E I Addio

Read the thread. Sidney pointed out several sportsmen with perceived foreign connections who never quite hit it off with the British public, I was just pointing out the opposite was true with Briggs who rode for (and captained ) GB enough times despite being a New Zealander. Of course he wasn't universally, popular, nobody is, but I would say coming runner up (twice I think it was ) in Sportsnight Personality of the Year suggests he was more popular than most.

Did you go to the same school as Matt Ford by any chance ?

I don't think its exactly written in stone that he won't be back but at nearly 44 years old with two steel rods in his back and, I believe, some question marks as to whether he will make a 100% recovery it seems very unlikely. Riders have come back from much worse, of course, but he no longer has time on his side.

The speedway public took to Briggo though. Still massively popular decades after he retired. I wonder if to some extent its more due to personality than nationality.

Fair comment. Its not just PK's performance on the track, its also the example he sets in the pits.Poole had the opposite when they were able to get Greg Hancock with his experience and influence on the younger riders just at the right time. The cookie crumbled the right way at the right time for Poole and the wrong way for Lakeside. That's not a dig at Poole, it's just the way things work out in speedway sometimes and we have to accept it. I am not sure Lakeside would have got to the play-offs even with PK, but it would have been much closer. The reality is that the Hammers form was too erratic early in the season, and I hope the promotion will think long and hard about what went wrong and how to put it right before announcing next years team. I feel gutted for Peter Karlsson though. A pity to see a great career end that way and I count it as a real privilege to have been watching him for the last two years. One of my all time favourite sportsmen of any sport.

He looks like Plug from the Bash Street Kids.

Are you going to do a report for the Peterborough Evening Telegraph ? It would be a good follow up to your article on Syria. Great for your journalistic career.

At the moment they play into the hands of the team with the best top two. Clubs like Poole, and Wolves can put the likes of Lindgren, Woffinden, Ward and Hancock out before heat 12 then have them again in heats 13 and 15 when points can really be made up. As for home track advantage, the home side also has to contend with an away track disadvantage. Its like cricket, the grounds men prepare the wicket to suit the home bowlers, and any track curator worth his salt prepares the track the way the home riders like it. Good batsmen, like good speedway riders deal with all conditions and those teams in both sports that can adjust to the biggest variety of conditions are the ones that win things. I totally disagree. If you are living in the real world I am not sure what world I am living in but it really doesn't matter. I am a big fan of Freddie Lindgren and I had one chance of seeing him at Lakeside this year and if he was out in heats 13 and 15 its alright by me. The fact that he won heat 13 and got beat in Heat 15 makes it even better. Those are great memories that I will reflect upon in the winter. And no, I never ever tire of seeing Peter Karlsson out in the big heats. Great sportsmen are never boring. Not to me anyway.

In the days you are talking about the old National League as the top league was called only had about 8 teams and there was such a wide bracket of abilities the "big five" were so much better than the rest they were still on 10 and 11 point averages so if they had gone off the gate with the rest the races would have mostly been over by the first bend. I think I am also correct in saying that back then the reserves would go off scratch and the normal team men started 5 or 10 yards behind. Anyway from the formation of the British League in 1965 it seems that everyone went off the gate until the golden Double was introduced.

Going back to my schooldays now but for a short spell at Hackney the teams came on parade to the tune of the old Harringay Racers (which was long closed by that stage) then they developed the idea and made a record of there own called "The Hackney Hawks" but the lyrics weren't very imaginative. The only bit that I can remember went on the lines of "The tapes go up and they're off like a gun, they don't give up till the race has been won". Don't think they even play at Sid and Doris Bonkers wedding anniversary these days though. Shame really. It's just what's needed at Cardiff.

No, I disagree with that. It was made clear by the promotion after the 57-33 defeat at Coventry that everyone's jobs were on the line except Davey and PK. Kim was inconsistent but no more so than the rest but he was the one to go because his average let Ulamek squeeze in on the re-declaration. If they had performed more consistently in the early season they would probably have a place in the play-offs by now. I think you're description of Seb Ulamek is very unfair though. At the time he was signed nobody would have predicted he would be as poor as he was. He came in on a 7-point average having been second heat-leader at Brum last year and scored, as I recall something like 13 points when he rode for Brum at Lakeside. His failure to score is quite inexplicable as is his lack of speed in a straight line, but its not lack of effort. He has practiced enough, has immaculate equipment and brought two first rate mechanics with him. I did hear he has been suffering from some kind of virus, rather like Rory had last year and that might explain it. Robbo was bought from Rye House in 2009 or 2010. Unless Cov bought him this year, then he is still a Lakeside asset

Unfortunately its now shades of 2008 for the Hammers with 4 riders on the injured list coming up to play-off time, and it looks like a Hammers select for what is left of the season, so realistically not much chance of getting through and even if we did its not going to generate much excitement with R/R and guests filling the team out. Of the three that are left it seems Lewis is the only one not carrying an injury of some kind.. Really question of looking to the future for the Hammers now I think. Tyson Nelson has been signed in replacement of the injured Kevin Doolan which is good news for next year at least, not that I want to see the back of Kev but Tyson has youth on his side and the potential to increase his average. Difficult to visualise the 2014 team at this stage. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Davey is back at Poole, if one or both of the turbo twins go, as seems to be likely now. Seems possible that PK will be retired from British speedway, and I am not sure whether the re-vamped cost saving EL will make it possible to keep flying Piotr in from Poland. Lewis I would say is almost nailed on and I guess Rich Lawson must be well in the frame, possibly with Kim Nilsson back but all that adds up to team in desperate need of a big hitter even under a reduced points limit that seems to be coming. Hopefully Mick Horton will announce as soon a possible that Kasprzak will be back with the Bees next year , if he is not at Poole and we can all breath easier. Ironically even the two best loaned out assets, Kauko and Robbo are also injured.

Absolutely right there Sidney but add to that he had a nice tidy riding style and always good machine control. Great rider to watch. tool a fair number of track records as well, as I recall.

Eastbourne and KL would no doubt go for more meetings if the meetings cost less to run. The circle that has to be squared is that clubs have to run more than 14 home meetings per year otherwise people will just get out of the habit of going. They have to be league meetings because challenges and minor trophy matches don't bring the crowds in, although I wouldn't rule out a re-introduction of the KO cup for those who want to compete. If there are more meetings riders costs have to be lowered otherwise clubs will go under, its as simple as that. In the long term people can look at reducing the costs of machinery etc, but in the short term its only the wage bill that can be cut. The sport is not all that rosy on the continent either, and riders can't afford to be as choosy as they were in the past. Some Polish riders, including Gollob don't have a job in Sweden this year and Davey Watts Polish club has gone into liquidation owing the riders money. Losing the GP riders is not an ideal situation by any means but you might well find that a number of almost top riders on a fairly high current average will still need to earn a living over here. As dump that clutch has eloquently put it in the preceding post the immediate problem is how to get more meetings per season. The question of who is going to ride in them comes after that.

Instead of pipe dreams think about it laterally. Jon Cook said in the mic a few weeks ago that in conjunction with Wolves and Poole (in other words CVS, and Ford)they are trying to get an expanded league programme next year so that we have more regular meetings next year because one of the fans biggest complaints is not enough meetings. Now, it obviously all has to go before the AGM but Cook, CVS and Ford, whether people like them or not are usually the ones that make things happen. The rest are pretty much in their own worlds and drift along with what the other three do. So thinking on from there, a more regular league programme will mean more EL teams (probably Leicester and Sheffield) but to make it viable it is very likely going to mean a lower points limit (say 38-ish) which in turn will drive down wage costs because their won't be room for combinations of two or three big names in a team. We can assume that to be the case because historically the points limit has been the tool used to control these types of things. There will be a lot of kicking and screaming from some quarters no doubt but it looks like the immediate plan is quantity rather than quality. There is of course a long way to go before the AGM and whatever ideas are being out forward still have to be refined, so we will have to wait and see what final form it all takes, but two things we won't see in the foreseeable future are a high points limit or a single midweek race-night for all clubs.

Look at the opening line of Arthur Cross' post that I was replying to. It says "Peterborough is a nightmare to make it look busy when its on tv". He goes on to say that 1500 people in Wolves makes it look a lot busier than the same number in EAOS. I was not saying its just camera positions, its a combination of things including non-regular race night, type of stadium camera positions coupled with the fact that a certain number of people are always going to stay at home when its on TV. Also Peterborough according to its owner gets poor crowds most of the time anyway.

I suppose you have hit on something that is at the root of a whole range of problems in the sport. Not much hope if that's the case. You have really depressed me now. :cry:

Who were they then ?

That is a very good point. You also have to consider the camera angles. At most TV meetings the cameras are situated mainly at the start and first two bens and are thus facing the parts of the track where least people go. As you say it is easy to make Wolves look busy because you can get a camera shot on an area where most people stand and even a few hundred at that point would probably seem reasonably well-filled, but I have been to stock-car meeting at Arena Essex where there were over 4000 people, with most of them standing on what would be the home straight and first two bends of the speedway track and if TV camera's were in their usual position it would still seem that there were not many people on bend 3 and 4 where the cameras were pointing.

The issue raised by Len Silver 45 years ago, is not guests as such, but it is teams who get guests that are much better better on a particular track than the rider they replace. Poole recent win at Eastbourne is an example of guests making a team stronger, which in devalues the league as a competition IMO. It seems to me that when guests replace a rider in an away meeting the guest should be on the basis of the away average of the rider they replace not the overall average. If a rider has an average of say 8 at home and 6 away giving an overall average of 7, his guest replacement should be a 6 point rider not a 7 point rider. If there is to be any disadvantage as result of a guest then that disadvantage should work against the team with a a rider missing, not favour them as the present system often does.

No. Like everyone else that can't argue on the facts you put words in peoples mouths instead of reading what is actually said. Sky have been around speedway long enough to know what the crowds are like and they haven't suddenly decided in the last two weeks that the crowds are not good enough, and they know that crowds drop on non-race nights. Punters going through the turnstiles don't pay Sky's bills. Sky's income obviously comes from advertisers and that in turn is based on the size of the TV audience not the live audience. In fact Sky's payments to the club reflect the fact that crowds drop when the meeting is on TV A lot of rubbish is talked about attendance figures, usually by people who are not there. Its notoriously difficult to estimate a crowd size and even more difficult when looking at it on TV because the TV camera's don't show all the crowd. At tracks like Wolves it is easy to make it seem like a decent crowd because everyone is in a fairly limited area. If you put the same number of people in somewhere like Coventry or Lakeside it will look a lot less because they are spread out more.

I found these programme notes of Len Silvers on the Hackney website. They were originally published in the Hackney programme of 29th March 1968-- more than 45 years ago and they are as true now as they were then about using guests on a horses for courses basis. 45 years on and the same old practice is allowed to continue on an ever increasing scale increasingly spoiling the league as a competition with any merit .Am I the only one that gets annoyed by this practice of horses for courses guests that IMO borders on cheating ? 45 years and still nothing done about it.:- Len Silver Talking 29th March 1968 When, oh when, are the wise men that control our sport going to realise that "guest" riders are undesirable? Last week I disagreed with Wolves’ use of Malcolm Simmons, and tonight I disagree with Glasgow’s use of Olle Nygren. Of course, it must be admitted that the arguments in favour of the use of "guests" is very powerful indeed, BUT, surely it must be wrong for a team to be allowed to use a "horses for courses" policy? And what about the ludicrous situation that developed last week when Wolves' boss Bill Bridgett was allowed a guest for Airey because of a financial dispute, while we were not even allowed the use of the "Rider Replacement" scheme in the enforced absence of our third heat leader Des Lukehurst because his illness was not of long enough duration? I can tell you all, that right or wrong, win, lose or draw, the Hawks will not use guests unless the regulations clearly show no possibility of dispute, and no possibility of gaining unfair advantage by their use. When we win the League battle it will be because OUR team is the best.

The BSPA was created in the first place because the independent body previously running the sport had made such a muck up more than half the riders in the country were riding in a pirate league.

Why would Sky want a big crowd ? If people are watching at home they are helping the viewing figures and watching the adverts that pay for the meeting. For every person in the crowd that's another person the companies paying for the adverts are not reaching.

Undoubtedly some strange things have happened occasionally in the past ( and Poole 2009 springs to mind) but the context of the discussion is that Moxey 63 who says he hasn't been to speedway for years and never has a good word to say about the modern sport, claims that teams "are" (i.e. present tense meaning this season) throwing points all over the place which implies it is on a major scale and that is all because of the play-offs. I am just intrigued to know how someone who never attends meetings gets this inside information. Which teams are throwing teams all over the place in order to strengthen up? Obviously its not the top three . Could it be Kings Lynn ? I wouldn't have thought so In view of their record ? Lakseside who sacked two assets and incurred loan fees for riders who weren't much better ? Or might it be Poole though I doubt if even Matt Ford would arrange for his World Champion to injure himself so he could be replaced with a lesser rider. Doesn't look to me like any of the bottom 4. I would say its more likely that Moxey 63 knows orion has made him look an idiot and is just grasping at the first thing he can think of, rather than admit he is wrong. The world is full of conspiracy theorists but unless these people produce some evidence to back up what they say then they remain conspiracies and not facts.