilst we do have language, family connections and sport in common, they're quite reasonably looking more to their own regions nowadays.

It's probably more of a charitable gesture. The sport hasn't had a serious sponsor in years...

There's been state leagues, in particular a Queensland League, but I don't think anything at a national level. ISMS was a reasonable attempt at a truly national series (albeit individual competition) which lasted for 2 or 3 seasons some years back, but even then, nothing anyone could make a living out of. The active tracks are just too far apart, and in many cases too far from major population centres, to make a national competition viable. I don't doubt it, but that wasn't my point.

Football doesn't have a retain-and-transfer system anymore. Irrelevant. Riders should be free to ride for whom they please when out-of-contract (subject to the points limit or any other rider control mechanisms). As I said, I think some sort of compensatory system is in order for tracks genuinely developing riders from scratch, but that entitlement should cease after a certain period has elapsed (e.g. when a rider is 21 or in the third year of their career). It should certainly not apply indefinitely. Contrary to popular belief, rider assets have no book value, and relatively little in terms of negotiable value nowadays. There's no guarantee that a rider on the books will ever ride for you, or another British team again (which would derive a transfer or loan fe), and there's the ever-present danger that the asset system will be declared illegal.

For arguments sake, I think it could be argued there's plenty of other places for rubbish footballers and cricketers to ply their trade. Netball is irrelevant because it's not a professional sport as far as I'm aware. By contrast, there's not really many places for speedway riders to race professionally, and I think it's easier to find local people to work in a call centre than ride a speedway bike...

Of course it's nonsense. Where else in the real world can your employer command a transfer or loan fee when you decide to move jobs? I can accept that a track genuinely developing a rider should derive some compensation when they move on, but many assets are oven-ready foreign riders that a team doesn't really invest much effort in. Teams don't 'own contracts' anyway - riders are only contracted to the team they actually ride for. Riders get paid nothing merely for the 'privilege' of being on a promotion's asset list. The sooner the system is blown out of the water, the better. Nothing to do with asset lists though, unless an asset is claimed as the result of a rider illegally riding for their initial British team. A rider on loan is contracted to the team he's currently riding for, not his parent team - which is in contravention of the work permit criteria unless a new work permit is applied for. I suppose there's nothing to stop a work permit rider being under actual contract to one team, but loaned to another who compensates the parent team for the cost of the wages. However, I'd guess few promotions are willing to do that as they'd end-up being responsible for any default in the wages. It strike me though, that many of the problems could be avoided if work permit riders were centrally contracted to the BSPA, and then loaned to member clubs as needed.

To be honest, given the numbers involved, and the almost zero impact that speedway has on the UK economy, I think it's neither here nor there whether indifferent Aussies (and Kiwis) are riding in Britain or not. What does make me laugh though, is that on the one hand people are clamouring for a crack-down on immigration, yet seem to think that speedway should be allowed to do what it pleases.

Has nothing to do with contracts or work permits. Aren't riders from decades ago still on some asset lists, which demonstrates what an utter nonsense the whole thing is?

Not to mention the 200 million from Pakistan and 150 million from Bangladesh. In fact, the Commonwealth collectively has 2.4 billion citizens...

It's comparing apples and oranges. There's not really any professional speedway scene in Australia, so doing a few open meetings for a bit of spending money is unlikely to be depriving an Australian of a job. I therefore suspect something like the equivalent of a UK sports visitor visa is sufficient, as it would be if an Australian came to do a handful of meetings in the UK. If you're a contracted employee doing speedway as a full-time job though, then of course you're potentially taking a job from a UK citizen.

Rickardsson by comparison is (slightly) younger, made four consecutive World Finals in the period 91-94, won once and finished second once.

Don't see it really. I don't recall Hancock doing much in the World Final days, all of his successes have been under the GP system, and two of those have come in an increasingly declining era of competition. Mauger, Fundin, Nielsen, Olsen and Gundersen had to fight their way through tough qualifying rounds, and then pull it out in the Final as well. Rickardsson straddled the World Final and GP eras and did it in both, and in my opinion was up there with the very best, if not possibly the best. Hancock can only beat his contemporaries and anyone winning three titles is obviously a very good rider, but I wouldn't put him alongside Olsen and Gundersen in the pantheon of legends.

Yes, but you also had to fight your way through qualifying rounds, which often had just as good line-ups as (if not better than) the World Final.

Undoubtedly a good rider, but whether a true great I'm less sure of. I admire what he's achieved, almost without anyone noticing at times, but I don't think I'd put him up there with Nielsen (who admittedly won 4 titles), Olsen and Gundersen. Due to the general decline of the sport, I think there are generally fewer good riders around now than in previous years, and the SGP has made meant world titles can be won through consistency rather than having to pull performances out of the hat (which Gundersen excelled at). Yes, there's an argument that professionalism has increased in recent years, but I don't think recent SGP line-ups have been comparable to those of most World Finals, even taking into account the handful of Continentals who usually made-up the numbers. Technical standards may well have been rubbish in days gone by, but it was all relative and I'm not sure it was the case by 1980s.