RobMcCaffery

Once the BLRC was the highlight finale of the season and a last chance for a big night out. Now it's just a 'meaningless meeting'. This season we have even heard league matches described as 'meaningless'. It does make you wonder how long it will be before only a handful of meetings are deemed 'meaningful'. We lost second half racing due to this mentality, now open meetings are scarce and people are even arguing for the EL to be raced over a handful of fixtures plus play-offs. How long before the sport itself is deemed 'meaningless'? Back to topic, I respect the BSPA's attempt to try to rescue a meeting that has seen far too many riders treat with contempt by advertising it as the EORC. Perhaps though it's no surprise that we seem to be getting the same old story of higher priorities killing the meeting once more. I do hope it does go well but the play-off finals have really replaced this event as the season's climax.

I can confirm that plans are in hand to develop the BL2/NL side of the magazine.

I think it's important that people uinderstand what's going on here. These online streams of speedway are far from official and usually in breach of copyright, which is a complex area of law, especially when it comes to the rights of people to watch programmes from other countries. Sopcast is one of many applications and websites that are used to stream these signals - it's not a TV channel in its own right. Soccer Live is a very informative website on how to find these speedway streams but it again is an unofficial site and I'm sure relies like this forum on the information it's given. In a case like this one the only definitive information is that given by the actual broadcaster whose signal is being hijacked by the streamers and as I say it has no mention of this meeting being transmitted. There may be a 'red button' service but I suspect not in this case/ Of course the schedule may change at the last minute but I think it's best not to raise false hopes. The whole subject of whether it is wise to discuss this streaming on public forums is an entirely different argument. I'm not trying to put people off but I do get concerned that some people don't understand how unofficial this all is. This whole topic is likely to be a very live one next year when in the UK Go-Speed will have the rights to broadcast Polish speedway in the UK and possibly will be doing this as a subscription streaming service. There could be something of a fight from next year.

In order for there to be a stream the meeting needs to be carried by a TV station. TVP had the rights to the original staging but have nothing listed on any of their channels on Saturday, and TVP Sport's schedule has already been updated once this week. http://www.tvp.pl/program-telewizyjny?offset=1 Obviously situations can change but right now it looks very unlikely that this will be available online.

Sky only bought Virgin's TV channels such as Virgin 1, Living and Bravo, not their cable service, in the same way that they didn't buy the airline or the train operator.

It was pretty much a convention in most individual meetings. It gave a heat's break to any of the riders in heat 19 who might then have to go into a run-off.

I should have been more precise. There are two types of reserves in formal individual competitions. The case you give is where a meeting reserve replaces just one rider for all of his five programmed rides. Meeting reserves are usually the highest non-qualifiers outside the 16 riders in the meeting itself and would have been next in line if a rider had withdrawn from the meeting prior to the start. Track reserves are usually riders who are nowhere near qualification level for the meeting, and usually members of the local team or its juniors. Obviously if they are replacing various riders, taking an odd number of rides, facing some riders twice or even more or not at all their scores can't count.

Reserve scores don't count, if only for the fact that they don't get five rides against all fifteen of the opponents in normal circumstances. They are literally there just to make up the numbers.

It's probably because broadcasters like Sky, and to a certain extent ITV and Five don't have enough faith in their audience to just let them enjoy the sport without getting their presenters to hype things up. Sky's marketing is all about being totally-obsessed with sport, or movies or 24, or Lost. It's just the way they do business and their audience on the whole seem to lap it up. It's all about making sure people stay for the ad breaks and don't go wandering-off. That hype is there to make sure that the easily-impressed stay with the programme. Naturally it will irritate those who actually understand what's going on. One of the joys of watching or listening to BBC coverage of sport is that if something's appalling the presenters have the freedom to say so - they don't have the commercial broadcasters' need to keep people watching the adverts. This is why it was so disturbing that even Sky's team starrted talking down the GPs last year, especially Keith Huewen - and that totally justfied criticism of the 2009 series was there again last night. That was a really excellent meeting last night and more like that will repair the GPs' reputation.

It was just a bit of humour, nothing serious. The wording was that "all races should be over four laps". Some wit then claimed that only Plough Lane staged races that were over (more than) four laps so it was the only legal track. A story floated round in the seventies that the extra bit of straight tacked onto the four laps brought the total race distance up to an F.I.M. minimum but it doesn't seem to have ever been backed-up and I suspect was just an attempt to try to find some logic in the situation. The argument earlier in this thread that it was to give riders at the start a decent run into the shortened track's first bend and to give riders a proper race up to the line off the last bend seems most plausible. Of course it could just have been a ploy to fool the opposition into shutting-off early. I can't remember ever seeing such an arrangement elswewhere but a track where the latter approach could have worked was Mildenhall in its early days where I remember many riders still had the back wheel out as they crossed the line on those tiny straights. As for Hyde Road it was quite simply the greatest speedway track that I ever had the pleasure of visiting, thankfully many times. It was a magical place and the sight of Ivan Mauger and Soren Sjosten showing the Leicester Lions home in my first First Division match in 1972 will live with me forever, as will the privilege of watching Chris Morton and Peter Collins turning speedway nearly into an art form in later years. Precious, precious memories. I hope that they can get that new track built and that it can be a worthy successor.

Just to correct the Birmingham confusion there have been two Perry Barr greyhound tracks and two Alexander stadia. The current stadium east of the Walsall Road was the old Alexander Stadium and housed athletics and the the Brummies until the big closure mid-season 1957. There was a brief revival later but that was it until the current revival. In the meantime the Birchfield Harriers had long since moved to a new Alexander Stadium further north. After a period of dereliction the old stadium was re-opened for greyhounds and eventually speedway so the current stadium is most definitely the track from the immediate post-war era. In the seventies and eighties the Brummies raced at the original Perry Barr Greyhound Stadium which was sited on the other west side of Walsall Road on the site of the present-day One Stop shopping centre. The story goes that Joe Thurley and John Berry had intended to enquire about the Alexander Stadium but contacted the dog track in error - a mistake that gave some great years in a stadium that was a credit to the sport and sadly-missed. I hope this clarifies.

I'd imagine it's where the track was once an athletics track and these tended to be quarter miles. Scunthorpe's Quibell Park was certainly an example of this, although it was still an active running track at the time, much to the Saints' inconvenience.

An interesting point Ian. Of course there is a subtle difference between the programme notes and the later championing of the Golden Double. Len's Hackney teams were never top-heavy, usually consisting of a good number one effectively supported by six second strings. As such they were always vulnerable to tactical substitions from a side with strong heat-leaders. Nonetheless I believe that his comments then were to enhance the sport, not just Hackney's cause. The Golden Double and subsequent Tactical Ride regulations had nothing to do with improving the sport - merely achieving cost savings by ultimately avoiding having to pay heat leaders for extra rides, although in the initial form one heat leader could have one extra ride. The irony is still very strong. Rob McCaffery.

£20 to watch a glorified practice session really isn't good long-term business. I suppose these star riders can't see that they're killing these meetings, assuming that fans will just keep turning-up to watch the names. Sadly they seem to be right... Rob McCaffery.

Okay Mrs. Moderator Rob McCafffery

Adams - started at Poole and ended up at Swindon. Shovlar - started at Swindon and ended up at Poole. Wonder who got the better deal? Rob McCaffery.

Nothing wrong with 'sitting on the fence' if you genuinely cannot decide - it's a sign of honesty, not a sign of weakness. Rob McCaffery.

Rob, we're hearing some very interesting information here so making snap judgements is really secondary. Based on what I've seen here so far I would tend towards High Beech 7/4 at this stage but I'd say it's far too complex and subjective to 'nail colours to masts'. Droylsden seems to have as much claim as any number of race meetings described by Norman in the 1900s. I had hoped that my previous posting would have explained my reasoning. Much as we would like them to be most things really aren't simply 'black and white'. Rob McCaffery.

How do you know? I suspect I've watched speedway on many tracks with no trace of shale or cinders. Hasn't the definition of a speedway track normally included the term "loose surface"? I think what's clear from Norman's article is that speedway's beginnings, like many sports, especially the various forms of football were evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Despite the Webb Ellis story in Rugby that sport struggles to define its first match, likewise association football. Key dates in those histories though were the creation of a universal rule-book and the establishment of formal competitions but nonetheless neither can declare an event as being the first football or rugby match. Now speedway's origins are more recent of course and fall within a period well-recorded by press, photographers and even film-makers. Accordingly there is the temptation to try to establish a certain 'first' which speedway has generally adopted over the years to be at West Maitland for the world as a whole and High Beech for the UK. Both are convenient creations to give the sport a foundation. Norman's piece stressed how this whole debate is uncertain - it depends on selecting criteria let alone finding an event that matches all or enough to qualify, and personal opinion always comes into it. If we disregard Norman's criteria such as an absence of brakes or racing anti-clockwise on a loose surface we might as well go right back before Droylsden to those meetings that Norman described back in the 1900s. My own suggestion of criteria would be: Primary: Motorcycles racing on a small oval with a loose surface anticlockwise without any braking system, using power slides/broadsiding to corner. Secondary: Four or six riders using a clutch start from a starting gate racing four laps (normally) and using helmet colours to identify riders and race jackets or suits to identify the team. The use of a safety fence on the outside of the circuit only (early Arena Essex being an exception of course). One other which I could throw in would be racing under a single set of rules specifically applying to the sport of speedway, issued by a governing body dedicated to the supervisioon of the sport - SCB, whether Board or Bureau. Like I say, it's all a matter of opinion rather than absolute fact. As Norman correctly pointed-out, we can only be certain that we are uncertauin. Rob McCaffery.

Well I'm not surprised you have to hide behind a fake name given the utter garbage that you post to this forum. I'd be ashamed to put my name to it too. So the choice for the likes of Bryn is just to take it or quit the forum? Anyway this is about the Ben Fund meeting not your right to anonymous, pathetic wind-ups. Rob McCaffery.

I've always thought the use of helmet colours to have been a vital part of speedway and it's interesting to see how early they were introduced. Using a simple colour-coding made speedway races so easy to follow compared to other motor sports - easier to read simple helmet colours than looking for race numbers or race jackets often in poorly-lit stadia. Easiest to say to a newcomer - "We're in red and blue". Rob McCaffery.

Known in some parts down south as a "Croydon facelift". Rob McCaffery.

When the Rockets closed in 1993 it affected me badly and I couldn't raise the enthusiasm to go anywhere else for some time. Being based in London then my other option was Arena Essex but I've never been a fan of the place due to its dreadful lack of facilities and the poor racing so the options were pretty limited at the time. Ironically once we fought to get the Rockets back in 1999 I then had to give them up after thirty years the following season. People really do screw things up for you sometimes. It's still odd - I can't relate to the post 2000 Rockets as my team but I suppose the years of commentating gave me the ability to enjoy meetings as a neutral. There are times when I could just do with having a local team to head to every week, just find a quiet corner and enjoy without all the complications that getting involved bring. When the Rockets were at Rayleigh they were two miles from me - it's been 36 years since I had a truly local track. Maybe Bristol could be an opportunity if it comes off. Rob McCaffery.

I said Easter, not Easter Monday - Saturday was Easter Saturday - deliberate ambiguity... Either way it's a superb piece by Norman. Rob McCaffery.

An excellent piece Norbold. The first meeting really comes down to interpretation. I agree with your suggestion that the Easter meeting at the rebuilt High Beech should be seen as the first true speedway meeting in Britain. Either way that was a very interesting read, well-written. The core elements to define a speedway meeting that you identified as machines with no brakes racing on a small oval with loose surface permitting broadsiding are very sound. Were you able to establish the first meeting at which races consisted of four riders racing over four laps? I know clutch starts at a starting gate came a fair bit later but when did we first see helmet colours? Rob McCaffery