Vincent Blachshadow

Riders currently sign a contract knowing they will ride in every match. Asking a rider to sign a contract and commit himself to a club he may never be required to ride for (therefore earn nothing) is a different kettle of fish.

You would if you want that brickie to be available just when you want to use him and for him not to take offers from rival builders.

Quite. And it won't be very long before we hear the call for the introduction of temporary guests to cover these shortages.

With a squad system in operation, another track hoping to sign him as back up in case of injury to the regular/preferred #1 maybe?

Ok then, ride for a British EL team.

That's because no British team has this sort of set-up. Are you suggesting that, Kasprzak for instance, would be happy sitting out matches in Poole's squad earning nothing when he could be first choice elsewhere earning money?

Ride for an EL team?

So you keep saying. But I believe Tai has a very good team around him and is well advised. Included in that good advice is who to say what to and when.

He made it public then but that doesn't mean he hadn't made up his mind ages back and the semi-final dates gave a convenient, more acceptable out.

Do you not think though that had he have taken that wild card because he couldn't make the semis through meeting world championship commitments folk would have accepted it without a murmur. After all, seeding better players/teams straight through to later rounds in sporting competitions is common. As it is many folk see 'it's not fair on the others' as 'I can't be bothered'.

Ah, you've got it now. You've been insisting it would have been IMPOSSIBLE for Tai to have got a bike or two over here for a British semi-final but now you see he could have done but IT WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN FINANCIALLY VIABLE FOR HIM TO DO. So, possible yes but not really worth it. And are you seriously suggesting that ALL Tai's bikes are in vans going between Sweden and Poland or GPs? No spares tucked away in Polish or Swedish workshops, none at home or with a tuner? No spare machines anywhere that could have been sent over here for a semi-final had he wanted to ride?

Oh come on, we're talking probably the most professional and one of the best (if not the best) set up riders in speedway today. He doesn't turn up at a meeting in a car, a bike rack on the back and a single bike on it. On the time-scale for the semis, his bikes would turn up in a van, he'd be picked up at the airport and arrive at the track in a Merc, Audi or some such comfortable conveyance. It's been done before and will be done again in the future by a rider that wants to ride in a British semi-final. He's got enough bikes to have sufficient at the GP venue and for his Polish commitments, and still have a spare bike or two to send over here if he wanted to ride in the meeting - even more so if, as has been posted earlier, his tuner resides in Britain and he has a house here. The operative thing being if he wanted to. Should he ride for Team GB? In my opinion, yes, he's our best rider, but I do see the other point of view, if he won't ride in his National Championship he shouldn't be picked for his country.

Yes, top or bottom, the actual league matches will merely be the qualifying competition.

No, but they're not British and the top (European) riders do ride in their home countries.

They're not, they sign up to whichever league they decide to enter since it's possible for a new team to go Elite straight away. They'll have to be convinced promotion/relegation is the way forward.

On the face of it, a good move but are all promoters happy with it? We know that there are teams in the PL that are only there because they want to be and don't want to move up, some having voluntarily taken the plunge. Will the attitude of these promoters change just because they finish in the climb zone? Are there enough teams willing to step up to even the divisions out for the inaugural season? It wasn't that long ago that a much heralded on Sky promotion/relegation failed because the team winning promotion didn't want to move up and no way was the relegation play-off losing team going to drop down. Sort that out, get all to agree and we could have a good product here - subject to Chapman's rule-book re-write and all promoters playing to the resulting set of rules.

A very easy decision to make when all other major speedway stops for the duration of the WTC.

To all intents and purposes though, he is being blocked. That's why somebody's gone all the way back to find that prohibitive and entirely inconsistent average.

Fair enough, but those that still went after 'the decline' but have stopped going since - this century, for instance - have their own reasons for stopping. Aren't they allowed a say? Their opinions could be more pertinent than somebody who gave up when Ronnie Moore stopped riding. If you only want to know why folk stopped going at the start of 'the decline' you're looking in the wrong place. They're long departed this forum or this world.

Wasn't a few years ago, though, when Ford named his NL team Bournemouth. Asked why the crowds were so poor for what was (from memory) a reasonably successful team he replied that Poole folk weren't interested in anything with 'Bournemouth' in the name so didn't go.

I wonder if this was the organisers' reason for letting folk in - we're aware the track is unraceable, but the riders are bound to give it a go with this many in watching.

Like I posted, we'll never agree.

Course it does mate, that's why promoters have voted for less 'qualifying' matches in the past. You like them and think they're necessary, I don't like them (as championship deciders) and think that, in part at least, they contribute to the big empty spaces seen on the terraces today. We'll never agree.

Orion posted more people will go to a meeting that means something. Does that not mean that less will go to a meeting that has lost it's meaning? Nothing to do with theories at all. The rest of your post I agree with - I posted so a few posts back. Speedway needs to do something to get more folk in every match not just a few at the end of the season.

Swings and roundabouts, surely. The floating attender that considers a match 'meaningful' because a team may qualify will consider all matches after qualification is assured or definitely out 'non meaningful'. Since, as Sidney points out above, many of today's fans were the fans of twenty years ago I'd say it definitely has a bearing on how many modern fans act.