Ben91

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.

There isn’t a shortage of riders. We try and run our leagues at a higher standard than the ability of the riders available. And then we allow them to race in both of our “professional” leagues anyway. Polish Speedway isn’t hurting British Speedway, British Speedway is hurting British Speedway.

It isn’t a sweeping statement and it isn’t wide of the mark at all. The sport is in decline everywhere, the trouble is some people believe the propaganda that is put out, they tend to be the ones who still attend religiously. Green shoots are easy to pull up. Look at the young riders with half a chance of progressing domestically who have retired in the last few years alone. That says more than the few who are considered prospects now and could as easily pack it in by this time next year as be riding at a high level in the future.

Ultimately, the powers that be have had since March to work out a plan, albeit with uncertainty over how things will develop granted. With regard to cancelling the league season I believe they have made the right decision, however the communication with fans was not good. I seem to remember only two updates from the BSPA since March and one of those was to say that the season was being cancelled. The party line until that point was that some league racing was hopefully going to happen, yet it doesn’t seem there was a plan of how to achieve that. If there was then the most important people, the fans, weren’t informed. Speedway is a strange beast. We are a motorsport but race as teams with home and away fixtures, I can’t think of any other motorsport that does the same. But those teams, while under the same umbrella don’t seem to read from the same songbook. The sport really needs an overarching authority with no ties to any club. It has done for a number of years now.

Cute soundbite but completely false.

Sensible. Not defeatist.

The standard gets worse year on year. And it isn’t watering the product down. At the start of the season there would be four qualifiers. The top four riders from each of those meetings would then move on to the championship series. The standard of Speedway here all riders should be competing as a hobby and working a real job anyway. The sport cannot support giving riders a full time living but rather than accepting that we let them double up so they don’t have to face the reality that Speedway isn’t that popular. And why should riders be paid to compete in their national championship too? Expenses yes, but they should do it for the opportunity to be national champion.

They don’t have to be of Championship quality or above. The qualifiers open the competition to the top 64 British riders and then it’s about how they perform in those qualifying rounds to see who reaches the final. The likelihood is the qualifiers will be 16 of the better riders of the 64 but there is room for upsets. I remember David McAllan qualifying for the British Final in 2005 when riding solely for Sittingbourne in the Conference League, he ended up doing reasonably well too. There’s no reason the British Championship can’t be open to more than 16 or so riders.

Suggested something similar way back at the start of lockdown. Would be a great idea, makes a lot of sense to me. The only stumbling block would be that if fans are only allowed in from October then time may be against it. It wouldn’t be hard to whittle 64 down to 16 with meaningful qualifiers and a final. I think a British Championship series should be looked into going forward anyway. Qualifiers in March-April with a series running from May til July for example. A meaningful competition that would also give fixtures to a lot of tracks. We should be finding ways to fill fixture lists with interesting competition, not just two home and away meetings in the league. If the Cardiff wildcard is the big prize for being British Champion then the champion can take the wildcard the following season. Simple.