TheReturn

My mistake, on the SGP home page, there is row of Instagram post images which shows Doyle 8th. I should have realised that was an old table, sorry for getting that wrong.

He may not come back or want to do the GPs, I don't know. But if he does, I don't think we can justify giving him a card based on him having an amazing career, we have to look forwards not backwards. It's my opinion that his age is relevant after a year out, look how Tai struggled after his return after just a few weeks out, both fitness and equipment. If his age was not relevant, the lead commentator would not be banging on about it all last season. I don't have the answer, but I do not think giving him a wildcard is right without him earning it now (not based on the past 20 years). You're only as good as your next game, and you can't live on past glories as every opposition football fan likes to remind us Forest fans (we were twice European Champions for those that don't know)! Like I say, I don't have a 'fair' answer, but I have never been a fan of wildcards, I would much rather a rider earned their place in the championship. So maybe now is the time that the GP explored that, and my suggestion would be a second GP challenge. The idea being at the start of the new season, a second chance to rightfully 'earn' a GP place is made available through a second GP challenge, with the bottom 7 from the GP series of the previous season, and the top 6 non-qualifiers from the first GP challenge the previous season and then allowing the GP series to give 3 wildcards to riders who for various reasons missed the cut the previous season, or top youngsters they feel would add to the SGP. The top 4 from this second GP challenge qualify for that season's GP series. This gives all riders a second bite of the cherry, and gives the SGP the option to award wildcards and allows those wildcards to 'earn' their place in the racing elite, to show they have the ability to compete.

Is he? I am sure the table I looked at showed him 8th. Will check in a moment, but yes, I agree on card.

They were talking about 2020 wildcards at the weekend. I assume Tai would get one. Doyle is now top 8, he's making good progress and may not need one, but if he did I would assume Doyle would be given one. So who else would be offered one? Lambert's struggled of late, but always seem well on the pace. Another Brit in the series would be nice, but would he be considered a top rider worthy of a place? Bit too early for him to be offered one? I was surprised Scott talked about Hancock. This is said with respect to the devastating illness to his wife, he's been out for an entire season and we've seen a much younger Tai struggle with just a couple of months out. We're seeing a new wave of young riders come through, I truly do not think the GP's have missed Hancock this season, and with his age I am not convinced giving him a wildcard would be in the best interests of the future GP series. So... thoughts?

You could say the same about Northampton and Silverstone though, but Silverstone still gets big numbers for the F1 GP.

Translated.... the people running speedway don't care about the product, just the 'show' and getting people through the door? Give the fans the best possible racing and they will surely come... as would TV. So does it matter if there is 10,000 or 40,000 in the stadium if the quality of racing is there?

It depends how they utilised that £100k though. There's advertising and there's effective advertising. The original poster is right, promotion of speedway is poor, the only place I have ever seen speedway promoted was when I lived in Bournemouth for a while, Poole speedway posters were everywhere. I was sat on a tube years ago and I remember seeing a guy opposite reading a Polish newspaper and I realised a few minutes later he was reading all about Gollob. Targeted marketing for specific audiences, i.e Polish community for example could be tried. If a club as a big Aussie name, they could appeal to Aussies in the area to come and support their countryman/ Lots that could be tried... if there is a will. There's so much that the BSPA and clubs could do to promote speedway, but you have to get the basics right, for starters what's the first thing most non speedway fans will do if you manage to hook them with advertising? They will go to Google and what will they be presented with? Some of the most pitiful, unattractive websites there are, utter mess (some are better than others). For example, go to the BSPA website and on the homepage it's a cluttered mess, fans will find what they're looking for eventually, but non fans will log off within 20 seconds IMO. The first thing I would do on the homepage for non-fans is create a prominent UK map with the words 'find my nearest speedway action', which when clicked opens a clickable map of the UK with each track pinpointed, when clicked it displays stadium details, location, link to fixtures. That's just one example. Another is we need short race clips of fantastic action on screen, nice and big and bold. Need to build an active database of followers from the website too, create an enewsletter action sign up, you can even get clever with these and create regional enewsletters. My point is, speedway advertising and promoted is needed, but before that need attractive websites to ensure we retain hooks. The BSPA needs to stop giving it's media and website jobs to mates and in the case of website, spend the required £20k to develop a top website (done right, and maintained with new plugins when they become available you can get a good few years from). Just as a point, an example of a very good speedway website is the SGP website. Modern, attractive, not cluttered, good navigation, responsive (for devices). The SGP website is very good, 8/10 perhaps, maybe even a 9.... the BSPA website fails on all the points just mentioned, it's not modern, it's ugly, it's cluttered, poor navigation, not truly responsive so you could only give it 1 or 2 out of 10. But the other basic that speedway should look at is appealing to a younger audience, certainly here in the UK. I was watching Swedish speedway the other night and they scanned the crowd and it was 50ish year old men, grey hair... speedway needs to find a way to bring in the younger generation, as someone else already stated, at the moment it's usually younger family members of those 50 year old men I would guess.

Good, his recent BT Sports studio appearance was cringe. He was just so negative with his comments I thought, he really did not fill me with confidence in his ability to lead with enthusiasm and positivity.

The BSPA website is abysmal full stop to be honest from design to content. As someone that's dabbled in web design it's fundamentally a cluttered mess, it was not great before this redesign, even worse now. I would argue it may have looked ok 10-years ago, but these days it's way below standard.

Looking ahead to the future it's a little disappointing that only one rider ages under 27 tonight, even with Lambert's injury that's still a little dissapointing.

At least he is honest unlike Hancock who took time off the SWC a couple of years ago with the lame excuse he wanted to give the kids a chance. I can not believe people think Rosco should stay. Nice guy I am sure, but he makes dubious tactical choices, questionable rider selections and his motivational skills are not immediately obvious... not to mention the utter negativity/paranoia of those interviews at the weekend.

That is thinking for today, not tomorrow. Surely taking an additional under-21 rider would not just provide backup coverage, but should they need to be called to the big stage in a years time they will have spent two days soaking it all in this year, and be slightly better prepared.

Well we have know about big problems for years and Tai appears to be the only one having the balls to say it loudly and appearing to do something about it. If we can not listen to the multiple world champion who seems to be talking sense then who can we listen to?

Rosco's own ludicrous comments pre-meeting yesterday deserved not just pot shots, great big cannonballs.

All good points.

Funny. you love your mate Nigel Pearson but I think he's useless, the most boring, anal, repetitive commentator there is.... but like you say, we beg to differ.

Oh he got another mention in..... if he likes mentioning irrelevant sports with the word 'speedway' in he can mention the American oval car racing next time.

I thought she does an ok job under difficult situation with the language. Generally she asks good questions at the right time to the riders.

I know, Nigel likes to mention everything multiple times.... usually the less interesting facts, like this one.

Why does that idiot in the commentary box keep going on about ice speedway?

He seemed more bothered about the negative feedback than he should be.

Just listening to those comments by Tai in the studio, am I right in thinking he doesn't have a lot of time for Rosco as Team GB manager? To be fair, everything Tai said made sense to me, and everything Rosco says just sounds utter ridiculous. in fact Rosco seems to have a chip on his shoulders about people (assume he means us fans) moaning. The reason he gave for not taking Bewley made no sense at all. Moving forward for next year, Rosco is not the main to drive Team GB forward, that's clear for us all to see. Tai had a lot of good ideas for the future and we would be stupid to ignore him. So is there any reason why even if he is riding Tai could not have a big say on rider selection with Peter Adams there to manage on the day (they seem to get on well and work together well).

Tai really doesn't seem to have any respect for Rosco. But Tai is bang on with his comments. We should have had another under 21 rider there for the experience (as it turns out, would have got a ride). Rosco is clueless at this level, is there any reason why Tai could not do both jobs next season, and be team manager, maybe with Peter Adams?

Congratulations to Pearson, I am fairly sure that's the first TV meeting of the season he's not mentioned Hancock.

A bit OTT? I have seen far worse meetings om Sky/BT. The racing was ok, but like all tracks some nights produce better racing than others. As for the track, I didn't see too much wrong with it, again, we have seen tracks at Poole that are far worse than what we saw last night. I have not been to the showground in years, but I always used to like my visits there and generally some good racing.