Parsloes 1928 nearly

Horray! That's one thing I NEVER thought I'd hear you say. The other is: "these key rings have a life-time guarantee"...!!!

Thanfully someone must've read the riot act to the Clerk of the Course and pits staff, as the progress of races much improved from heat 11 onwards and even more so from heat 15 to the end. As they could do it then, it begs the question why on earth did they allow that shocking situation with the first ten heats. Tapes exclusions of which there were FOUR in that first period should NOT lead to the other three riders going back to the pits for five minutes!! And efforts to keep down the dust which led to 15 minutes gaps for watering simply weren't working and IMHO were just delkaying the meeting with no overall result. I have a third of the shale from the third bend in my hair right now and I have hardly any hair!! Dust, delays, virtually no passing...: not exactly a great advert for Speedway and a shame as there was a really big crowd...

I'm certain he would've after all as he showed how would it have been any sort of problem (to anyone..) to practice at Rye House in the morning/early afternoon and get to Ipswich in the evening..?!! Good luck to Joe and the others in the GB line-up (whatever it ends up being..) this afternoon. which reminds me..: must leave now!!!!

I bet it listed the competing riders per heat in the order: red, blue, white, yellow: unlike the IoW-staged NL Pairs prog. last year which for reasons best known to its editor broke with that tradition!!!

And let's remember Joe IS reigning GB Under 21 Champ - having beaten both Tai & Lewis in winning this year's title. He's had a torrid time since but is a proven big meeting rider so I wish him all the best at RH in tne WTCF later today (Sunday)..

I'd be astonished if it wasn't... It always is!! Not sure about chairs though...: you do know what Uncle Len has pillaged every defunct stadium in London for their seats and there's loads in the place now!!

Surely the Pirates to retain the title...

BTW, can I put on record that my optimistic projections for Sunday were/are based on Tai riding...

Hmm, well the indications I've picked up on (could be wrong!!) are that the 12/9 deadline DOES still stand. By my reckoning that makes the following the o/s NL fixtures which are going to 'fall over the edge' of the deadline and so fail to 'count' in the play-off reckoning... Makes that double header rain off for the Buccs look terribly damaging to their p/o hopes... Also disappointing when one considers that no such hard line has ever been applied before in this division... 19/9 Bournemouth v King's Lynn 19/9 Bournemouth v Rye House 22/9 Dudley v Weymouth 25/9 Rye House v Plymouth tba King's Lynn vs. Buxton Anyone out there who can (hopefully.. ) correct me on this...!

What date is the (revised, I assume..?) cut off for the play offs..??

Fair enuff!! Have a good time!!!

Actually that is hard to understand, if in the qualifiers that rider (having faced up to all of his opponents just like the rest of the field) was to score say just nine whilst someone else gets a maximum 15... How can you then say should they win the single race that's the final that they've deserved the GP title more than that other rider..? I’ve asked the question before but if people support the concept of the GP series being all about an aggregate score over a whole series (and of course there is a merit in that even though it takes away the excitement from the progressive WC of old..) then why interfere with that logic by having the semis and final. Top scorer on night= GP winner! What’s wrong with that..?! Quite often they’ll be a tie anyhow and they’ll need a (non-GP points scoring) run-off so that would be part of it…

Come on, it is absolutely NOTHING like 11 World Finals...! In a World Final (the proper 16 rider, 5 rides each, 20 heat formula) - the person with the most points after everyone has met everyone else is - shock! horror! - the winner.. In the GP a rider can get a maximum 15 and lose in the Final to someone who scored just nine in the 20 heats... Why have the semis and Final...?!: these act against the spirit of what you said was the point of the GPs and mean there can be (and actually quite often is...)a 'GP winner' and yet another rider finishing the night on more points! That cannot be justified surely and I'd struggle to find ANY sport which would sanction such an entirely daft concept..!

Bloody hell, Jeff's been on a one man (with pen and hidden tape recorder...) crusade to upset the whole of the Speedway world since 2005... There can barely be anyone he's not dissed in one way or another by now..

Absolutely. I went to all the early White City home matches in '76 and many over '77 and '78 too and I can't recall there ever being a more dominant rider at a top division track than Gordon Kennett... He also remember came second in the Grand Prix in 1976 to Peter Collins. The GP being a series with Rounds held on all BL tracks and then a final at White City.. Kennett also won the World Pairs twice - it's simply not on to judge his second place in the 1978 individual WF as some kind of one off... Deffo top ten... Close to my top five..!!

European Champion was indeed the title bestowed on the winner of the penultimate round in the Western European part of the qualifying process up to the mid-70s... Peter Collins won the European Final in 1974 at, er, that little known ramshackle track out in the middle of nowhere called Wembley Stadium!! BTW, I still haven't heard any coherent argument actually in FAVOUR of the GP system... All its apologists do is attack what they perceive as the shortcomings (and as in several threeads above they more often than not get these wrong! ) of the previous system of worldwide QRs and a one-off Final! These people remind me of those on another part of the BSF who can only defend the Monarchy by pointing out what they perecive as the weakness in having a President! If something's good it should be able to be defended for its own merits not the demerits of alternative systems!! So come on, over to the GP brigade!!!

Hmm, but how much does it actually matter who wins the GP.. Fairly often a rider outscores the winner on the night and all that REALLY matters is that points total on the way to first place in the series overall... In other words each GP has the status of an 'Inter-Continental Final': and I've read plenty of the usual suspects branding those meetings of the past utterly worthless in terms of winning...! And coz the GB round is so early in the series it doesn't even get the status of an Inter-Continental Final...!! It's more like the Nordic-British event!!! You can tell how little importance winning an individual round is from Greg Hancock's attitude in the GB GP Final of 2007... Anyone really believe he'd have let Crump past him on that last bend; but harmless home rider, Harris..?: well, that's a different matter... And before the GP apologists line up to cry how Greg didn't let Bomber past him in that fateful race etc., fast forward in your memory to the GB GP Final the next year when the Sky commenators openly referred to the fact that he had!!! That sort of thing is always possible when there are such veterans in the field with no hope of actually winning the whole series (Hancock was last World Champ in 1997 for goodness sake!!) - sure he's still a major player but he can clearly take it or leave it; and what's really needed in a World Championship is everyone determined to do all they can to win it..

Does it...?? 1) I've never noticed any significant national media coverage for the Cardiff GP; and 2) Actually the Daily Mirror (a national paper.. ) has a small column in it something like five days a week, featuring Speedway news. Actually this column is no bigger on the ocassion of Cardiff than any other time!!! TV coverage..? Well, do you suppose that the TV figures for a World Final on Sky are going to be somehow hugely less than for a GP..? I'm actually not too bothered about TV viewing figures, I'm more concerned about numbers attending in the flesh AND on our sport and its riders having a proper World Championship... Hold a GP at the Olympic Stadium - but what I'm saying is that at the end of the day, an event when something's actually decided as opposed to just a 'qualifer' type meeting is ALWAYS going to capture the public's imagination far more.. A World Final in October 2012 at what would at that point be the most famous stadium in the world...: can you even conceive of what a boost to our sport that would be..?!!

Hmm, it was POSSIBLE that a rider could "get lucky on the night" but actually history shows that in fact that was an extremely rare occasion: actually only ONCE post-war could one say that such a thing happened! In fact the World Championship under the World Final system was extremely consistent at finding the best riders on the rostrum. Because Speedway is about responding to the massive challenge of each race and each meeting. A true champion shows his mettle in such circumstances.. The GP system also produced BTW, a 'World Champion' who throughout a whole season never won a SINGLE WC meeting...! That (by definition!) NEVER happened in the previous system...!! And tell me falcace, why do you consider Speedway at the Olympic Stadium so utterly ridiculous..? If you knew anything about the Olympic authorities' desire for legacy and for maximising use of the main stadium (I actually work for an organisation with day to day contact on these various issues concerning the Olympic Park and surrounding area...) then you wouldn't dismiss this with such ignorant contempt. I can guarantee you if someone turned up tomorrow with a plan and funds to stage a major Speedway meeting at the Olympic Stadium in October 2012 they'd bite that person's hand off..

But the GPs (though producing I'll admit, some extremely good racing this year and heading for once for an exciting climax) are far too much of a 'closed shop' to warrant being regarded as a proper World Championship. The number of old men in them is crazy (and yes I am a big Gollob fan so I know that's rich coming from me...) and is at odds with what a vibrant sport should be. At the very least there needs to be a system where a rider at his peak can have a chance at the world title. Look at Hans Andersen a few years back: excluded from the GPs he was perhaps the top rider in the world that year but had no opportunity to challenge for the world title. That's wrong.. In the past, have an exceptional couple of years (like say Simmo in '75 & '76: and yes he was no spring chicken then...) and you have a real chance of winning the world title (Simmo made it to runner-up..). Similar story with late starter John Louis... Or be an incredibly promising teenager , like Ronnie Moore, Peter Collins, Michael Lee and you can see a path ahead for actual world title glory...: not 15 years off like now, but within two or three years... The GP is NOT a good system: it has so many flaws and in particular we're sold short in the UK by having our Round always so early in the series... I 100% believe that the Olympic Stadium could very easily be secured for a big Speedway meeting after 2012 but do I believe that a GB GP is a big enough event for that..: no In truth I don't. We need to match our ambitions with the product and the GPs let us down. More than that they have let down a lost generation of riders... And will continue to do so unless changes are made..

That I think is a sensible, compromise idea...

There's ANOTHER 'argument' which doesn't hold up in any way! Tell me, when was the last time the World Championship was decided in the UK..?! I'll tell you, 1995, when the very first GB Grand Prix was held and Hans Neilsen secured the points he needed to win that first series at the London Stadium in what was that year the final GP. Every GP at Cardiff has been and is set to continue to be in June/early July and so a million miles away from EVER being possible to seeing the ultimate champ crowned. So you worry aboiut there only being a World Final in GB once every eight years and yet are apparently happy for there literally NEVER, ever again being a final GP or even a later GP being staged in this country.. If you don't mind me saying your argument has kinda collapsed there!! Hmm, you might want to use the term "glory days" as an insult but you know what above all signified the "glory days"..? One sh1te lot more poeople paid to go thru' turnstiles to watch the sport than now currently do.. So maybe, just maybe something then was being done right that now, er, isn't..!! If all was rosy in the current state of the world Speedway body politic I'm sure no-one would debate such things, but it ain't!! So we do..

Hang on Tony. what have you got against the Welsh...!? Hmm, come to think of it as I know you know Bryn well, I've just answered my own question!!!

Hmm, sorry you're way off the mark here.. The World Final in fact belongs to the era when Speedway was one of the most major mainstream sports in the UK... Capacity crowds at the UK's greatest stadium, Wembley and coverage on the main TV channels: 1972 World Final from the Empire Stadium shown the night it was staged (yes, the prime-time Saturday night slot) on ITV nationally... And I'm sure you'll find that not a SINGLE Wulfsport jacket was worn! So I'm afraid, as well being shockingly rude - no-one arguing for the World Final ever has to resort to calling those with a different point of view a "loser" or a "gimp" (sic) - you are just 100% inaccurate... At the end of the day, sport is about excitement, glory, entertainment and the tension of white hot competition... I can assure you (as I suspect you never experienced it..) that the World Final had ALL those ingredients, I've been to many, many major sporting events: FA Cup Finals, Rugby World Cup Finals, Cycling, Athletics...: I can assure you that no event has ever got close to matching the sheer excitement and occasion of the World Speedway Final. The world - not just the Speedway world - became a less exciting place the day this great and iconic event was taken from us... It was also the day that the sport began its gradual but inevitable slide into insignificance... You will surely disagree but the facts speak for themselves and I can assure you if you can get excited over a mere qualifying round where who wins is of barely any significance (ie Cardiff-staged early round GPs); then if we come to our senses in time to restore the World Final, you would soon find out what real sporting excellence and excitement is all about... Just leave your Wulfsport anorak at home, eh..!!

"jump the shark"...!! Blimey, am grateful to prolific author Mr. Scott for introducing this expression to me!! It means: "a term to describe a moment when something that was once great has reached a point where it will now decline in quality and popularity. Origin of this phrase comes from a Happy Days episode where the Fonz jumped a shark on waterskis. Thus was labeled the lowest point of the show" Coincidentally a shark-related incident was the lowest point of my all-time favourite US TV show, the 1960s Batman when in an absurd surfing cometition between Batman (in baggies over his famous underpants!) and the Joker - they ,er, encounter a shark!! Luckily all is well, as Batman has his supply of Shark Repellant Bat-spray! Holy Cowabunga as Robin (of course) declares! As for the SGP... Well I look forward to its replacement with a proper World Championship!