RobMcCaffery

.....both of you, especially Peter Oakes ;-) That'll sort out which of you have read the Speedway Star this week. Okay, and the rest of you, even if you are called SCB or follow Poole ;-)

Do they not have young riders in the SGBC? You would rather see the Bees cease to exist than support a team of "kids riding round"? I am sure that those loyal supporters of the rest of the NL teams would have been overawed at having such all-important supporters such as yourselves deigning to visit them. It must be wonderful being such important speedway supporters. We bow in awe ;-)

It is fascinating to note that offensive comments by scb can be considered part of an "excellent post". Whatever sense he might make in his other points is devalued by his ignorant use of ageism. People have a right to enjoy speedway irrespective of race, gender, sexual orientation or AGE. Yes the sport needs a younger age group following it but is that really to be achieved by sneering at the elderly who do attend meetings? Where do we stop in SCB's nasty little world, an age limit on attendance and proof required of being under what arbitrary age limit he considers 'old'? I have to admit though that he is in fact doing me a favour, along with other posters of his nature. For a few years it hasn't been possible for me to attend more than a handful of meetings. Thankfully my circumstances have changed and with it came the joy of being able to start going to meetings regularly again. Then I read things like "Don't worry about the old, they'll die soon" make me realise that I have other interests to spend my time and cash on. After 46 years I'll make that one less oldie to be despised and sneered at in future.

That is downright offensive. Perhaps if instead of your ignorant ageism we have someone post some equally obnoxious homophobia and see how you like it. Comments like that destroy any respect for the rest of your occasionally intelligent comments. Just because you post in detail and some are taken in by it all doesn't mean you're in the right. I've worked damn hard for speedway in my time and it would be good to think that I could still go to speedway without facing obnoxious comments from yourself about people in my age group. Anyway, hopefully I'll be dead soon, eh? Uteerly disgusting. We should cater for all not just overgrown children like you.

No I didn't have time to read what was a rather irrelevant article in full. Apologies for not spotting a very minor point hidden in it. Perhaps if the original poster had actually drawn attention to this rather than just lazily post a link to the article and post an intelligible header then there might have been a little less confusion? I really have no interest in games like darts. The pettiness and stupidity on this forum when trying to have a reasoned discussion is deeply saddening at times, but perhaps to be expected.

The answer is to promote it as an 'extreme' sport. All kinds of usually American manufactured sport are skilfully sold under that banner. It's all sensation and image based. Speedway needs expert selling. Many years ago I was invited by the BSPA to discuss a proposal I had made that they set up their own in-house marketing and TV production business so they could control the 'message' and maintain control over TV revenues and the spin-off sponsorship. I was naive of course. They heard me but admitted that they didn't have the expertise to do it themselves. Tellingly they didn't have the vision to realise that it might be an idea to hire those who did have that expertise. The sport needs stable management, clear, intelligent policy, a vision of where it's going and to find people who can sell it for them. I actually feel sorry for the BSPA at times. They come across as reasonably successful small to medium businessmen who care about the sport but when it comes to TV, sponsorship and general marketing they're way out of their depth. Reverting to the 'extreme' aspect I have taken occasional looks at what gets lumped into this 'product' and to be honest speedway is far more interesting than most. It is a triumph ofd style over substance. Sadly we need a little of that American hucksterism. All we seem to get are expensive attempts at American style with only a vague connection without selling turning that image into revenue. The flashy trappings and irrelevant costs would look good, if anyone was looking. Do we want a sport fuelled by hype? Well, that's what got it started and thriving. Hype's moved on from our old showmen though and the sport's been left behind.

Back in 1974 I lost my speedway track with the team moving forty miles away. I didn't hold my breath, vow to boycott or go off in a huff. I was too young to drive so each week I would get to the old stadium and board a coach to the new track, which wasn't a patch on our old one. It was an appalling experience but I stuck with it for over 20 years, despite the journey for me personally growing at times to 200 miles. I stuck with my team - because without me and others it would have died. Tragically Coventry fans are now going through that same appalling trauma. It's depressing to see how few are prepared to save the Bees beyond empty words. If there's a Coventry Bees side out there, support them, just as I would even after four decades I would if a Rayleigh Rockets side was out there. In 1999, after no promoters seemed interested in reopening Rye House a group of supporters relaunched the Rockets as a nomadic team. I was one of them. It didn't matter whether we were racing at Mildenhall, Eastbourne or King's Lynn we were the Rockets and many of our fans came with us. As a result we got the Rockets back permanently. Sadly for deeply personal reasons I couldn't enjoy that return but I and many others did out bit twice to rescue our team. Is a relatively short trip up a motorway to Leicester that much to ask? Will showing how tough you are solve the situation?

He should have received a lengthy ban for his contempt for British Speedway last year. He had a contract to race here and walked out on it the moment he could smell better money. I suspect had he not been a Poole asset he would have received that justified ban.

Just staying with the BBC for a moment, I once met the then head of Sport for BBC Nations and Regions at a rugby event held by BBC Radio Gloucestershire. Nations & Regions covers all localised BBC radio and TV across the the three nations, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, plus regional TV and local radio in England and the Channel Islands. It does not include national TV programmes or the main national radio networks. With varying levels of success, notably high in the Midlands with BBC WM this is the side of the BBC that is far more likely than the national side to bother with speedway. I asked him what was their policy on speedway and the response was that it was up to the relevant sports editor whether to feature speedway but that he was totally open to coverage of the sport, with the obvious proviso that what was offered was suitable. A secondary point is why does media at a national level so often shun speedway? My feeling is, you must remember that most senior national journalists started out as junior local journos, some of whom might have been sent out to the local speedway track to get copy. Having seen the attitude shown to the press in speedway it would be no surprise if they simply got the job done and hoped to move on to more appreciative sports. It was claimed that one very famous BBC sports commentator of the 1960s-80s was extremely hostile to the sport, chiefly because of resentment at how he felt he had been treated as a young journalist. Now some tracks do know how to look after the media, or have in the past and the momentum carries on, and they are the ones that you will find have great local coverage, or others may be lucky to have a speedway fan working locally as a professional journalist. Sadly I suspect far too many think they have a divine right to coverage or amazingly view it as something that will stop fans coming, the "If they want to know the result let them pay to come in" mentality. When you buy a local paper and find speedway on several pages including the back it didn't happen by magic. Hard work won that space. The occasional advert would also help smooth the relationship. Speedway seems to think it's something special that demands attention. It isn't.......but it could and should be.

Excellent post Dean. Sums it up perfectly.

To me there is just one key factor. In the minds of far too many people speedway is no longer viewed as being worth spending £15-20 per person on. Whether that is a false or genuine perception is irrelevant. It's basic economics that the price is a product of supply and demand. The supply side is still reasonable but demand has plummetted. Abysmal marketing, a shoddy attitude to customers, a focus on rider needs rather than customer, rules based on constant compromise, usually to paper over loopholes, failure to control unnecessary costs, pitifully poor racing in several cases, constant rider absence are all details. Speedway has to be or either be seen to be value for money.

Yes there is, if you were following the discussion elsewhere. For many years riders with a top division (EL/SGBP) average over 6 were not allowed to double up in the second division (PL/SGBC). In 2017 all were allowed temporarily. The 6 point rule though has been reintroduced for 2018. Those riders over six who took up the option in 2017 are allowed to carry on in the second tier. Those like Nicholls who didn't are not. You may not agree with the logic. I don't but it is there, even if only at BSPA level.

A true character and I'm sorry to hear this news. Back in 1983 my producer and I were pulling up in the car park for the Norden World Final. "Well, this is one place we won't see Noddy". Wrong - he was helping out as a car park attendant... Another time I arrived at Leicester in a hurry to cover an England v USA test match. I'd had to get a train and taxi to Blackbird Road and urgently needed to find the press gate. Noddy was on hand and used his specialised knowledge of such entrances to point me in the right direction. Somebody once suggested he was a self-employed cobbler which would have helped him to have time off for his travels. He seemed to know everyone.

Rather confused by the headline and how a darts story can relate to "Auntie Beeb has remembered what Speedway was, once" (sic). What exactly does that phrase mean? Moving into the real world, darts has been successfully hyped for many years by professional businesses which specialise in such work, because darts went out and found someone to do this. Speedway has not. If the poster is trying to knock the BBC perhaps he should pay attention to what BBC WM are doing right on his doorstep? You have to sell the sport to broadcasters as much as the rest of the media. Instead speedway views the press as freeloaders who are likely to stop people paying to watch the sport. It's remarkable how much coverage speedway actually gets, usually down to the personal enthusiasm of a local editor. You can't just sit back and expect to be given coverage such as that darts piece. You have to at least meet these people half way. Most press and publicity in speedway is undertaken by willing amateurs. I know, I was one. You get what you pay for. Don't blame the media if they're not interested in what is offered to them, if any is.....

If you're referring to my posting no. This was down in the west country and a man who had promoted domestic speedway at the very highest level.

I've worked in other branches of lower level motor sport and they found it laughable that speedway riders expected to make a living from it. A former speedway promoter who had switched top stock cars only invited me into his office after a meeting which had attracted a crowd that would have been the envy of any speedway promoter. There was a queue of drivers, many of whom had spent several thousand pounds on their cars (we're not talking bangers here). Each in turn took a few pounds off the promoter. Occasionally one would get a few pounds more if they had won a race. At the end the promoter showed me the money left over and said "THAT'S why I gave up speedway". Only at the top levels of motorsport where there are very lucrative TV and sponsorship deals do racers make a living and then it usually comes from a sponsor. Over the past near half century I have witnessed a sport whose competitors seem to increasingly want a Formula 1 lifestyle without realising that the money's just not there. If they want the champagne lifestyle or just to draw a full-time wage they need to be in a sport that attracts more than a few hundred people, has not blown its TV deals and whose sponsorship is not generally based on charity from those who love it. Expectations must change.

BT Sport have four channels to fill at that time. Sky have more. Are you really saying that they will not show anything on the other channels whichever gets the contract for this handful of games? Of course they will show other sport and there's no reason why speedway would miss out. This year there were several occasions where a 6 pm SGP programme clashed with the second half of a 5.30 Premier League football match on BT.

Yes it has changed, but other sports survived. We were so reliant on dog tracks and it's the decline of that sport that's dragged us down in London. Land is worth more used for commercial units or housing than running minority sport. Unless the stadium is making good money or has protection, either through a benefactor, legal or council policy you are inevitably under threat. In many ways the Weir was a signpost to the future. I had to break a vow a couple of years back. My wife (an ex-Hackney Hawks fan) persuaded me that I really needed to buy clothes from a shop situated I reckon about on the old fourth bend terracing site. And so, after thirty years I finally returned to the Weir, under protest ;-) I'd made one other visit since 1973 - in 1980 after the Rockets had won their first title at Rye House I went back as part of a personal celebration/commemoration/contemplation. I'd been tempted to ask if we could take the NL trophy there just for a small private parade of it round what was left of the track - a bit of sad sentiment to today's supporters, I expect. I doubt whether the then promotion would have understood the sentiment. It was sickening to see it still derelict after seven seasons that could have given us so many more speedway memories there. It is one of the greatest truths that you do NOT know what you have until it's gone. I hate it whenever I hear of another track's closure, and it hurt like hell when we lost Rye House in 1994, almost two decades to the month after Rayleigh. Thankfully that wasn't permanent but so often tracks, like lost loved ones have an awful habit of staying dead. It's easy for others to say "Well, I'm okay".... With the promotional changes at Rye House I hope to get there next year. It would have been this year if not for poor health and other problems. I'll just take a quiet seat in a corner and remember.

Perhaps you should talk to a former rider ;-) Oh.....

As I've sadly had to say elsewhere, these 'supporters' are great at being happy to see tracks close - as long as it isn't theirs. I know I'm not the only one here who still misses Rayleigh....

You really do have an ageism problem. Most of the 60s and 70s music I listen to would not be described as slow-paced. Of course you wouldn't know - it's far too good for the likes of shallow kids like you ;-)

The Rugby League World Cup runs on hype and reputation. You get a handful of close games, a huge number of mismatches then the Aussies win a couple of games and are given the trophy. It makes the SWC look like a paragon of sporting virtue. Ah well, one of my favourite weeks of the year gone :-( What's left to ruin on the altar of the Ekstraliga and SGP? If the money's not there then someone's not doing their job!

Perhaps we should just run about half a dozen matches a yewar? I thought you people called yourself fans of the sport. I can imagine the reaction from most team sports' supporters if you suggested cutting their seasons down to twelve weeks!

Not if he's in Denmark ;-)

I was at Belle Vue a few years back when the on course betting was operational. A bunch of office lads out for a party night were betting on the races. One was just betting on yellow and was annoyed at how little he was winning. I explained about home advantage, how there was a match going on (they weren't aware) and how the rider in yellow was usually the weaker rider from the away side so was least likely to win. I left realising what damage the sport did to itself by opening itself to the bookies in the hunt for unattainable Sky Bet riches.