MattK

Anybody?

Seems to be back now

I've got a bit of a mixed bag here. These belonged to my Dad who passed away a few months ago. It consists of: Mainly Oxford Cheetahs programmes from late 1970s to mid 1980s Some Speedway Stars and Mails from same time period Some Oxford United (and a few City) programmes, including 1986 Milk Cup Final programme and Oxford Mail pullout. Even some Swindon, Reading, Wimbledon, Halifax, Rye House, Exeter and a programme from the 1981 World Final at Wembley. Some of the programmes have been completed (by what looks like a seven year old in many cases), others are blank but come with a completed homemade scorecard. Several of the Oxford programmes include the relevant clippings from the Oxford Mail. There are five boxes in total, I reckon a good couple of hundred different items. Free to a good home.

1. Schlein 2. Doyle 3. Zengota 4. Janowski 5. Kildemand 6. Grajczonek/Ingalls 7. Morris

It would be nice to see some new blood in the SGP. Ward would be the obvious choice, but I also think Janowski would be able to hold his own in the series.

I wasn't following speedway back in 2000 when Mark Loram won the world championship and I can't remember any coverage if the event in the mainstream media.

You are right that Swindon's crowd does attract people of all ages, but you will also have noticed something else about Swindon's crowd over the years, it is constantly going down. You simply cannot appeal to every man. Successful businesses have recognised this and spend a lot of time and effort defining their target market, but speedway continues to aim in to dark. On the one hand it claims to be a "family" sport, but then you some clubs marketing it as an extreme sport. Speedway tries to attract young and trendy sponsors like Red Bull and Monster, but when youngsters come to meetings they are turned off by the 1970s style presentation and music. As Chewbacca said, you will upset some of the diehard supporters if you try to rebrand speedway, but the alternative is what we are seeing now, a slow and steady decline in numbers until the inevitable.

Really? Does Apple, the world's most valuable company need all age groups? Or Nike, BMW, Facebook - need I go on? The difference between these companies and speedway is that these companies know their target market and they go after them. Speedway doesn't know who it's target market is and therefore tries to be all things to all people - and fails. As Chewie says, at least if speedway went for an "extreme sport" angle it could target a specific group of people. I've long thought that speedway could do a lot worse than try to shake off it's family friendly image.

What sort of crowds do Plymouth get?

Event One Janowski Madsen Jepsen Jensen B Jensen Event Two Smolinski Ales Dryml King Watt

I agree, the Olympic Stadium would also be my choice over Wembley, but it all comes down to economics. Can Britain support two GPs? I guess this year's Cardiff might be a good indication of the chances of having two GPs in this country.

I think it would attract much more media attention if it was held in London, but from a purely personal point of view, I prefer Cardiff.

http://speedwayupdates.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=world&action=display&thread=10224&page=1

How much land do you realistically need to construct a speedway stadium? I once worked out that Swindon was about 16 acres, but we have a huge car park. I'm sure somewhere like Newport is significantly smaller. Would there be a possibility of clearing some of the unwanted Olympic "legacy" in future years, to make way for a stadium?

I thought heat 15 was a fluke, but that first lap by Franc was sublime.

Glad to see Holder walk away from that one

Can you watch this via the TVP Web site?

The main difference between foreign speedway leagues and foreign anything els, is that it's the same riders (almost) that we see here in England. I think it would be interesting to see what kind of audiences speedway would get if it were not on a subscription only channel - even if it was on a free Sky channel such as Eurosports or Motors. I have the feeling there are a lot of closet speedway fans who would tune in.

Las Vegas

Monster often tweet about Greg Hancock - not bad considering them have over 180,000 followers.

I don't think the pre-match downpour helped the track, but gates 2 and 3 were woeful and something seriously needs to be done about them before the real business starts. A good sized crowd, as Steve0 said, well above last year's average. Nicki Pedersen and Zagar both looked fast, Hans was easily the best Robin on show and Nick Morris showed very promising signs and could have made the semis barring mechanical faults. Kildemand had a couple of good races, but we'll put Stead and Batchelor's performances down to "testing". I'm not sure how Bjarne Pedersen does it, but he seems to sneak through these kinds of meetings, without being spectacular - but was a worthy winner on the night. As Keef said, Matej Zagar was ever the showman, but I get the feeling he would be a nightmare to manage! Fantastic to watch though.

Was he asked to ride at Swindon then?

60th Anniversary meeting. The following year, 2010, the Sunday meeting was the first Bob Kilby memorial.

I thought is was a decent meeting. All the riders gave 100% in what was clearly very difficult conditions. Kudos to the Newport staff for their hard work which allowed the meeting to go ahead. Mark Lemon was definitely the best rider on show. Kevin Doolan also looked fast, as did Ashworth and David Howe came good in the end. Another plus was that it definitely wasn't as cold as last year!

I'll have to settle for turkey kurri on Boxing Day.