RobMcCaffery

Back in 1982 the Speedway Star asked me to contribute my first match report - a match between Hackney and Reading. Tragically it was the night that Denny Pyeatt lost his life at Waterden Road. I wish I could forget the memory. Thankfully Dave Welch was around and he very kindly submitted the report for me. A few years earlier my wife had been chatting to a rider in the pits at Hackney just before he went out for his next race. It was Vic Harding..... This can be such a viciously cruel sport. Another very sad connection is that Kevin Holden was in the first match I ever saw, Rayleigh v Romford in June 1971. Thankfully the sport has given me so many wonderful memories over the years but .....well, you know....

He wasn't the only one. I still cherish my visits to Sweden. Alan clearly had impeccable taste, in scenery and female TV presenters. Hard to believe we'll hear no more of his wisdom.

Just to back-up r&r's advice to waihekeaces1, BSI put the world feed of the GPs and SWC live on the SGP website and You Tube, but it is only accessible to people outside countries where a TV channel has rights to show the coverage in their country, so obviously the main speedway nations are excluded. So if you live or are on holiday or on business outside the British Isles, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, and, I suspect Australia, assuming they're still televised over there, you can watch any GP live and in English on that link that r&r gave or on You Tube. Today's link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF2ZQyGN94s I hope this clarifies the situation. It's BSI's way of 'filling the gaps' in coverage and means if you're holiday in the sun you've got a great chance to watch, assuming you can get decent wi-fi...

Unfortunately Gdansk v Tarnow today has been rained-off. http://sportowefakty.wp.pl/zuzel/683738/hit-nice-1lz-przelozony

I am so very sorry to hear this desperately sad news. I was wondering why we hadn't heard from Alan for some time but like most had no idea of his personal fight. His love and enthusiasm for the sport despite being so far from it shone through and his contributions were always warm and positive. His joy from being able to watch his beloved sport was infectious and was a wonderful antidote to the unpleasantness of so many. I will miss his contributions terribly and wish I'd had the chance to meet him and thank him in person for his uplifting contributions. Sleep well

Ah well, you won't be needing links in future then. Enjoy.

Link deleted - proved to be unsafe :-( The best hope would be an appearance on You Tube tonight. The meeting is on and was entering heat 3 when the problem arose - the site insisted on installing a dubious Chrome extension. Apologies.

As a footnote to this worrying report which carries far greater significance than the petty bickering about the track and racing quality, here's a cautionary tale about someone who's been a friend of mine for over thirty years, and of my wife for far longer. They have has been a speedway supporter since childhood at West Ham and have been a regular customer of Rye House for several years now. They also voiced their genuine concerns regarding what they saw as dangerous conditions at the stadium to the promotion - and were banned from the track.

Why would a Scottish Sunday paper report on Wimbledon Stadium? Perhaps you are referring to The Mail on Sunday'? If only we had an experienced journalist around.....

They weren't at full strength. Grajczonek was riding for Sheffield, replaced only by Nathan Greaves.

The ability of forum users to miss the point, often quite deliberately just to make cheap points is beyond belief. I posted what I did to warn people who may not know what is actually involved in buying and using these boxes to help people. As usual it gets twisted. I've deleted all posts since there really is no point in trying to reason with unreasonable people. Anyone who wonders why TV advertisers and sponsors shun speedway only need to take a look at these forums to know they're wise to keep well clear. NOT THE ONES THAT CLAIM TO GIVE FREE TV, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!! Stick to speedway Dean, your views on that are very welcome but you haven't got a clue here.

Of which only a miniscule amount is allocated to Local Radio, currently well under 3% of licence fee revenue, split across 39 stations. If anything WM should be charging speedway for what is currently free advertising. The sport should thank goodness they can't. It takes a lot of justification for the BBC locals to opt out of the networked 7-10 slot and it would be so easy for WM to have given in and just used the dispensation for football. Speedway doesn't know how lucky it is to have BBC WM. If you think that BBC Local Radio is awash with money you haven't a clue of how it all works.

I've heard back from the FIM who rather limply just state that Motor Trend On Demand is available in Europe. I've checked again and European viewers can watch a limited amount of content on their site but since there's no mention of ice speedway on the site yet it's impossible at this stage to tell whether it will be accessible. I've also re-checked Edge Sports who do make reference to speedway - round six of the SGP. When I clicked on that link I got the geoblocking message "not available in your location". It all looks pretty hopeless so it looks like the only coverage available to most potential viewers will be the unofficial one-camera streams or illicit streams of the non-European channels. . Not a good situation at all.

When I commentated on it I most certainly kept people reminded about those spikes, although it is easy to get blase about them - unless you're out on the track with them. ;-)

Re TV coverage, I emailed the FIM for details of this year's deals and it's not good news. This is the list: MAV TV (USA / Canada) MTOD (Europe) Fox Sports Asia Fox Sports Australia ESPN Latin America NOVA TV (Czech Rep) EdgeSports (WorldWide) Few of these are actual broadcast channels, except those outside Europe.. Those available in Europe except Nova are mainly online on demand subscription services. Note there is no mention of Eurosport. MTOD turns out to be Motor Trend On Demand which despite the FIM saying is a European service is only available in North America, apart from a limited Spanish service. It makes no mention of Ice Speedway, Edge Sports seems to be available online only throughout Europe. Their website makes no mention of Ice Speedway. MAV TV is for America and Canada only but does list Ice Speedway - a few rounds of the 2016 series. I can't find any mention in Nova TV's schedules. So, it's all looking pretty bleak and if FIM TV were at Togliatti then the coverage isn't immediately scheduled for broadcast in Europe. Hopefully the situation will change and coverage that can be legally watched on a standard broadcast channel emerges during the competition but right now it looks like the only immediate hope is unauthorised streaming on You Tube . Things can change. It's a shame that the FIM can't do what they do with the SGPs and have authorised, official streaming of the event on You Tube for those countries which don't have a TV deal. I've asked the FIM to clarify a few points, especially their description of MTOD as a European service and am awaiting their response. Right now, sadly, it's not looking good.

Okay, one more comment. It's the first bend camera that has the best chance to show the crowd. Normally used to zoom in on the start a wider angle on subsequent laps can then show the crowd, except.....would you want to given the sparse numbers at some tracks on TV night? Much depends on whether the director considers his role to be televising a sports event or making an advertisement. It's not a new problem. The only negative comment we had for our Screen Sport work at the station was "Where's the crowd?" - over thirty years ago. We tried to counter this by using the odd wide shot from that first bend camera, but as I said before, most of us were fans desperate to help the sport we loved.

I would expect Go Speed approached Sky and negotiated an initial deal then negotiated further deals as each one expired. It sounds simple but I expect in reality the negotiations were far from straightforward, especially in view of the sums involved. The BSPA had a standard offer to anyone years back - find a sponsor and get a commission. I expect the same applied to the Sky deal later. It was an open invitation - even I received it. Sadly that wasn't my area of expertise. It's a long time ago now but in the 80s I was on the other side of the situation when Screen Sport were dealing with the BSPA. It wasn't easy and I suspect if we hadn't been speedway supporters ourselves the deal would never have gone through. Equally, incidents afterwards and the BSPA's failure to carry out their side of the deal in a professional manner(*) would probably have seen the deal terminated. It would not surprise me if the problem for Go Speed, and where they earned their commission would have been in keeping the BSPA in line more than Sky. I do hope attitudes have improved and I'm sure they have but I do expect Go Speed have actually had to earn their money. Anyway, there's a lot of supposition there and I could be totally off-beam but I feel I should try to give some possible insight into what goes on. (* The deal required the promoters to provide adequate camera platforms - they were usually a couple of planks balanced on a couple of barrels). Anyway, I've said my piece and it's time to return to the safety (and sanity) of 'read-only' status. I hope I've helped people to understand the realities of what is a far more complex situation than many would expect.

Sky is currently the most-viewed pay-TV platform but BT Sport can be watched on that platform, admittedly for an extra fee. Again, all Sky Sports and BT Sport channels are available on the Virgin Media platform. The BT platform itself may be minor but it is far from being the only way to watch BT Sport. BT is a growing force and one that is steadily building its sports portfolio, having recently added test cricket and tennis for example and Rugby Union appears to thrive on the channel. Recent FA Cup ties on BT Sport were in the 500,000-800,000 viewer bracket, which for pay-TV is quite acceptable, compared to 3.5-5m on BBC One for theirs on their universally-available service. Obviously people who already pay far too much to Sky to subsidise the luxury lifestyle of footballers (who struggle to play twice a week apparently), and their ever-needy agents will not be happy at having to pay again for BT but for those who do not need a constant football overkill and want to watch the sports that BT cover then the choice is obvious - instead of adding BT Sport, use it to replace Sky Sports. It can be done! Despite the black propaganda spread by Sky about their rival, BT offers a high quality sports service, as reflected in the excellence of Natalie Quirk's handling of the studio side of the GPs and is likely to become a highly competitive alternative to Sky. Sky have vastly overpaid for football rights and there may well be a squeeze now on sports that are underperforming on their channels. It is clear how their commitment has waned since the signing of the new deal with erratic scheduling and the disappearance of the extra innovative touches such as overhead cameras and the notorious 'mole cam'. Okay, some of those innovations won't be missed, but it does suggest to me a lessening of enthusiasm for the project. I remember hearing recently (Chapman's Facebook interview?) that it was Sky who had prevented the BSPA dropping the 'Elite League' tag some time ago. If so I wonder if the new branding has been met negatively by Sky? If Sky coverage is over and if a way can be found to switch to BT I would suspect a drop in TV match revenue will result but otherwise I'd say that a move to a growing, high-quality service may not be the disaster that some would want you to believe it would be, especially if there is no other choice and assuming you do want British racing to be televised rather than hold the rather short-sighted hope that it would magically turn home viewers into clicks on turnstiles if it wasn't. A switch to BT to coincide with the revamped structure of British Speedway (and just how fundamental the switch to two leagues that are effectively Premier League Division 1 & 2 seems not to have been noticed by many) could be just the step forward that the sport needs. Of course this all presumes that Sky don't want to continue and BT might be interested. I have no inside information but I do have a pretty good understanding of how the industry works, not just through personal experience but a long-term study of the subject. Obviously I can't match 'flagrag's' current personal knowledge but I have had BT Sport since launch and am very impressed at its progress, and the quality of its product, especially studio discussions - more brain, less mouth ;-) (Okay, except Robbie Savage...)

They came to a late agreement yesterday and Eurosport, along with all other Discovery-owned channels continue on Sky.

Delighted to hear they're still remembered and enjoyed. Sadly one of the commentators is now 'an old thing'...... ;-)

It's never easy to deal with a situation like this, especially at this time of year, and my heart goes out to Bryn's family. As for his friends, well there are simply too many to mention within the sport for there are few people who have not benefitted from his work, usually behind the scenes at speedway. Walking into a speedway office and finding Bryn helping out was just too regular a sight to register sometimes, especially in London. You knew he'd be helping out somewhere. Our paths crossed many times and despite our respective Rye House and Crayford sympathies I think we reached a truce a long way back. It was at London Road where I first noticed this smart-looking chap in a suit looking rather out of place in the supporters' club kiosk, Bryn having not had the time to change out of his office garb on those Tuesday nights. There was a fair bit of verbal rivalry between him and the Rockets' supporters, especially after we'd won yet again at the 'budgies' home. Then I got involved in speedway on a more formal basis and inevitably grew to know Bryn properly. I remember turning up at the Speedway Mail offices clutching my first copy for the magazine, only top find Bryn beavering away, helping out Tony and John. When Crayford moved into Hackney I got to see just how much work Bryn was doing behind the scenes, not just editing and selling 'Kestrel News' which someone mentioned earlier did so much to smooth over the merger pains with Hawks fans upset at losing their team and the Kestrels' equivalent distraught at losing their track. It can't have been an easy marriage and it took people who cared about the sport like Bryn to help make it happen. I probably got to know Bryn best when we would share the train to Rye House on Sundays in the early nineties. Often we had a two minute connection at Broxbourne. He always managed to fit a quick Superkings in... Bryn's abilities as an announcer and presenter have been rightly praised as he rightly earned a reputation as a 'safe pair of hands'. I well recall his huge and thankless efforts to get some atmosphere going in the rebuilt London Stadium during the London Lions' brief existence. In 2001 my wife and I escaped London to find refuge in the west, seeking to build a new life away from the stresses of life in the capital. I was determined to keep involved in speedway. My first meeting was at Swindon - announcer Bryn Williams. My second meeting was at Wolverhampton. First in the queue, Bryn Williams. There really was no escape. The last time I met Bryn was a couple of years ago at Blunsdon. You knew even if the Hammers weren't going to put on much of a show it was a chance to see an old friend. Shocked and saddened by how the ravages of illness had claimed him it was good to talk over old times and get some insight into what was going on behind the scenes. Bryn though was never indiscreet - always loyal to the sport he loved. Bryn Williams probably loved speedway more than anyone I've ever met in the sport. Realistic but never cynical he retained an ability to see the good side of the sport he served and I can't remember him every complaining about it or writing it off as so many feel compelled to do. That's not to say he couldn't see its faults - he just put them in perspective and kept on helping. Bryn, it's hard to accept that I won't be bumping into you in some speedway office somewhere, just doing something useful, usually in the background. No more quick Superkings, no more reassurance that the sport at its heart was still worth fighting for, and no more requests for a lift. I wish I could have offered more of the latter. I can't think of too many non-drivers who managed to get about as much as you. Thanks for being one of the good guys and I hope you now have a season ticket and free travel to every track on the planet up there. It's true that so often you don't know what you had until they're gone. Thank you for so much. Goodbye.

It's actually completely wrong. When I was a regular contributor to this forum I made several postings on the subject of the new Swindon stadium. These postings questioned the sincerity and accuracy of Gaming International's 'plans' for want of a better word, and how far they were away for a long tiome from getting planning permission. This was not because I did not want the stadium to be built but to warn people against complacency and to question what they were being told, especially if publicly-available information contradicted it. My message was to keep an eye on GI and not top allow them to wriggle out of their promise. The lack of activity since planning permission was finally granted should surely be ringing alarm bells in the minds of even the most gullible supporters. I have not said that the stadium will not be built nor do I have some pathetic, petty need to be proved 'right'. I want it built and I want GI to honour its commitment.......for once. I do not live in Swindon (thank god!) but it is my nearest track so I do have a personal interest, but that is irrelevant, if this saga were being played out hundreds of miles away I'd still be equally concerned. So, it's not about wanting the stadium not to be built - it's all about making sure GI don't get away with it yet again. You may want to be proved right but that is the least of my needs or concerns, especially in this increasingly abandoned and discredited forum. (Yes, I do still read it because you do get some useful information and insight buried amongst the bull and petty bickering - but it's getting ever harder to get to it. I shall resume my silence).

I see that further ignorant comment has been made. Iris and Shovlar really specialise in it. There is nothing wrong with me, except a resentment of how people like these two have taken control of the BSF with their twisted values and self-righteousness while all the time pursuing their own sick little games, winding people up for their own devious pleasure. I have no problem with iris posting the PM - it sums up my feeling perfectly. After years of watching him and others pollute the BSF eventually you lose your patience as I have. Sadly I am an honest person with genuine, sincere views so I am obviously at a disadvantage with people like these - I can't play their sick games, nor to be honest do I have the time or inclination to. Those who know me within the sport will know where the truth lies here. I made the mistake of caring about the sport and intelligent debate. They twist and scheme for their own personal needs. If anyone is taken in by their pretence of being the wounded innocents here then I have no sympathy. I love the sport and have given a great deal to it over the years, not as much as many but as much as I could. Others take. My disgust with these people goes back several years, in Shovlar's case to the Speedway Discussion Group. The Millwall thug crossed the line, almost certainly deliberately when he tried to compare me to the Polish troll and Gustix. I've no doubt it was calculated. I couldn't behave like that and I rather pity him for his need to do so. I am not in any way a violent person but what I said still stands. If he'd said such a thing in my presence I would not have been able to restrain myself. That's not the action of a thug but of a decent man who has been pushed too far. Anyway, you'll notice that a link has been given for the World u-21 round in Pardubice tomorrow. That came from me. Rather than risk further disruption to the forum I sent it via racers and royals. Despite my disgust with a large proportion of the BSF members (look at that disgusting Tai Woffinden thread) I still wanted to help the remainder. That won't happen again. Ultimately people believe what they choose to believe and if you side with that pair then I really pity you as well as them. Shovlar goes on about his Kodi links. I tested them and found they did not work. I suspected he was trying one of his notorious wind-ups. Maybe he was genuine. Maybe a leopard has stripes. Now off to do better things. The stench in here is unbearable.

Oh well done Steve! You must be proud. Serves me right for trying to help people, eh? Yes, more fool me. Tell you what's even more hilarious? Since there's so little point in trying to help the members of the BSF I've deleted the information. Just to explain Steve's amazingly witty comment, instead of teams racing I typed trams. Tee hee.

First, get someone to read this for you, manchild. We don't want your finger or lips to get overtired eh? You can't help yourself can you? I didn't say I was leaving, but that I expected to get a ban for finally giving you what you deserved. Strange that I haven't. You see, some of us behave honestly and when we get angry we give an honest reaction. Unfortunately I can't behave like a sly, nasty piece of work, niggling then pleading innocence and taking the moral high ground. I didn't threaten physical violence, I informed you that if you had said that in my presence I'd have decked you. That still stands because clearly you're sadly not intelligent enough to reason with. Sometimes you have to descend to others' level to deal with them. You play your nasty little game, just like far too many others then when you finally get the response you then try to belittle. It's like dealing with a school bully who's never emotionally left the playground. Since your last piece of poison I have been reading and only commenting on totally uncontroversial matters since I am heartily sick of having to deal with thugs like you. Clearly in the (tedious) debates about Germanic place names and linguistic regional diversity you have a certain amount of intelligence so you can't even have the excuse of ignorance that most forum abusers have. I was disappointed that I had to deal with you in an otherwise decent part of the forum and drag it down to yours and Shovlar's level, as seen spectacularly clearly elsewhere so I was determined to give this section a mutual rest. But that's not good enough for you is it? You have to make yet more provocative comments. Please don't judge me by your own pitiful standards. My emotion was anger, not moodiness, as it is now - my temporary farewell comment was a sincere one of thanks to the decent members of this section of the forum who have been great company and provided some very useful and appreciated information. It was not me flouncing off. My temporary return now is reluctant but you had to provoke it, eh? Yes, I am astonished I didn't receive the expected ban - perhaps Phil could understand my anger? Maybe I'll get it now? Quite frankly who cares, only the idiots who play the selfish games that the likes of you and Shovlar do. I have plenty of other pursuits to be getting on with. All you can understand is is upsetting people to satisfy your own inadequacy. Still, you have to live with it, not me. Perhaps you ought to think twice before playing your rather unpleasant game? All I want to do is talk about the sport I love. What's your motivation - to prove what an expert on German Speedway you are or is it a case of you can take the thug out of Millwall but you can't take the Millwall out of the thug, eh Doug? I see you're taking on racers and royals now. Good luck. I won't be commenting again unless you do so it's up to you to keep your gob shut. Carry on like this and I guarantee you will regret it. That is a warning, not a threat. This tedious but sadly necessary posting would not exist had it not been for your offensive comments. Maybe one day you'll learn to keep your trap shut but I doubt it. It's such a shame that such a great sport is polluted by reptiles like you. So why not just carry on sharing your knowledge of that hugely significant subject - German Speedway and I'll just read and help people out with information when they need it, and we'll keep our distance, because my patience is dangerously exhausted, or is that too honest for you?