E I Addio

Now there's a thought to conjure with--Starman as a mod, trundling down Wimborne Rd on a Lambretta, wearing a Ben Sherman and a Parka, with some bird in a mini- skirt on the back (probably Jaques) looking for a bit of bovver !

If the test is simply getting all the letters there but not necessarily in the right order you could even say sidney is a good speller ! Somehow I seem to remember from my schooldays there is a bit more to it than that.

Whether the sport is worse than any others is not the point. We are talking about what deters new fans from coming through the turnstiles. Cycling and Athletics consist mainly of amateur competitors and generally speaking have small crowds except for occasional big meetings, just as Speedwáy gets big crowds at Cardiff. You have said on another thread that you haven't been to a Speedwáy meeting for years so perhaps you are unfamiliar with things that have gone on, but there seems to be controversy in every area from team building to rain offs to the tactical ride. More often than not there has been no actual cheating but things are handled so badly people question the integrity of the sport. When there is cheating the sports controlling body are so limp wristed about enforcing the rules it only leads to more discontent among the fans.

I asked my brother in law, who likes most sports, why he didn't go anymore after I had generated his interest a bit in Speedwáy. His answer was: " I don't like Speedwáy, it's corrupt ". Unless the question of cheating and even the perception of cheating is addressed I think the sport will always struggle to increase its base of hardcore fans.

It all depends where the border line id between being very hard as opposed to being deliberately dirty. Ivor Brown certainly had a reputation as a hard man but I have never heard or read anything about him diliberately being dirty. I believe Browns own career was effectively ended when a hard move firm Ove Fundin put him through the fence, causing serious back injuries. Did forum member see that or can comment ? According Malcom Simmons DVD , Bill Andrew was one of the very few riders Siimo regarded as being deliberately dirty and who would put riders into the fence for the fun it if he got the chance. A nasty piece of work according to Simmo

Really ? Nearly 40,000 posts on here and he is banging away at Facebook as well ? Unbelievable. For someone who claims to hardly ever go to speedway he seems pretty obsessive about it . As a matter of interest, how many other forum members go over the same old stuff with the same old people on Facebook ? Cant be many surely . I know Gluesticks is on FB because he keeps telling us but he'll probably go anywhere for a bit of attention, but is there any real point of being on both ? I see Gluesticks has now surfaced on Speedway Plus as well

Is it secrecy or just poor organisation ? Maybe it's a bit like the old joke :- EVERYBODY thought SOMEBODY should do it. ANYBODY could have done it. But in the end NOBODY did it. Good old nobody ! For me cock-up trumps conspiracy every time. Still only a few more days and everything will be fine when the new chairman takes over.

Not missing the point at all. There are three likes to the post so some grasped the import of the point being made, in the context of the post being replied to. The issue is what the fans are "entitled" to. The third para graph of my post says "Of course there is an argument that it makes good business sense to keep your customers informed of what is going onbut that is not an ENTITLEMENT that exists as an automatic right " Then Humphrey Appleby says virtually the same thing ... "So whilst I don't particularly think the public have an ENTITLEMENT to know about the business details of Speedwáy I don't think it's unreasonable to have the competition rules explained." Not too far from the point I made, albeit phrased differently, yet you "liked" his but tell me I missed the point. As I have said before half the disputes on the forum are because people read posts with preconceived ideas or just latch onto certain words or phrases instead of looking at the whole post in the context of the line of discussion. Finally, I repeat yet again, that if someone attempted to answer the question Skidder 1 posed twice on the other thread (and which nobody has yet attempted to explain ) the discussion might be moved in a productive direction, but I dare say that the argument has now been ratcheted up to such an extent that his question will now probably be answered in an aggressive way so there is probably not much point now. That is just another example of people picking and choosing what posts to answer according to their agenda, rather than in the spirit of discussion.

Thats not quite it if you read the final paragraph properly. The perennial problem with the BSF . You are constantly dealing with people who virtually incapable of reading a whole post in the context of the discussion as opposed to picking out a small section that suits their argument.

In which every Elite Leagur promoter had a MAJOR say, according to the report.

Have you never had a couple before 1 o clock on the last working day before Christmas ? I know I have , albeit in the distant past. Be that as it may, the thread that we are now on wasn't started until nearly 5 pm . I don't know if SCB was three sheets to wind or not but look at the chronology. You mentioned first the SS article early in the morning on the thread where it belongs. SCB from reasons best known to himself starts a separate thread with a pejorative title several hours later, adding nothing new apart from some name calling . The mods simply shorten the title down to "Jon Cook ". SCB then starts yet another thread late in the afternoon that is not really anything to do with speedway but simply focusses on, and inflames the use of the word "retard ". Whether he had a skinful or not by that point the third thread is a direct challenge to the mods after they had already fired a shot across the bows by amending the title on the Jon Cook thread, which he then amended yet again and which the mods changed back yet again. SCB is old enough to be responsible for his own actions, On this or any other forum , when anyone starts flouting the authority of the mods its going to end up in a ban (or suspension ). We told he had been given some warnings, but drunk or not he continued his collision course with the mods, and at one stage he said he didn't care if he got a ban. Well now he has got one. He got his wish , he has made a martyr of himself on what he sees as a point of principle, and he is off the forum for two weeks (so we are told) at the quietest time of the year forum wise. When we stand back from the situation its really a storm in a teacup. SCB will soon be back or not be back depending on what he wants to do , No big deal.

Starman banned ? Wow, never saw that coming !

Not sure what or who that comment is aimed at but it seems to me the only ones getting worked up are the ones who think they are the ones who should be the arbiters of how forum rules are interpreted. Someone gets a two week suspension in the close season. Hardly the end of the world whether it be fair or unfair. It's Phils site so Phil makes the decisions whether we agree with them or not. That's what we all signed up to when joined the forum. Those who don't like it have their remedy.

A common sense post that stands out amongst some of the idiotic comments that have been made. Comments made on social media or forums are still subject to the laws of libel . It doesn't matter if the comment was meant as a joke or not to be taken seriously, it can in some circumstances only need one person to take it seriously to establish a libellous case. Some of the windbags on here would do well to bear that in mind. In any event, abuse is always a poor substitute for debate.

Entitled ? That really is a bizarre view, if I may say so. Speedway is a product like any other. You pay your admission money, you get the product -15 heats of racing- and that is the end of your entitlement. There is no ongoing obligation to anything beyond that, and I am frankly astonished that some seem to think there is. Its rather like the equally facile argument that Tai Woffinden has some kind of obligation to ride in GB now because someone paid to watch him years ago. Of course, there is an argument that it makes good business sense to keep your customers informed of what's going on but that is not an entitlement .that exists as an automatic right. Fans a will be able to access the rules of the sport before the season starts but even the ACU , ie, the governing body of motor cycle sport in this country have yet to publish their 2016 handbook (unless it has been put on line in the last few days), so its an exaggeration to say fans are not being made aware of the rules of the sport. Are you seriously claiming the fans want to know the reasoning behind every rule ? As yet there is no rule book. Nobody is prejudiced because the season is still a long way from starting. And who are the "fans" ? Do you mean members of the BSF because they are not one and the same. Plenty of the most vociferous complainants on the BSF rarely, if ever go to a speedway meeting, some haven't been for years but they still come on whingeing and whining. In fact the person who started this thread is always proclaiming how rarely he goes except to Cardiff . Many clubs such as Wolves, Poole, Lakeside and |Coventry have fans forums or similar meetings during the winter (usually to push season ticket sales) when fans can put their questions and concern s to the promotion and get the answers straight from the horses mouth well before the season starts. What it really boils down to is that hardly is anyone is getting hot and bothered about rule changes in general, the matter of concern is the heat-leader list.. I can understand that. I am interested in that myself, but maybe because I have worked in an administrative job most of my life I do understand that you cant always drop everything to concentrate on one. It would make more sense to have a target or roll out date set in advance so the public know when the information will be available and the BSPA are lacking in their general admin in this respect. I still keep coming back to the point that Skidder1 has twice asked what to my mind was a very good question on the proper heat-leader list thread (this one being the Abuse Jon Cook Thread ) and nobody has yet attempted to answer it. If they did answer it in measured terms it might move the discussion in a productive direction, although a productive discussion is the last thing that some on here (not you) want.

I totally agree. I've never understood why some get quite orgasmic about the t/r or the t/s ride. I can just about see something of merit in the t/r if the rider in question goes off 15 metres but otherwise I can't see the point. A good race is a good race whatever the helmet colour.

The BBC in general is rather a disgrace these days I regret to say.

The vast majority of posts on here seem to go along broadly with that sentiment, albeit with differing degrees of emphasis.So to that extent I am not sure what your point is. As far as Jon Cook is concerned what has been said , has been said. Nothing is going to change it and however many times people go on about it nothing is going to change what has been said. There really is very little if anything new to add to the thread. As far as SCB is concerned, he was not the first one to spot the point. Someone else had posted it several hours before on the heatleader list thread where it should be and where there had already been grown up comment. SCB hadn't even read the article, all he did was to start a fresh thread regurgitating the same point in more abusive terms which he presumably thought would make him look important or impressive but actually put him in the same or lower bracket than the object of his bile The criticism was a valid in substance the choice of language reminded me of Eric Hoffers famous quote that " Rudeness is a weak mans imitation of strength" . The point could have been made much more effectively using indoor language.

I don't think you can really say that the heat leader list was anymore secret than anything else the BSPA or any other similar body do. They make decisions at the AGM on a whole range of matters governing team building, e.g EL/PL conversion rates , points limits etc. As they are not elected by the public I am not sure why the public are entitled to know the ins and outs of every decision.. The only thing unusual about the heatleader list was that it took a while to be made public. None of us know why it was kept secret at first. There may be a good reason for that or there may be a bad reason, but until someone asks them we won't know. Normally there would be some kind of business reason for this, maybe something to do with rider negotiations, I don't know and I am not in a position to speculate. I can't off-hand think of any other sports with the so called transparency of decision making you are proposing, but I doubt there are many.

Its not ignorant, just a statement of fact. The subject has not even been mentioned on the Lakeside forum which suggests nobody is all that bothered , rightly or wrongly. As has already been said, those protesting now had precious little to say when Lakeside were struggling under the EDR scheme last year when the team were having to put out NL riders and PL reserves while the likes of Newman and Garrity were getting double figures so the howls of protest have a hollow ring to them now. I think the Lakeside fans have had more than enough other things to worry about this year. Cook was right. Some people are thick and this forum has for years attested to the fact that many more are biased. It wasn't a good idea to let that comment come out in print, and it would probably have been better unsaid, but that doesn't make it any less true. The genie is out of the bottle now and all the huffing and puffing wont put it back It will blow over when the season starts.

Well , I'll be blowed. You would have thought Yer Ropes would have mentioned that instead of just saying HO HO HO and mentioning some other Heartbreakers song. Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers . Who'd have thought it ? (Sorry, can't get my smiley faces to stay on)

Stuart undoubtedly saved the club by ploughing in a lot of money when Ronnie Russell pulled out. According to Jon Cooks programme notes he made a financial input initially that can never be repaid. From what I understand the club was more or less balancing the books each year once Stuart put it back on its feet . When I said Jon Cook saved the club I was thinking of the effort he put in to gather support from the local council, local MP, and other sources when closure looked on the cards last season. To give Cook his due, he resigned his position on the MC to focus on keeping the place from closure, and as he now admitted in Speedwáy Star the off track matters caused him to take his eye off the ball as far as team performances were concerned. That is probably why he will be TM himself next year with support from Kelvin Tatum. As far as I know the threat of closure still hangs in the air but there is now some breathing space compared to a year ago. Efforts to find a new site are continuing. Stuart has been straight with the fans from day one in that he wants the club to balance the books as far as possible rather than him simply being a benefactor that picks up the bills come what may. If you want people to part with their hard earned money there are lots of things you need to do, like sticking to the rules and running a slick presentation , but they frequently don't happen in Speedwáy. If they were to concentrate on getting those things right the crowds would be healthier and what someone says or doesn't say in an interview pales into insignificance by comparison.

Er ..... I think Orion rumbled me , if you look at his post above.

Yeah, it's not like the old days when we all used to have so much good natured banter on here. No wonder members are leaving in their droves !

I like that .... Anyone who doesn't get that must be thick , biased or have no taste. . So Sad.