moxey63

On the other hand, has the constantly weakening of our leagues helped to make heat leaders out of riders that in 2017 that would have been reserves a few decades ago? Look at the strength (or weakness) of many sides from last year, and ask yourself has a certain rider improved that much... or is it because the league is totally diluted? Strongs sides of past years would severely bruise the top teams of the current day.

Why not? Seems many are fooled, for example, at extra points being given for bigger wins, as it adds to the excitement in usually meaningless matches. However, it's smoke and mirrors and does nothing for the final table. It was the same with the aggregate bonus points we had for 20 years.

Doesn't alter the league table either, apart two sides switching places in mid-table.

But they have made it more exciting - what about the way teams now get more points depending on their winning margin? Thing is, that does little to increase entertainment or the final league table positions, just makes speedway tables a little confusing for long-time fans and new ones alike. Just let's have it simple.

Personally, I have long since rubbished the idea that racing was better in the 70s. Any lack of good racing though was often made up for in characters, many star names, rider styles, having your riders and knowing they were yours, and often the tricky tracks made it appear that races were unpredictable. Oh, and almost forgot, the number of fans who gathered on the terraces back then probably felt the same, many, like yours truly, who is bored stiff with what's on offer today.

The thousands of fans that have stopped going these past decades didn't stop going because the local band that used to play on the centre green split up and stopped performing. Many stopped because of the way the sport was being run.. by promoters who know best but then have to try outlandish methods to get the numbers back. There are only so many times that a speedway fan can be mugged off, and then they become an ex-fan. A team sport isn't a team sport when fans don't have any bond with the riders who are riding for it. It is a major turn off with speedway, that has the makings of a decent sport. That is the first problem to solve, the doubling up and down all over the leagues. But that's easier said than done and will no doubt send more fans through the exit gate one last time. The way it is now, speedway is just raced to allow riders chance to earn a living. It is a bit wild west, all over the place.

I don't think speedway needs sideshows to make it attractive. Make the sport more attractive by turning it into a proper team sport, your riders and your team. Cut down on the needless gaps between races, the pointless restarts, for example. People's patience isn't as good as years ago. Even I don't think I could stand all that time to watch 15 heats, so why expect a newcomer who doesn't know what's happening? Panning out a meeting so fans feel they're getting value for their cash is a con in itself. Saying speedway needs sideshows is just admitting it's not a strong sport in itself, which it is. Just got to make sure any newcomer it attracts isn't put off when trying to grasp what it's all about. It is a sport... but not as we know it.

Speedway is a weird attraction. Admit it, the majority probably fell over it courtesy of a friend or family member. Possibly more were attracted back in the seventies when it was on Saturday afternoons half a dozen times a year, with the nationwide audience World of Sport aired. Today, all the various TV channels, it's possibly harder to attract an audience from anything that SKY afforded speedway, then BT. So isn't live speedway on TV really mainly taking away the fans that would have contemplated venturing out to watch it live and pay at the gate? Surely forward-thinking promoters have carried out a survey of some sort to see the plus and minus points live speedway has on attendances at live meetings. Even the turnstiles' person asking when people go through the gate with a chance to go into a prize draw would form some kind of pattern. The plight of today's sport, can't see people whining about being held up for too long in the queue either. Just an idea...

Speedway is its own worst enemy. Season upon season we have promoters annual "We may not run next year," followed by "We're ok to run," once March arrives. It is so unprofessional. When tracks like Coventry and Cradley, and Oxford, can fall by the wayside... all major clubs 30 years ago, there does become a time when even the most ardent of fan walks from their last meeting thinking whether it's the last they'll see, through choice or the impending bulldozers rolling in. Peter Oakes was correct recently, pointing out that only one club had gone out of business through financial hardship - Hull. So, reading that fact, it does make you feel that speedway's future may not be in the hands of the new brigade of fans, but on how much the land is worth that the track sits on.

You old cynic! What about the video shop?

That's what I can't understand... clubs having to be kept afloat with money that isn't always guaranteed, and yet they're planning a brand new stadium for a sport that is trying to keep itself afloat, on a club that has apparently had to have money injected into it. Then there's Belle Vue's new stadium, which has new seats that I bet haven't even had bums parked in them since its arrival. I mean, Swindon showing us pictures of what their new gaff will be like when it's built seems a bit unrealistic for someone, those of us, who have stepped back and can give an honest view of what speedway is really like as a modern day attraction. I heard though it was a toss-up between a new stadium or new video rental store.

When SKY started covering live matches 20 years ago, it was a sport that still had some life in it. SKY could see it had potential. I guess their belief in the sport went the way of so many fans we remember that filled the terraces all those years ago. Rained-off matches when the cameras were all set up must have worn them a little. Meanwhile, BT have found there's not enough meat on the bone to get its fingers messy on. It has gone all pear shape and we're close to the actual stalk. Another winter of fresh promises, another time of us edging nearer toward yet another new dawn of speedway's life-saving fresh start that we were promised only months ago. How many look forward to a new season? Unlike times now long gone, when close seasons were hard to cope without speedway, all the optimism of a new year of speedway is eroded in the winter months that we should be freshening ourselves up in preparation for. Promoters (and they really should stop calling themselves that) huddled their collective brain-power together to re-invent the sport they re-invented only last year, and we're left with... Never mind, they might sort it out next winter. Thank god for the Speedway Star winter articles on the old days.

How the mighty fall. Speedway fans not long ago bitching about SKY walking away, saying "BT offered better pictures anyway," and "SKY wasn't such a big loss." Now BT seem a little shy on speedway, so let's go to Quest! Desperado situation. At this rate, we'll actually see more people trackside than actually watching live at home on... err.. Quest. What next... Gospel TV?

There you go TWK.... it was 1972 July 22nd FOUR TEAM TOURNAMENT 1ST LEG (at BERWICK) SUNDERLAND 34: Graeme Smith 12(4), Jack Millen 11(4), Russ Dent 6(4), George Barclay 5(4). BERWICK 36, TEESSIDE 16, WORKINGTON 10. July 27th FOUR TEAM TOURNAMENT 2ND LEG (at TEESSIDE) SUNDERLAND 28: Jack Millen 9(4), Russ Dent 8(4), George Barclay 7(4), Dave Gatenby 4(4), Jim Wells 0(1). TEESSIDE 37, WORKINGTON 21, BERWICK 10. July 30th FOUR TEAM TOURNAMENT 3RD LEG (at WORKINGTON) SUNDERLAND 24: Jack Millen 10(4), Russ Dent 7(4), Dave Gatenby 3(3), Jim Wells 3(4), Darrell Stobbart 1(1). WORKINGTON 40, BERWICK 21, TEESSIDE 11. September 3rd FOUR TEAM TOURNAMENT 4TH LEG (at SUNDERLAND) SUNDERLAND 30: Graeme Smith 12(4), Dave Gatenby 10(4), Russ Dent 7(4), Jim Wells (res) 1(2), Peter Wrathall 0(2). TEESSIDE 27, WORKINGTON 26, BERWICK 12. AGGREGATE SCORES: SUNDERLAND 116, WORKINGTON 97, TEESSIDE 91, BERWICK 79.

Feared for Coventry's future after Sandhu took over, to be honest, and then I witnessed the area the stadium was in. And so we are where we are... It's quite disillusioning, the way established speedways can be wiped out at the click of a finger. When Cradley vanish, and then Coventry, Oxford and Reading, established tracks and with recent boom periods during the 80s, is anything in the sport safe? I am a little amazed that the new Belle Vue was built, and perhaps Swindon. Speedway is so fragile and a track can be gone in an instant. It mirrors a rider's association with any one particular club. In fact, just typing this made me realise how many past league winning tracks are no more. Regarding Coventry's sparse crowds - I only saw it on TV and video but compared to the 80s, the back straight was empty and an ice cream van on its own on the fourth bend. The main stand may have been packed but the camerman didn't show it.

Went to Brandon the once, 2005 Play-Off Final, and remember instantly wondering why the place hadn't been "had" for redevelopment. The area surrounding it, from memory, looked better groomed for expensive homes rather than a rundown speedway stadium (from the outside). Since then I became surprised that Coventry lasted this long, sparse crowds not a big enough army to fend off bulldozers and wallets.

Before Gary Havelock won the world title in 1992, speedway used to yearn for a British winner because the media would take more interest. Yes... that happened, it didn't. Live speedway, more on Tv and it would be the ideal outlet to any unaware, would-be fans. Twenty years on, and no it didn't. Even the cocktail of double-wins by Woffinden in the GPs and all that TV hasn't worked. Perhaps next winter's Promoters' Conference may offer the start to the end of the decline. Or maybe speedway is simply a sport of the past, like war cries, rosettes and yearbars. Those who defend it haven't realised it yet.

Does anybody believe Cardiff would be an almost sell out if it wasn't on live TV?

I think it was mikebv that posted... one promoter telling him that SKY money helped pay for his number one rider. And these people are still in charge of running the sport. What should be a £10 night out has tried to price itself alongside football, even the programme charges. Alongside admission costs, proggies added on top could be stopping once-regular fans from attending. Crowds dwindle, admission costs rise, just to pay for that rider that the SKY money used to supplement. Would much of that number one rider's costs go out on engine tuners? If so... more money going out of the sport. It isn't formula one.

I always say that the first few years of watching speedway are probably your best. It's like with music, you tend to compare things with what you've already experienced, and the things you're currently experiencing when you look on them in 10 years, will probably be better in your memory than you experienced. Looking back on old photos always bring a nicer feeling than when they were taken.

I wasn't there but enjoyed the racing on ITV and later, on video. Proper speedway racing, when it could pull crowds.

Doesn't it say something about modern-day speedway, that the most interesting thing is when folk receive their SS. This topic will run on.

The thread's title is "Things Don't Change." Happy New Year, BWitcher!

The 20-odd minutes that were shown on TV the night of the final sold it as being a great meeting. We arguably have better racing nowadays, but the sport itself is stook back in time, whereas other forms of entertainment progressed.

Wow! Philip Rising's piece about the crisis in speedway was written only months before that best-ever world final at Wembley, when we had the likes of Penhall, Olsen, Mauger, Carter, Gundersen, Nielsen etc, all taking part in our domestic league. We didn't know we were born. It seemed, even back then, the sport wasn't run with an iron fist, rules were flakey, and fans were gradually drifting away. If supporters were growing disenchanted then, it explains why 2017 terraces were so sparse with what has been allowed to happen.