Hacksaw Jim Duggan

Yes, that’s correct….it wasn’t the struggle you thought it was, you should give yourself more credit.

No – the situation I position is far from being perfect it is idiocy of anyone to assume the exact words they post are the ideal solution to this situation, it isn’t an ideal situation - Chapman himself has said that and is aware of it, anyone discussing the current structure, rules, regulations and rider shortage are also aware of it hence they don’t position what they say as being perfect - it is for the time being a workaround, any proposal would be that. The question you pose ARE the exact reason why there is doubling up yes - hence I would see the situation remain as it is with minor alteration as there isn’t going to be the widespread of riders who wish to race here who will resolve the issue – I said I would prefer a retention of the current standard. I haven’t once mentioned riders coming from abroad, I accept an increase in quality at this time isn’t likely. The minor changes would be in relation to where guests and replacements could be pulled from e.g sides chasing Play Off Places in the Premiership having to use replacements from the Championship if need be rather than riders from other teams in their league competing for the same place - a tightening of who could be used in such instances would help IMO. I don’t think the “quality” I reference is in anyway machinery related, the current standard of rider is the quality fans will look for e:g a Newcastle fans will wish to see a rider the quality of Robert Lambert race for them, not his removal from their side and his place taken by a rider the quality of Shelby Rutherford. Or riders the quality of Starke, Wright etc being taken from the Championship, fans of that league wouldn’t even be getting that in the proposed league of 50% reduction in quality I quoted earlier – I was addressing that post, that is what I see an issue - continually stripping back the standard of rider on show and expecting crowd numbers to even remain the same, that evidently is not working - people are not going to swallow rubbish which would be the case if the standard of rider on show continues to decrease. The one big league you reference isn’t viable – there isn’t the numbers for that and if riders had such restrictions placed on them, and their earnings as those you wish to impose they would tell promotions in this country to run and jump or wish for a higher cost in order to compensate for potential loss of earnings all the while the issue would be the promotions would still require those riders to fill their team. I am not talking about the continent, paying excessive wages to the top stars in the world etc and so on – those days are clearly not viable, nor is it viable to simply put on a show of utter dross and expect fans to pay for it – there has to be some sort of standard on show in order to attract fans AND IN THE POST I QUOTED that isn’t what is being offered forward as a proposal - some of the points you have raised, made points and counter points to are clearly what you feel and think but they are totally moot to me and the post I have chosen to engage with....

No – it is nothing like that. I wish for a retention of standards comparable to the standard they are currently at, that is as low as the base can get in which to build from, that seems viable short term – what speedway cannot afford is to continue to drive fans who do attend away - that is the one thing that has continued while the standard has gotten lower, and lower and lower - the lowering of standards is the constant in the crowds decreasing It seems more logical to look at alterations and adjustments to the current rules around double up riders rather than a simply widespread reduction in quality of the product, yet again. This notion that things will be ok once sides are National League standard is a complete fallacy – that isn’t going to increase gates, bring people back or attract new fans, it will achieve nothing - it is a moon howling exercise that might delude some but most will simply walk away from the sport knowing they are being served up substandard dross compared to what they viably could be offered with minor rule alterations, and thus the next season the same moon howlers would follow the same process "drop the standard 50 % again, that will fix it".

A further weakening of the Championship will turn it into the Conference League, if the league is turned into the Conference League it shouldn’t then be a shock if it attracts Conference League crowds – while there are exceptions to the rule most Conference League crowds are lower than those in the Championship, it is why clubs are generally in the Conference League. The continual wish to weaken the standard isn’t healthy it is consciously driving fans away simply by it's definition - it is weaker than it was. It has actively been going on for 3 years now and hasn’t seen an increase in attendances – it is time to stop making the thing worse in the hope more people will come, that is clearly not working - in your own post you are actively saying the league should be made less attractive for sides to sign better riders, that in turn makes the product less attractive to fans. The notion that anyone and new fans might turn up at a meeting and won’t know who the riders are is great, but the people who currently do attend DO know who the riders are and many wouldn’t accept it and would become even more selective than they are now – that’s not a smart or logical business strategy for clubs to implement - the sport would be best trying to pander to and retain fans who still got to the effort of attending and building on them as they have al loyalty to the sport and fund it. A weakening of the product yet again is just a further slap in the face and would likely see further loss of funds and fans rather than people coming back in numbers, even those fans who have walked away...because the reason for their non-return would likely now be....well it is weaker now than it was when I used to go...

No – it appears it was said as it seemed popular and the right thing to say, but it isn’t actually true - unless Joe Jacobs is the one being spoken about. One of the also referenced faults in the British system seems to be a lack of track time afforded to riders - something that would only reduce further with a hard and fast rule of - riders must race for one club and one club only – thus an implementation of such a rule would only further damage the development of British talent going by the logic being applied by some? For me – the current system in Britain isn’t built for progression much beyond becoming a good rider in this country – it is in part why Australian riders are starting to stagnate so much as they depend so heavily on British speedway to polish (no pun intended) the skills they had developed in Australia, and thus a weak British setup feeds into a weak Australian setup. There are very low standards here now, a low water mark - a stripping back of the product was always going to intrinsically link to a stripping back of quality. A rider doesn’t get the chance to line up at the tapes with the likes of Rickardson, Adams and Crump as often as they used to – they don’t get to view them, see what it takes to become the best – how a top riders acts, behaves and prepares themselves – they don’t get to leave meetings with the cold realisation of just how far from the top they are and thus an element of desire to improve has been removed At a time when the “Elite League” was closer to the term “Elite” riders had to hit an incredibly high standard just to survive in the league, if riders managed to master the league in the ways the likes of Richardson, Nicholls and Harris did they had a real chance to compete on the world stage, as they were racing riders they knew how to beat – and doing that offered a higher chance of being afforded more chances on the world stage, and thus more chances to improve. These days a rider the ilk of Cook only has to strive to regularly beat the likes of Palm Toft, Lawson and Kim Nilson to be a top dog in his territory, it isn’t any wonder that doesn’t correlate with consistent performance on the continent – or the chance to sign for sides on the continent as performance in this country no longer means anything on the world stage. It all feeds in and is a decision many have lived with and accept to see the sport survive, yet there is a continual want from some fans to strip standards back even further.

If you are of the, slightly paranoid mind-set, that riders don’t give a toss under the current set of rules then it is difficult to think you wouldn’t just apply that same logic to any set of rules as you are questioning the riders mentality rather than a rule. The riders mentality you are questioning isn’t a perception the sporting authorities can change. What I mean by that is if you feel riders are cheating you now or don’t give a toss, what is to stop you from thinking they would be cheating you in some way under a different set of rules? As it stands (and would stand regardless of the rules) riders are vicariously wishing a team to win and do well the minute they sign a contract. The more points they score for the side the more money they make, that is the thought process that will always be at the forefront of most riders minds. If you wish to look for such ways to tarnish rules, riders and the sport then you will find a way to do so – and good for you for doing so but that isn’t the fault of the sports authorities and nor is it that constructive or relevant. There are many fans who still seem to manage on without the need to attach such shades of black to the sport (even many who are against this particular rule) – question the rules, regulation, and suggest they should change yes that’s a fair minded conversation to have that is healthy even, but to read a post like yours, it just feels a bit like you would find a way to put a negative slant of a situation regardless, difficult to take such a post seriously.

This. The product is already at breaking point when it comes to stripping it back and going back to basics as it is. The standard on show in the Premiership and Championship just now is as low as it can get at current admission prices IMO - any further reduction in quality will have to be met with a widespread reduction in cost which wouldn’t be sustainable or affordable for clubs if more fans were to walk away from the sport, which is the most likely outcome . I don’t think you would be able to fool those who still attend that it is ok to watch a lot of riders currently plying their trade in the NL. The ideology that fans would just be ok with going from riders like Masters, Cook and Lambert to quite possibly David Mason, Lee Dicken and Benji Compton seems incredibly farfetched to me - even if fans were convinced the replacements were entirely committed to the club they were competing for. I would also highly doubt the numbers would be made up from the NL anyway, the NL as it stands is quite a regional league where a short term season is financially viable for a lot of the participants – a step up in league for the afore mentioned Dicken, Mason, Compton and riders like Tony Atkin just doesn’t feel plausible to me or the kind of thing some in the NL would entertain – there is a world of difference between the NL schedule and the Championship schedule. All that being said, these are the kind of things that should actively be asked – asked at meetings. Would a Glasgow fan for example rather see the side they currently have and pay the prices they do, or see a side where Lawson, Worrall and Bewley were replaced by Dicken, Rudick and Jake Knight yet prices a few £’s less – I would hazard a guess the higher % would favour the Lawson and co side. It is going to get to a standard that just isn’t worth the fans who do attends effort to attend each week anymore – at this time it is best to pander to their needs rather than those who might return, maybe, one day….

"you don't seem to understand the concept of team sports , team sports are tribel they are based on loyalty and the fans believe that the riders are theirs , there has to be a loyalty ortherwise the concept is lost and the fans don't go which is where we are close to now , there is enough riders to achieve 1 rider 1 team this has been proven by others on other threads about this subject , riders are dictating the sport at the moment and that has got to stop but as we every idea put forward there is a "it won't work, we can't do that" mentality and we plod into oblivion , you only have to look at the responses about the GTR ," it doesn't compete, it's a waste of money" while completely missing the point of in the long term this could of been a massive cut in costs while the product stays similar but no we get a short term short sighted answers , the fact is the sport is going to change but it's going to end financially painful for the riders because of the collective dismissal of any way forward " Yes I do understand – I understand that such tribalism affords fans the ability to suspend their disbelief long enough to watch a meeting and not think about their riders representing another club. If you were to ask most fans who attend Workington each week who Craig Cook races for they wouldn’t say Belle Vue and Workington, they would say Workington. The removal of the rule is what would allow riders to dictate the sport as it would hand them the power – they would be able to ask excessive demands as they would all have a higher premium than they do now, like all things that are in limited numbers yet in demand they would be more expensive. As things stand there is an element of bend and flex re riders availability clubs have the option of other riders - they can move on and look at more riders as a result of the rule , they have a wider number of choices of who they can and cannot sign – the removal of the rule would seriously decrease those numbers and clubs would end up lumped with limited options having to pay over the odds simply to fill a team. Currently clubs have the option to shop at Tesco, Lidl, Asda, Aldi and Marks and Spencer's - they can look at a multitude of options - if the rule was removed clubs like Belle Vue AND Workington would be fighting to sign Craig Cook they would then have to outbid each other to secure him - that doesn't help the clubs, that helps the rider. I don’t know what relevance other parts of your post have – you are creating an argument to a point based on things some people have said about other things - what is said re GRT engines or whatever else doesn't apply here or to what I am saying, I don't find it an idea that is holding the sport back etc and so on and have already said the rule needs altered as it isn't without flaw......

The risk, and it is a huge risk if you remove the rule is you drive away those who do attend by attempting to appease those who have consciously made the decision to no longer attend. You would do this while watering the product down AGAIN, the constant in attendance decreasing has been the watering down of the product – that is one of the few tangibles people can point at which correlates with attendances decreasing. A removal of the rule now would feel like a punishment for fans who have remained loyal to the sport, it would deprive fans of the chance to watch a higher standard of rider race for their team. The riders to go around you reference (where they are coming from I don’t know by the way) would be of a lower standard than that which fans at tracks currently get to watch most weeks – that creates a massive issue and would drive AN other chunk of fans further away from the sport never to return. My natural assumption is Newcastle fans for example would rather watch Lambert and Worrall ride for them knowing they race for AN other team through the week over a side without them but loyal riders the standard of Mark Riss and Ben Hopwood which would be the likely alternatives when the option of Lambert and Worral was removed from their side (as they would be in world where there is no D/U rules) The EPL shows that times have massively moved on, teams in that league change each year, there is little loyalty but audiences, massive audiences, that dwarf anything speedway could muster 30 years ago show that familiarity is dead per se – fans can live with change and alterations to their side if they get to see a high standard of team and a good product

My assumption is such a change will only further accelerate the end of the sport as it would sky rocket costs even further. It puts the power in the riders hands as there would be such high demand for average talent in order to to fill a side let alone compete. In the current rider climate where rider numbers are multiplied by the double up rule Peterborough still had to track a side with 3 riders who double up, 3 guests and rider replacement on Sunday at Newcastle. I don’t see how that situation will change with the removal of the double up rule. if anything it would only further increase/sustain the number of guests and rider replacements as riders will still pick up injuries during the course of the season and replacements will be thin on the ground. It will also afford sides who struggle very little wriggle room or chance to improve as there won't be the riders their to sign replacements, strengthen or alter a side - seems incredibly unfair - that is if all sides can even track full teams in the first place, and if they can at what cost due to the demands riders would make - and some clubs would still pay the demands riders would ask - and then the travel costs involved to simply fill a 1-6 or 7 with a body for the sake of it - these things don't seems to be considered when the idea of the rule removal is floated. There are two things at play here - one, is yes double up/down, guests etc are not ideal two - there isn't the rider numbers there to remove it. This isn't like other sports, there isn't endless revenues of talent and participants who can afford clubs the chance to have a team of "their own" each and every meeting.

It would be easier for fans to afford riders a degree of empathy when “help” is required if their actions at other times weren’t so dislikeable.

In answer to the OP, no. The riders who are committed have been an absolute joy to watch, none more so than Doyle who for the most part has been excellent for British Speedway. I don’t see why he, or fans, should suffer over the actions of others.

If they hadn’t won I could understand the point that Peterborough had cheated the public and their own fans, but the idea they cheated to gain a sporting advantage? No. There is very little to validate the claim that Simon Lambert might have scored more than Jack Holder – one has an average touching 9.00 the other one touching 3.00 it is quite clear which of the two consistently scores the more points. Well done to the riders who went on track and represented Peterborough to win the meeting with their patched up side is an excellent effort. And finally, I don’t know who riders aim their tweets at when they vent their views in relation to the sport and how it is run. I don’t believe it garners sympathy with the paying public, if anything it only creates a further void between the fans and the riders. BSPA. It is actually possible fans are p*ssed of the attitude of the BSPA who run the sport and many riders, who have an attitude that at times is quite loathsome, the best advice for a few of them would be to shut up and get on with it, or chose another profession if it is that much of a problem to them to be drain a wage out the sport.

The Swindon side have punched above their weight but the idea they are one of the best of far times is slightly farfetched given the standard of the watered down product they are racing in. RE the biggest club debate – Cradley Heath haven’t raced a top flight meeting for the best part of 20 years – the notion they are in any way a bigger club than Pool is nonsensical.