Vincent Blachshadow

Where have I posted its right? I'm just saying it happens.

I think most speedway fans can point to an occasion or two when one was plenty.

I fully understand the reasons for guesting but can see the credibility issue when one team's rider rides for another team helping that other team to finish higher than his parent club. I always remember the situation the year of my previous post, 1999, when Poole's #1, Mark Loram, guested and scored a maximum for Panthers at Belle Vue helping Peterborough to take the League Championship (pre-play-offs) by a point from his own club. With so much guesting going on now, how many times has it happened, I wonder, that a team has been deprived of a play-off spot by points scored by one of their own riders riding for a rival team?

1999, the year Panthers won the title whilst Sky were at King's Lynn showing Poole run-up.

With no team to support I go where I please and have my own way of deciding. In the past, I've seen some lively affairs between lower teams and I prefer those to matches involving already qualified teams. Just personal preference. As for the better crowd, that's immaterial to me. OK, so I'm doing my bit to keep the less well-off teams going at the back end of the season rather than handing the money to those with the extra matches.

That's a moot point which'll never be proved one way or the other but certainly, as a peripatetic fan, I and the up to four folk I go with never attend a match involving a team for whom play-off qualification is assured. I'd rather go to a match involving the bottom two on the same day. We've never been to a play-off either.

Nothing counts as two. 2-2, 3-3 doesn't become 5-8. It stays at 5-5. Football is all about scoring goals and it's accepted that it's more difficult away from home so that is used purely as a deciding factor when teams are level after both legs have been played. The rule simply states the team scoring more away goals carries on to the next stage of the knock-out competition. The goals still count as one each, but the higher number away goes through. The rule is only used when teams are level at the end of some cup ties not as an artificial attempt to bring a team closer during a run-of-the-mill qualifying group match. I'd say the comparable rule in speedway is that, for a draw, the away team gets two points and the home team only one.

I fail to see the relevance of how prize money is apportioned in an individual knock-out competition to anything in speedway, but if you're talking prize money for league finishing position then certainly, in football's Championship, the team finishing third gets more than the team finishing fourth, who get more than the team finishing fifth, who get more than the team finishing 6th, regardless of who eventually wins promotion through the play-offs. So 'you do well you get the rewards' works equally well without play-offs - that's what talent money is for.

Once upon a time they did, yes. Fans realised one team comes top, one comes bottom, and the rest finish somewhere in between and the crowds came to watch regardless of where their team finished. I'm sure there's a few on here that can tell tales of heaving stadia when the bottom two teams were racing, let alone the top two. They came because they wanted to watch four blokes on brakeless motorbikes and league positions were relatively unimportant although the visit by the team at the top did usually draw the biggest gate after the local derby matches. But times are different now and its a shame that play-offs have to be held just to give four teams two or four more matches and (usually) bigger attendances with higher entrance fees. This is a subject which crops up on this forum most seasons and the same posters post the same reasons for and against with most of the pros going for the financial angle of up to four bonus matches after a prolonged qualifying competition and the antis citing the unfairness of a team finishing in 2nd 3rd or 4th place somehow being crowned Champions. I'm firmly in the anti camp and, following no sport other than several forms of motorcycle racing, don't give a toss what other sports do at the end of their seasons. I'd just like the promoters to come up with something that helps all the teams get that bit more survival cash rather than just four of them and if they must have play-offs get another award for the winners.

And of course only four get the chance to make any lost revenue during the qualifying matches up. For the others its lose/lose.

But somebody in a position to do so sanctioned it. Something I called for some years ago, that when something that appears to transgress a rule is sanctioned the identity of that person should be disclosed.

So how do you stop them using the UK as a stepping stone other than stop them getting good enough to ride in Poland or getting them to sign something saying they won't decamp to Poland and Sweden should they get the call (which we all know won't hold water)?

I still feel that those are just the type of people that would swell the crowds. It's far easier to get somebody that liked (possibly still likes) the sport back through the turnstyles of speedway tracks than entice somebody who, for whatever reason, hasn't bothered about it so far in their lives. An alteration they know nothing about isn't going to get somebody who previously didn't give a toss through the gate. If you can't get those that care about the sport to attend what chance do you have with those that don't care. I believe most newbies are introduced to the sport by current devotees and most youngsters are offspring or grand-offspring of speedway fans. The other week I visited the home of an old friend (through speedway) who hadn't been to a speedway match in this country for a few years (yet still attends meetings on trips abroad) but still has a look at this forum, because I was off to a meeting fairly close to his home the next day. Whilst I was there he lit his barbie and invited a neighbour along. We had a chat about speedway and he agreed to come with me and Mrs B the next day, as did his wife. The neighbour? Not interested, and despite what we said, he still thinks its a dirty, smelly, noisy pastime that takes place in antiquated stadia (we obviously weren't in Manchester) and he has no interest in watching four blokes on motorbikes going round an oval track and, as everybody knows, first onto the back straight invariably wins. I have every confidence that the ex-attendee will be going along to a few matches next year, all being well.

No, I think this part of the proceedings should be up to the promoters, it is their money and their businesses at stake. Once the rules, make-up of teams and league/s etc are decided then an independent body should take over to ensure the procedures the promoters voted in are fairly applied and adhered to.

A down side is any new to showing speedway TV company touting the match as a promotion/relegation decider. They may not be happy next season if the winners were still a Championship side and the losers in the Premiership.

A development league? Jon Armstrong, Paul Hurry. Definitely in need of developing. (Not picking on those two riders, btw, just two random riders I watched yesterday).

Then maybe he isn't the right person to be the boss, but that's for another thread.

'and we have evidence of the true reason' Buster '30 pieces of silver' Chapman having a go at a promoter who took an 'incentive' (allegedly). That is rich. At least Ged isn't helping in an attempt to shut two clubs down. I don't agree with what Ged has done but Chapman is the last person on Earth who can criticise him for it.

Maybe, but I've flown to GPs with national airlines and I've gone over with Ryanair. I've been on the same plane as several riders a time or two. Guess which airlines they flew with?

I'd say a contracted rider's air fare arrangements are different to a one-off guest booking for a rider not already riding here. He's not going to pay out of his own pocket to come here and ride one match. Then there's the machinery issue - a rider not contracted over here already isn't likely to have any (decent) bikes over here gathering dust waiting for possibly two or three matches a season.

With air fares to pay for one match over here. Can't see that taking off.

Depends on why they're shedding points. If it's for the club's benefit their pay-packet might not suffer.

An interesting snippet from the article BWitcher draws our attention to:- The 26-year-old has blamed behind-the-scenes issues for his decision, but says he remains committed to Britain and is not looking to switch his allegiance to Australia. Scunthorpe-born Woffinden was raised in Australia and has dual-nationality so could alternatively race for the Roos.

We don't know that. The best teachers are those that can communicate and get the necessary information across, not necessarily those that are best at the activity. After all, is Usain Bolt's coach faster then Usain, can Greg Rutherford's coach jump higher?

Either way it's unlikely he'll get to ride in a meeting he wants to ride in. As he was asked but now looks like he'll be left out I'd say he's been dropped which is what r72 said.