fatface

Yes.I'm guessing there is no training plan, no fitness plan, no nutrition plan, no coaching plan, no development plan. All of which do not have to cost any money, just some strategic expertise and professionalism. I'm also guessing that Britain's two time World Champion is equally unimpressed too, based on his social media postings. All guess work. I hope to see some evidence soon that my guesswork is way out.

Is that all we expect then? Turning up the meetings? My, the bar is low. A national team manager should be about creating the environment and culture to enable athletes to achieve excellence. That's what makes guys like Eddie Jones so successful. Can anyone honestly say Alun Rossiter is anywhere near this type of level? Are there any GB riders who can say "that guy has made me a better rider"? So, like him or not, I entirely understand Woffinden's frustration. He is one of the few riders who actually gets what is required to win at top level sport.

All true. It would be a very brave sport that tried it, but I wonder if we are heading in the direction of live sport being free? Speedway isn't the only sport to struggle with attendances. And this post is right, the quality of broadcast is frequently superior to the reality of attending live league speedway. I cringe when I think of a newbe catching a GP live on TV and then wandering down to Plymouth or the like expecting something similar. And at a greater cost! That gap is only going to get wider. A better way might be to build speedway businesses around letting people in for free and making it commercially viable via quality food and drink and more advertising revenue due to a wider live audience? Very risky I know, but speedway is now competing in a world where the digital offering is often far better than the reality. It's also far cheaper and very often free. The younger generations aren't even parting with pennies to pay for newspapers when news is readily available for free. Why would they pay £60-80 for live speedway at their local track for a month when Netflix (and chill!) costs £7.99? Sooner or later, speedway is going to have to address this.

Tai Woffinden ate my hamster. Thought you all should know.

I've said it before on other threads, but I do think what the staff at the Star do on a weekly basis for a minority sport is remarkable. The sheer breadth of international coverage always impresses me - I too am also a fan of Peter Oakes' piece. SS's fortunes are inextricably linked to the success of speedway. When the sport goes through bad times and generates increasing disillusion, it's inevitable that the only weekly magazine will also suffer. I also think that people's rose-tinted view of the past is mirrored in both the sport and Speedway Star. If you compared a 1970s Speedway Star with today's offering you will see a massive difference in quality. I also maintain that much of today's Speedway GPs have superior racing to much of the old World Championship Speedway. Why then the decline in popularity of both? In a word, choice. Live sport is available on multiple channels 24 hours a day now. Rewind to the 60s/70s and you had to actually go to the football, rugby, cricket or speedway and er, that was about it if you wanted a weekly fix. Similarly with Speedway Star, there was less choice and much less available information in the 60s/70s. You had to wait for the Speedway Star to know exactly what was going on in the sport. Now, you can follow live results from Poland or get news direct (however small) from the riders themselves via social media - if that's your thing. That makes it tough for a printed publication like the Star to be fresh and original each week. Even the major national newspapers have seen their circulation figures plunge dramatically, which is why they resort to screaming such exaggerated, attention-seeking and histrionic headlines (see Express, Mail, Sun). Thankfully, the Star has not gone down that route and kept some editorial integrity! Where the Star is missing a big trick is digitally. That's where the now and future is and - honestly - their website and social media platforms are simply not up to scratch. It's network of reporters have huge access to all the riders, managers and every single key figure in the sport. So, surely, there should be much more unique video and photo content flowing through their platforms? I know a bit about this. This change in strategy would drive traffic to their platforms and provide a more appealing prospect for readers who are hungry for content and for advertisers, eager to measure return on investment from their advertising.

As a former Aces fan, not to say a major Chris Morton fan, I've followed this with interest. Kudos to Philip Rising, the Star isn't perfect, but despite the obsessive trolling he gets on here, what the Star staff pull together on a weekly basis for a minority sport is a minor miracle. Similarly, the situation at Belle Vue. A brand new speedway stadium with the sport at its centre piece in a major city location with a fantastic track in today's financial climate is a minor miracle. It's pretty clear that Mort and Dave Gordon are not the men to make a success of multi-sport facility. But it doesn't detract from them having a vision and making it happen. Whatever people think of them, at least they had the balls to give it a go. Others spend too much time scratching theirs. Would Belle Vue be in a better position trundling along at Kirky Lane now? They'd be a lot closer to their slow, painful death. As it is, the sport has a brand new facility, a fresh start for next season, a council with an appetite to make a success of it and most of all a real opportunity - IF the right people are involved.

Sad to read this. He was every bit part of the fabric of the sport in the 1970s and 80s as Mauger, Penhall, Collins and Olsen. Any speedway commentary during that time that wasn't Dave Lanning just didn't sound right. Quite simply, he was the voice of speedway and the bar by which others will always be measured.

Agree with a lot of this. Acquisition is pretty good. Actually when you talk about speedway, quite a lot of people have been or at least heard of it. Retention is dreadful. There's lots of well-meaning stuff on this thread..posters, school visits etc. All been done with no long-term effect. Now, I don;t have the answers either. But given budgets are tight, I'd suggest some really targeted marketing with weekly video clips on paid adverts via facebook, click to a much revamped GB website, insert your postcode and find your nearest track. Then the key thing is customer experience at the tracks. In an ideal world, all the stadiums would be modern venues. I struggle to think of a sport that offers such rubbish facilities. Any sport that attracts a crowd in this country from football to rugby to cricket to darts, snooker and boxing, all offer much more comfortable surroundings. I accept that isn't going to change for speedway in the short-term without serious investment. So, where I do think there should be some central investment is for big screens to be shared amongst tracks. To show race replays, interviews, kiss-cam, adverts, pits scenes. It's a really boring sport in between races. The show has to be kept moving and give the customers a much fuller, modern experience to give them some value. Finally, and no doubt drawing the ire of several angry old men, much more needs to be made of Tai Woffinden. He's articulate, young, fashionable, edgy, exciting and gets people talking. He needs to be central to any marketing activity. Snooker, Darts, Boxing, Cricket, Athletics, even Formula One would love a guy like Tai Woffinden to market their sports. What do we do? Moan about him having tattoos and not singing God Save the Queen!? Welcome to 2016.

Me too! I've never seen it since then, but there was a memorable clip of Kenny Carter being interviewed at the 1983 final where he said: "Ole Olsen's one of fastest riders in world and e's just gone past him likes he's dropped a chain. He's makin' us all look stoopid! Get your cameras on that bike!" :-) Fantastic clip of Muller and PC. Towards the end of his career that was the one that PC really wanted and you can see it in that very clip. Brilliant commentary by Dave Lanning too.

Isn't that basically a list of riders who rode Oxford well? Martin Dugard granted should have done better, Brian Andersen was unlucky, Carl Blackbird just wasn't professional enough and Andrew Silver didn't have the right style or technique to make it at the very sharp end of the sport. I'd have Joe Screen up there. From more recent times, I'd say the Swedes Freddie Lindgren, Andreas Jonsson and Antonio Lindback could - and should - have achieved more.

I've got no real preference either way for Tony Rickardson or Ivan Mauger. If anything I warm more to the era that Mauger rode in. And difficult though it is to compare rider from different eras, I still say Tony Rickardson was the better rider. For me, he could do things on a bike that Mauger couldn't.

Maybe it's just me, but there's few things in life I enjoy more than a list of 1980s speedway riders! My wife is one lucky lady 😀 I've been checking back for the 1988 one for a few days now. Please don't keep us waiting much longer waihekeaces! To pre-empt, I'll have a crack at my top 10. Let's see if your system crunches out a similar result. 1 Hans Nielsen - still the best, despite Gundersen having the slight psychological edge when crunch time came in the one-off World Finals 2 Erik Gundersen - third time champ 3 Jan O Pedersen - were if not for World Final I expect he'd be 2 4 Sam Ermolenko - clearly best of rest 5 Kelvin Tatum - solid and Britain's best 6 Simon Wigg - British champ with solid season 7 Per Jonsson - established world star 8 Shawn Moran - returning to best form 9 Chris Morton - glimpses of best form in last year at top level 10 Simon Cross - a taster of the rider he could have been where it not for 1990 crash How close am I? 😀

Yes, I agree there is possibility Stead and Robson might be good coaches. I just thought it ironic that they are the coaches, given they are two riders who have techniques that has held them back, I just hope they recognise that and don't teach youngsters to do as they do. Britain's had 100s of Simon Steads and Stuart Robsons in the last couple of decades. It's more Tai Woffindens we need! Essentially you are right though that a great rider doesn't make a great coach. That's true across most sports. It's very rare for a top sportsman or woman to be a top coach. My background is athletics and I can't think of a single top athlete who has gone on to be a great coach. The problem is that they simply expect their protege to replicate what they did in training and they get frustrated when they can't do it. Guys like Daley Thompson and Colin Jackson are physiological freaks and when they have gone into coaching, they have run athletes into the ground who simply can't handle the same type of training and they end up injured. I think speedway has a lot to learn from other sports in terms of coaching and sports science. Certainly coaching in the early stages should be fundamental for every developing rider. I think it's overkill to recruit a whole team of experts for each rider. I think there is only the need for additional professional help for riders at the very top end. But maybe there should be some general guidance on fitness, nutrition and psychology for any riders involved in GB squad. I am not convinced that many riders - some even at GP level - even do the very basics right.

Funny that Malcolm Simmons should come up. I'd have him down as technically excellent. I recollect that he had a big role in helping Kelvin Tatum in his early years at Wimbledon. And Tatum was another with excellent technique. But too often in Britain we have relied upon riders just having so much natural talent, they make it anyway. When you think about the World Champs we have had, they are nearly all naturals. PC, Mike Lee and Mark Loram being the most obvious examples. Yet when you think about the sport's all-time greats - Mauger, Rickardsson, Nielsen - they were all superb technicians. Now, you are never going to coach someone to be Peter Collins. But there are definitely a lot of British riders who could have - and should have - gone further with some expert advice on the nuances of technique.

Coaching is absolutely fundamental to success at elite level in most sports. Yet in speedway, there seems to be very little regard for it. Certainly in Britain. It's ironic you mention Stuart Robson and Simon Stead, as they are two perfect examples of British riders who are technically flawed. Yet if they had been properly coached, I think they both could have gone further in the sport. Overall though, I think this is a great initiative and though I am no Alun Rossiter fan, he deserves huge congratulations for getting this off the ground. It's a definite step in the right direction.

He was one of those that always seemed stronger in team competition. Excellent pairs rider and great for the US in WTC and test matches. Uniquely, he also hated Hyde Road, so that scuppered his progress from an Overseas Final (or two?).

Interesting stuff and the results are not a million miles away from how I would rank them in those years. Well done 😀 I certainly remember going to the 83 final and feeling it was wide open with Nielsen a very marginal favourite. I seem to recall Speedway Mail publishing annual rankings according to international speedway journalists during the Winter and that always made interesting reading. Of course, naturally the Polish writer would have Plech and Jancarz unfeasibly high!

I haven't called anyone a racist. I have certainly made the point that the use of a flag with strongly racist connotations against black Americans is no less significant just because no-one in that vicinity might be a black American. That's simply irrelevant. Just because nobody there is likely to feel directly targeted by it's use, doesn't make it acceptable. Most right-minded folk find any racist symbolism abhorrent whether it be intended for them or not. I'd say the poster who made that point was being ignorant. But racist? I don't know the bloke. I'm sure he's a smashing fella. Just like you. Now that's cleared up, perhaps you can have another go at explaining your use of the term 'terrorist sympathiser'? The previous attempt came across as nothing more than a muddled rant.

"Terrorist sympathisers?" Wow. That's some leap of logic you made there. Care to take us on a magical mystery tour of your mind to see how to came to that point? 😀

Absolutely, perhaps they could adopt all white hooded Klu Klux Klax kevlars too? After all if there are very unlikely to be any black Americans there, then why not? You are a real visionary.

Yes the response was largely indifferent back then. Personally, it was enough to raise my eyebrows, but I wasn't sufficiently offended to make an issue of it. But when that flag became so overtly a symbol of racist hatred, then things changed. The Somerset promotion have done absolutely the right thing. There was no knee jerk reaction last year, they have took the opportunity of a new season and have made a sensible and sensitive decision.

Who's that then? Name them.

Not really sure why the thread has drifted onto nicknames now. No-one on either side of the discussion seems to have any issue with Somerset being named the Rebels. So it's a bit unfair - and wholly inaccurate - to assume people who believe the Confederate Flag to be an inappropriate symbol are also campaigning against the Rebels, Devils, Pirates as offensive nicknames. They are not. So why tar them with this brush?

Velodromes are IMO a poor use of public funds. I agree entirely with the national cycle network and outdoor BMX tracks for kids. But beyond elite competitors, there is very little demand for velodromes. Because of the construct, there is also very little versatility or adaptability beyond track cycling too. I can see the Olympic velodrome being something of a white elephant in a few short years once the memories of 2012 fade. The aquatics centre however, will have a long-term future. The sport will never get its hands on public funds for speedway only projects. TBH, I do understand that. Priority will always got to the most athletic sports where role models and facilities exist that can actually inspire people to get off their asses and help the country tackle obesity. But, what speedway does have is the ability to attract hundreds - sometimes thousands - of people to a weekly fix of spectator sport at a facility. Hockey, table tennis, judo, badminton, lacrosse, BMX and other such sports cannot do that. But if they bring the public funds, speedway can bring the commercial element. Together they can build a decent shared facility on the same footprint of land that can work for all parties. This has to be the future. Speedway has to be the master of its own destiny, otherwise it is doomed long-term in the UK. If iconic venues like Hyde Road, Plough Lane, Brandon and even Blunsdon can go - so will they all eventually. The only way to stop that is to have a real say by having ownership.

He comes across as a complete prat. And as GB team manager, he becomes - by default - a spokesperson for the sport in this country. But is he any worse than Neil Middleditch? I'm afraid it's very thin pickings at present.