RobMcCaffery

It used to be a weekly sport, now reduced to occasional, mainly because nobody could be bothered to save it....

I just checked this and it seems that amazingly Sky Q doesn't have a manual time extension! Best thing in future is to record the subsequent programme as insurance. You can always just delete if not needed. Unbelievable oversight by Sky.

A seven match season? Not for me. I actually like speedway.

Do you fancy 7-10 meetings a year, plus play-offs for half the teams?

I think most of us started following a sport that was weekly, and almost always on the same night, with the odd gap or alternate night to accomodate teams running on the same race night. Continuity was the key. In my early days Saturday night was speedway night at Rayleigh, later Fridays at Hackney and Sundays at Rye House. I also knew I could rely on Wimbledon, Crayford, Arena Essex and the likes of Canterbury, Eastbourne and Reading staging meetings I could get to, every week. Now when I do have the chance to go to a meeting, invariably my nearest tracks aren't running. It's not just Poland and the GPs that have caused this situation, it's the rejection of all but league matches by the public. As I've mentioned elsewhere to run weekly from mid-March to mid-October requires about 30 fixtures. At present, doubling-up league matches produces 14 regular season matches in the SGBP and 18 in the SGBC. Add-in the minimum of one cup match and in the case of the SGBP you would fill half your fixtures with league matches and just over half in the SGBC. If you combine the two leagues into an 18 team league you get 17 home regular season fixtures plus at least one cup tie and maybe a playoff match or two. That still leaves about 10 dates to fill to run a full season. Okay, allow for say four blanks. You still have six dates to fill. Perhaps then you have a regional competition to start the season, maybe call it the League Cup. (I know, not exactly original). So, you could have an 18 team league, plus two nine team regional league starters. That would then give you 25 dates which with cup ties and play-offs would fill a season and give most tracks the benefit of still seeing local rivals twice a year. You could run the League Cup in three or four sections to cut back from the minimum 25. Of course you would then need to find the riders to fill the gaps caused by the elimination of doubling-up. One thing is certain, you cannot have continuity with 8 or 10 team leagues unless it's fortnightly or the public stop turning their noses at non league meetings, or as we used to call them, individual, pairs, 4TT, test matches, or as they are now termed, "meaningless". A fortnightly 8 team league on one night of the week will run 14 weeks plus play-offs, or longer with the occasional gap, as in Sweden and Poland currently. Doubling-up on home fixtures would push this close to 30, possibly that bit too long. It's clear that Swedish and Polish fans are happy with 7 match homes season, plus maybe one or two play-offs but would we be here? Do we really want less than ten home meetings a year? I don't have the answers but hopefully some of these questions will get people who might have thinking. In the modern (post-1965) era British Speedway's best years lay in the days of 16-18 team leagues and a mixed fixture list of league and open meetings, but even then those open meetings were a vital part of the schedule. Perhaps it was because the sport was much cheaper in real terms or the racing was more important than the result but the public's needs have clearly changed. A 30 meeting is season is great of course when you're making money. You could smell the rot setting in when one EL track stated they could only afford to pay for a 14 match home league season. We have to find a way back to weekly speedway. A combined 18 team league with extra competitions such as a League Cup would take us a lot closer to that. (Yes it does sound like speedway pre 1985, doesn't it?) .The sport made great strides in reorganisation last winter, which it seems many supporters haven't been able to see. There's one more large step to take. It's not a case of living in the past but learning from it. I don't say we return to an earlier era, just switch over to the path we should have taken from there rather than the ruinous one we're now on.

Dudley Wood - Dudley 3.6 miles Dudley Wood - Oldbury 4.4 miles Whatever the political boundaries it's all one community.

I used to love watching Joe Screen and a young Sebastian Ulamek race round there in the 90s on Polsat.

So, effectively he gets his practice sessions in England.

Four consecutive Saturdays in April, then just three more in the whole season. Joining the 'elite' has its price. I just hope people haven't found better things to do.

Boston on a Wednesday in October was an endurance test for Rye House. Arena Essex is usually freezing. In fact I'm convinced every time they open the doors the lights come on.....

It's clear that the fixtures are having to be crammed in before and after the main Polish and SGP seasons.

So when Sheffield changed their name from Tars to Tigers was there a risk of Glasgow protesting over 'passing off'? I'd suggest that the trust could be called ABCZZ Ltd t/a Sandwell Heathens. We have constant changes of promoting companies behind tracks but they are able to maintain the name, a couple of recent very clear cases being Leicester and Belle Vue. Ultimately it's down to the BSPA and SCB to determine the acceptability of team names. The question of licence is rather more murky. In theory couldn't Wolverhampton invoke the distance ruling and object? Obviously the logical solution is for the the two parties to work together. It would be tragic for ego to keep speedway out of the Black Country, and rather out of keeping with the area, eh?

They clearly need a poof weeder or a spillchucker.

I expect they are trying to gradually change the name to Team BMR. Then the BSPA will require them to keep a geographical name and they'll compromise on Rye House Team BMR.

The sport's bigger than one man. I enjoyed the SWC but it's not worth handing control over to a rider just to chase the distant hope of glory.

Having listened to the four available episodes I realise that this has been on air for some time. It's a shame I've missed the earlier ones going by the quality of these four. It's a shame that rights problems apparently prevent BBC Radio Norfolk from doing live coverage as they mentioned in one edition. These are presumably the same problems that BBC WM suffered from when they tried to broadcast from there. As I mentioned elsewhere the BBC may have a lot of money but the local radio stations see only a tiny fraction of it. If so Stars are lucky to have this superb weekly free and thoroughly professional advertisement that most other tracks could only dream of. Interesting Edwin remembered he did work for KM Video. Most of us are trying to forget....

Nothing to stop them building a stadium for the Sandwell Heathens I can't see that the current promotion own the name Heathens. After all, we have three teams with Tigers in their name....

Given that the Rockets are theoretically a Saturday track, the Wolverhampton match will be the first meeting on that night since May 20th. The next is scheduled for August 5th which is currently scheduled to be final Saturday meeting of the season, Those healthy crowds came from an opening run of four consecutive Saturdays in April, more than the three other Saturday meetings scheduled for the rest of the season. I respect BMR's ambition but question the wisdom of losing the weekly fixtures. I do hope the support is still there and haven't got out of the habit. Joining the 'elite' has its price.

Lublin have clearly put a D1 budget in place for this year. In some ways it might have been healthier for the revival of D2 to have put them straight into D1. Now, no knocking Krosno, I'm quite enjoying the regular visits there by their local TV.

Thanks very much for that. For those who haven't followed the link it's a series of podcasts made by BBC Radio Norfolk which really should have been promoted to the wider speedway public by all involved, rather like BBC WM's regular speedway commentaries which are probably listened to by more people outside their area than in! Looks like there's been four so far, starting with Edwin who has worked for both BBC Radio Norfolk and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire for many years, He's a great football commentator as well. We used to share football commentary duties for KM Video - he got Cambridge and I think Norwich as well, while I had Colchester, Enfield and Crystal Palace. I had the good fortune to work with Edwin many times in the past and he is a true gentleman and a pleasure to know. It's been a long time though....

Piraterna v Masarna, Speedway For All, all 15 heats (short) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_p1VZzMxnc&t=11s

Looks optimistic then. Sorry, been 'bitten' once too often by their scheduling, going back over many years, long before they started showing speedway.

Excellent. Many thanks - I had begun to lose hope for that one.

Live football on E1 with diving followed by recordings of car racing from Argentina on E2, the channel they would normally use. Good to know how important we are to them Hopefully they won't start halfway through the meeting as in previous instances. When BT are going overboard we're still getting shabby treatment from Eurosport

Of course the Polish troll is an alien from planet Zog, I mean it's obvious to anyone as brill-yant as me. Can't work out why you can't see it. Thought I'd call back in to see why this thread was still going. Degenerated into "I know something you don't", as usual. How anyone can claim that something is absolutely true without offering any evidence or justification other than "his English is too good" is quite baffling, but then par for the course here. Still, it at least makes them feel like experts, or indeed someone who has a clue. Of course one test would be for someone to ask a question in Polish that can't be easily translated by Google Translate and see whether they can answer it, or is that too much like logic rather than bull?