uk_martin

Good. Get to see Stal Gorzow without having to fly out to Poland :-) KK, Zagar, NKI and Bartosz Zmarzlik (hopefully) would give any Poole (or Elit Vetlanda) combination a very hard time on that track. Don't think Holsted will be in the running for a top 3 place TBH.

300,000 Zloties, Roubles, Sterling or Euros? If it's Zloties then it amounts to under £60,000 when translated into our currency. Still a lot of money but it does make a big difference to the perception of the problem. What would have been his options? To withhold his services? Have you seen what happens to riders that do that? Welcome back KKS - everyone's missed you. (mainly because no-one can throw anything that far)

And certainly not face to face.

So when Chelski or Mansour City field an all-star non-English team, their fortunes and crowds will wither away too???

I think like a lot of things, it's never as simple as just being able to blame one or two people for what happened. Without trying to excuse any of the wrongs done by the last promotion, just to blame the Philips's ignores the fact that for several years before, there had been a highly damaging battle at board room level between the Drury's on one side and (in the end) McLaughlin and Philips on the other. It was a battle that divided people into two camps depending on whose side they were on, it lost the club sponsors (interesting to note that Mercom were latterly sponsoring Swindon and not Birmingham?) it caused the sidelining of the Drury's from the public eye (note Graham Drury playing no active part in the latter year's fans forums) and it caused the parting of the ways between Drury's friends and acquaintances in the establishment (e.g. AP Media and Nigel Pearson) when Philips and McLaughlin wanted to do things their own way. Sadly taking on Graham Drury was one thing but taking on his allies in "the establishment" was a bridge too far. You don't get to encounter the forces of "our way or no way" without falling victim and eventually, when the Empire Struck Back, heads rolled and grovelling apologies were extracted. And that was before the 2014 season had even started. I can quite believe that the BSPA spun a believable strory to why they were whiter than white. They always are, aren't they? And led by an impecably honest and upstanding citizen too. Nothing's ever simple in speedway and nothings ever what it seems either.

You've just hit on something that SCB and I have been saying for ages, and gotten into trouble for being "ageist" about...namely that people like to hang out with others of their own age group. Simple fact of the matter is that the average age (especially in Birmingham) was almost into the 70's. No youngsters go to Old Peoples homes for their nights out so you can't expect them to go to places that look like the Derby & Joan Club's night out either. There has to be created a critical mass of youngsters so that any new young people who go can feel at home amongst others of their own age. Look at any picture of crowds in Poland, and you'll see that the average age of the fans there is half of what it is in Britain. So, young people CAN be attracted, it just needs the right long term initiatives. Yes I know that makes me (a little over 50 now) part of the problem...but I'll admit to it. Speedway shouldn't be focussing on me or the older generation, it needs to focus on a younger crowd. I wouldn't mind. Already I feel like the "Oldest Swinger In Town" when I go to watch Polish Speedway, but I'd rather that than feel like the "New Kid On The Block" (especially at my age) which is how I felt when I went to speedway in Birmingham.

Another victim of the "Our Way or No Way" attitude that pervades the speedway establishment in this country, and prevents progress / rescue.

I'm sure you can remember a time when your colleagues wouldn't have even known who Wasps Rugby were...??? Excellent play on words, but really though, is it THAT strange? Really? Another of the big diffences, Wasps get Jaguar Land Rover as team sponsors. A speedway team would be delighted to get Arthur Daly's Second Hand Land Rover dealership as sponsors.

I can remember standing on the terraces of the old Reddings stadium, in the pre-professional era of rugby union, watching Moseley against the likes of Bath, Wasps, Northampton, Harlequins, Saracens etc etc. I was one of a slack few hundred fans there, and it used to be a quaint way of passing a Saturday afternoon. I saw the Northampton match on TV the other day and remarked on how the crowd was 10 times as large as what it was when I went there to support Moseley. So, building a crowd up can be done, IF THE PRODUCT IS RIGHT. There's no doubt that the Rugby Union product is not perfect, but it's good enough to attract people. Rugby crowds in places like Leicester, Northampton, and Exeter are regularly bigger than their football equivalents, and sometimes when the top Premiership rugby teams play each other they have to use Twickenham stadium with it's 85,000 capacity to get all the fans in. Something happened to Rugby Union that turned it from a very much minority sport, only 20-30 years ago into a huge sport today. It can be done. Sadly Moseley's management and administration (not to mention uninsured stadium fire) led to them not embracing the onset of professionalism, and their decline saw them missing out on the big prize in the resurgence of popularity of Rugby Union in England. Doing things the way that they were always done in the past proved not to be the way forward. Sticking to tradition instead of moving with the times became their undoing. They lost their stadium to a housing development, and ended up on a parks pitch given to them out of sympathy by the Council. Thankfully they are slowly on their way up again, but it will be a long time before Birmingham has a Premiership rugby team again. Why bang on about Moseley and Rugby? Look at the parallels. A sport in a haphazard (pre-professional) state, governed by a drinking club in old school ties, going nowhere, without much of a fan base, and a game only played and then viewed by public / grammar school "toffs". THEN along came the Rugby World Cup, and the advent of professionalism. Along came a root and branch reorganization of the sport and with proper administration and promotion, fortunes improved. It can be done. BUT NOT where the changes are not embraced, and not where "tradition" is the star that the sport or an individual club is steered by at the cost of progress. I don't believe in a sport having "run it's course", else rugby would have died out in the 1980's Fortunes can be revived, but they have to be done in a modern and progressive way.

Having just read about 950,000 tickets for the Rugly World Cup 2015 attracting 5 Million applicants and that tickets at ALL prices at 23 out of the 43 matches (@ up to £350 each) were oversubscribed it kind of points towards people having the money to spend where the "product" is right. People obviously don't think that the Speedway product is right no matter what the admission price.

Matej Zagar signs for Stal Gorzów http://m.stalgorzow.pl/articles.php?aid=1691

Very sad to read this, but not that surprised, to be honest. Seems that there were interested parties, who by the sounds of it did a bit of "due diligence" didn't like what they saw, and backed out. Let's face it, who can blame them with the state of the sport as it is? The only hope now are in the loopholes in Tony Mole's statement, that maybe something can be done at National League level, or that 2016 is a possibility.

Maybe one of our Polish friends can translate this site better than Google, to inform us which is confirmed and what is rumour? I take it that what has been translated into "Be" may actually mean "on their way out"? http://m.przegladsportowy.pl/zuzel/ekstraliga,torun-zapowiada-transferowa-ofensywe,artykul,513647,1,984.html

Add Adrian Cyfer into the Stal Gorzow team too for next year - https://www.facebook.com/StalGorzow1947?fref=nf

I hope that you're right an that some kind of sustainable organisation can be created, and continue into the future. Hopefully it will be one that can plan into the future and take a longer term view of things, and plan things out for the long term, because in my opinion, short-termism has been one of the main long-term killers at Birmingham, in more ways than one over the last half-dozen years or so. Mind you, who **** do I think I am to have an opinion eh?

KK stays at Gorzow too. His 3 year contract extension was announced at the time of the Stal v Falubaz meeting a few weeks ago. http://www.sportowefakty.pl/zuzel/470459/krzysztof-kasprzak-na-dluzej-w-stali-gorzow

Surely if the point of FTR's is to cultivate the next generation of potential Team GB riders, then we have to look at the younger end of the spectrum? What would that list look like in AGE ORDER? Again, compare this list with the top 12 Polish u21's and it really does highlight how impoverished we are in this country when it comes to young talent.

For one thing, he would only have been 15 at the start of the season, so couldn't be included on the list of Draft riders that the teams had to choose from. Kings Lynn knew a good prospect when they saw one and were prepared to wait a couple of weeks beyond the start of the season for him to get to his 16th birthday and still as good as build a team around him and his 3 point bargain average. My fear now is that as he's been in the EL 1-5 and has earned his GSA, he'll be disqualified from ever becoming a FTR again and will have to do things the old fashioned way in the main body of the team, maybe even having to dumb down to PL level. Having seen Josh Auty show promise and then get knocked back, I'd hate to see the same thing happen to Lambert. Hopefully, Kings Lynn will find Lambert a decent Polish team to ride for so that his development can continue, so that he doesn't stagnate the way that Craig Cook, Josh Auty and Ben Barker have.

Don't hold your breath... http://www.sportowefakty.pl/zuzel/476626/poltora-okrazenia-13-ekstraliga-bez-czestochowy-i-gdanska-zaraz-moze-nie-byc-rze In fact, don't hold your breath about Rzeszow even being in the Ekstaliga. And whilst on this subject, can someone please tell the people at Google Translate not to translate Martha Półtorak's name, and just to leave it as it is please?...it's a bit, erm, not very nice to see isn't it?

Were Polish rules to apply, then someone like Robert Lambert could fill one of Kings Lynn's reserve spots continuously probalby for the next 4-5 years, whatever his actual average is. Is that unfair? Gorzow are benefiting from their investment and faith in Bartosz Zmarzlik as Falubaz Zielona Gora did for the years just gone before Patryck Dudek got too old to be a reserve. Other Polish teams are cultivating their youngsters to keep up with the Stal Gorzow's. Just look at Pawel Przedpelski at Torun, Tobiasz Musielak and Piotr Pawlicki at Leszno, (the list can go on a while yet) When the FTR system is reviewed, I hope that Robert Lambert can get a spell at reserve. His is a far more compelling case for getting the support of the authorities than the ones that got Benji Compton Smart, Halsey etc their FTR slots. Kings Lynn should also be rewarded by having a potent reserve at their disposal for the faith that they have placed in him. If that's unfair on other teams, well, then let them get a rising star of their own who they can keep at reserve for a few years...and if each team got just one such potential gem, then who knows, in a few years time we might have the makings of a decent Team GB...maybe.

How different to Poland where a promising junior rider can keep a reserve slot in a team until the season after he's 21. Such a simple rule to have here too, until you see how many of our National League double-uppers are already now older than Poland's Juniors.

Where do the "Class of 2014" go in 2015? How many will go into the EL 1-5's? Will any be retained for the draft of 2015 & get another chance? Was there a plan a year ago about what happens now or will new rules be made up as they go along? I expect this actually to be a silly question - BSPA and forward planning and all that.

Walasek and Jepsen Jensen to Gorzów actually ☺

So will Newman now feature in the Poole 1-5 next season?

Obviously fast learners. When everybody does it then there won't be any point having the draft any more. How many years can these bright young things guaranteed a FTR place in their EL team?