bowes

Why isn't the whole world cup in one country (minus the preliminary rounds)?

I would have the stand alone clubs that can afford it, Mildenhall etc. run in the BCL even if it's only 6 or 7 teams they can play each other 4 times. The junior teams can run in a separate merit league (you play who you want and average points is the decider subject to playing, say, 6 fixtures), with more teams encouraged to run them, along with any new/small teams. This isn't too far to what it was when I first started watching speedway with a 7 team BCL and a merit BDL

How many speedway clubs race at rugby grounds, I only know Workington and Hull

I would keep qualifying, but have it in the off season, and scrap the semis so the top 4 of the first round go direct to the final with the top 3 joining the top 8 from last year and 4 pre-nominated riders who are exempt from qualifying, with one spot for a wildcard from the host country

The point is the P&R nearly always happens it just means there aren't teams going up with 2000 capacity grounds or that will fold, making a safeguard

If it was at Odsal I wouldn't be surprised if the Bulls making it big in Super League was a contribution

I don't know if anyone on here follows rugby league, but they have done something, similar to something suggested above, that works well. Ignoring the amateur scene that is obviously impossible in speedway, a few years ago they had just 2 pro division the Super League (read the BEL) and the Premiership (or NFP) (read the BPL). The SL had 12 teams with the NFP having 18/19. In theory there was 1-up-1-down promotion and relegation but it never happened because of the gap. There was also week in week out thrashings in the NFP due to having too big a variety of teams and new teams were put off joining, there was also nothing for the bottom teams to play for. Eventually the NFP was split into National League divisions 1 and 2 with one amateur team (in London not a RL area) also deciding to join. They also created a NL3 (like the BCL) with no promotion and relegation, but to bring teams up to a level where they can join NL2, and my club Coventry Bears (again not a RL area) won NL3 this year and are applying to join NL2 for 2006. P&R works where the top 6 playoff winners of NL1 can apply to join the Super League subject to their business plan and ground being passed as suitable, if it passes they switch with bottom of Super League. The top of NL2 automatically replace the bottom of NL1 and the 2nd bottom of NL1 enters playoffs with 2nd to 6th in NL2 to defend their place. There is a tiered salary cap between all the divisions. There's still a pre-season cup with NL1 and NL2 starting with regional groups before the knockout stage. What does this mean for speedway? Basically if you split the BPL into 2 divisions, not only will the top division be closer to the BEL, so P&R subject to minimum criteria would work, but also it would be less of jump for BCL teams wanting to join the BPL division 2. Have a pre-season cup to give some variety to the small divisions of the BPL and keep local rivalries, e.g. if Edinburgh and Glasgow end up in different divisions. This would be the Premier Trophy. The playoffs would give more teams something to play for, at the moment any team who can't win the league has nothing to play for in the BPL

Looking at past tables I saw Bradford run the league in 1997 and then folded. Why?