PHILIPRISING

SPEEDWAY STAR's Andrew Skeels, born in Scunthorpe, has known the family for most of his life and will be penning a special series of features on the Woffinden family in the coming weeks.

POSTED elsewhere that DT requested 300 words and that's what they got ... just illustrates how far speedway has slipped down the pecking order even when we have the World Champion.

BECAUSE, or so I'm told, SKY can pretty well tell what we are watching at any given time on their platform so presumably they can calculate the numbers more accurately. 5,000 out of tens of millions doesn't seem that many to me. But, hey, I am certainly no expert and this not a subject I would pretend to fully understand. And, yet again, we are going off on a tangent. The question was have Eurosport (UK) had a good year. Their answer is yes. Let's leave it at that.

A LOT of people including Nigel Pearson, who Tai asked for help at the start of the season, and BSI are working hard to get our new World Champion some decent media coverage here. He was on Chris Evans this morning (after frantic efforts to track him down in Poland), BBC North and Radio 5 Live today and should be on BBC Breakfast on Wednesday. So far we haven't had any great reaction from the BSPA. Frankly I don't see them having the contacts to make much mileage and, ironically, Tai might not even be riding in the UK next year. While talking to a TravelPlus audience on Saturday he said that he felt racing on only two leagues (not Sweden) helped enormously this year. Today he has signed contracts with Wroclaw in Poland (Sunday) and Vetlanda in Sweden (Tuesday). Obviously that does not necessarily rule out Wolverhampton (Monday) but there must be some doubt. How ironic would that be... a British World Champion seen only at Cardiff. The SGP is shown only on Eurosport UK rather than Eurosport Europe who screen the SEC. I believe that the SGP viewing figures in Poland this year have been good and, of course, it is also taken live in Australia, Sweden and Denmark (also a a second channel with delayed transmission) with the highlights package going to around 100 other countries. I am sceptical about all TV viewing figures, all the more so for terrestrial TV. I have never met anyone who knows anyone who is one of those who have their TV watching monitored in order to come up with the figures banded about. It certainly isn't an exact science although clearly SKY figures are much more accurate. But at the end of the day the TV companies make decisions based on these numbers, perceived or otherwise, and Eurosport UK are more than happy with their figures. Emerald tyke... am I doing extra PR? Not much I can do personally these days I'm afraid and the attitude of national newspapers and especially their sports departments is very different to what it was when I was speedway correspondent for the Daily Express and later the News of the World. I was actually asked to provide 300 words for today's edition of the Daily Telegraph but only about 20 per cent actually appeared in print. What I will say is that Tai has become very media savvy, got out of his hotel bed and immediately went live with Chris Evans this morning, and is very agreeable to any reasonable requests. But he cannot do all this on his own. Nigel is a good guy to have on board, handling his Press Releases, Nicki Sands, the Media Manager at BSI/IMG is banging the drum, but how British speedway as a while gets the most publicity out of his victory is something only the BSPA can answer. And as long as some think that having a British World Champion won't actually put bums on seats at their particular track I am doubtful that much will be done.

St Petersburg is where Emil Sayfutdinov lives and for most Russians 350 miles is like popping down the road. Anyway, Tampere promoters feel they can attract fans from Russia.

BBC Radio 2 (Chris Evans show) made a huge effort to hunt Tai down in Poland this morning and believe he was on at sometime ...

NOT what I am hearing but ...

EUROSPORT UK have enjoyed excellent viewing figures (better than Sky achieved) and, of course, still have two years to go on their current contract. Think you will find a few additions to their coverage in 2014... they were late to the party this year ad didn't have sufficient time to organise everything as they would have liked.

STILL possible but Laguta is undoubtedly coming up on the rails. Lives in Daugavpils, where there will be a SGP in 2014, Finland looking to get fans from Russia,not that far away, popular in Poland.

DECENT piece in the Sunday Times, smaller one in the Sun on Sunday ... obviously will depend of what edition you get in your particular area

AS soon as they have tossed a coin to see which Swede gets in ... only joking! Probably not that long.

ANY rider unfit to start the season comes into the series as soon as he is. Holderwas in Torun over the weekend, still having some problems with his heel but on crutches and much more mobile. Working hard on his general fitness with a programme devised by Paul Ankers (google him) on the recommendation of Kelvin Tatum. He is planning to return to Australia in November and is confident he will be ready for April 5th in Auckland.

YOU obviously don't enjoy watching a master craftsman at work... plenty do. Loved hius quote at the end: "You are never too old to screw it up." Great rider, great guy and a fabulous ambassador for speedway where ever he goes.

WAS very relaxed this morning. Hosted a Q&A session with over 170 TravelPlus punters at their hotel along with Kelvin Tatum, Nigel Pearson, Steve Brandon, Graham Brodie, Pete Adams ... and Tai. And later Mark Loram joined us. Held a collection for Ricky Ashworth fund and raised over £600. Good fun...

TAI looked fine in practice today. Heat 5 ... crunch time with Tai out against Hampel who has two on the trot

MALILLA is June 14... no Gothenburg

LOOKS like Bydgoszcz ... which will be a cracker and no real issues with seeding hosts. BSI looking at revamping SWC for 2015...

DANISH MOTOR UNION want the centre piece of their 100th anniversary celebrations to be a GP at PARKEN ...

SADLY NO ... because Wolverhampton have no meeting Tai isn't due back in the UK until later next week. Various things in the pipeline, however.

WILL DO ...

HAMPEL I imagine ... but having seen Tai at Stansted this morning and travelled with him to Torun ... he seems in good shape.

HOPING to catch up with Per again this weekend in Torun. Actually talking to him about serialising his book in Speedway Star. One of speedway's great tragedies, just like the accident that ended the career of Erik Gundersen (another really, really nice, genuine guy) so prematurely. If you hand picked a GP field from any era both would be in it for me.

THINK we need to take some of these figures, whether for SGP or SEC, with a generous pinch of salt. Does anyone seriously believe at one time over 16 million people let alone 29 million were watching a speedway meeting? MANY, many moons ago I remember Barry Briggs getting involved in a bid to have a Russian circus come out of the Soviet Union via the 'back door' and perform across Europe and for the events to be televised. Typical Briggo! The TV company involved (cannot remember their name) was at that time involved with F1, which is how Briggo came to meet Bernie Eccelstone at his office, which was then in Surbiton, where Speedway Star is now. Most of this is in Briggo's book. But the point is, while my memory is a little vague, the TV company concerned had these huge viewing figures for F1 across the world, which is the basis on which Bernie built the F1 brand. They were just irrational. Something like 90 million people in Nigeria watching F1. Of course they weren't but the combined numbers were mouth-watering and obviously worked. Bernie was never bothered at how many people actually attended GPs. Think he would, perhaps still does, prefer to have nobody there at all. The TV audiences, perceived or real, was and is all that matters for the sponsors who throw such huge sums of money at the sport.

THINK Eurosport are expecting and confident of their best figures with Tai on the brink of the title.

FROM my memory the dispute started because Coventry felt the goalposts were being moved after they had agreed a double spearhead of Andersen and Kaspzrak ... Harris had already been told he could go. Peterborough had signed and paid a big fee to Rye House for Lunus Sundstrom which they might not otherwise had done. Initially at least it certainly had nothing to do with Matt Ford. That particularly dispute between Matt and Allan Trump festered and grew but it wasn't the trigger.