moxey63

Riders have to double up, double down because there aren't enough of them. And now we have one promoter owning several clubs merely to keep the sport going. Hitler couldn't silence British speedway fully. But, by gosh, we may be getting closer to it happening in the ensuing years. What has it come to?

I thought they were trying to give it their best shot, something many so-called promoters haven't done, try to extend the sport out to the wider public and make it more aware of what's happening. We have seen it many many times in the past. Promoters come in and try, then disappear with heavy losses. You can't criticise them for thinking, perhaps, that other than the few hundred that gather on match nights might have been persuaded by their efforts. They are businessmen, after all. It does appear as if there are no benefits on promoting a speedway club by throwing the cash around as they have done. The only people really interested are those you already have through the turnstiles. That is a worry.

The Glasgow promotion has thrown tons of money to push awareness of the sport in the city. But it hasn't worked. Indeed, the club has sent out a warning and reverted to the tried and tested formula of allowing volunteers to raise part of the club running costs. We have had over the last 20 years so much live speedway on our screens to encourage any younger person to become interested. It hasn't worked. Promoters haven't a clue. Fans believe they have ideas to sort it out but clash when pitched against the ideas of another fan. Reading the Speedway Star is so depressing. We had a glimmer of hope with the Writing On The Wall edition last week. But that did little to halt a further decline in the sport and nothing really mouth watering came from the AGM. Trying to encourage new people is like flogging a dead horse. Current fans will continue to become discouraged over the next year or two and realise there is no point of following a sport in which the rules are not worth keeping track of and we look at the future of the sport as far ahead as the next meeting. Teams are banded together like a school football match for a PE lesson. You really begin to believe it's a waste of time putting too much energy into supporting it; like a week is a long time for a speedway track. Here today, gone tomorrow. This week is even more distressing than the pre-AGM build up. Who is excited about 2019 and is actually wishing the days away for the start of March and a brand new season? I remember those days. At least next spring is only six months away from another crucial AGM.

Come on, you're being silly. That wouldn't happen in speedway . And if it did, the problem will be averted when there are fewer than five teams to allow someone to get this fifth place? To me, it seems this Buster Chapman geezer has his own real-life version of that speedway PC game we're all yearning for. He can get any results he wants, maybe.

It's like finding the TV listings for all the Christmas programmes when all the festivities and good will have vanished. Reading last week's Star, however, just as some of the ideas on this forum show, speedway fans each have their own view of what'll make speedway great again. Some are good, some went over my head, but it is the promoters' money and investment. So I guess they will remain guarded. It hasn't sunk to a level yet where promoters will take a blind bit of notice, as the AGM showed. By the time they realise fans are important, they are already halfway down the road to going bust and the shutters are being pulled down at their track.

I can see tracks folding in the next two years at a faster rate than present Cabinet ministers are resigning.

Not the groundbreaking announcement many were expecting from the AGM. Nevertheless, can't wait to read Speedway Star's writing-on-the-wall edition again this time next year.

Of course, fans would like to see more teams visiting and a bigger league. For one, the stay at home ones (like me) would love the chance of seeing different teams on television than we have had the last decade or so, with the league dwindling to seven. In 1995 and 1996 when one big league was tried, it wasn't really given much of a chance. But we were in a better position then than we are now. I recall the strong team unwilling to let their riders go. I'd say, never mind the unwillingness, they must be forced to release riders. Back in 1995 I remember the likes of Middlesbrough crying out for help. But the top teams were holding on to their talent because nobody had the balls to act. A big league would work. But we need a firm hand to make it work.

I read a few comments recently by Chris Harris. It does seem the sport owes him a living. Let's look back. It made him leave school without qualifications, he hasn't done a job apart from speedway in the 20 or so years since (it paid so well, even allowing for a winter rest) and says nowadays what little he earns from racing goes straight back into helping him carry on racing. The lad must be using foodbanks. Me, personally, I feel if the sport is now set up purely to benefit riders having enough meetings for various clubs so they can earn a decent living. And by catering for the riders this way it is alienating the fans, who are no longer attracted by the team ethic of the sport. Obviously, there are other matters to resolve, but this is one of them.

I wasn't aware you were a promoter. I was aware of the decent period Newcastle enjoyed during that era and have no embarrassment in admitting you were one of the good ones. I know how strong the Diamonds were. But they are not all like you. For example, my hindsight of how Belle Vue was run for years under certain promotions may have tarnished my outlook. Maybe promoters run out of energy after initial good meaning. But, yes, Newcastle were a bit of a go-out-and-find- the-talent set up. I admire that. I also admire TigerOwl and his work for we history buffs. Thanks for the well wishes.

Reading between the lines, maybe it's my drugs, so please excuse me. But are you a speedway promoter from the past? It's just the way you defend the way most have left a gravel yard that was once a nice little summer place. If so, perhaps it's easier to blame someone else for a problem perhaps you have helped create. I know, the drugs. I will probably be deleting it when I have clearer mind.

It has. Dreamt the other night about a meeting being attempted using car lights after a power cut. Even nurse laughed.

Having been confined to hospital the past week, your attacks on my posts mean nothing. The morphene seems to make them even funnier. I have a broken femur and shoulder, really painful, the fault of an idiot who apparently didn't see me when he pulled into a junction and i crashed over his bonnet, hit my head on his screen and then fell onto the floor. Most painful experience I have had. A 12 inch rod knocked into my leg and screws everywhere. Now, the driver has admitted it was his fault, the police too, and the taxi driver who caught it on his dash cam. But not one of them could provide proof that my freebie had brought speedway to where it is now. But they said at least I survived my near death experience. What is speedway, they asked.

If you're still attending regularly, surely it shouldn't be you the promoters want ideas from. It's new or lost fans.

If my entrance fee would save the sport, I would pay. But speedway is like a waster in life. Give it the earth and they'll flit it away. The SKY money like a kid burning a hole in their pocket. If you really feel I'm the problem, with all your sniping and snarling, about my so-called freebies, then it's certainly not only the sport in need of urgent assessment.

Formula 1 never attracted my attention. Speedway was a team sport, F1 was for the indiviual. The GPs and their growth over the years have played a part in desimating speedway's domestic competition by hencroaching over into team racing. The days have passed when speedway was a team sport. Now it is a lot of individuals merely mascarading as team members. before the GPs the individual form of racing used to be the side dish. I don't get excited about supporting a successful individual who is riding purely for himself. especially if you see glimpses of that individuality encroaging into team racing. Therefore team racing has lost identity. The true pride in the country is tarnished when both world champions in speedway and F1 deny the chance to prove their loyalty is the genuine article by committing something back. Hamilton doesn't live here for some reason (nudge nudge), while Tai chooses to turn his wheels over here when it suites What are you supporting when you cheer on these guys?

I read in this week's Speedway Star an article about collecting speedway memorabilia. Often fans will buy a rare item and keep it protected somewhere in their home and then pass it over in later years to another hoarder, usually in the same shape as when they bought it and make a bit of a profit. But promoters do not get it. They fulfil their craze to buy an old speedway club, hold on to it for a few years, keep it unprotected from all stress or strains, claim to lose thousands, and then off load it to the next mad person who believes they can restore it to former condition. We have let a bunch of idiots polish a family jewel with a brillo.

Please, without the fear of being shouted at again, can someone explain if Tai is a better rider because he is more professional than they were in the seventies? If this is the case, surely if PC was riding today he'd be just as professional.

It is also worth remembering that Collins had been forced to retire through injury at the age two years younger than Woffinden is now. He was just 26 when he damaged his shoulder at Cradley in 1980 and forced him to retire from racing until 1982. He was never the same. Prior to his Dudley Wood accident in conditions that shouldn't have seen speedway raced, Collins had suffered a share of misfortune in World Finals and could have won from 1975-79. The second part of Collins' career from 82-86 possibly diminished what had gone before. Had he enjoyed a little more luck, I guess we'd be asking today if Tai could equal his record of titles.

Sorry... you broke up there.

Peter Collins was far inferior to Tai. I mean, he could only finish second with a badly broken leg in Sweden, 1977, surrounded by Mauger, Olsen and Lee in finishing order. This topic, though, is like who'd win a fight against Batman or Spiderman. No one can say. But many on here are trying to live that fight.

Please, let's forget the attacks on me. I know I shouldn't rise to the bait. I think I've been called a freeloader, accused of saying things I haven't said... Club loyalties apart, although for a long time I have been more of a general speedway follower than of one particular club, I agree that you agree with me about comparing different eras. Tai is the best of this era. Each era last 10-15 years. Where opinions come into it, and I have had it up to here with not being able to have an opinion, titles alone don't persuade me that Tai is any better than what's come before. And, again, I have to reiterate, I am not attacking him as a person. Each era's riders can only be compared with the standard they were up against. My belief is that the current era isn't upto the standard of previous ones. Yet by saying this, I am being smeared by all corners. I know the current era is more professional than ones before, riders are fitter etc, but why would that make them any better than other eras? It can't be proved, of course, and only history will be able to tell how good a rider Tai really is. With a bit of luck on his side, for example, Peter Collins could have won at least three titles on the trot. On the other hand, Mark Loram didn't win a single GP and yet was crowned champion. Michael Lee, had he not been sidetracked by things away from the sport, would have also won at least another title. I acted like a "twerp" because people on here started sidetracking from the argument. My opinion was ridiculed because I don't watch current speedway, I was a freeloader anyway, and I have said things in the past that I really didn't say. I agree, Tai will probably take another title or two. But what is wrong with me saying it is a weak period we're going through? Riders we thought would conquer for years have for various reasons fallen by the wayside - Chris Holder, Darcy Ward, Emil Sayfutdnow, who's genuine hunger to be Grand Prix Champion saw him quit the competition and go off and ride in the European tournament instead. If Tai, as Hans Nielsen has said, does go on the break the record of titles, unless something changes within my mind, I won't personally regard him as the best ever. Look at the opposition Mauger had to restrict him to his six titles, Nielsen had Gundersen, Rickardsson had Crump and a few others. Compare it to the rivals Tai has had barking at his ankles. To me, they don't seem as hard. I base my opinion on Greg Hancock being able to claim two titles despite being in his forties - something no one has ever done in the past. He deserves credit. No doubt someone will harp on about there being more fitness in today's racing. But that means everyone has similar fitness and so a 40-odd-year-old shouldn't be twice a champion, 20 years after his first one.

You would.

It is in the Nicholls' household.

When did I say that, about him not being in the top 20 British riders? You find it laughable, but I didn't say it. That's what I mean, words put into mouths and people think it's the truth. Course he'd be in the top 20... even the top 10.