Ben91

I think herein lies the answer. Fans won’t flock to a venue and team that were once their rivals. Should a new venture start with no ties to former clubs (and therefore no rivalries), then it becomes a more palatable option for otherwise partisan fans of other clubs.

The solution here is to fall back on race night priority. Not ideal but there’s a reason it’s there. The better solution going forward would be to put play-offs in the bin completely.

Weakening a partnership in the middle order for three heats just to have a stronger rider in one (harder) heat makes little sense. As an entertainment spectacle for fans having a strong heat 13 is great but from a tactical point of view three points from any other heat counts just the same. The aim is to win the meeting, not just do well in an individual race.

Jeez. Absolutely no point in racing league meetings then. They should just find a way to shoehorn the other club into the play-offs.

I understand your point, but if your partner cheated on you repeatedly and generally treated you awfully would you walk away or keep going back just because you love them? It’s a similar principle. Looking at the crowds the sport attracts these days I’d say more people have taken the same action I have than not. To get to a meeting anywhere it would take a two hour journey for me, if Rye House were still running perhaps I’d think differently. I get my fix these day at GPs or through TV meetings that are part of a subscription I already pay for. Fair play haha! Far from negative. Just realistic and don’t like to see a sport I love being run in to the ground. Plenty of fans out there like me who could be attracted back, not much being done to do so.

Some people actually follow through with it when they say they’re fed up of the dross that’s served up and are going to walk away. Doesn’t mean they’re not fans of the sport, but of how it is run. I’m a Speedway fan but it would take a lot to get me to a domestic meeting these days. Doesn’t mean I don’t follow it. I just refuse to hand over my money because doing so tells the people running the clubs they’re doing a good enough job. They’re not. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein.

If any more teams drop out of the top two leagues then they absolutely have to merge. Seven team leagues are pointless, especially if everyone and their dog gets a crack at the play-offs. Berwick have made a sensible decision here. No point in the club going out of business trying to sustain the Bullets as an NL side.

Which in a seven team league shouldn’t give you the opportunity to walk away with the league title. The chopping and changing of riders is within the rules, so if anything it’s on Ipswich for not giving Riss his marching orders months back. Whether it’s right or wrong is another matter naturally. The best thing for the sport would probably be Wolves winning it. Proving that big names aren’t necessarily the answer for one and that if your top tier champions can go out of business shortly after winning the title then something needs to change in the sport for another.

Bang on. It was an opportunity to admit things needed to change, take accountability and make the changes that needed to be made. Instead the same crap was put on ice and thawed out 12 months later to be re-served.

I hope Ipswich sneak in and win it. They’ve been absolutely pony for most of the season and will have finished fourth bottom of the league. Truly fitting for the joke of a league system we have in operation.

The trouble is, self interest and short sightedness sees promoters doing the best for their own businesses and killing their competition off at the same time. Then all of a sudden they have no opponents to race and their business dies too. Guesting is as bad an evil as doubling up. But doubling up is a huge cause of the “lack of riders,” which isn’t true by the way. There just aren’t enough riders of the standard British Speedway tries to run at. Why? Because the existing riders are taking up all the team spots, so there are fewer left for up and coming riders to fill and develop in. The team element of speedway makes it unique to other motorsports. That should be embraced, not scrapped. In any other sport you can’t be a full time professional unless you are very good at your sport. That isn’t the case with Speedway and it is a huge problem on multiple levels. If you want to ride you should be prepared to pay your way and invest and graft until you reach a level where you can turn it into your profession. Otherwise if you need an outside job to help fund your hobby then so be it. If a rule was put in place in the winter where riders were allowed one club only then they’d have to cope with it and long term it would help the sport massively. But nobody has the bollocks to do anything for the greater good, only for their own short term benefit, all the while the cancer spreads.

Promoters are to blame solely. But they have put a system in place that gives riders far too much power to the detriment of the sport overall. Namely excessive doubling up. It really can’t be overstated how Mickey Mouse it is for a rider to be riding for two clubs in one country. It’s not the only evil in the sport here but it’s a bloody big problem. Maybe even the first one that needs eradicating. But it will never happen.

Simple answer: no. Speedway people always seem to treat TV coverage as free advertising. The truth is you’re only tuning in to Speedway if you’re a Speedway fan. For this also read advertising Speedway in the Speedway Star. Preaching to the converted. Over the last decade the sport has gone from being on the biggest sports network to the second on a (rumoured) worse deal to now an even smaller network on a (again rumoured) even worse deal. And before anyone says it, Eurosport is behind Sky and BT (now TNT) in the pecking order in the UK. The sport needs to work on becoming a better product that TV stations want to cover rather than hoping someone comes along with a sack of gold to buy a load of turd with.

There seems to be a misconception that Poland can do no wrong when it comes to promoting and running the sport. Here’s a strong piece of evidence to the contrary. The sport is on the decline everywhere but Poland do it better than anyone at the moment. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be done better there still too.

The play-offs should be starting at the beginning of September and for the top four teams only. Or better yet, the top team should be crowned league champions after all fixtures are completed. Six teams qualifying for the play-offs in a nine team league is ridiculous. Only just pipped in the stupidity stakes by four of the seven Premiership sides qualifying for the play-offs in that league. The current system almost renders most of the racing pointless across the season as everyone gets a medal for competing. And you have a situation where a team deep in the bottom half of the table can somehow be crowned champions.

Probably not. They’d just have to make sure they’re good enough to make the sport pay. Can’t be persisting with rules that are killing the sport here because a few riders’ noses may be put out of joint.

No issue with Glasgow making a signing the rules allow them to make but this is beyond the pale in terms of ridiculousness. The bloke has the same assessed average in both leagues. Stupid. British Speedway strikes again.

Arguably if you’re a professional athlete with aspirations to be at the sharp end of the game you shouldn’t be out on the lash at any point during the season. There’s a long old off season to get drunk if you so wish.

Time for riders to double up with outside jobs rather than with two clubs. Doubling up is bad for the sport, good for the riders. Things should be done for the good of the sport. In most other motorsports only the very elite competitors are lucky enough to race as their full time profession. Most speedway riders seem to expect a full time living from the sport even if they’re second tier, second string plodders or worse.

That’s fair. I did wonder if there was an underlying reason. Let’s hope he can emulate Dan in the future too.

The hype around Boughen seems huge compared to the likes of Kemp and Palin who had better first seasons in the NL in the not too distant past.

It’s because his average is more than two years old I believe. Same applies to Tai at Sheffield for example.

The most basic rule of team building is to try sign riders who will improve their starting average. I remember Rye House receiving many tonkings at Berwick over the years. Even our championship winning sides struggled with the place. One year (must have been 2009) we arrived early and spoke to Chris Neath in the pits where he said something along the lines of hating the place but the track looked alright from what he’d seen that night. He proceeded to have his best night ever at Shielfield.

No doubt about it. Quite possibly the best to ever throw their leg over a speedway bike.

I’ve heard of hedging your bets before but this is extreme… I’ll get my coat.