PHILIPRISING

WAS answering the question about poor attendance at Czestochowa not Prague ... with regard to Final attendance, Polish journos told us that many people decided not to travel because they didn't think they could win without Gollob. Going over old ground here... and incidentaly Gollob has twice won in Prague.

WOULD imagine that the postponement had a lot to do with it ... and no Gollob or indeed Sayfutdinov and Laguta who, says the promoter, are even more popular there.

PERHAPS they are fans of Louis Carr

WHISPERS of having race-off and final on same day...

THE planning application is in but (I'm told) once the contractors have been agreed they can help speed up the process inasmuch as having been given the job to do they want to get on with it.

IN the fullness of time it will...

THE money used of the whole project has not come from council tax but is in effect from Manchester City Football Club which is why it was deemed acceptable to spend it on a Sports Village

HAVE posted elsewhere that the builders have been appointed by the council and they are pursuing planning permission which should be no more than a formality although it still has to go through the right channels and takes time. The builders are a very large international company for whom this £6 million project should be a breeze.

BUILDERS for the new BV stadium have been appointed. They are a massive international company for whom a £6million construction project like this should be a walk in the park. They will be pushing through planning permission asap. Still don't think it can be considered as an international venue in 2014. I wonder (and it is no more than that) if Warsaw was to take a SGP slot the SWC might go to Bydgoszcz.

THERE is also a political game going on in Bydgodszcz with the club trying to acquire financial help for stadium improvements from the local council and using the staging of SGPs as an inducement. It is certainly the PZM rather than BSI pushing for Warsaw. From their perspective, they see Denmark, GB and Sweden all staging GPs in national stadiums and want to do the same, especially as they see themselves as the major speedway nation, now enhanced by their World Cup victory.

DIDN'T you actually concede in a post elsewhere that storing shale in a pyramid shape made sense?

YOU are in a very contrary mood... why would the Polish journos be talking a load of tosh? The loss of Gollob from the final was a huge topic in the Polish media and the reaction from the public provided significant evidence that many fans who had intended going had changed their minds.

SOME of the Polish journos told us that many fans who had intended travelling did not once Gollob was out of the meeting. Poles like to win and obviously felt their chances were seriously diminished without the great one. Eggs in one basket? Don't follow you...they didn't anticipate the whole crowd being from Poland, simply as stated above.

TO be honest I think they and Petr Ondrasik were hoping for a bigger influx of Polish fans

IT is not about the past ... far fewer people attending speedway in the UK now than even a year or two ago. Just over 5,000 at KL last week. How many more for a Final there or Peterborough, Poole, wherever?

I AM not trying to stir up anything ... just asking what people genuinely think might be a realistic attendance figure for a SWC Final in the UK. There is no hidden agenda.

HOW many people 'packed out Peterborough?' You haven't come up with a number...

I DIDN'T agree with the decision to go to Prague with a very weak host nation seeded to the final but I can understand trying to get away from the cycle of Denmark and Poland, probably the only two countries that can attract a significant crowd. As a matter of interest, if the final was held in the UK with GB seeded to the final, how many people would attend? THERE were huge posters right along both sides of Wenceslas Square and in other areas of the city. There are literally millions of tourists in Prague but I doubt that attending a speedway event is high on the itineraries...

A CHANGING dynamic in the British population for one. Why would any youngster want to be a speedway rider? We don't have the club culture that there is in Denmark, Poland and Sweden, there is no route to speedway from grasstrack that there once was, there is no investment in attracting and then providing proper training for the few that might be tempted to try speedway. Having tracks racing on so many different nights (no answer to this one) is a huge problem now while it wasn't before the Polish and even Danish leagues came to the fore and provided riders with viable and alternative employment. Facilities at so many tracks are from a bygone era, constant changing of teams, fixtures one week and not the next (or even the next), a huge complex rulebook that hinders rather than helps tracks in need, a lack of trust in the BSPA as a whole and the failure to implement an independent body ... and, sadly, much more. I'M not aware that the media has any input. Might be better if we did!

AS usual you seem to be oblivious of the impact Polish speedway has had on the British scene, especially when allied to the Swedish league. In the good old days that you talk about any rider worth his salt raced in the UK but that is no longer the case and has very little to do with the GP. Many riders can and do now ply their trade in Poland and Sweden without the need to commute to the UK. And I'm afraid that if you think all the old World Championship needed 'tweaking' then you are living in cloud cuckoo land. During the early 1990s when Editor of Speedway Star I was 'public enemy number ion at the FIM' for continually campaigning against a GP style championship but eventually I too came to realise that the one off World Final was dying on its feet with venues like Pocking and Vojens hosting the showpiece event. It desperately needed a new lease of life, to adopt a championship format favoured right across top class motor sport. But any suggestion that it has caused the downfall of British speedway is pure fantasy.

ISN'T that the point of a commercial operation?

NO I won't. Crowd was disappointing. Problem is that the Poles just don't travel to Prague in the numbers that they used to and with no Gollob many may have decided against going fearing the worse. I also don't agree with seeding the host nation. However, Pavel Ondrasik, son of Petr, is making great efforts to improve the track at the Marketa and hopefully will get it right. He knows that a racing surface like Bydgoszcz in a city like Prague could be a potent combination. Nicki Pedersen said the track was better than for the GP and with a few adjustments to both corners and better material it could be excellent. In principal I also don't like the Joker (although it's connotation is much worse in English) but the speedway world isn't ideal and while many on here abhor it others, especially in the continent, are much less agitated by its presence.

IT wouldn't be a fourth GP in Poland but if it happens (and it is still a big IF) it would replace one of the existing rounds. A lot of these big stadiums in major cities are desperate for events to put on and is indeed where Poland played England in a soccer international that was postponed because they failed to shut the roof. Agree with pawel115 that Warsaw has never ben a speedway city but know that the PZM are keen to showcase speedway in their capital.

IT would have been on but, like it or not, all the TV companies will have loved the fact that it went to a last heat decider and that will influence their on-going decision making.