Mr Snackette

For those who don't like to be dictated to by TV schedulers, (particularly in respect of a film made in the 1940s!) you can choose to watch it whenever you like on Terrarium TV.

I thought Easter Monday this year was on the 2nd April, and the Polish League season starts on the 6th April.

Has it ever been any different? I remember when I first went to speedway in the 60s my old Dad telling me that the racing was much better "before The War"!! As was football, cricket and virtually everything else as well!! The only difference was that unlike now, there was a few more folk watching! Remember.....Nostalgia ain't what it used to be!!

Very well old boy, thank you......and I trust all is good with you Enjoying the sunshine in Spain, although I'm looking forward to September / October when it tends to cool down a little! Managed to persuade the bar in the village to stick on the GP last night. Interestingly the Spaniards were more interested than my fellow Expats!

More importantly many don't bother going to meetings anymore (and I'm one!).

This is available in Spain. Most football matches come with four audio tracks, one of which is just the crowd noise. The same is also offered for their Moto GP coverage.

Judging from the plethora of remarks about the merits or otherwise of certain commentators, I'm guessing that things have changed since I left the UK. When I lived in "the mother land" they had this wonderful facility whereby if you didn't like what was being broadcast, you could continue to watch the pictures and mute the sound! I am pleased to say that here in Spain we can still do this. Indeed the last meeting I watched was greatly enhanced by a soundtrack of Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, Tom Wait's Closing Time and Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever. All too symptomatic of the UK. The collective ignorance of the plebiscite leads to the UK economy being wrecked, Sterling rapidly going down the toilet, and now you Brits are unable to turn off the sound on your TVs. It does seem very unfair!!!!

Hence my comment that It is likely that newspaper proprietors will need to change their business model,

Within 14 years?! Now that is a very specific prediction!!!!! Given that the circulations of both The Metro and Evening Standard are showing significant increases in their readership I think announcing the death of printed newspapers is a tad premature and pessimistic. Indeed the numbers of folk reading The Metro now outstrips that of The Daily Mail. It is likely that newspaper proprietors will need to change their business model, but I don't believe the end of print is nigh!!

So on that basis, as The Sun's circulation has fallen from 3.87 million in 1997 to 1.66 million in 2017 the end of that esteemed organ may be nigh......which may not be a bad thing depending on your point of view!!

Mmmm......interesting criterion. So had the FIM applied these rules we would have been denied watching Mark Loram racing (and being a three-time winner) in the British Final, yet Jason Crump could have been British Champion. That would have been a nonsense! Rules and Regs are very easy to criticise, less so to draw up!!!

Of course, Ole Olsen was a contestant on "Vild med Dans" a few years back. I can't think of a single British rider in the last 30 years, who would have a high enough public profile to receive a similar invitation in the UK!

Next Wednesday Stockholm / London 39€ return. I don't think that would break the bank to fly in a guest who was racing in Sweden the night before!!!

To paraphrase the much loved Jim Royle: "Guests....."a necessary evil". My ar$e!!!! Clearly, other leagues operate quite successfully without employing guest riders, yet for the UK ending the guest system would bring down civilisation as we know it. After all, by having a guest system it has led to the success that is British speedway, and it's continuing growth as it goes from strength to strength!!! Of course, this isn't anything new. Back in the day, when I used to go to over 100 meetings a season (and that's around £1,800 that UK Speedway no longer gets!), it was a thorny subject then. I remember going to both legs of a KO Cup Final....I think it was 1989 Cradley v Wolves, and Jimmy Nilsen rode for both teams over the two legs. I never found out if he got a winners or losers medal....or both!!!!! It lacked credibility then, and it lacks credibility now. But why change, given the success that is UK Speedway?!!!!!!!!

Not for the first time you miss the point......so little change there then!!! I wasn't suggesting that speedway becomes the exclusive preserve of ABC1s, it's just that speedway needs to attract more spectators with a greater disposable income. This is underlined by the continual comments that admission to speedway is too expensive......yet a new team in a former speedway town can get 20,000 through the door at up to £55 a pop!!!! The situation has been known for years. Pre Sky El Tel (el hombre naranjo) had a survey commissioned to establish the socio-economic groupings of the speedway audience. Sadly the results weren't what was required, showing an audience of predominantly C2, D & E. You have only to look and compare the TV adverts shown during a televised speedway meeting and those for a rugby or cricket match. The difference is stark!! In the 21st century, for a sport to be successful, it needs to attract sponsorship and advertising from major multi-nationals.....not just from the local kebab house and tattoo parlour round the corner!!!! In order to attract the better quality advertisers and sponsors, you need to improve the demographic of your spectator base. I don't pretend this a cheap option, and whether speedway has the appetite for really radical (and expensive) change is questionable......but failure to do so will just mean a long and painful death. As my old Latin master would say: Extremis malis extrema remedia.

This is complete nonsense. The comments suggest that speedway will only ever be watched by the financially disadvantaged, and those from lower socio-economic groups. That may well be the case now as the sport has been allowed to spin in a downward spiral for so long. However, the task of the marketers is to make the sport more attractive to the ABC1s......making it at an event that people not only WANT TO GO TO, but equally who WANT TO BE SEEN AT. That's the secret of Rugby Union. As a boy in the 60s I was taken to the speedway at Wimbledon and to The Stoop and HQ to watch The Quins. Then it would have been inconceivable that there would be a time when more folk turned up to watch a club rugby match than would go to a speedway meeting. Then there were plenty of ABC1s watching, both sports. Wimbledon Stadium was a great place to visit in the 1960s. It was certainly more accommodating than The Stoop, or for that matter Stamford Bridge. Football was very much a sport for the working classes, the few folk that watched club rugby were more often than not friends/relations of those playing. Whilst both The Stoop and Stamford Bridge have been redeveloped into modern 21st-century stadia, speedway is stil for the most part being run at venues that have made little improvement since the 1950s. Thet are places that few, other than the odd die hard, want to go to, let alone be seen at. Until that changes little will change. A Pile of Poo that takes place on a Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, is still a Pile of Poo even if takes place exclusively on a Saturday night!!!! The event needs to be promoted so that people want to attend, regardless of the night it is on.

That may well be the case....but that has little to do with what they do to market the sport. The undeniable fact is they persuade 20,000 people plus to turn up for their home games, paying up to £55 a time for the privilege!! Now compare that with speedway, which is considerably cheaper to watch, yet most promotions struggle to attract 5% of that figure to their home meetings. Further proof, if more was needed, that the cost of admission has little to do with the numbers that turn up.

You make my point very well. Only 7,000 turned up at Lakeside when it was free. and as someone who was at the meeting, I thought it a lot less than that! Yet over 54,000 people paying up to £55 a pop, rocked up at the Ricoh over Christmas.......as I said before it goes way beyond the price of admission!!

As is often the case when a new initiative is announced the usual cliche riddled arguments are trundled out. For some, it is admission costs that determine the crowd levels at meetings. THIS IS CLEARLY NONSENSE!!!! As another poster has observed: "Don't tell me that people don't have money to spend. If the product is right they will come. If the product is pants it will be hung out to dry......" HOW TRUE!!! To illustrate the point, Wasps Rugby rocked up in Coventry. Despite the fact the city already had both Union and League clubs, not to mention an EFL team, an ice hockey team......oh yes and a speedway track. So Wasps had to grow their fan base. Ok, some Wasps fans traveled up from London, but more recently, of the growing fan base, the top places fans are traveling from to watch Wasps are Coventry, Leamington, Warwick, Solihull, Birmingham, Leicester, Oxford and Hemel Hempstead. Despite the fact that you can pay up to £55 for a single game ticket, crowds regularly top 18,000......indeed over the Christmas period the club welcomed over 54,000 fans to the Ricoh Arena – 26,292 watched their 40-26 win over Bath on Christmas Eve, followed by 27,930, for their 22-16 victory over the Leicester Tigers. People have found that Wasps provide a product worth watching, and at a cost significantly more than Coventry Speedway ever charged. So the bottom line is clear. Admission costs play little part in attracting punters through the door, it's down to one thing: THE QUALITY OF THE PRODUCT!!!!

There have always been problems in selling ads during speedway broadcasts. The demographic has been well documented in the past. The audience has far fewer ABC1s than other sports, and whilst viewing figures are relatively strong, the preponderance of poorer socio-economic viewers means that speedway will always be in the shadow to the likes of golf, cricket, rugby union who will always attract a greater advertising revenue stream thanks to largely to their more well-heeled audience.

There's none so blind as those who will not see!!!!!

Times change, as does our knowledge of the impact of health and fitness on our everyday lives. In the 1940s and 1950s, doctors used to recommend that smoking was actually good for both the baby and the expecting mother because it was so relaxing. It wasn’t until the 1960s that their findings on smoking and the impact on the fetus were made available to the wider public. And even then, it wasn’t until the 1980s that a nationwide campaign kicked off to get mothers to put out their cigarettes. Is it any wonder that the majority our sporting heroes of the 50's, 60's and 70's were less than super fit athletes?

Speedway may be dying a death, but racist bigotry is alive and well on The BSF!!!!!

Despite all the trials and tribulations at the City you still get over 9,000 people turning up for each home game. If the Bees got a third of that each week, there really wouldn't be a problem!

Current climate? In the current climate, Wasps turned up 18 months ago, and from nil, now get an average crowd of over 17,000. This has been achieved by supplying the right product, in the right environment, with the right promotion. Even Coventry City who are not dissimilar from speedway (in general), and can be regarded as a complete "basket case" still manage to get people through the door. Yet despite this over 9,000 fans, turn up each home game, be it out of a sense of loyalty / love of their team. It is clear that the good people of Coventry do not feel (certainly in terms of numbers) the same towards the Bees.