Gordon Pairman

Like Gordon Davide or Con Jook?! Anyway, it’s been done by, amongst others, John Berry, the man who walked away from speedway with two million quid but lost it all as a Lloyds “name”. But that’s for chapter 21

When I was young and would ask my dad an awkward question, he’d reply “I’ll tell you when you’re 21” which, of course, he never did. Now when people ask me about my Speedway experiences, I say “You can read it in the book” which, of course, will never be written! I’ve had some great times and met some amazing people but also had plenty of negatives which I’m happy to leave behind. I miss the fun, but not the back biting and the politics

No problem. Happy to explain my position. Much of it is a matter of public record anyway It was an honour to be part of my home city club.

Your gross offence is unacceptable even if you try to hide it with crock Gaelic. Please be advised I do not take accusations of any form of financial impropriety lying down. I give you a last chance to answer my question, thereby justifying what I consider to be a slanderous and thereby actionable remark.

You have not answered my question. You choose to slander me and my former colleagues and then hide behind some nonsense. Please either justify your outrageous comment or apologise

I was a co-owner of A & S Entertainments Ltd. A & S sold the promoting rights and other assets to a new company called Glasgow Tigers Speedway Limited (“GTSL”) which I think was 60% owned by Alun Biggart and 40% owned by me. After a year, I bought Alun out and became the sole owner. In due course, I sold the company to the current owners. I did not “cease trading” as you put it at any point. A&S was wound up by the owners when it was no longer required, all known debts having been settled.

Care to elaborate on the slur that Workington “never lost as much as Glasgow (ever)”? And please, be very careful about who you are accusing of what. As a one time director and co-owner of Glasgow Speedway, I know what I am talking about.

He was. Several times but sadly it didn’t work. He kept himself to himself, used a mechanic based, I think, in Peterborough despite being offered the use of Middlo’s workshop. I still like the guy but am sorry the way things went.

Once again you malign a rider without worrying about the truth. KK had one bad meeting - the one away to Coventry when Crump returned. JC scored 15, KK, 2. He was “spoken to” after that and his home scores after that - up until JC got injured - were 11+2, 12 and 11. To me, that’s not exactly losing interest. And, if he changed in his van, he must have had a secret door from the changing rooms to the car park as he went in there in his day clothes, and came out in his race suit. I am biased of course because he exceeded my expectations and was one of the most professional riders I had to deal with.

Absolutely not. He rode for BV in 2009 and, as Neil Watson found, was a great guy to work with. He and I would meet in the office before every home meeting and go through his pay slips to make sure he was happy everything was up to date, then, more often than not, he’d go out and score double figures. But there is no doubt he is an enigma. When he rode at Poole in 2017 he just seemed to close up and no one - management, fans or fellow team members - could get through to him. Such a shame

I’ve looked back at the old accounts for Belle Vue. There was no way that we would have paid one rider £100k in a season, even though we had Jason Crump (2008 and part of 2009) and Kasprzak (2009) at the top of their game. In 2009, our Sky income was just over £100k but we still lost about £65k. And that was for a team that finished bottom of the league which always keeps the wage bill down! Even then -10+ years ago - Britain was the poorest payer amongst the countries with professional leagues. The Sky money kept us afloat, but it certainly didn’t encourage anyone to overpay for quality riders.

Every track is inspected on a three yearly cycle and a new homologation certificate issued. The APD (referred to by some as the air fence) is looked at as part of that process but is formally inspected after six years. Depending on how the panels are stored, some APDs can still be fit for purpose after more than 10 years, others are fit for nothing after 6 or 7. What tends to happen though, is that bags are repaired or replaced on a regular basis so an APD can last a very long time. FIM rules are different. No bags more than 7 years old are permitted.

Even though he’s “ageing”!!

My comments, though, are not an opinion. They are a statement of facts. How the ageing/aged KB chose to tell his side doesn’t matter. We wanted him, we believed he owed it to the fans to show loyalty after all the financial support he got in 2005. He saw it differently. JC did not, could not influence us, Joe had no say in team building. To be honest, we were desperate to get a team, any team, together. Have a look at the starting 1-7 and you’ll see what I mean. I wouldn’t embarrass Joe by suggesting he’d any say in the 2007 team!

What I have said is what happened. JC had no say in team building for 2007. Why would he? Tony Mole told me in July 2006 that Jason was going to Poole in 2007, which he did. By the time Chris, David and I bought BV from Tony, which was either late November or early December 2006, JC had already been named in Poole’s 2007 team. We bust a gut to keep KB but he’d already done a deal, behind our backs, with Peterborough. As far as referring to a 34 year old Joe Screen as “ageing” is concerned, I have no problem with that. We’re all ageing. But, out of courtesy and within the boundaries of consistency, perhaps you should refer to the “aged” soon to be 35 year old Kenneth Bjerre?! One other point that I’ve just spotted - you say that “he’d never ride for that promotion again”. Which promotion? He’d never ridden for the Morton, Gordon, Pairman promotion and it was public knowledge that the Mole, Thomas promotion was selling up. There had been a series of articles in the Manchester Evening News, and, much to their annoyance and before a deal was agreed, Tony announced Chris and David at the end of season dinner dance as the future owners of Belle Vue. So he wasn’t being asked to ride for “that” promotion.

If the “some years back” is referring coming in to the 2007 season, you have it entirely wrong. When Chris Morton, David Gordon and I bought Belle Vue late on in 2006, we were resssured by BSPA that the other teams had been told to keep their hands off the 2006 team until we had put together a strong 1-7. We already knew that Jason Crump was going to ride for Poole, a deal done during the 2006 season, so needed every rider we could get our hands on. Despite the assurances, the then Peterborough promotion defied everyone and signed Bjerre. I remember having a very heated phone conversation on Christmas Eve 2006 with the then BSPA Chairman, Peter Toogood about this but he basically said there’s was nothing that could be done. Personally, I thought it all a shocking betrayal by the sports’ governing body and the rider. What I considered was particularly bad was that the BV faithful had supported the rider in 2005 after he broke his leg, a break that probably cost BV the league. Now, I know that no rider can be forced to ride where he doesn’t want to, but I do believe they need to understand that loyalty is a two way matter. As a final point, the “ageing Joe Screen” you referred to was 34 during the 2007 season - Kenneth Bjerre will be 35 during 2019

Except he’d already had seven rides (update site is wrong) so, if it had been a league match, he couldn’t have done a TS as well. He rode in heats 3,5,6,8,9,12 & 15 scoring 1,3,2,3,1+1,3,1 for 14+1

The article in the Star contained an error when it said that SR 18.14.3 states “A team member (#1-5) is subject to a maximum of four rides.....” The rule actually said “A team member (#1-5) is subject to a maximum of four PROGRAMMED (my capitals) rides....” I can’t comment on the Leicester vs Swindon match as I don’t know the details but there has been a clarification issued by SCB that, in addition to the four programmed rides, a rider can also be nominated for any of RR, IRR, TS and heat 15 subject to having a maximum of 7 rides.

Not guilty m’lud! Came as a surprise to me. But a great choice. I reckon he’ll be motivated to do well. He’s currently brushing up on his Scottish/English/Polish/Danish/Swedish dictionary!

I can’t tell you who was told what by whom. You need to ask each team’s promoters. I do know that one of the teams you mention was trying to sign one of the riders you mention and they believed that the rider would return on his historic average. The stumbling block would appear to have been financial rather than numerical.

The thing is, there is no rule so nothing to announce. The BSPA office keeps the list of historic averages although some promoters also keep a list. As these are changeable due to the MC’s power, a team will ask the office for a definitive average before finalising any signing. Lebedevs is a good case to look at - my recollection is he didn’t fare too well at KL so potentially could come back on an unrealistically low average. It would be up to the MC at the time how to assess him now. On a slightly different point, I have often wondered if it would be better, in our average driven leagues, whether or not, for team building, averages were rounded up or down to the nearest 0.5. That way, there would no longer be the chase for the last decimal point in team building.

I used the phrase “in most instances” because BSPA Management Committee have the final say on averages for individual rider averages - think Andreas Jonsson when he returned to Lakeside on a lower average as his historic CMA was thought to be too high. I am not aware where the suggestion that there was a “9 point rule” came from and have never seen anything in writing saying it had been agreed.

Just to clarify, there is no 9 point GP rider rule. In most instances, and particularly in the case of Peter Kildemand and Niels Kristian Iversen, riders with an existing CMA return to British Speedway on that CMA

You draw some rather unnecessarily offensive conclusions based on what can only be surmise, ignorance and prejudice. Why did you do that when I was trying to be open? And, pray tell me, how would you expect us to find those that turned up the first week but not the second? I was simply stating facts. We picked the fixture and worked flat out promoting the night. My recollection, bearing in mind that this was some time ago, was that the atmosphere was superb and the crowd reaction gave us the impetus to repeat it. I also remember how deflated we were the following week.