Ben91

Wouldn’t go near him with a barge pole usually. Over a few weeks however, and in good form, e/w I could be tempted. No value in Zmarzlik (5/2), Madsen (3/1) or Sayfutdinov (7/2) for me. Tai is at 8/1, I can see him raising his game for the GPs but again I don’t think anything under 10s is worth the punt. Stuck a quid on Tai at 100/1 the year he won his first world title. Definitely one of those “if only I’d stuck a tenner on” bets...

Bet 365 have Vaculik at 11/1 currently. Laguta at 14/1 is tempting too...

Had a little dabble on Holta over five. Worth the punt at 23/20. Edit: Six from three rides so far, wish I’d stuck more on now.

I think the confederate flag was also known as the rebel flag. The team may well have been named after local history but in the world of speedway there’s enough logic in using something called the rebel flag for a team nicknamed the Rebels I guess... the Somerset promotion made the right move ditching the flag a few years back definitely.

This makes sense. It was easy on the eye and to navigate, that is about the limit of my technical knowhow however mind you!

Newcastle had one of the better websites in the sport for quite a while. I guess costs may have played a part but it wasn’t broken so it’s a shame they tried to fix it.

Tutelage.

Pepe is having something of a renaissance this season. Be interesting to see how he fares if someone does pull out.

At Rye we had a decent Ace of Herts until 2004. Len usually used it to look at prospective signings for the following season and as a send off for the seven Rockets from that campaign. 2004’s was won by Stuart Robson and featured Danny King and Edward Kennett, all of whom has only raced in the Elite League that season so they were draws in a sense. All three ended up signing for us in 2005 when we won the Premier League too. Due to that successful 2005 campaign the Ace of Herts didn’t happen and I have a feeling that from 2006 onwards it went to being a 12 rider meeting. One year Andrew Silver was part of that 12 rider field and it seemed a bit of a publicity stunt, then he went and signed for us the following season and did really well for a year. That’s a tangent though!

I don’t think this is true. The issue I find is that individual meetings are no more than half-assed fixture fillers these days, in the same way that “B” league fixtures are. 12 rider individuals need to get in the bin and the individuals that are staged need to offer something to the fans or be meaningful in some way, be it riders championships or just showcasing riders at a track who may not usually race there. The sport cannot sustain being individual meetings only but there is a place for individual, pairs, fours meetings etc. alongside the team meetings.

Very interesting to see the replies are all in a similar ball park with regards to when things started to go wrong. It’s safe to say that we’ve been in a decline for almost 30 years then. That’s almost a third of the time Speedway has existed. I’ve always seen the World Cup as being a bit crap personally. Perhaps because we have never looked remotely like winning it while I’ve been a fan. It is interesting to note what Mike says above about us losing publicity when we stopped being a force internationally however. Has the ship sailed too far for us to ever become a force again unless by some minor miracle two or three exceptionally talented Brits come along and grace the same generation. It can’t be a coincidence that our best two riders (Woffinden and Lambert) currently cut their teeth in Australia and Germany respectively. Our representative in the GP challenge, Adam Ellis, did likewise in France I believe? It appears that we are beginning to show some promise with a few younger riders. But is that because they are better than what we’ve churned out before or is it because Denmark, Sweden and Australia aren’t turning out riders of the same standard they used to? Poland could have the monopoly on the sport completely soon enough. That could lead to the sport dying in a lot of other nations and then they’d be shooting themselves in the foot.

Out of interest, when do people think the decline in British Speedway started? My personal opinion is that for as long as I’ve been a fan (20 years), the sport has been on a downward trajectory. Would it be fair to suggest things started to go south after the last world final at Wembley in 1981?

Seems strange to me that Brennan has been seeded directly to the final, yet the British Under-19 champion, Kemp, has to qualify still...

He’ll be the bloke singing Hold The Line.

Could say he has never been the same since he won the world title. Was a two year spell where he was easily the best rider in the world (2016/17).

It was plain long before Adrian Smith came along that the sport needs an independent governing body to be honest.

Some of Jonathan Chapman’s ideas were a swing and a miss, some were good, but he wanted to innovate and drive the sport forward. His advantage was that he had a way in through his father too in what is a notoriously hard sport to get into and make any impact. I feel that had he still been involved in the sport and allowed to spread his wings so to speak we could be looking at a much better product today. He could have been our answer to Eddie Hearn in some ways. I don’t think the issue is petty rivalries, more that each club is an individual business and thus wants to do what is best for their business to keep running. Which is understandable but it results in a rob Peter to pay Paul system where the clubs whose needs/wants are in the majority get their way when it comes to voting time. The next year that can swing back to the other side of the fence and there’s massive upheaval again. “Worked,” being the key word. It won’t work now.

And a promoter/team manager within the current flawed system for a very long time.

He’ll soon have that enthusiasm squeezed out of him no doubt...

The line up isn’t great overall, granted there are circumstances beyond the control of anyone but we could be inflicted with three seriously under-par riders in the GP next year if things pan out against the favourites in this meeting.

Extenuating circumstances of course, it isn’t a normal season so to criticise him for lack of effort or desire by saying no would be wrong imo.

As British champion I would have liked to have seen Wright in the field. Perhaps he was offered and turned it down. However, the likelihood of him qualifying would have been slim. Common sense prevailed at least and the place was offered to a rider who can take the opportunity and learn from it rather than giving it to Chris Harris or Craig Cook. Hard to look past Laguta and Fricke, can see Michelsen, Zagar and Kasprzak fighting it out for the third spot.

No source I just did the sums myself when the new system was announced to see if anything would have changed. Edit: Just did a quick recount - Madsen would have finished on 154 and Zmarzlik on 147. Madsen would have led Zmarzlik all the way until the Danish GP where Zmarzlik overtook him. Madsen would have retaken the lead in the next round at Cardiff however.

I prefer the “you score what you score” system personally. Madsen would have won the world title had the incoming points system been in place last year interestingly.

Alternatively the sport as a whole could accept it can only sustain being amateur/semi-professional anyway and then the top two leagues can carry on with their current teams.