RobMcCaffery

"Improvements" we're made but most had to be taken down, for example the 1980s home straight scaffolding 'stands'. Len Silver widened the track by scrapping the dog track but more recent developments have appeared to be abortive. The main stand's access was questionable in 1974 and certainly hasn't improved since . I constantly had to read out safety warnings about people blocking stairways at the then lease holder's insistence . Every meeting would see their representative burst into the box shouting that the meeting was off unless people moved. All part of the delights of trying to help your team........

It was an emergency bolt hole for the trackless Rayleigh Rockets in 1974 and really not a lot has changed. It was there or oblivion.

Expectations. It only takes one promoter to give in and the costs rise. Are you really so naive to expect promoters can simply name their price to riders they really want? Polish pay rates change what riders expect to be paid elsewhere. Think it through instead of blindly dismissing a point you're unable to understand please.

I've known the place for 44 years now and almost all improvements made over those years have had to be demolished due to poor workmanship. Many of us despaired when we were thrown out of Rayleigh and found ourselves at the slightly upgraded training track in 1974. There just haven't been enough clicks on the turnstiles to fund proper development plus the actual ',footprint ' of the place is too small to properly upgrade. It's place is in semi-pro weekend racing and always has been. Oh yes, the bike dealership. Showroom open 7 days a week bringing in sales of high cost motor cycles or a tea bar open 25 days he a year Think it through...

These are serious times, not just for Rye House. I read all the comments about product dilution with despair that people cannot see that the house of cards is collapsing. Our worries will not be who is in the team but whether there will be a team. The matter of whether the sport will be semi-professional or professional itself is dangerously close to being taken out of our hands. what is killing British Speedway is rider cost, inflated by the money available in Poland. I've felt for a while that the collapse of professional speedway in Britain is sadly imminent and it seems that the apparent collapse of Rye House is just the opening event Of the final act. Of course Poole, Wolverhampton. Belle Vue and Kong's Lynn will be ok and I wish them and their supporters well in their 4 team league. No Swindon? Count the houses........ Meanwhile the rest need to find a way to continue but in a very different directiin.

Many thanks. It's been a while since I've written like this. Partly it's down to having been rather il lately and that tends to make you reassess priorities and partly that I've been honoured to be asked to write the eulogy for Kelvin's funeral. It's a great honour. Sadly I'll be recuperating in Cornwall so a suitable stand-in will be reading my words. I still love this sport despite everything it threw at me over the years. It does leave me a little lacking in patience with certain types posters though. Does it show?

After ten years as a supporter I foolishly volunteered to help out on the supporters club. From then on I was subjected to endless venom from a member of the promotion to the point where it all just fell apart for me. I could barely face attending meetings and spent several years away from the track subsequently. You wouldn't treat a dog like it, and certainly not a dedicated customer of ten years' standing. On one occasion we were told very arrogantly that the team had signed a rider who was going to be the next great thing. Being then a keen student of the sport as a whole and avid statistician I said "Isn't he the one just dropped by Exeter?" It was a pretty appalling thing to say, I must admit. It was met with "You supporters think they know EVERYTHING!" and a slamming of the office door. The rider lasted about a month, The person concerned almost destroyed speedway for me. Thankfully it was just before I was 'discovered' as a commentator and that saved my interest in the sport. It was only Ron Russell who could get me back to Rye House. When the person I referred to earlier showed up again in 2000, that is why I immediately walked away from Rye House. I know some were mystified at the time but I could not let my personal life be severely affected by speedway again. What relevance has this to current events? I see promoters who treat supporters like dirt being hailed as heroes and the genuine ones often treated as idiots by fans. BOTH PROMOTERS AND FANS HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER. THE SPORT IS TOO SMALL NOT TO. Just the right information at the right time can keep the supporters' faith. Communication is all for silence can easily be misconstrued as contempt. Anyway, I'd better walk away from the Rye House discussion now in case I cop for a ban before I even get the chance to see my second meeting there in 25 years....

One of the absurdities of the current system is that Rye House and Lakeside, natural rivals, have so rarely raced each other for many years. Those lost derbies could have made a heck of a lot to the finances of the track over the years. Neither track really belongs in the top flight. They should be racing each other. Imagine a fixture list including the Rockets racing Lakeside, Ipswich, King's Lynn, Peterborough, Kent and Eastbourne, before you even look further afield. It'll never happen,.........but just imagine....

You might be interested to note that Drozdz, while being named weekly in the Wroclaw side is hardly getting a ride over there, being replaced by the number eight each time.

What went wrong? The second division was shafted to put it bluntly. They were expected to trade up the D1 costs and somehow find stronger teams when the former D1 tracks made sure they held onto their stars. Unsurprisingly the likes of Middlesbrough, with one heatleader tackling undiluted former D1 squads took a hammering in all ways. The Scottish Monarchs was a disastrous attempt to keep Edinburgh and Glasgow going, at Shawfield. Edinburgh had lost their track at Powderhall in the city while Glasgow Tigers had gone bust so had a track, but no team. Long term it resolved itself with the Monarchs' 'temporary' move to Armadale and a revival of the Tigers who eventually decamped to the cheaper surroundings of Ashfield. As you can imagine there was a certain amount of resentment and mistrust amongst the former D2 clubs. When ego and an excess of 'playing pennies' amongst a certain 'Elite' saw them disappear the PL could rebuild. The whole point of the 'watering down' of the EL in recent years I would suggest is to bring the two leagues closer, apart from pure cost saving, to allow the possibility of a merger, but on D2 terms. They've managed to avoid it so far by encouraging D2 sides to join them and plug the leaking holes in the D1 ship. If there is to be a future merger I suspect it will be VERY different to the 1996 con. Now, regarding full-time racing, Riders don't attract enough paying customers to allow them to race full-time. It's that simple. Finally, (god, this is like writing the Rye House programme again after 25 years, without getting a tenner from Ron!), regarding the 14 fixture season, I have no doubt that Eastbourne knew they would lose x pounds per meeting and the parent machine tools company could afford to subsidise 14 matches. No, we don't need to compress the season down to a few months. We need to run affordable meetings using the full range of dates available and maybe realise rather than try to compete with Poland we should just sort out a system that allows promoters a profit and most of all entertains the public and makes them want to come back! I suspect the real downward spiral came when promoters decided that lossmaking was acceptable - it could be covered out of their personal leisure budget (as one said -"It's either a season here or a new car") or the Sky money, which proved that money DID talk, usually saying "I'm off". I just want to enjoy loads of speedway a year with the shortest possible close season. Don't you? What's the mattter, don't you like speedway? (Where do I send the invoice? Oh heck, giving it away again...I'll never get rich).

What is needed is stability. Stability of fixtures, stability of rider appearances, stability of teams. Weekly fixtures have always been a key to speedway success. A season of say 26 dates was and should be the norm. If the racing's good enough and perceived to be of value for money then individuals, challenges and pairs can give a varied, attractive fixture list. There requires a change in mindset that destructively says "Ifg it doesn't take my side one match closer to glory then it's meaningless". We must recreate the desire for a 'night out at the speedway' where the actual format isn't essential. You can't have riders constantly going missing for more lucrative paydays elsewhere. Obviously foreign riders have domestic commitments that must be honoured but right now the feeling too easily seen is "Well, if the riders can';t be bothered to be here then why should i?" Teams - You need to have teams that supporters can identify and care for. It's an essential part ofv drama that you care about the characters and so it is with low-level sport where there isn't the glamour to create a mystique. You also need to think that your favourite rider might still be with you next year. Britain may not offer the cash but it offers the opportunity to race, in a properly planned fixture list, several times a week on wildly varying tracks. We still stage more meetings than any other country. We are the home of league speedway and gave a living to overseas riders for decades. A little more respect is due. We are not somewhere to come when you have no better things to do.We are not somewhere to test equipent or put in virtual practice performances with little commitment to racing. Right now it seems like nobody cares. Until someone does we're going nowhere. If riders have commitments in Poland, with BSI or One Sport then there is sadly no place for them in Britain while they do. Let them go and chase the cash. Leave us to run speedway that people give a damn about.

You assume that all new promotions are full of sustainable ideas and are better than the present members of the BSPA. That isn't automatically the case. Yes BMR have ambition but how much of the planned works on site are completed? I take it the motorcycle dealership is up and running and giving that vital income to the site. Is it? It seemed like a key revenue stream. Something seems to have gone wrong. Is it purely frustration with the BSPA? Ron Russell had great plans and hopes for Rye House too and was far from the hapless fool some try to portray..... Based on getting on for fifty years' knowledge of Rye House speedway, partly professional but sadly from afar since the Silver revival, I firmly believe it needs weekend racing. If I were some stupid nostalgist I'd be arguing for Sunday afternoons. I'm not. If someone had offered me a return to Saturday nights, as at Rayleigh back in the 70-90s I'd have bitten their hand off. Yes, we need a league where we know the riders will give it top priority, except for meetings held by their respective federations. Once we have a pool of riders then we can have an idea of points limits. It has to be about the racing, not the names. The most successful years at Rye House were with Kelvin, Bob Garrad, Karl Fiala, Ted Hubbard, Hugh Saunders, Ashley Pullen and a cast of supporting triers. Nobody gave a damn about their position in the overall world of speedway. They were our heroes and the likes of Barney Kennett our beloved 'villains'. Most importantly they were part of the Rye House family which was a pretty good one to be part of. Remember when you could make money on a challenge match against Canterbury as long as it featured Kelvin v Barney? Now it has to be league matches only, no room for fun, in a fragmented ultra-short, joyless season where the main task is just to, get it completed as as soon as possible and with riders being flown in from around the world. To ride at Rye House? Progress? Madness? No, I don't want the past. I want a future based on the same principles though and which give supporters a proper season full of value for money matches. Is it that too much to ask? Oh I wouldn't mind the white rocket on blue and gold halves back. It wasn't a Len Silver creation but dated back to the founding of the Rockets at Rayleigh in 1947. You wouldn't mess with the Belle Vue Ace or the Wimbledon star. Isn't our heritage worth a bit of respect too?

Just been doing a bit of surfing regarding the track staffer who has been arrested and bailed on a very controversial matter. Now, this has to be handled very delicately to avoid this person's possible crimes, if convicted and we still has a system that presumes innocence before guilt is proven, from affecting the good name of the speedway. Well, I say good name but in the past we were rather considered as literally 'the wrong side of the tracks' in Hoddesdon as we tried to drum up commercial interest. People don't necessarily see the drawbacks to trying to promote speedway at the location. It's vital this is handled correctly, not just by the management, but also by the supporters. Too much comment has been known to bring down cases so certainly no names please, and ideally on less-regulated platforms like Facebook although it does seem the horse has bolted there. Just what we need!

You are very kind and I don't mind being mentioned in the same breath as Dave, the best of the lot by far. I'm also delighted you've got such a collection. Hang onto it because I suspect it's the biggest out there. Jan Staechmann's now got the KM masters. The Screen Sport ones are long lost. All I ever did on video, at Rye House or here was to do the best I could for the sport I loved. Money and ego I could leave to others. I guess that's why I'm broke now. I miss Hackney. I miss Rayleigh so very much. I do not want to miss Rye House.

Turning to the current scene, sadly my planned trips back to Rye House have been scuppered so far by health so my chance to comment on actual sightings hasn't happened. But I've watched TV and video clips, read carefully the reports of others and yes, I'm worried. Knowing a little about losing money at Rye House (thankfully as an onlooker only) I suspect it's haemmorrhaging again. Like it or not, Rye House's history lies in weekend racing and has since Dicky Case ran it as Wembley's training track prewar. It grieves me to think of the place dead at weekends just so the promoters can run in the 'big time', or at least as 'big' as Britain can get these days. It was ambitious of BMR to take the Rockets up. It might have been more sensible to mix the ambition with knowledge and experience. I suspect it might have been cheaper. I've heard of last years figures and they were frightening enough without running without the TV money this year. Have there been demoralising pay cuts? Something's wrong. I will not speculate on reliability of payment - I have no evidence and that would be wrong. I want to see a stable Rye House running at weekends and whatever league it takes to achieve that then go for it. Steve Ribbons evokes the days of the Infradex team. Is what we've got now really better than a thrilling team of home-developed talent who were always free for a chat after racing? No it's not about 'rosy glasses', it's knowing what does or doesn't work at Rye House.

(EDIT: Since I posted the above rather fractured comments I have been hospitalised with a massive chest infection and a sky-high temperature. Looking back at things I was up to immediately before it was just in time too! Apologies for the more than usually confused gibberish - the following is what I really wanted to post. A world without Mudlark? No thanks. Kelvin was the first rider apart from opening 1974 number one Brian Foote to show a genuine desire and commitment to the Rockets. We'd lost Rayleigh in early 1974, struggled into our new home with a scratch team then saw most of the old Rayleigh Rockets turning out for Crayford when they reopened in 1975. These were dark times for the loyal teeth-kicked Rayleigh fans. Then this kid turned up from King's Lynn. He couldn't sign for us straight away due to a typical spat between Cyril Crane and Len Silver but there on the back of his helmet it was for all to see. It read simply "Rye House Rockets". At last somebody cared! Kelvin's signing was the beginning of the golden years. As 1975 progressed so Karl Fiala came through, then Bob Garrad to join Kelvin as heatleaders. What a side!. It was easy to lose Mudlark in that sea of stars. Well, we didn't - nobody else had a Kelvin Mullarkey! We had been so proud of our Rayleigh Rockets, now we could say with equal pride "We are the Rye House Rockets"

A world without Mudlark? No thanks. The first rider to show a desire and commitment to the Rockets, apart from Brian Foote. What an inspiration! This kid turned up from Lynn and the back of his helmet long before Silver and Crane had resolved their latest spat "Rye House Rockets

For an event that was to supply and celebrate team riding there were a heck of a lot of 4-2s. Look at the points charts and you'll see a continuous thread. Rider number one scores high double figures, rider 2 about half a dozen at best. Okay there were exceptions but only Russia and Poland had two top GP riders. The balance of the rest of the pairings was much more lopsided and away from the hype many races were far more ordinary than people's short term memories suggest. Yes there were some great races. Yes Britain almost did and certainly deserved to win. Ironically the best team racing over the four meetings came from the British pair. Woffinden's rewards for probably his most impressive and mature display to date? Top scorer. Team top scorers. Winner of the grand final. No gold medal. Superb reward eh? We never had this pious "we must celebrate and encourage team racing" waffle in the days of the World Pairs, perhaps because it was so commonplace in the leagues. The Pairs was just another FIM event with two riders per 'team'. I suppose that's why it died. The worshipping on the altar of team riding came with the NL Pairs and the 4-3-2-0 scoring. It was all a case of trying to come up with a pairs meeting that people would actually pay to watch. It was about money, not high principles. Bear in mind I did have a certain involvement with the NL in the mid-80s.... Had it not been for Woffinden I suggest most would be rightly calling for a (jokerless) SWC return. Tai saved the event but I doubt whether the all-important Poles share that view. In life there is right and wrong. In sport they are both overruled by winning ;-) I think countries like Slovenia are much more impressed with Matej Zagar's performances in the SGP than this. The SWC is NOT always the same teams. Latvia proved that. There are six top nations chasing four places annually. That makes it competitive No Poland don't win every year. I do wonder if the SON or the next version of it (son of SON?) is a nice cheap event, using plenty of cheap riders in the qualifiers, supporting the GP stars, sorry nobly empowering the minor nations.? Over the weekend I was accused of all kinds of rubbish over my views on this event. To be honest it comes with the territory. I don't see speedway in the same limited ways as many here. I may be right and often know I'm wrong afterwards. But I try, for the best reasons, my sport not my ego. I had my brief brush with minor fame years back. Believe me it's not what it's cracked up to be. In later years I was asked by a magazine editor to contribute. "You'll get your name in print! I've been chuckling over that one for years now. "Oh he's just being nasty" No I'm not, I'm offering my own version of insight and trying to make people think, which is a petty thankless job in this forum. Anyway over to the usual snipers. Go ahead. I'll be elsewhere doing something far more worthwhile and it'll stop you spitting your venom at those who care. EDIT and the prize for the most predicted first response goes to nw42. Glad to give your life a sense of meaning on a Monday morning. He/she/it's on block so I'll be worrying all day over what he/she/it said. .... Right, I'm over it ;-) . Fifteen seconds! I'm getting slow :-( Must book myself into SCB's Swiss clinic. Have fun boys and girls, be excellent to each other and party on dudes and please keep banging the rocks together.

I'm perfectly calm despite having to deal with idiots spouting stupid cliches. I don't wonder about stick nor do I care given the monumental stupidity of most who post here. Yes it was great racing. Yes we get great racing in the SGP and SWC. With the exception of the joker they both have superb formats. Yes we get people who clearly can't see the bigger picture making silly comments. The day I get worried about what the vast majority of BSF members 'think' isn't going to happen. I on;y care about the opinions of those I respect. You are certainly not one of them. As for flouncing off I do occasionally despair about how idiotic so many people are in the BSF and need to take a break before I REALLY lose my temper and patience. That's a cheap shot. Sadly it's about your pathetic standard. I've had to deal with you before. It's best if I don't have to again before you really get me angry. Now go play with the "My team's better than your team" morons. I think there's still room in the sandpit but it is getting full.

As I said earlier the tie-breaker should be qualifying scores. That way the Russians would have had to actually defeat us in the final to win. It just gives a slight reward for the team scoring the most points in the qualifiers. Anyway, I have an explanation for anyone to use. "Yes we scored the most points and one of our team won thew final, but we believe in the higher ideal of the pair finishing in consecutive positions to win." Utter round objects.

We finished first and had victory stolen by a crap format. Sometimes you have to look further than the end of your nose.

I 've worked my backside off in the past to help speedway. I'm disabled now so think I've earned the rest. I hadn't realised that disqualified me from giving the only help I can now - trying to make people think. You're normally so right but I think you've blinded by some great racing and missing the point about the stupid format this time.

Yes, the tie-breaker in a race-off 3-3 should be points scored in the qualifying races. That's too obvious for speedway and its triumphal "Second and third takes all" mentality.

Yes the Daily Mirror World Speedway League in 1973 was a corker...

A friend of mine had a conversation last year with her then track's new manager. She mentioned team riding. The guy hadn't got a clue what it was. One of the races of the night was Lambert getting the 4-2 against Poland. Excellent to watch but nothing to do with team riding. Outside league racing I do find the concept of team riding overstated at international level. It's great when it happens but it's NOT worth fouling up the format in a naiive hope to generate it. Some great racing despite the format. Now back to the credible, serious stuff - the SGPs and the leagues.