moxey63

It's a bit wrong, isn't it, how this tin-pot competition - like the SWC before it - can impact on our top league in Britain and force a complete wipe-out for a week, in the height of summer, the best weather we're having day-after-day. Just seems a bit iffy.

It's difficult to find anyone in current day sport with a personality. That includes speedway, and not just the Danes.

I fully understand sponsors and BSI wanting bibs a certain way, but surely all the professionalism counts for little if the meeting is in a stadium not much better than Buxton.. with a crowd to match. Talk about people living in the past... it was like Norden 1983 all over again.

You speak to your brother? Just found out today after a chat, my sister no longer works at Woolworths.

Don't worry. I'm sure the Cup of Nations will save us. The heart and soul have been ripped out of speedway. Even the national flags on the front of riders' bibs in the GPs are the size of postage stamps.

Didn't know that about cricketers - do they play for different teams in the same week, as riders do. If it's off-season over here and they play elsewhere, it isn't as bad. I know footballers earn a decent living and don't need any more work (apart from endorsements), but if speedway wants credibility it has to stop riders spreading themselves too thinly. It wasn't so bad in the olden days, with tracks having two or three individual meetings to supplement riders' earning power, the rider was riding for themselves wasn't really a problem. But open meetings became unpopular and riders after that began racing in foreign leagues and multi-teaming in this country. The only thing that'll stop this is for it to be cut out. But that'll never happen now. So the sport will consider drifting, in my opinion.

Phil, imagine if footballers jetted across Europe playing for other clubs, and then also turned out in the lower leagues in this country. Wouldn't happen - so why should speedway allow it? It's because it's gone too far now, so the comparison between speedway and football is silly. One is a professional sport, the other lives up to the circus image many in the press regard it as.

Seriously, though, the discussion is about race suit vs race bibs and that the modern fans like the suits more, as it represents the team ethic much better. But then they don't mind members of their team racing for other teams here, there and everywhere.

Speedway died with the warcry.

Thank you, my friend. Only just seen this.

Thought as much. I don't think that gives you the knowledge to criticise people who saw the sport in the 70s. They only wish the sport could return to half what it was then. It is frustrating. I saw it back then, and the 80s and 90s. Do you know what, it was about the time you began attending that it started to decline at the rate it is? People who saw the 70s have the experience of what it was then... compared to now when we hand-clap a stadium staging a British GP as a "success" when only a half sell-out. That's with all the marketing and no chance of a rain-off. Wembley attracted almost 100,000 for World Finals. Speedway, I'm afraid, is no longer a team sport. It has lost the tribal feeling that football has, as so many of your riders fight the following night with another gang of lads in another team. They are merely agency workers, self-employed, who will take any booking to earn a few bob. I wish you could have experienced from what we had in the 70s to what we have now. I don't think marketing alone will rewind the age of time.

Can I ask how long you've been attending speedway? The Grand Prix promoters have more time to promote their meetings every two-to-three weeks, they have all the big names there, so marketing works. I suppose the people who run the GPs are much more professional than the used-car salesmen that run the domestic scene. I recall the trouble the sport had when trying to get a single sponsor in almost 20 years of Live league racing on SKY - despite team suits and the like. As I say, I think promoting GPs is totally different to league racing. That's just 11 or so meetings at the height of summer in Europe.. not 25 or so in a climate where it rains much of the summer.

Why do people always revert to the football analogy? That is a true team sport, where one player plays for one team only. Marketing is massive, true, but we are talking about a sport that often leaves itself short while trying to look professional. Shiny suits and a clean-sheen look are brilliant, but then silly rules may spoil any new person's interest to diminish after discovering some riders can't make up their minds which ONE two stick to. Speedway nowadays has never been more detached from a team sport than it is now, and that's after almost 20 years of the soulless teamwear.It's more like F1. It is alright looking the part, not that this appears to have won that many new fans over the last two decades when even Live speedway is given away for free. I think we're going backwards. Although, I'm sorry to say, not to the 70s.

It's quite annoying... Belle Vue now has their own place but can't race on the chosen Saturday. We've seen the crowds for Monday, really pathetic.

Speedway is a team sport that since the GPs has been repositioned into being an individual one. It is a complete turn off for someone who was attracted to it because of the team ethic. Added to this that foreign leagues now have more power and can attract the best riders over British clubs has also impacted on it. It really does need a total revamp. But that's my view.

I have no idea about him being related to Colin, but I do believe they rode together in a 1974 Pairs meeting at Bradford.

There was a Terry Meredith who rode for Wolverhampton juniors during the period.

Used to wait in all week for 20 minutes' racing on a Saturday. We were easily pleased back then. These days supporters moan about commentators shouting and pronouncing riders names wrong, but forget they are provided with speedway - yes, live speedway - most weeks throughout the summer, almost three hours at a time too.

There was a Csaky (Christian name, Laszlo) that rode the 1990 Hungarian Championship, according to Loader's Annual for 1991 (covering 1990 season).

Thank you, 2ndBender. Those results will help me so much with my project.

I feel all warm inside... Trump and that North Korean bloke meeting up for a few bevvies, and now BWitcher and Steve Roberts on here agree with each other. If you would have told me this last week I'd have laughed.. laughed I tell ya.

He did return to Britain with King's Lynn the following month (July) but that spell was ended by injury after just two matches. From memory, I think that was Peter's last stint in the UK.

I remember Peter Nahlin being owed money during his short time with Belle Vue. Turned up for one match, refused to ride until cash was forthcoming, which it wasn't, then left the stadium and didn't ride for the club again.. keeping a nice set of team kevlars as booby prize. That was 2000 (the year, not cash owed), Belle Vue had gone something like eight weeks without a home match due to track problems and were cash shy. Could understand Nahlin's stance though, as riders take huge risks and do not deserve any sort of problems with their pay.

Speedway being speedway, I wouldn't trust promoters. They have the air of a used car salesman, rogue trader about them.

.. and it wasn't the Belle Vue Dinner Dance.