The Pedaler

Eurosport released their viewing figures, and it seems that more than 5 million viewers tuned in to the Speedway Pairs coverage. Great time NOT to have been taking part isn't it? Still, we're British, we don't need 5,000,000 television viewers to see our riders in action. Who needs a high profile in this country? Who needs their sponsors names getting out there? Who needs the World Champion mixing it with the best of them again? Well according to the BSPA, not us!

It won't come to it. Matt Ford will get the fixture rearranged or postponed on the grounds of it being an unattractive fixture without the star attraction being there. And if he can't, he'll find another way to get away with it.

I'm sure that Woffy, Harris, Cook etc would love a share of the prize money pot too. Darcy and Noddy are £8000 better off EACH thanks to their win. That could rise to £33,000 each if they win the next two rounds, Woffy, as World Champion gets nadda, nothing, ZILCH! thanks to the "wise men" of the BSPA. That's the thanks that the BSPA give to "their" world champion. Yeah right!

Last year's GB v Australia test series wasn't a World event, nor a FIM event, nor an event that would financially benefit SpeedwayAustralia. BUT Australia did the BSPA the honour of competing for the benefit of those who profited from it (you guessed it, the BSPA!). It's a shame that when the BSPA are invited to enter a team into someone else's competition they can't also be as gracious, and follow the examples of all the other national governing bodies that did send a team to compete, especially as it was a televised event, broadcast throughout Europe. It makes the BSPA look like what they really are - arrogant and pig ignorant!

The commentary was awful. Eurosport should employ Dave Goddard. Simple as!

So my "ageism" is a bad thing but your racism is a good thing is it?...get a grip will you? Wondering if this is Alf Garnett writing? He was a West Ham Boy wasn't he? Look at where young people go in their leisure time. Given a choice, do they go where old people go? Do they go to the Wheeltappers and Shunters Workinig Mens Clubs any more with their fathers and their fathers fathers? Do they go to the local Derby and Joan clubs? Or do they go to where ALL the other young people go...because that's where they are with their mates and the young totty that they can try to "pull"? You make the terraces of the speedway stadium look like the Old People's Home's day out, and you will put youngsters off wanting to be there. It just won't be a "cool" place for them to "hang out". There's no point in looking up your own backside for the answers... if you want a new generation of fans you have to go out and ask THEM what THEY want, and to tailor the show accordingly. Else they won't come, you and I will die out and the support for the sport will die out with us. If that means the sport changes into something that old people won't like, then, that's what's called evolution, You are left with the choice then of evolution or extinction. Take your pick.

At the Monster SWC meetings, they had DJ's spinning their stuff dotted around the tracks in place of the traditional tannoy-broadcast music. Maybe something similar then, with "name DJ's" from the local nightclubs, who can maybe even draw some of their fans into the speedway stadiums with them? Bye! Exactly. Barry Hearne isn't afraid to crack some eggs in order to make an omelette. Can't keep pandering to Dads Army else there won't be any fans left once they all die out.

Hasn't Barry Hearne (the darling of many here on BSF) turned Professional Darts into a circus? Hasn't WWF turned Wrestling into a circus? And yet, these events pull in the crowds despite being far more expensive to attend. Maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere. Good ideas Might as well close some tracks down straight away then. Birmingham has air horns specifically forbidden in the Planning Permission. Take a good look around you. Don't you think that the average speedway fan in Great Britain is a good 20-years past all that kind of thing? CD's of what exactly? Rap Crap and Hip Hop? Heavy Metal? Reggae? Bangra? Every genre of music will have its fans and it's haters of other genres. You are NEVER going to please everyone, least of all the majority of speedway fans who want nothing more than a medley of Glenn Miller and the odd dash of Andy Williams and Val Doonigan.

My memory of what exactly he said is not exact. I don't think he mentioned entry fees, but certainly the cost of getting into the meetings would have included other things and I think that the cost of insurance was mentioned, and maybe the cost to be licensed to compete...or something along those lines, not to mention transport costs. He was making the case for why some British juniors were not entering international competition, when faced with costs involved against the benefits/rewards that they would get from such competitions.

If SVEMO was a saintly organisation, maybe Freddie Lindgren would still be available for selection. But that's another issue. On the basis that he who wants to call the tune has to pay the piper, if a governing body wants its riders to travel to another country to compete in international competition, then the very least it should do is to make and pay for all the arrangements to do so. That will include flights,travel, accommodation, out of pocket expenses, visas (if necessary) and any other incidental costs. If there are additional entry and insurance costs for an event (I seem to recall Phil Morris mentioning the cost of entering a rider into the Euro u21's or something like that last year) then the governing body should foot that bill too. If the governing body is bankrupt and has no money, then that's a matter for the FIM to deal with. If it can't afford to send a team to the SWC, then the FIM shouldn't invite them in until they can afford it. It's unacceptable in my mind for a governing body to tell a rider that they have to pay for the honour of representing their country...sorry NOT "honour", that should have been "compulsion". Jamaica may not have the richest winter sports governing body, but they paid for their bobsleigh team to represent the country at the Winter Olympics, The same principle should apply to speedway riders representing Russia.

Except if your name is Craig Cook and you make out that you can't afford to appear for Team GB in the GB v Australia test series...or your name is Lewis Bridger when you cry off because after laying idle for 5 months, your bikes are still in bits all over the garage floor. The point I think PZ is making is this, and it follows on from the SWC qualifier in Czestochowa last year. When the Swedes, Poles, Czechs etc select their teams, the governing bodies PAY for the riders to attend. They cover their expenses, costs etc etc. Last year, Emil, the Lagutas etc were not going to be paid any money by the Russian authorities to ride in the SWC...so they didn't accept their invitations, and some young Russian juniors were conscripted in instead. This year if Emil or the Lagutas refuse to ride for nothing, and pay their own way on behalf of their country, they will be refused a license to ride outside communist USSR (oops) Russia. Looking at what the Russian authorities have done, it's a step up from any draconian measures anyone else has made of their riders.

I suggest that one Sunday morning you go to somewhere like Handsworth, Aston, or even Sparkhill (Capital of "British Pakistan", according to Citizen Khan lol) and see if you hear any church bells ringing. Gather your own evidence rather than casting aspersions on others.

Once you have the appropriate decoder and motorised dish installed...going to certain web sites can cut your costs of TV subscription down to about £100 per year in total, for all of Sky UK, all the Polish stations, all the Swedish stations, Italian TV, German TV, French, Spanish, etc...AND many of those stations carry multi-lingual commentaries too, just like DVD's have choices of languages. I've often watched a Premier League football match, live on (e.g.) Al Jazeera Sports, with an English commentary, on a Saturday afternoon when UK stations aren't covering the match. And this thing about not hearing the commentary in English anyway...you don't get that on the terraces when you are at the track either...or don't you go to live speedway?

Indeed it is, which is why in certain inner city areas you won't hear church bells ringing on Sunday mornings any more, due to non-Christians moving into the area and succeeding with their objections about the noise. Why should speedway be any different?

"Tickets From £17" - it says on the front page relating to the Coventry fixture (and the same principle will apply to the rest) It's very unfortunate that this is somewhat misleading, because click on the "get tickets" button and you are offered up a page with all the discounted ticket prices. In other words, it's not "From £17" at all. £17 is the maximum price. The problem is, if you are a pensioner, or a student, or under 16, you may never find out that the cheaper options apply because your expectation, reading "From £17" is that the prices will be £17 and upwards. A bit of an own goal I suspect.

Bloody shoddy performance by the promoters if they took a lackadaisical attitude towards the presentation of their case. Shoddy performance by their legal advisers to allow this to happen as well. Bearing in mind the costs of taking things through the legal system all the way to Supreme Court level, you'd have thought that they'd have made every effort to secure their investment in the proceedings. Worryingly, again bearing the costs in mind, it shows that these neighbours must have some cash behind them to pursue this case, as it could cost them a pretty penny if they lose, and the even if they win, they will have had to fund the case to the n'th degree to get that far, before they get any costs awarded to them by the courts. This is no ordinary Mr & Mrs Smith that Mildenhall are up against.

What's the situation about all those people who donated to buy bricks? If the stadium doesn't get the go-ahead, do they get their money back?

Talking about ideas in forums is all well and good. You at no risk are you? It's never your money that gets spent is it? What I take more notice of is when a promotion tries new ideas, tries to do things their way, and meets resistance from the establishment both in terms of the BSPA with their cartel co-horts Russell/GoSport and the Pearson/Povey media alliance, in such a way that they are forced to do things "our way or no way" that I am forced to conclude that no amount of hot air ideas in forums or money wasting ideas tried in practise will work. The whole sport is corrupt from top to toe to such a degree that nothing short of evicting the lot of them from their comfortable ivory towers and starting again with a clean sheet of paper will ever work. That's how tightly the people in high places in this sport have got everyone involved in it by the balls. Defeatist? Maybe. Inevitableist? Yeah, probably! Borne out of seeing people who have paid the price and tried to be different suffer the consequences.

Here you are, I've done some journalistic digging into the matter and come up with this...see what you make of it then. Probably just another non-story, not to be covered in case it upsets someone at the BSI Press Pass issuing office no doubt?. http://www.sportowefakty.pl/zuzel/399917/sajfutdinow-porzuci-grand-prix-suskiewicz-bsi-traktuje-zawodnikow-jak-malpy-w-cy "BSI treats riders (players) like monkeys in a circus" - according to Google's translation service. Allow something for the quality of translation but you get the drift. So there you go.

So what if it is? So is most everybody's occupation. As a self-employed contractor of course a rider is in business. Nowhere does it say that riders are supposed to be a Social Service. Which illustrates how the money and the power is now in Poland, and how insignificant Britain has become You mean I offer up points of view uncomfortable to the establishment? Well, so be it! "Discussions" are supposed to allow for alternative points of view and not just choruses of "here here" Yes I do, as the amount of money I have and will continue to spend in going to watch it will testify. What I don't like is what British speedway has become and where it is going.

The quantity over quality argument eh? Get enough National League meetings on to bump up the numbers and somehow that brings Britain onto the big boys table? Seriously? Why is the number of meetings a good thing? Ask any of the big name riders (Holder's been quoted saying as much recently) and they'll tell you that it's the number of meetings that's driving the stars away from this country and killing the sport here. And why is it that a country with more meetings than anyone else on earth, with more tracks of various shapes sizes and characteristics than any other country on earth produces a team to compete in the SWC that gets trounced by a quartet from a country like Latvia boasting only one track, no league of its own, a population a quarter the size of London, and featuring riders all living within a short drive of that track? - Maybe investigating THIS point would make for a good Speedway Start article as well!

What annoys the rest of the world is that the EL in particular can't organise a p-up in a brewery. Why should any foreign organisation pay a blind bit of attention to the EL fixture calendar when it is 100% guaranteed to change again and again? http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/other-sport/birmingham-brummies-boss-blasts-chaos-6694692 And what the hell does the EL matter in the global scheme of things anyway? Britain is no longer a force in world speedway. Britain no longer has an empire. Britain no longer matters any more. Anyone who thinks that Britain is important is living in the past.

You mentioned the protagonists, you mentioned the riders, and you mentioned the fans, but you forgot to mention the Speedway Star who are too scared of upsetting those who give them free access to their meetings, to tell the whole truth of the situation and to expose the shambolic situation for what it is.

And what's wrong it it is because of money? Also it may have something to do with the SEC having a round in his home country, whereas there is no SGP in Russia And of course what Emil has always said in the past, that he (and other riders) get treated badly by BSI and are treated with a lot more respect by OneSport.

The date has been set for 31 August 2014, and the venue will be Zielona Gora. No news yet about participants other than of course the hosts. Three TV stations are apparently competing for the rights to broadcast the event, SkySports NOT included. Would anyone care to speculate whether the BSPA will send the EL Champions to take part? National League reserves in the in a "Champions League" team! Should be interesting. With it being the Poles taking the initiative again no doubt one person in particular will be telling them where they can Shovlar this competition, if the BSPA don't do it for him. I'm assuming that Speedway Star will be providing us with all the updates and information about this tournament so that we won't have to rely on Google's translation of the Sportowefakty site all the time? http://www.sportowefakty.pl/zuzel/417543/trzy-telewizje-chca-pokazac-zuzlowa-lige-mistrzow