moxey63

I wouldn't be so sure. I can see the insanity in fans who still happily follow a sport that is made up as it goes along. Speedway is run by scrap metal merchants and used car salesmen. No surprise it is, where it is.

I call that a vigil.

You wish.

Easily explained. The top email you've quoted states "about 2006" (third line down) The second quote you've posted is the actual email from 2007, that I posted 34 minutes after the first one you've quoted. I was a year off. Glad you were interested. It gave you something to do on a Saturday night, I guess. I knew it was about 2006-07, I got my last "freebie." Some people will go out of their way to prove someone wrong.

How many Groundhog Days does speedway have left?

Just thought about it, the date was June 7th. The race: Heat 1. Riders: Chris Morton, Nigel Boocock, Paul Tyrer, Alan Molyneux (in finishing order). If I recall correctly, think the time was 71.6 seconds. I also had a home-made haircut, wore a pair of those Rupert pants that were in fashion, and my biro kept running out filling in each race. How's that for memory? Most of the above are untruths - I got the heat details from Speedway Researcher... about five minutes ago.

You never forget your first speedway race. Belle Vue v Coventry, Gulf Oil British League, 1975. My first reaction? They were mad, kamikaze pilots on bikes, racing to be the first to fall on a close first turn. The Belle Vue Ace and Coventry Bee bibs still vivid after all these years.

Eurosport does best the promotional videos advertising upcoming shows than the actual shows themselves When Screensport shut down in 1992 and speedway fans were promised, we were safe with Eurosport. I haven't believed anyone ever since. They showed shows that weren't scheduled but not ones that were. I've heard they've not changed that much.

At least one thing is certain, speedway fans have been brought up on a history of delayed starts and therefore Eurosport is the perfect channel. Hope you like watching the back end of tennis events.

I knew no different. You seem to bask in it.

Makes you think why we get excited about teams winning things if riders don't even care. They're mugging you off.

FAO BWitcher Here is the email (to Eddie Garvey, who put the Belle Vue programme together) from 2007 to prove, to some, it was my decision to stop attending speedway even though I was getting in for "free." I was still contributing to the programme at the time and promised I would still do so, despite not attending. It might just re-educate certain people that even "free" speedway isn't a pull for some of us. How filling a couple of pages each week and getting a complimentary ticket is "free" speedway, I'll never know. Thu 23/08/2007 00:24 Eddie I will probably give the rest of the season a miss. Just a bit disillusioned with speedway at the moment and haven't enjoyed a meeting all year, either at Belle Vue or on SKY. In fact, I've only been to half the matches this year - and it isn't because of BV's performances either. Hopefully, my interest will be rekindled in time for next year. Best wishes Alan

Last time I paid, Buxton 2013, the Airfence meeting. That was the one Ermolenko was in, all the old boys making a comeback to raise funds for Buxton's fence which Dean Felton helped arrange. No self-serving riders waiting for the last race so they could hop off onto the next flight out of here. Last one entered for "free" was about 2006. That was when the Reading team turned up at Belle Vue and looked to manipulate the match so they could have an easier team in the PO semis. Reading arrived top of the table and Belle Vue hammered them. Reading couldn't have cared less if they tried. Ian Thomas, Belle Vue manager at the time, took one fan into the bar to have it out with Jim Lynch, Reading manager, about how his side had robbed him of honest racing. I, personally, was glad I didn't pay for that one as well. Makes you question when a speedway race is actually a speedway race. But you'll say different. A personal question to you, BWitcher. When was the last time you worked for free?

Well, please take it from me, don't waste your time by responding to my posts. I know you're busy my friend.

You could be a promoter, BWitcher (also known as Mr Google), with your skill of trying to persuade an ex-punter to retain an interest in the sport. I am strange, clinging on, for a clinically dead sport that gave me so many happy times. Go on, I'll stay here, you go off and do what you have to do (probably putting someone else right). Don't mind me. I'm just trying to help with speedway's future, as the topic asks.

Sorry, BWitcher, did I wake you?

I know it makes no difference to you, because you still attend and are a supporter. We are all different and want different things from a sport that supposedly needs supporters to keep it going. My only proof of if the double-up thing works is to look at attendances. I know there maybe other factors why crowds are poor, but I know several people who are tired of the silly double up scenario. A serious sport it is not.

How do you know? Just because you still attend, it doesn't mean the gaps surrounding you prove otherwise.

The band of people I used to go to speedway with have stopped attending because of the doubling-up rules, amongst other things. You don't treat your car in a slap-dosh way you would a company vehicle.Too many riders are not owned by the club and are passed around like a cig behind the bike sheds. Ask those "plenty" of ex-Swindon fans why they don't attend anymore. Once we get a handle on why, perhaps we can halt the decline. I know why the group I went with stopped attending. It was Doubling Up, Golden Doubles... all rules that make it a daft sport to put you heart into.

I think people are using their own examples to win an argument. Of course there were doubling up decades back - PC for Rochdale and Belle Vue, Richardson for Eastbourne and Wimbledon, Gordon Kennett, Malcolm Ballard. But, I'm using facts here, those riders were connected to the clubs they doubled-up with and went on to have long careers with them. You can't compare today's methods the same as back then. Now, I'm afraid, a team is cobbled together with as much thought as a football match in a PE lesson at school.

Of course, the remaining Swindon fans will think it's great. Try to find the ones who don't attend, who saw sense years ago. If you are happy with your lot, then I am pleased for you.

Everyman for himself, it is. Riders in the same team one night, in opposition sides the next. That, my friend, is why the sport is clinically dead.

As I said, wild west rules and every man for himself sport. At the end of the season, we throw the names up in the air to next season's line-ups. I am an old moaning fan who recalls crowds twice as many as turned out at Swindon last week for the so-called Grand Finale, and back then it was for challenge matches.

I remember riders saying they were over the moon to join Belle Vue. Not because of its proud history, that they can help it gain past glories... because Monday nights allowed them to do Poland on Sundays and, Tuesdays, race in Sweden. That's what I want to hear when I turn out to support these guys racing for my club.

If that's how you want your sport, like the wild west, then you are welcome to it. It is a joke sport now. There have been no guests, because it is being disguised as doubling up. When just seven teams chase a top-four place to be in the Play-Offs, you know how far it has shrunk. Just surprised it takes seven months of padding to tell us who can manipulate the rules the best. Perhaps moaning fans have had enough and are happy to leave the handful left to it.