norbold

Very sad news. Cyril was one of the all-time New Cross greats.

You're right there. I and a work colleague, who was an Eastbourne supporter and regular, used to talk about speedway a lot in the canteen boring all our other colleagues to death. When Wimbledon opened we persuaded about five of them to come along to the opening with us so they could see how good speedway was for themselves. Big mistake!!! They all said they couldn't understand what we found so good about it and vowed never to go again - and they never did. If I remember right I believe there were also big hold ups before and during the racing while they tried to dry out the track and consulted the riders about whether they wanted to continue given the conditions. That didn't help.

I remember that evening well. I was there.

I can't. I'm a historian.

Nowhere near norbold's hole yet. Isn't that right TWK?

Can we get Sverre back though?

I'm sure The White Knight will agree.

They could race round the houses....

What's happening to the Boleyn Ground when West Ham move, chr? Perhaps they could have an English Grand Prix there!?

Isn't it about time there was a riders' meeting to complain about the track?

I bet Darcy wishes he'd held his breath when they gave him the breathalyser!

That's a great site, 70sPM. Thanks.

If, as many on here suspect, there was nothing essentially wrong with the track, it seems unlikely that Ole Olsen is going to accept any blame for the meeting being called off and being made a scapegoat. Never thought of him as someone to take things lying down!

Can we bet on how many heats this GP will last?

Thanks Oldace

Only five years between being killed and being resurrected. Hardly any time at all...

Just out of interest, why is it Team GB and not Team UK? What happens if there is a good Northern Irish rider? Would he not be eligible for the team?

That'll be ok as long as they don't have to go through a gate to get there...

Just what we need. We need more off-duty officials, they seem to get better results. In fact, you can ask Darcy Ward about this.

Precisely. That just makes his refereeing even worse - just when you thought that wasn't possible!

Humphrey, spook, I run a theatre and there are four different ways of charging for use of the theatre. The first is that the artiste demands a guarantee. This is most often done by the bigger names we have and is most risky for the theatre as we have to meet their guarantee however many tickets we sell, so we can (and have!) lost on this deal. The second is a straightforward percentage, the bigger the star the higher the percentage they take, usually in the range of 70/30, 75/25 or 80/20. But at least we can't lose on this as even if we only sell one ticket we get a percentage of the ticket price. Thirdly, there is a first call, where we agree that the first £1000 (or whatever it is) goes to the artiste and then there is a percentage split. If we only take, say, £900, the artiste gets £900 and we get nothing but we don't have to make up the shortfall as with a guarantee. This is better than a guarantee where we could actually lose money, but not as good as percentage split where we will always make some money. Fourthly, there is a hire, where the artiste or company pay us a fee and all takings go to them, so the risk is entirely theirs whether they make the fire fee or not. Our local amateur drama and musical societies also pay an extra fee per day for hiring the theatre normally for three or four days beforehand for setting up and final rehearsals. This may be most relevant to the number of days Ole Olsen needs to lay a track. I'm not sure whether any of this helps, but I expect it's all much the same for use of stadia.

I can certainly endorse that, John. Your Defunct Tracks site is amazing, certainly one of, if not THE, best speedway site on the Internet.

Quite right, iris. If he isn't given enough time he should say so, not take the money and hope for the best. Not enough time is no excuse.

A kit from Halford's and an off-duty policeman, that's all it takes.

It's obvious what went wrong on Saturday. What was needed was an off-duty referee, an off-duty race director, an off-duty starting gate mechanic, an off-duty track layer and 18 off-duty riders. That would have sorted it.