RobMcCaffery

Maybe it would help if the guy who sells the Speedway Star at Poole actually read it now and then? - and I don't mean look at the pictures.... I do hope the Poole fans have subscriptions or buy it away from the track.

And there's one of the modern faults that needs to be rectified. Not an easy task. We need to repair these fundamental problems before we start to even think about trying to attract new fans, of whatever age.

I've long suspected that far too many people wander into speedway assuming it's an individual sport and just watch 15 unconnected races, only interested in who wins the races., maybe hoping for a bit of close racing and incident. Speedway learned in Britain early on that making team racing paramount would give the sport a firmer foundation and so it proved, with the 'nine day wonder' maturing eventually, although many of those early leagues were incomplete. It's the team aspect that's still vital. We have to have the public understanding that if the race up front is drawn out that race for the third place point could be vital. Team racing allowed interest in races to go beyond the race winner. We need to give supporters teams that they can identify with; riders that show commitment to the 'cause', that mix socially with the supporters , aren't constantly riding for someone else and won't be automatically wandering off somewhere the next season. We need stability in teams, full teams, not guests and teams that supporters can feel involved with. My happiest days in the sport were when I had close involvement with my team, knew the riders and my fellow supporters and felt part of it all, win or lose. I watched young riders grow into men and move on within the sport and watched their progress with pride. If we lost, well at least it was MY team that had tried, not just a bunch of individuals just testing bikes with their minds elsewhere, thinking of richer pickings. The present situation has made winning all that matters - the team are just there to get the wins. The racing doesn't matter and the sense of involvement practically gone. For a sport surviving on three-figure gates that is a toxic situation. When the wins run out, so do the fans.

Steve, you may have been away for 12 years but your insight is excellent. Speedway is not a school sport so automatically faces a hurdle in getting people to feel empathy with it. Most people just don't know what it's like to race a bike, but then that applies to to all forms of motorsport. Others get over that hurdle though. People need to care about speedway - the action and the team. My wife's perhaps a useful example of a lost supporter. A devoted Hackney Hawks fan the arrival of the Kestrels in 1984 on a completely reshaped track killed it for her. Her Hawks were gone and while Barry Thomas returned to his old home it simply wasn't her team. She lost all identification with the side. She used to refer to the Hackney Kestrels as the 'Leyton Buzzards". The track had been totally rebuilt, a sad necessity given how dangerous the old circuit had become with the racing line lethally close to lamp standards and an adverse camber luring the unwary into a frightening situation. The relaid track rode well but didn't RACE well, but despite the hype from the new promotion people knew the fun had gone. My wife continued her involvement in the sport helping me out in my work but her love for the sport had gone. She'd lost her team and effectively her track. Now obviously this isn't directly relevant to the topic but I feel it illustrates two fundamental points, applicable to supporters of any age. Supporters care about their team and enjoy the racing (hopefully, although it seems to be just about winning with too many now). People have to care about and enjoy the product and not go out of habit or a loyalty to something they no longer really enjoy. In the latter case it just takes one flashpoint of disappointment to see people walk away, whether it be one defeat too many, a perceived snub or a realisation that there were other things to do on speedway nights. To Jay speedway was Friday at 8 - EVERY week, and Friday without speedway was a hell that lasted from November to March. The Hawks were a team of relatively local guys mixed in with the occasional glamorous foreigner, who became her friends, not just her heroes. One of speedway's assets is its intimacy - you can get so much closer and involved than at major sports. You can be more than a customer. Now, how do we sell that to people?

So good to see a club able to actually tackle this and be rewarded. As I said, it needs financing and thankfully the Tigers now have this. I do hope it pays off long term and proves to be inspiration for the rest of the sport.

I have long suspected that the reason SGP/SWC works is because the riders are using their best equipment and using their skills to the full, as opposed to turning up and going through the motions in league events - unless they're riding for a very expensive carrot dangled before them in Poland.

Looking at a more general level the sport needs professional marketing, but the eternal question is who can or will pay for it? I really can't see that the sport can work together on this, even if somehow the funds were to be found. The sport needs external funding which it can only get from sponsorship since official funding bodies generally barely recognise it as a sport. Perhaps if the Sky money had been spent on this instead of being used to prop up unrealistic budgets at tracks the sport could have taken that vital step forward? I read a lot of regional papers and it's notable how often that other sport that often shares our stadia, Stock Car Racing takes out significant, eye-catching advertising. Speedway, apparently cannot afford this, and I dare say if I were privy to the books of tracks (heaven forbid!) I'd see why they can't. It's a terribly sad situation; lack of unity, ideas and fundamentally, hard cash. The sport needs hype, but modern hype, not the form that we've tried and failed with (myself included on a very minor scale). We're constantly informed of the 'great new craze to come out of the USA" and we really need this kind of marketing working for us. The sport is now obscure enough to be sold as a 'new' sport I'd suggest, but in a completely new way. We used the 'family sport' tag when football was almost crippled by hooliganism. They've cleaned up their act (or more significantly a large chunk of the media plays this down to protect its investment) and I'd suggest this approach has reached the end of its usefulness. One of SCB's best moments here was to argue that the sport needed to be sold as a dangerous one - radical and almost something that your mother wouldn't approve of. It needs to be seen as something edgy, almost forbidden - that to follow it is to rebel and be an individual - to make a mark. Social media is vital - but not this forum which far too often does nothing at all to enhance the sport's image (cue howls of indignation form the self-serving and self-justifying 'mob' that dominates here now). Going 'viral' is essential - attract attention. Despite my comments about advertising earlier I've always believed strongly in word-of-mouth. Now with social media the ability to spread the message this way, by personal recommendation. is stronger than ever. Sadly for too many in authority in the sport the internet is a threat - it gives voice to malcontents and trouble-makers, as is so sadly often the case with with the BSF which really squanders its potential role as a healthy ideas generator. That's why I get so frustrated when I see this happen, it's such a waste of opportunity. There are agencies that offer these services professionally. They create positive comments about the client all over the internet and especially in Facebook and similar products. They sell quantity of mentions. It's 'kick starting', and the amounts involved are quite substantial. Without breaching client confidentiality I was helping to pay the bills for a major soft drink manufacturer earlier this year and the bills from the social media marketing firms were significant and revealing. Sadly they were also totally beyond the sport's current ability to pay. People don't realise that comments about products or services don't always come from amateurs. Often what you read is the creation of a professional working for a client. We need someone to do that for us. We need to sell the danger and risk, not just the lack of brakes, we need to sharpen our meeting running times and presentation (I've been as guilty as many others in my time). But there HAS to be racing and incident - F1 may get away without it but the marketing there is astronomical! We need to make speedway attractive, exciting, but most of all entertaining. Without that you're just polishing the unmentionable.... All thoughts need to be on product improvement, starting with the things that don't cost too much - using the assets that we have, the riders and making them part of people's lives. We need people thinking and talking about Tai Woffinden without even necessarily knowing why. Look at Guy Martin. He's all over Channel Four. I hear he's a biker. Get the point? He's being marketed professionally. We need the money, but also the will. It's got to be about the action, racing, incident, controversy - make people want to see all of that and talk about it. The world turns on gossip thanks to social media. We need to be part of that conversation.

But you make my point with that. It's ludicrous that riders are taking such a high percentage of the gates! It's the same across far too many sports so it's certainly not a problem specific to Polish Speedway. No matter what the reason, I stand by my comment that is is ludicrous to be losing money on such gates.

A spectacularly ignorant comment, even by your own abysmal standards. As ever, sport is let down by too many of its 'fans'.

What intrigues me is what precedent there has been for a situation where six licences have been withheld and how often have licences eventually been issued after appeal? Assuming that those with conditional licences meet those conditions what chances do the other six realistically have? In some ways it is a sign of Polish strength rather than weakness that this system is in place. If the SCB had such powers in the UK I do wonder how many licences would be issued? You could say that at least the Poles are tackling the problem, albeit it would appear at considerable risk, bearing in mind only one unconditional licence has been issued for League 1! At the heart of it though it is frankly ludicrous that there should be financial problems given the gates they attract. Anyone would think they were British football clubs....

He was in talks with KM Video for putting a video to it. I've still a few of the singles lying about somewhere.

Sportowy Fakte have listed the licence status for each track. http://sportowefakty.wp.pl/zuzel/567115/zespol-licencyjny-wydal-komunikat-brak-zielonego-swiatla-dla-szesciu-klubow For those unable to access or translate the page the situation appears to be: Extraliga - Licences issued to Leszno, Gorzow and Torun. Conditional licences granted to Zielona Gora, Tarnow, Grudziadz, Rybnik. Wroclaw - licence refused. League 1 - Licence issued to Lodz. Conditional licences issued to Krakow, Gdansk and Daugavpils. Supervised licence - Rzeszow. Refused licences - Bydgoszcz & Gniezno. League 2 - Licences issued to Krosno, Czestochowa and Rawicz. Conditional licence issued to Pila. Refused licences - Opole, Lublin, Poznan Not a happy situation but not necessarily the end for those refused licences.

Thanks very much for confirming that the memory's not quite gone yet. They weren't the first (or last) team to have to suddenly change race jackets due to sponsorship. There was the case of the White City Capital Rebels that very swiftly had to become the White City LBC Rebels. I was lucky enough to commentate on the video of the first speedway meeting staged at Arena in 1984 - I think it was the Essex Radio Championship, won by Rye House's Bob Garrad. Who would have thought over 30 years later that all we would have left in the London area were Arena Essex and Rye House. Where did it all go wrong?

I find it shocking that someone who purports to be a speedway person can celebrate the loss of one of its finest venues, no matter what their justification. No matter what. This isn't about crowing over other people's failings or the efforts of others. We have lost the last hope of a return of speedway to Wimbledon. Of course the economic reality was that without a huge upturn in the sport's popularity the sport was highly unlikely ever to justify the use of such a large venue on a regular basis but this triumphalism is insensitive and quite clearly a provocation, no matter what the poster claims. To me this is rather like celebrating a loved one's death because someone you like is going to inherit their house. Some may think that attitude appropriate. Thank God I don't. No matter what the arguments regarding this matter posting that large triumphalist image of the Dons 'returning' to Plough Lane (personally I thought they were settled in Stadium MK) is offensive and inflammatory to anyone who genuinely has speedway in their heart and is totally inappropriate in a speedway forum. This case does emphasise that like the bawling spoilt child holding its breath, football gets what it wants. I suggest the poster pisses off to a football forum. Sorry for the language but some deserve little more. Contemptible post.

There apparently is a much easier way, not that I endorse it of course. I know of people who use an attachment/extension on their browser called Zenmate. Two clicks and they set their computer up to appear as if they are in the USA or Germany. They then can go to the SGP website and watch the live international feed. As I say, it's something I've heard of but of course would not endorse. Fortunately I'm on Virgin Media so I get both Eurosport and BT included in my package so I wouldn't need to use this. The key point to consider though is this. The more people evade paying to watch speedway the more chance there is of the TV provider walking away from the sport, albeit only a minor one. Of course if TV companies didn't charge outlandish prices (yes, I'm looking at you Sky), this wouldn't be such a problem.

(Sigh). Since you are too busy being a 'hard man' to actually read the postings this thread started as an amiable conversation about Dave Parry and his connections with Crewe and Crayford speedways, two tracks enormously different in size. It was explained that Crewe was a very large track due to the fact it was built around a cricket pitch. I commentated there once and yes it was immense. The conversation then wandered in a friendly way to talks of track records on large tracks and it was mentioned that there were proposals to build an equally huge track around a cricket pitch in Catford. People then discussed a modern contrast in track sizes. On another tangent it was confirmed that Dave Parry had reversed his decision to sell-up and retire. It was an interesting, friendly conversation. Then you turned up. Well done. Don't waste your time with one of your nasty responses - sadly you've made a pleasant thread toxic and I won't be returning to it. If this forum had balls you'd have been banned ages ago,

Allowing for the fact that Google Translate isn't the most reliable source it looks like he set off a flare after a play-off meeting which is a serious offence over there to do so in a public stadium without authority. It can carry up to five years imprisonment. Before we get the comments about that being wrong and over the top the Poles have their own laws and it's their own business. Anyway it may well be a mistranslation. I do hope so.

Given subscribers normally pay heavily to watch Sky and to a lesser extent BT I think you can be sure this app is not legitimate. As for legality, lawyers make a fortune over such matters.

There are cheap second-hand copies on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Speedway-Northwest-100-Greats-S/dp/0752431927

I think you'll find your original identity was to have been claret and sky blue until Essex Radio came in as sponsors prior to launch of the track and the colours were changed to theirs. I seem to remember seeing pictures from a practice session of the original race jackets. I'm sure Bryn Willams will have the facts tucked away somewhere.

It should be simple, even for someone like you. He had hîs freedom of speech, I had mine. You have used yours, sadly. When you speak your mind why does it take more than five seconds? Of course people have a right to idiotic right-wing ideas, but not to bore people with them in a sports forum. Now get back under your stone and look up 'pontificate' or is that too much for you? People like you and so many in this forum pollute speedway. Given your reported terrace behaviour you're in absolutely no position to criticise others. Now, let me give you an example of why sports forums should keep away from politics, or religion, or other very off-topic talk. Sport for many is a release from the troubles of the world. We can debate, moan or agree but fundamentally sport is an irrelevance. The sun still comes up after every defeat. Now suppose someone is spending an awful week, mainly in hospital, waiting for his comatose mother to die? Do you think when they take a break and head to their favourite relaxation for a respite that they want to see political comments that they find offensive, or worse still find some self-righteous loudmouth of questionable intelligence like you or sidney over in the Darcy Ward making an attack? I speak my mind here because I care about speedway and want to help. It's not about me - I've done my 'bit' long ago. It gets so difficult to wade through the rubbish to get to the information and sometimes it is impossible not to speak out. The bull that's spoken about freedom of speech in here is lamentable. Most arguing for it can't accept that others have the right to challenge what has been said. I'll respect any well thought-out argument given in an intelligent, respectful way. When it isn't I fight fire with fire. My mother died at 10 am today. Your behaviour, and that of sidney, BWitcher and Jacques elsewhere is noted and will not be forgotten.

Because that's the nature of pay TV and the ruthless modern world. Speedway kicked this off the day they signed their first deal with Sky. The viewers are just there to be milked. I'm not on a pension and I struggle to pay so I sympathise, but then I'd love to be able to afford many things as well.

Sadly this comes as no surprise. What's the position regarding archive material? I assume if a recording pre-dates the agreements then it would be exempt. I can understand the conflict with Sky over current material being made available if they have exclusive on demand rights. From what I've seen of Clean Cut's work I'd be surprised if Go Sp[eed could come up with a better product at the same budget level. Fundamentally, speedway sold too much to Sky and now Go Speed are realising that if you get into bed with a tiger it bites your head off ;-) It may be of interest to mention a similar problem we had a Screen Sport back in 1984. They were very keen to have speedway. A key player with them was Chris Fear who'd been the chief sports presenter at Westward TV in Plymouth where they used to have a strong relationship with Exeter speedway. We approached the BSPA who ummed and ahhd, dithered then lamely said they didn't want to upset ITV. Bear in mind the ITV deal had only resulted in international events being shown on World of Sport, plus some limited domestic coverage on Anglia and Central plus the Yorkshire TV trophy at Hull. Thoroughly unimpressed I suggested we go to the National League who by then were practically running independently. We quickly got an agreement using the argument that the BSPA had a broadcast deal with ITV. Since Screen Sport was primarily a cable TV service at that point we argued that it was not broad-casting but 'narrowcasting'. March 15th 1984 we were at Hackney and never heard a word from ITV. I suspect had Go Speed been about then I'd have still been doing just stock cars, basketball and ice hockey....

I'm not trying to 'lord it' but too many people seem to try to use that line to excuse bad behaviour. If you ever find someone who's perfect please let the authorities know so they can get them before they do too much damage. You clearly love the sport, as I do too. (EDIT: Amend that - After your comments on the Darcy Ward thread you deserve everything you get).

There are now considerable archives of non-broadcast video material out there. After all, it's well over 30 years now since my old employer, KM Video set the trail for the likes of Rerun to follow. I'm delighted to see that Jan Staechmann's managed to take on the surviving KM Video archive for distribution through his Classic Speedway Videos business. I doubt that there's a huge amount of DVD retail income potential for league matches from 20 or 30 years ago, but distribution via Kodi would seem a sensible move, even if it means some of you having to listen to me now and then. Before someone asks, the Screen Sport archive would seem to have been lost when the station was acquired by Eurosport and when the technical support company that made the programmes for KM and Screen Sport went bust, so it's mainly just the basic single camera non-broadcast KM Video productions that sadly survive from that era. I do look forward to a day when I can can access a comprehensive library of domestic speedway, even if to work out where I was between 1982 and 1986....I ended up with only about a dozen programmes in my own archive :-(