RobMcCaffery

Charming! Rob McCaffery.

I was also at Waterden Road that night. It didn't help that he was given quite a bit of pre-meeting hype and I seem to remember was given the number 3 race jacket. I didn't know the back-story at the the time so it's no surprise given his lack of experience and preparation for the meeting that he was so embarrassingly out of contention. Perhaps if he hadn't been so badly dropped in the deep end the story might have had a happier conclusion. Rob McCaffery.

It's not their job to do better than professional British speedway riders. Are we only allowed to have an opinion on something if we can do the job better ourselves? Rob McCaffery.

The hand was frozen to it once - but that was after four hours in -25c covering ice racing in Leningrad. Couldn't wear a glove and write up a programme. Another memorable moment was covering indoor rallycross in Holland (I kid you not) when nobody noticed a door had been opened at the end of the hall and suddenly we were confronted with an empty hall and brake lights flashing in the car park section of the track. That would have made a good indoor speedway track - an agricultural hall in Leeuwaarden. There were other commentators though, notably Edwin Overland, Dave Welch, Bob Radford, Mike Hunter and my immediate predecessor, Gareth Rogers together with a guy called Ian French. Rob McCaffery

1981 was the year before I got involved so I'm surprised to see Barrow and Ellesmere Port listed since we certainly didn't go to places that far away (bar Belle Vue) in my time. I suspect that KM might have had a deal with a local guy to market their work on their behalf. I can certainly vouch for the volume of meetings covered after then though - it was most nights of the week. Bear in mind we also covered football, ice hockey and basketball at that time so either end of the speedway season was downright hectic. I am still recovering from two seasons of being the Crystal Palace FC club video commentator :-( but the ice hockey (Streatham, Richmond, Lee Valley, Nottingham and Durham) was good fun. Once the ScreenSport work started we also had the small matter of weekly stock car coverage to contend with too. Rob McCaffery

I base my comment on having seen the outside pass become such a rarity. One of the reasons that I fell in love with speedway was seeing riders bravely moving off-line, heading out into the dirt with wide-open throttle and racing. Over the years I saw the real racers in the sport frustrated by finding that when they tried this move they were let down by the track as they simply fell further behind. Now far too often I see racing confined to one tight line, often on the notorious "blue groove" and far too often the only hope of seeing a pass is if a rider slips off this line and leaves a gap on the inside. Much has changed for the better over the years, notably live TV coverage but the outside pass is tragically such a rarity these days. I feel the sport let down those who were prepared to race rather than simply have a "skid" and it is all the poorer for this. Rob McCaffery.

I must admit that I've always thought speedway videos to be highly-priced although in recent years the price seems to be a lot more sensible. Back in 81-3 when I was just doing KM's videos I didn't even have a video recorder myself so I very rarely got to see anything. With Tony McDonald showing there's quite a market for nostalgic books and magazines I suspect there would be quite a demand for vintage video and it would settle quite a few debates over whether the sport and particularly racing has declined since those days. I think anyone who's read my postings elsewhere on the forum will know where I stand on that, but then I do have the advantage of evidence in my video library which may be small but gives a pretty good sample. Rob McCaffery.

Mr. Bonner's choice, not mine. It does seem rather high for its day but I kept well clear of that side of things - just a hired voice. Rob McCaffery

I can confirm that we very rarely, if ever filmed at the Shay, but then KM were a London-based outfit and pretty much the only serious player in the initial speedway video market of the early eighties. It was a long way to Halifax ;-) By the time we moved into the Screen Sport days we were pretty well locked-into National League coverage so The Shay wasn't a priority. Of course we did feature the Dukes away quite a lot to compensate and I did get to interview Kenny Carter many times. It was always a challenge, usually preceded by the question "You got that tape ready with all my races on yet?" Oddly we did get to Belle Vue a fair bit and I remember the commentary position well. You may recall that alongside the old referee's box at Hyde Road there was a searchlight platform. Well the camera looked over the top of the searchlight while I had to lie on the floor, peering over the edge of the stadium roof to see the racing. As you can see there are sometimes good reasons why those commentaries may have seemed strained. Messrs Pearson and Millard have it easy I can tell you. When I got involved in the commentary business I had a terrible head for heights - and was extremely shy. I had to learn to lose both problems very fast. With Belle Vue it was very much kill or cure... The other classic was Milton Keynes' Groveway stadium where you had to balance on a chair on the staircase to the ref's box to get onto the roof of the box which of course had no safety rails whatsoever. It was always a relief to get to Wimbledon where you were about four feet off the ground ;-) Reasons that certain tracks were favoured in those early days though were quite simple - distance to travel and how keen the local promotion was to have us there, and that was far from universal. Rob McCaffery

Last I knew they were in Hoddesdon but that was a few years back. Rob McCaffery.

There's a scan of a tenner on its way to you Paul - very kind. I'm interested to hear that KM keep an archive but then it has been many years since I've been in touch with them. Paul Bonner indeed was the proprietor. The story might be of interest. For those not aware KM obtained the contract to supply the cable TV channel Screen Sport with speedway programming from the start of the 1984 season. I'd started with them on various sports apart from speedway in the winter of 1981/82 and went on to deal direct with Screen Sport as speedway and stock car presenter, plus various odd sports that came our way (backwards DAF racing, Dutch kick-boxing - I kid you not). When I left them in 1986 I lost touch with KM who I understand went on to supply football goal action to ITV stations. Once the Screen Sport deal started a firm called Video Anglia were soon brought in to bolster the operation and it was they who had the masters for the broadcast meetings with KM carrying-on doing usually one camera work for video purposes and with clips being used on my news programme. VA went under a few years back and I suspect most of the ScreenSport masters with it. Screen Sport hit financial problems when the UK cable networks, authorised in the mid-80s simply didn't get built. It wasn't for another ten years until these networks were built, usually by American companies. At the same time until the launch of the high-powered Astra satellite in 1989 you needed a very expensive 3m diameter dish system to get the station via satellite. The station had been funded by American TV networks and when they saw that the industry was stalling - quite simply too few people could watch the programmes to make the station viable then they pulled the plug and handed their interests over to WH Smiths who unsurprisingly went for cuts. One was my studio news programme and with little indication that there was any commitment to speedway or prospect of financial stability I left. KM and Video Anglia continued to supply programmes using Julie Richardson and Clive Fisher before the speedway coverage switched to Sweden's Tommy Rander. By then the Astra satellite was up and running with its multi Sky channels and Screensport was there with them. The birth of Sky Sports though left the station in limbo and it was eventually absorbed by Eurosport. I have precious few copies of my work. Indeed there's probably more on the Speedway On Disc website or You Tube than I've got. Last time I checked with Ken Burnett he seemed to have quite a list. Sadly I loaned a few out years back and never saw them again. Included was our review of the 1985 speedway season and if anyone has a copy of that one I'd love to see it in particular. I've messaged Phil K and will be sending him a copy of one of the few tapes I've got - Hackney Kestrels v Mildenhall from 1984 - the first NL-level meeting at Waterden Road and the first to be shown on Screen Sport. It's sad really - we were so busy making programmes that I simply didn't have the heart to ask them to do copies of meetings for me. It's all a long time ago and in fact it's now nearly 25 years since I last commentated on a race, as opposed to announcing. If anyone out there enjoyed the work I'm pleased - that's what it was all about at the end of the day although I wouldn't have minded some fame and fortune ;-) Regards, Rob McCaffery.

It's been well documented in the Speedway Star and on-line that Russell Paine had to abandon the Spanish project due to severe bureaucratic delays some time ago. The Benidorm bar indeed was also a business failure. There was a speedway track run on Majorca in the early 1970s at Son Pardo di Mallorca by a combination of Reg Luckhurst and Ian Hoskins if I remember correctly. The TV highlights package would be part of IMG's syndication of highlights of the GPs around the world. As Philip Rising has stated here this package is sold to many countries and it's encouraging to hear that someone has actually seen it . As for the UK the whole meeting could of course be seen live and in full on Sky. In the past the highlights programme was sold to Channel 4 and last seen a few years back at some ungodly hour between 1 and 6 am. Rob McCaffery.

Yes Sky are a very ruthless business, which is why they clearly relegated the speedway GP to fifth place in their priorities on those two recent occasions. This suggests that the viewing figures aren't holding up or do you accept the argument that suddenly after over a decade of coverage there hasn't been room to show it recently because suddenly Sky have so much more sport than usual? There are clear warning signs and only a fool would ignore them. Rob McCaffery.

With respect, they're hardly going to say "Well, we're contracted to show this rubbish so we have to find a space somewhere," are they? I do suspect that the failure of the British riders has seen them lose interest especially since they use that angle to sell the programme to the casual viewer (ref. Chris Harris' win at Cardiff). Add-in the poor quality of racing from too many GPs this year and I suspect we've been lucky to get even the 'red button' treatment. Put simply, I suspect Sky feel the GPs aren't worth their while showing. Rob McCaffery.

The GPs should be about the best sixteen riders in the world racing for the title, irrespective of age. There are plenty of competitions there to develop young talent. The GPs should be about talent, not age. Rob McCaffery

As I mentioned earlier I really suspect that Sky would pull the plug unless there was a Brit for them to focus on. The retreat behind the red button has come in a season where the British riders have clearly failed to achieve. In sporting terms it would be a wake-up call for no British rider to be selected but economic realities are unlikely to alllow it. Rob McCaffery

Much as I despise the wild card system I suspect that if there isn't a Brit in the GP that Sky viewers won't even have the option of watching ion the red button next year. Rob McCaffery.

A very powerful truth lies there. The more interesting speedway is to watch the less its ailments matter. Rob McCaffery.

IMG deal with the very top level corporate sponsors. IF they send them speedway's way then we will gain enormously. It's a very big IF. Rob McCaffery Another afterthought... Media buyer for a major blue chip sponsor sits down to watch Saturday's GP on Sky. "Jeez does the guy on the inside win every race? Is passing allowed?" "Sky can't think much of the sport to hire a guy like that to commentate" "Hey, it's 7 o'clock, where's the programme gone?" "Where's the golf being shown?"

That's a cop-out by Sky. They've always had plenty of sport to show on a Saturday night. It's obvious that speedway's just not important enough in their priorities now. Rob McCaffery

That's actually very reassuring and I hope we see the expected results. Of course I am writing purely on the British angle since others can and do stand their countries' corners. I obviously appreciate that IMG's focus is on the wider picture though. My concern is that an already-weakened British Speedway finds some sort of benefit from the sacrifices it has been forced to make. You do wonder if anyone is actually able or willing to stand up for British Speedway on the international stage since the SCB surrendered much of its responsibility to the BSPA who in turn seem incapable of dealing with their own internal problems currently. It would be good to think thart the pain that the sport has suffered in this country might not be in vain in the longer-term. If the sport's profile can be grown internationally and major sponsors attracted then no doubt it could reap part of the harvest. I'm sure we all want the growth that you speak of. Hopefully IMG can take matters further than BSI alone were able to achieve because it's hard to see where the growth has been so far which is why I was keen to hear of the effect in countries outside the UK. Rob McCaffery.

Again the matter of riders representing countries other than their country of birth is a side-issue, although I will say that nationality and holding a passport are two separate things. While we have you here PolskiZuzel how are the GPs seen in Poland and do you think they help Polish speedway? Rob McCaffery.

Fascinating though the discussion on seeding is it is just one aspect of the current GP system. A couple of things have come to mind after Philip Rising's welcome contributions and the challenges by the likes of 'Humphrey Appleby'. Just how high a priority for BSI is the SGP now that it's under IMG ownership? IMG are primarily involved with 'blue chip' sport, originally sports such as golf and tennis and I wonder how a relatively obscure motorsport fits in their priorities. Another thought was that the SGP series was intended to be a major tool for the FIM to improve speedway's international profile, to broaden interest in new territories and to lift the levels in established speedway countries. It's been quite a few years since that 'mission' started. Just how much has been achieved? I'd welcome some insight from supporters outside the UK to join in here and hopefully let us know how they view the GPs and whether they are doing what they were supposed to do - really take speedway forward? I'd say they've done nothing at all in the UK, Cardiff's a major event for us but only in the way the Wembley world finals were. It still is shunned by the media, apart from Sky, even in Cardiff. It's not so much a question of the bums on seats in the stadia themselves - if you put 16 riders together in a world championship event irt's a fair bet that you'll draw a crowd especially if those riders are rarely seen in one meeting. Does a Latvian GP stimulate speedway there or is it just a one-off party? Have the Grand Pixs taken the sport forward? Rob McCaffery.

This raises the question whether an event is worth staging if it can't stand in its own feet without having local interest artificially guaranteed. Rob McCaffery.

Fascinating information Jim and something I'd not picked-up on. I feel it was as wrong then as it is now though. Rob McCaffery.