E I Addio

I don't see how you can set the points limit much below 40. If you set it at say 37, the combined average will go up to around 42-ish then what do you do the following year with riders on falsely increased averages ? if you set the points limit back to 37 or 38 it means getting even weaker riders in to make the points limit.

Ok , its confession time. I only started the thread to get a few bites. Just goes to show that you only need to cobble any old conspiracy theory together, then sprinkle the magic words Cook, Ford and BSPA , then the old red mist comes up and it all kicks off. Gave me a chuckle anyway. Sorry guys I won't do it again (well, not for a few months anyway)

Back in October, after the AGM we learned that there was to be a heatleader list but no details were given of who was on it or how riders were selected. We subsequently had a full interview with the new BSPA chairman Buster Chapman telling us how he was going to put British Speedwáy back on the map but all he said about the heatleader list was, well, not much. Now normally it's the chairmanship job, or at least a senior executive to explain such things but in the event Jon Cook, who is not even on the MC these days was wheeled out to give an interview to SS, and still not a word from the Chairman. Then when the Lakeside team is named we suddenly discover there is to be some sort of squad system, but no details are given, still no statement from from the BSPA and in particular not a word from the chairman, who by all accounts is not even keeping his own fans informed about his own team building. Now in this weeks SS we find Jon Cook is wheeled out again to explain where we are with the squad system. Alright, the full details are not yet finalised but at least we have an idea what's going on, but once again why did this information about a pretty radical change to team building not come from the Chairman? Now we come to the interesting part. Despite all we heard from the Chairman about all he is going to do for Speedwáy we now discover that the squad system is the brainchild of.....you've guessed it Matt Ford. Is it just me or is there a feeling of deja vu about all this , a proposal by Matt Ford being adopted with very little input or comment from the Chairman . Or, to put it another way round, who actually is in charge at the BSPA ?

Neil made some tactical mistakes, as most TM's do, and is entitled to be criticised for them. However that was one of the things that got blown out of all proportion by the same few who chose not to understand how the fast track system works, chose not to understand how team building is constrained by the points limit, and just dumped all their comments at Neil's feet in a personal manner, even though some of them don't even attend the meetings. Jon Cook has said several times in the programme that he takes responsibility for the teams failings, but do you know what ? Not one of these chronic complainers has had the balls to come to a fans forum and put any of this to Cook face to face. I

A point already made by Macca 56 a full day before you picked it up, and to which I replied "Yes, fair enough, and I have no problems with your point on the word "most"..........,," So his point was taken on board. Macca 56 then "liked" the post. So the point was clarified between myself and Macca 56 and I don't think anyone with a reasonable command of Enlish would interpret the exchange in any other way. Goodness knows why you found necessary to repeat something that had already been resolved. I wonder what your problem is sometimes.

The notice on the old fans forum site concludes by saying " we look forward to you joining us on Facebook and Twitter if you are not already there" so it hardly seems to be some kind of clandestine escape. To be fair some of the vitriolic abuse hurled at Neil Vatcher for example in the months before he left by one or two posters really was beyond the pale, totally exceeding constructive criticism. As has been said , there's nothing to stop fans starting there own forum . Let's hope the poster who went under the name of Joyful John will start his own forum and then he can sit at home making his stupid comments to his hearts content.

Read the thread properly, and read posts 31and 32 where I was replying to Macca 56, who has already made the exact same point as you are now repeating. He "liked" my reply so he and I are clearly in broad agreement and he has obviously grasped the wider point I was making, even if you haven't .

Yes, fair enough, and I have no problems with you point on the word "most" although that is going into semantics a bit. The wider point is that I have already referred to Philip Risings OP on the Polish TV thread in the international section. Your point is fair comment but there appears to be more to this than the fixture list implies. As I keep repeating there is not great deal we can comment on until we know the full scale of the problem, who is missing from EL fixtures and how often, or indeed whether there is going to be a serious problem at all . All we have at the moment is the usual someone who heard something, which may or may not have some substance behind it.

Well we have a Leicester thread that's longer than the Lakeside and Belle Vue threads put together so there have been plenty of comments about not much.

No it doesn't make a nonsense of it. Once again it is you trying to be provocative and argumentative instead of reading the thread properly. Anyway, as I said in post #3 on this thread it would be a mistake to jump to conclusions before all the facts are known and whether ant answer to the potential problem can be found. Nope, no envy from me. You picked the wrong one to aim that silly comment at. I prefer live Speedwáy to what you call "live TV " . The TV broadcasts don't do it for me. I need to be there with the noise, the atmosphere and the company so I rarely watch it on the telly. If the couch potatoes want to be in front of the box every night of the week that's up to them, but it's not for me. How about you ?

See Clambo 71's post above. That explains it.

The difficulty is that all teams have riders who could go one way or the other more so than most years. Poole are least affected but Dave Watt is not getting any younger and we don't know if Hans dip in form was a blip or the start of a slow slide, although he is probably the best second heatleader and better than most teams No 1's For Belle Vue, Scott is reaching the veteran stage, and although he had a good season he still had a poor spell towards the end, and it is some years since he showed real consistency for a whole year. He can't go on at the top for ever. Who knows whether this year will be a turning point or whether he can still bang in another good year ? Will Richie Worrall start fulfilling his early promise after a couple of years in the doldrums ? We don't know which Kasprzak will be turning up, or if Fast Freddie can find the form that has been missing for some time now. And the question marks go on. Bjarne Pedersen, Bomber , Craig Cook, Mikkel Bech, Kymakorpi, and several othe key players have all been a bit hit and miss for some time now. Any one of them could have a cracking season or be very erratic and go awol at crucial times

I don't think it would be for Sandor Levai to complain about other riders being dirty. He was one of the worst. Certainly not above getting inches in front of someone and snapping the throttle shut to have the man off. More than dirty he was downright dangerous at times.

Exactly. Also what dates were given to the riders by the clubs when they signed.

According to Philip Risings post in the International section it's not being changed to Wednesday, but some are changing to a Friday. It's not about recognising we are third in the pecking order it's about EL clubs signing riders who confirmed their availability based on a particular Polish fixture list which is now being changed at the whim of a TV company. This could potentially be devasting for Coventry Lakeside and Belle Vue. I don't think we should jump until we have more information about how serious this is . It might be capable of being sorted but IF the worst case scenario arises and top riders go AWOL resulting in guests or r/r it's bound to severely hit attendances and could well be the final nail in the coffin. Let's wait for more information before we get carried away, but potentially it is very serious.

p Fair comment Starman but every club loses fans when teams regularly perform badly but the bottom line is that if Leicester go under the Sky deal goes out the window . That is the gravity of the situation. In a way I feel sorry for DH. People say he has brought it all on himself, and that may or may not be so, but I don't want to see any promoter losing so much money he has to pull out of the sport.

There is a Sky payment to offset the low attendance which I presume the PL clubs must also get when televised. However the EL clubs are the ones that have the higher overheads in terms of riders costs, ,and are the greater attraction for TV so it's reasonable they get the bulk of the money. PL clubs can get a full share of the Sky money if they apply to come up.

We all "hear " things but whether they are true is a different matter. And "asking" is not the same as getting. He obviously doesnt have a job yet otherwise he wouldn't still be asking.

Jon Cook hasn't muddied the waters. Speedwáy Star muddied the waters by uplifting a comment that was on the Lakeside website a week ago and re-issuing it as if it's a new comment. At the moment Cooks comment is the only announcement of any kind on the topic. At the time the comment was made he also said there would be an announcement of the full Hammers squad shortly which seems to imply there might be more names to come. There has been no further announcement so far but it may well be that the promotion are saving it for the fans forum in 3weeks time.

I knew MX had diminished but I didn't know it had gone that far down. I am quite shocked. Grass track is much the same. At one time there was something on in Kent almost every weekend in the season, but now they are very hard to come by. It certainly puts speedways problems into perspective. You are right about the cost of equipment. On Malcolm Simmons DVD he says that when he first went to ride for Hackney he was using the second hand engine from his grass track bike. That would be completely impossible for anyone starting out today. While still an apprentice at Chatham Dockyard he was earning 10 times more grass tracking at weekends than he earnt in his week day job. That is the sort of money clubs could pay with crowds the sport pulled in those days. As we know, those humble beginnings eventually produced a world class rider so how many other potential Simmos are being ruled out by cost today?

I must say I never thought of any connotations with racism until this thread blew up. The Confed flag was originally the symbol of a group of states claim for independence. It was only about 80 years later that the Ku Klux Klan tried to adopt it as their own but their power or influence is tiny in today's terms. Personally I don't see it as any different to dropping the Union Jack as the GB teams emblem because the EDF use it. It's not really a big deal one way or the other because it's only a Speedwáy club emblem but it seems to me that if people make these changes the racists have won. I suppose it's sensible for Somerset to change though. These days a tiny number of nutters either racists or PC people can cause a lot of agro that hard pressed clubs don't need, even though the average Speedwáy fan has better things to think about. A sad reflection on modern life.

We have civilised people at ours.

Very true. People come on this forum with their quick fix solutions for Speedwáy but they conveniently ignore the fact that the world has changed. People don't support motor sport in general in the way that they used to, and broadly speaking don't support stadium based entertainment in the way that they used to on a regular basis. My take on it is twofold. Firstly , we now live in an electronic world where people don't have the same interest in mechanical things. Secondly people are increasingly non-sport minded. I keep hearing about increasing obesity among young children because they are being brought up on computer games instead of doing sports, and this is IMO translating into a nation consisting of a big percentage of couch potatoes. This is not to say there is not a lot that Speedwáy can do. Of course there is but it is one of many sports, like moto-cross , and others where the potential crowd base has diminished and we will never go back to the days of huge crowds whatever is done. If every club could put a 100 on its average attendance it would be a realistic target as a first step and would at least move away from the danger of bankruptcy.

No formal announcement. I think some people are getting ahead of themselves with the word squad. It may well be something similar to the sharing of one berth by two d/u riders that we had a few years ago. Not the sort of squad system we see in Poland. Interesting though, that Dennis Jonsson is being given a try out. Will we eventually see a second Jonsson in the side?