uk_martin

On the basis that your first year is always "Year 1".. Only in Cambodia / Kampuchia in the days of Pol Pot did you ever have a "Year Zero".

If it hadn't have been for seeing the Harlem Globetrotters at the National Indoor Arena first, I'd never have gone to watch a British Basketball game. Sadly though, like with speedway, the British version of the game and its presentation was distinctly "parks league" and didn't do enough to retain my interest.

What isn't true? The youngest team bit? Would you like to tell us which team actually WAS the youngest ever please? I'm sure I'm not he only person who'd be keen to know.

I welcome the move. If it brings benefits then that's great. This thing about "setups" though, leaves me with more questions than answers. Are they referring to why our best juniors don't seem to do themselved justice the first time that they compete in u21 championships? They can't surely be referring to the senior Team GB's failures and blaming that on bike setups can they? Over the years, we have had Chris Harris, Lee Richardson, Scott Nicholls, Joe Screen, Simon Stead and some others riding regularly in the Polish Ekstaliga, and in the Swedish Elitserien. So they were getting as much exposure to continental race tracks as any anyone else. Why is it that when these guys fail when riding for the flag over the years, it's blamed on bike setups and inexperience? These guys spent years in those leagues and had the same opportunities to sort their bikes out as everyone else did. It can't just be that year after year after year, on tracks that they regularly raced on in the leagues the bike setups that were right for league racing were wrong all of a sudden when they raced for Team GB. I think that the bike setups thing may be valid for the juniors, but that the reasons for failure at senior level is down to something else, and bike setups is just a smoke screen. However, being positive, there's plenty of experience of continental tracks and conditions in the pool of British riders that remain from those days. I hope that for the sake of the juniors that putting some of that experience to good use and transferring that knowledge in a practical way to the juniors will be a major part of what Rosco's trying to do. As for what Rosco intends to do that will benefit Chris Harris, Danny King, Simon Stead and Tai Woffinden, I really don't know.

I would support a 21y.o. age limit on the #6 & #7 slots in the teams in the NL. It's different to a ban on riders over 21 starting off in the sport like people are intimating It's simply supporting the future generation of youngsters that Great Britain needs. By all means let over-21's start off in the NL, but in the main body of the team, even on an assessed 3.00 average. There are plenty of other sub-4 averaged riders in various teams' 1-5's. Hopefully the extra maturity that the older newcomers will have will allow them to adapt to life in the main body of the team, thereby protecting the younger riders in the reserve team slots. At the end of the day, if they are good enough they will cope.

I'm sure that someone will come up with the relevant rules and regulations which say what can and what can't be part of a speedway motorcycle's construction....No doubt it will come down to someone's interpretation that if the rules don't say that a camera should be part of the bike, then in the minimalist spirit of the construction regulations, then cameras shouldn't be allowed.

Didn't the investigation into Michael Schumachers severe head injury conclude that the fact that Schumacher landed directly on the camera mount part of his helmet, contributed significantly to the extent of the injury that he suffered, and that without the GoPro camera / mount being there, the effectiveness of the helmet in preventing injury would have been enhanced? Something to do with the focussing of impact pressure on a small surface area as opposed to dissipating it across a wider area? OK so it was a skiing accident, but so what? It was a head injury, for someone wearing a helmet with a GoPro on it. What does it matter about the when's and where's. I'm pretty sure you can't. Periscope (and Meercat come to that) don't offer video source options that I could see, when I tried them out last night, so you are stuck with the camera built in to the device that you have Periscope / Meercat installed on, and that's it. Now on the other hand, if there is a video camera, with a built in Android back-end to it, allowing for 4G connectivity...and if the device was compatable with Periscope / Meercat, then you may be in business...

A 7-figure sum? :o Does that include the two figures to the right of the decimal point?

History's a funny old thing isn't it? This connection with Ipswich...it'll remind some of the early 1970's when Birmingham was effectively Ipswich's junior team when Joe Thurley and John Berry co-promoted the pair, until their fall-out. Let's see how long the new, slightly less formal arrangement lasts. Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose http://www.retro-speedway.com/news.php?extend.62

On the up side, the average Brummies fan on the terraces can now have a new favourite great great grandchild

The easier you make staying at home in the warm, and the dry, with all the banter of the forums to replace the banter on the terraces, the more people WILL stay at home. I did so myself for a while. I got myself a Bet365 account and took the easy option on several occasions when I was 50-50 about going out. Having the streaming option made the staying at home option so easy to choose. I dare say that Periscope will have the same effect. Will it ever be embraced? Will the Ayatollah ever be converted to Christianity? Terry Russell (of Slow Speed International Ltd fame) will ensure that it gets banned and his co-horts at the BSPA will have no option but to enforce the policy whereby Periscope will join the likes of YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Instagram and all the other social media products that will be condemned as the work of Satan. Rembering how Dastardly & Mutley at Kings Lynn threw out a live radio broadcasting crew from Radio WM back in 2009, don't be surprised by any expulsions from stadiums of anyone seen to be using Periscope.

See Macca56's post above that makes a nonsense of Clambo71's post. Also see the actual fixture list to see the evidence for yourself. July looks like it will be "interesting" with those Wednesday fixtures but there you go. http://sportowefakty.wp.pl/zuzel/i-liga/kalendarz I'm surprised no-one has thrown their SkySports dummies out of their prams for many top Polish teams riding on Bank Holiday MONDAY on 15th August. I wonder which British fixture will be unaffected by the absence of Ekstraliga contracted riders on that day so that SkySports can have a semblence of a decent fixture to broadcast. Put basically, the Poles are going to do what suits them, They have every right to. They owe the BSPA no favours at all, especially after the show of arrogance and faux-superiority shown by the BSPA in recent years towards Polish promoted "Mickey Mouse" events that the BSPA have snubbed. Well, snubbing is a double edged sword that cuts both ways.

Where does the word "probably" fit into all this? Over 2 legs against Eastbourne is a nailed-on cast-iron all-bets-off certainty that nobody else, let alone the Brummies, is going to win the play-off final. The Dougards had best start investing in a good supply of Silver Polish to keep those trophies in pristine condition over the next winter, before the prices go up. You don't know "Brummies_cut_n_paste" very well do you?

1. How can a rider "commit" to dates before the fixtures are published and the dates are known? 2. This concept of a "whim" - so a TV company wants to put out good programming. It wants to maximise it's viewing figures. It wants to earn some advertising revenue. What the hell are they in business for except to do exactly that? 3. Lucky Polish Speedway fans that they get so much live TV coverage. Do I detect some envy there? 4. And it's not like Sky don't change fixtures around on a whim is it? At least the Polish whims are known about months in advance and not at the last minute.

Aww di-di-dums. What a shame. There's a country doing what's best for itself and not looking out for Blighty's best interests. Well, isn't that a crime? The British authorities kick sand into OneSport & FIM Europe's face over what it views to be "Mickey Mouse" tournaments like the SEC and then expects the Polish authorities to cut their own financial throats to do what's best for the BSPA. What a joke. And how entirely predictable, and preventable had the BSPA ever have bothered to get their heads out of their backsides a few years ago. The BSPA/SCB are magnanimous enough about Poland having Sundays to itself, but it wants the other days to have the Union Jack planted firmly in the diary against them, do they? Grow up and get serious. Britain no longers rules the waves in world speedway and has to stop sulking about it. And if Alex Harkness wants to be taken seriously, he should start by paying his train fares. In all honesty how many riders will all this ballyhoo be affecting? I'd have thought that the NICE League being run on Wednesdays in July would have more of an impact as there may be more riders at that level competing in the British Leagues.

Did he also play guitar with ambitions of becoming a rock star?

Is he going to struggle because of or despite the new van and bikes? Maybe if some budding young British riders learn their lessons well at that Poultec Apprenticeship course, they will be able to present themselves to sponsors in the right way that will "earn" them the kind of backing that foreign riders seem to be better at getting. Simply spoon feeding youngsters leads to the spoilt brats that we've witnessed all too often in recent years (Lewis Bridger springs instantly to mind)

Don't worry, maybe we just have to accept that rmc is just as blinkered and obsessive about his personal vendetta against me. He can't or won't answer the points I raise in debate logically so like he has on numerous occasions in the past, he has to resort to personal attacks and abuse, knowing that none of the moderators ever enforce the rule of "attacking the post not the poster". Sad really...very very sad. Really? I'm dumbfounded by that one. A very bold accusation of probable impropriety there. Do you have the evidence to back it up or does your lack of interest in speedway mean that the evidence has passed you by? Well of course it is...and if they happen to be Polish then get them guns a'blazing! Maybe he's got more sense.

Would we? I said it was "decent", not the best. If it's enough to lure Nicki Pedersen and Emil Sayfutdinov, then it can't be bad. It was enough to tempt Scott Nicholls into wanting to take part before he was prevented in doing so by Britains wonderful authorities. So much for allowing that long time stalwart of British Speedway to earn a pre-retirement nest egg. I suppose if you don't have Emil Sayfutdinov and the Laguta Brothers in your circus there's no reason to go there at all is there? Nothing wrong with going to regular speedway stadia. You don't get a series of balls-ups like Gelsenkirchen, Warsaw, Tampere, Riga etc etc You get a regularly used settled track, and you know what to expect from it. Good news for the paying public who get to see a good show. If you can't see any running costs involved, then why not run some events for yourself? What have you got to lose? Say what you like about the merits of cherry picking the elite and running a few showcase events, as opposed to running speedway at all levels, but for the best will in the world, you'll never get the sport to prosper without capturing the imagination of the public. I belong to a generation who picked up my first darts because of watching Eric Bristow on television and I'd never have gone to see my local basketball team if I hadn't have seen the Harlem Globetrotters first. There's another thread just started, re-visiting the matter of involving Barry Hearn in speedway. Apparently he'd be seen as a saviour of the sport... EXCEPT, have you ever seen Barry Hearn in a boxing ring sparring with a novice boxer when he was a boxing promoter? Did you ever see Barry Hearn down the local snooker club potting balls with the locals? This great saviour also believes that if you raise the profile of the sport at the top, what happens at the lower levels of the sport will be enhanced as a result of it. People seem to think that this approach works, because they all seem to be heralding him.

They are "promoting" - check it out in the dictionary because few people on this island seem to know what it means any more They are raising the profile of the sport. They are getting the sport into the press They are putting their money where their mouths are They attract the kind of riders that the British Leagues don't have a hope in hell of attracting They run tournaments like the SEC which produces some of the finest racing in places (like Russia) where BSI don't go They allow the promotion of their events on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other Social Media They don't ban photos and videos of speedway from getting into the public domain were people can get to see them. They provide riders with decent rewards for the participation and success in their events. They don't get too upset when crusty old Brits treat them like something brown and smelly stuck to their soles of their shoes, simply out of jealousy and envy. Nothing's been announced yet, but probably one meeting a week on Subscription TV only. British speedway will only get a fraction of what the TV earnings are that OneSport offer up, from it's "grateful for what it can get" deal off SkySports. ZERO - videos on YouTube or on any other Video Hosting web site ZERO - photos on Flickr or any other photo hosting web site ZERO - permissions to use photos or videos for private publicity campaigns ZERO - transmission of Polish League speedway outside of Poland to which they have (or possibly "had" now - in the past tense) the Worldwide Media Rights to. And if anyone thinks that the Sky deal is so great, try going to one, Unlike in Poland where the TV company works around the running of the speedway meeting, in the UK, Sky are allowed to run the show, very slowly and very protractedly, their way, making any meeting that they broadcast a "stay away" event for the fans and helping to kill the sport off to the real fans.

With Sings4Kings predicting the Brummies in top spot, I fear for their season now... Seems to be S4K's new tactic...put a voodoo on all the other teams to ensure own team success.

Decisions, decisions...18th May - Pila v Daugavpils OR Opole v Kraków Anyone have any thoughts which will be the better option?

For all the stick that OneSport get for, well let's be brutally honest, for being Polish, wouldn't British speedway be in a much better place if GoSpeed International Ltd (i.e. Terry Russell & wife - thanks R&R ) were to put as much effort into promoting speedway in this country as OneSport do in Poland and the rest of Europe? Amazing how much jealousy and envy they get in their necks just because they are doing something that is leaving British Speedway further and further behind whilst our authorities just "bah humbug" everything that happens east of the North Sea / English Channel.,

If a club does it and keeps it a secret then what's the point of doing it are all?

You're asking British Speedway teams to maximise their PR and public profile now...This is British Speedway we're talking about here, such things aren't done. The promoters have never done it before, the promoters fathers never did it, and the promoters fathers fathers never did it. They aren't going to start doing it now, and especially using this new fangled social media thing. Actually, if such things do happen (and I can't think of anything of this ilk happening in Birmingham for years) then maybe we ought to have a Good News thread on BSF with links to all the good PR pages out there in multimedialand. Any reason why it being a Women's tournament makes it particularly remarkable? Was it a World Championship by any chance?