Vincent Blachshadow

No, I haven't said speedway fans are not coming because of the silly rules. I have said some of the rules make it difficult for some potential newbys to perceive speedway as anything other than a Mickey Mouse affair (7 riders v 6, a particular rider turning out for more than one team in a given league on successive days for instance). Of course perception changes otherwise we'd still be bear-baiting and dog and cock fights wouldn't be covert affairs. More recently, we'd still see folk on horseback, in red, blue or black jackets chasing foxes and hare coursing would be legal.

I'd say you've got it in one as far as keeping current fans is concerned. However, I doubt that has any bearing on any newbys' first attendance. The match they've been directed to or singled out is a specific match on a given day. Any previous match or subsequent meeting wouldn't be in their thinking.

Yes, and the '70s fan could smoke his Woodbines on the terraces and got the evening's results at 10pm on Luxembourg. But it isn't the '70s fans we need to get into the stadia these days. Their view of the silly rules is irrelevant, it's the modern perception that's important here.

Fair enough. If it's not the idiosyncracies of the sport's rules that's keeping them away it must be the lack of good action. Other sports do have their 'silly rules' (your words), but matches don't start with lop-sided teams and team-members aren't borrowed on an ad-hoc basis from opponents. For someone that follows, or, indeed, plays other sports, that's an alien concept which some may find laughable. Especially in a professional sport where a particular team's player is asked to stand in for his team's nearest challengers (for a trophy) and do his utmost to knock his own team off of top spot.

Obviously we move in different circles. I've never taken anybody for their first time who've been content to just watch the bikes go round - at least not for a team event. They've always had questions to ask, team make-ups included.

That isn't the issue though. You posted it would be a long time before a newby would worry about guests and R/R, my point is they'd pick up on it straight away since most matches now run at least one six man team and/or have a (G) against one (or more) of the riders. I really can't imagine anybody new standing there and not asking about it.

The first question I asked when I had a look at a programme was 'why is this rider in italics when the rest are in ordinary print?' I took a couple of newbies with me a couple of years back and the observant one asked why, when the other 5 are in identical leathers, is one in a different set and wearing a bib? He hadn't yet noticed there were seven names in the programme but only six riders out there!

Folk already know the bit you mention if they're the slightest bit interested - most likely, they'd have watched some on the telly. I've sold the sport often enough, mainly in the past when the only way to find out was to go. That's no longer the case with televised meetings and the interweb.

The likelihood of somebody passing by the gates of a speedway venue just as a meeting is about to start and deciding, on the spur of the moment, to have a look-see for the first time is somewhat remote so, In the modern age, most folk, when thinking of going to something new will have a look on the net and read something about it. It wouldn't take very long to work out, from looking at the BSPA site, that there's something unusual about the make-up of teams.

Most speedway devotees (me included) would trot that line out but it does show why it's difficult to sell the sport to newbies, specially if they're indoctrinated into the 'one man - one team' mindset.

Danish Webmaster's version here:- http://www.holsted-speedway.dk/media/2015/Heatskemaer/SGP06-2015.pdf

Danish Webmaster's score card here:- http://www.holsted-speedway.dk/media/2015/Heatskemaer/SGP05-2015.pdf

Danish Webmaster's scorecard here. http://www.holsted-speedway.dk/media/2015/Heatskemaer/SGP04-2015.pdf

I can see both sides of this. This isn't the first time 'a member of the BSPA management committee, who I won't name' has suggested something not quite as per the rules and got his way - the time in question he just changed the rule to suit - but that was to benefit his own team and, of course, in the best interests of speedway. So I can understand the Panthers' management taking the 'suggestion' the way they did and going along with it. I can also see this from the other viewpoint, that of another MC member who sees it as against the rules, favouring one club to the detriment of the others (possibly his own club included) and not in the interests of speedway so making moves to veto the change. Why didn't Panthers carry on the interest in this other rider though once this veto was apparent?

As should have been in the first heat rerun - the Swede should have been out too, for causing the stoppage. No, it's not just you, the sport does seem to have lost its common sense.

It was the Lone Ranger theme tune back in the '60s and synonymous with speed back then.

Isn't there a huge difference between the two sports that means they can't be bracketed together in what any legal challenge might decide? A footballer not allowed to play for a third club in any one season could mean 'out of work' period. No job at all. A speedway rider not being allowed to ride for more than two teams at any given time means he still has two jobs, therefore is in employment elsewhere. Even if any EU body decided to sit in judgement, it would probably be so far down the list so as to not make it worthwhile for the rider to pursue.

But you do fund them at speedway meetings - well, let them in at concessionary prices. The Meerkovo longboat. That must be one rare relic.

I think his point is that part of the length of the home straight is packed to the rafters but the rest of the place is unused, making it a crush in a two-thirds empty stadium. I've often wondered how many 'packed to the rafters' is at Wolves. Is it as much as a stand-full at EoES for instance?

Ah, ok. Thanks.

I'm not particularly au fait with NL rules and regulations other than what I get by watching the matches but last I heard - admittedly some time ago - was that NL clubs (well, Conference clubs as they were called back then) can't hold assets. Has that changed now?

Well, they wouldn't have known, would they! It came apparent there'd been one in the kerfuffle afterwards. I wouldn't bet that a pre-AGM meeting was the norm prior to that year.

Wasn't it the issue that year that whoever decided on the time date and place of the pre-AGM neglected/forgot to pass the info on to the representatives of two EL teams?

Yes, but these MC members also have a (sometimes unilateral) say in things during the season without recourse to full meetings. Changing average rules to suit their own teams as a for instance (I don't mean Cooke here, it's just an example of what's been done on behalf of the MC in the past).

I, along with many others, have posted 'defining reasons' why I consider that rule to be 'Mickey Mouse' in countless other threads since its inception. I have neither the time nor the inclination to give my full reasons every time I post on the subject. On this occasion I was answering a point you raised as to why people consider that rule bad enough to stop them attending and I put the case that they, for their own reasons, consider it 'Mickey Mouse'. I see no reason to go into 'defining reasons' on this occasion.