waytogo28

I am beginning to agree especially when each televised match portrays a sport that has a couple of hundred elderly people still following. I was a firm advocate of keeping speedway on TV but the promoters have no idea how to utilise it to best effect. So, yes, perhaps it is time to end it when the current contract runs out. Before taking on this contract they should have jointly agreed to open the doors for £10 and make an effort to fill it up. Are the sponsors over the moon with the coverage they get and so urge Buster et al to continue with it?

Did he spend the PILE he made when crowds were much more substantial? Whatever he did with it, he clearly did not re-invest much of it in Poole Speedway especially the track. "Love the sport" is the cry of all the current promoters - I don't think so! Short termist, grab the cash ( when there is some ) and run. They cannot be losing hand over fist as some claim, no-one would do that for more than a season. You would sell up for 30 bob ( £1.50 for the younger members ) just to get rid of the debt liability. Do you really expect us to believe that they truly feel that the UK sport can be turned around and have few spaces on the terraces. Not going to happen under the "forward thinking - more of the same please" BSPA.

How it is done now is more than acceptable to me ( yes a few imperfections ) but they are close to getting it "right". Buster Chapman is said to be interested but not in the part that was suggested: " not to keep any of the money made". Although if he did that he could buy all of the "top" league UK clubs and switch the riders around as a whim came to him. Very Nero like.

As this is the official pre-meeting discussion thread we should .................

I genuinely and sincerely don't believe that racing is better than ever and I really don't think that I am peering through rose-tinted spectacles. Over the last 20 years the percentage of Gate and Go - tapes to flag processions has risen dramatically. Now averaging 12 from 15 heats - if you are lucky, three decent races with passing or the possibility of doing so. In UK racing. As for Guests being called Stars or whatever, how does that avoid the feeling that Chris Harris ( for example ) pops up Here There and Everywhere while really riding for another supposedly rival team?

They wouldn't do that surely? It's an imaginative nightmare scenario surely? It simply couldn't happen in a well run professional sport, could it?

Mother nature's way to ensure that promoters can put on those attractive doubleheaders V the same opponents crushed up near the end of the season.

Standardised - non tuned machinery will be part of any revival after the Great Extinction - if there are any stadiums left willing to try F2 Racing or whatever it will be. There is certainly no razzamatazz in UK speedway nowadays. Not even enough interest in many places to raise a cheer and hardly a boo to be heard. Few villains and only a few plonkers on track.

Like all "leaders", politicians and dictators Chapman began with all kinds of honeyed ideas for bringing about a UK revival if things were done HIS way. Empty pointless hot air - shouted from the outside while he was a noisy looker-on, not sitting at the top table. The other promoters who had exhausted all their ideas gave him the green light and we have ended up going much, much faster down the slippery slope to non-viability.

Indeed, any two day event or even a 2 or 3 hour event with the name "Speedwinks~ or "Tiddlyway" would incur the wrath of the Top of the Toppermost ( Mssrs Chapman & Godfrey ). Never mind filming it or broadcasting it in any shape or form. I suspect all participating riders would also get banned.

Ah! Innovation - the great missing ingredient essential to the possibility of UK professional speedway avoiding extinction! The un-joined up thinking of the BSPA is eager to stamp out innovative ideas wherever they rear their ugly heads. Luddites they remain.

Even with the help of Tsunami's excellent guide to Ashington dialect words, this seems to be Hungarian to me!

£10 for 15 heats - that often means 3 real races ( especially to the newbie ) sounds about right. The horse has bolted and cannot be pulled back whatever we do ( unless what we do is very radical regarding the on-track excitement part of the equation ).

Do you genuinely believe that? I certainly don't. If they took his money they take his orders I am sure. This is Buster Chapman we are talking about. Unless of course, Buster is merely underwriting the 2019 season to see if ( or prove that ) the Witches can survive in the "top" league. I can't believe that he has so much faith in the value of the TV contract, that he went to such extremes to keep it in place.

Not with the Swedish match on live, that's for sure.

True investigative "journalism" on the Forum, we always get to the bottom of the matter. And in the British winter, we always go Down Under!

Ooops My excitement was showing as well as having something of a senior moment. Thanks R&R. I will be ready for Thursday.

Does anyone know if this is being shown today? If so on which channel. Ch64 does not have it on the PG.

Nothing more than he is now ( add your own positive or negative perspective on Buster ). Disappointing comes to mind.

Speedway clearly is becoming so devoid of interest ( even off track between matches ) that only "the crack" counts.

An initial, near the start, in the middle or towards the end? What a tease!

Jeremy Corbyn IS an anti-Semite and what is the worth of a Party being led by such an inept politician. Most of his gang - sorry Shadow Cabinet are so amateurish and almost as unable to organise even a PL speedway meeting in the UK, never mind a country. See I managed to keep it on topic. Even Buster Chapman would make a better Prime Minister and I care almost nothing for how he runs UK speedway ( good on the tractor though ).

It used to be 19/11 for a start and 17/6 per point ( no bonus points paid ). I am not sure what the rates are since decimalisation. I think the milage was 10d per mile.

Closed ears and closed minds abound among those who "run" the sport in the UK. Until it has collapsed ( ie no longer financially viable at all ) - possibly there is a faint chance that adapting the sport to make it more exciting might happen. Those old dinosaur fans ( I use that term before critics do ) like myself remember when the best riders in the world were handicapped. Crowds were enormous then ( yes, for other reasons as well, but it put off very few and made it much more exciting for thousands of others ). How we would like to use that word "thousands" were watching nowadays.

Hopefully not but he did do his job in this match. Buster's new technique of less grading giving better racing NOT put into action then? If it worked at Alwalton, it might well work at the AFA and give less than 11 GTF heats.