manchesterpaul

There seems to be another ominous silence from the SGP website and press releases regarding any coverage (highlights) of this year's series on terrestial tv. As i can't have/receive Sky where i live, it looks like i'll have a very long wait until after the season has ended and then purchase the 6 DVD box set that comes out. Also, i'm further getting really worried and 'beeped off' in that i have not heard mention of any coverage on Planet Speedway. I had-obviously wrongly-presumed that commentary was automatic on the station. Does anyone know if any of the SGP's will be broadcast on any online radio stations?

Going against the grain here but, Phwoarr bring back Bonnie for another go. I do hope that the Chas'n' Dave notion is not remotely true. What a disgraceful shocker, if so.

Returning to the topics title, i'm surprised that no one has mentioned the Middle East. I don''t mean Baghdad or Beriut. If i remember rightly, just before the Oil Crisis, there was an attempt to promote speedway in the Gulf countries. I'm pretty sure it had it's spectacular moments and looked very promising. Only for the Oil Crisis to rear it's head and put a stop to the efforts. I've often wondered why nobody has tried to promote there since.

The Premier League football clubs, along with other sports, seem to do well with sell-out matches. Look how many times Arsenal and Chelsea have fielded sides without a single englishman in them. The majority of the players on the field are not english. Incidentally, i think we often tend to judge all sports, by the attendances in England of our national sport of football. I've often thought what's the big deal about five figure attendances at polish speedway or three or four thousand at other european meetings. However, football crowds can be stunningly low outside of Germany, Italy, Spain and France. In such situations speedway can compare favourably against them.

Genuine question not meant to be humorous, do you think the BSI are aware of this?. Touching on being humorous, do they just keep their fingers crossed every year, on a GP by GP basis, that the Swedish GP scenario above doesn't play out from the first GP of the season. (Sorry for the delayed reaction on this. I must of missed this reply the first time round. I've just been heavily browsing the forum.)

That's a pity, mind you it's going to take me all season to fit in the ones already online.

Whilst browsing a superb site that i had mentioned previously in the thread All International Rider and Club Averages, i came across some superb quality videos in the links section. Most, indeed, all of the ones i have checked, are television broadcasts of top swedish and polish meetings. The swedish elite league final is some two hours and twenty minutes in length. The presentation and graphics are excellent. Some of the features are superior to Sky. A lot of the rider interviews are in english. The commentator then translates it into the domestic language. The meetings are recorded live, which is why we benefit from hearing the rider speaking in english. Obviously, all the meetings are from last season - this season yet to start. I don't know how long of a delay there is before they are put online. Not that i care too much because they are very enjoyable to watch. I'll keep an eye out for them during this season. Two of the links are; Swedish Menu Polish Menu

I've just corrected a big typographical error. I had been messing about cutting and pasting in an effort to provide a display easier on the eye. During which i spliced up the sentences. I didn't notice it, as i had been up 58 hours non-stop without sleep. I've only had a couple of hours rest since, (i must be pretty wicked, i guess) but i'm certain all is now corrected.

I've applied this season's scoring system on to last years results. Unfortunately, i don't know how to get a spreadsheet result to paste into the forum posting box. I removed the gridlines and also pasted and printed perfectly with wordpad. But, i can't get it to present as i would wish. Anyway, the layout on each line is left to right; Bold = New final placings. Followed by last years position. The rider is followed by pairs of numbers corresponding to each Grand Prix in chronological order. The first number of the two being points that will be gained this season, that is coupled with last years actual points awarded. Bold numerals indicate the Grand Prix WINNER on the day, as was and will be. There was only one Grand Prix when the victor would not have been the rider who had amassed the most GP points during the meeting. That was the Swedish GP and Greg Hancock would have gained 22 points to last years race winner Jason Crump on 21. 1 1 J. Crump 18 20 21 25 21 25 20 25 17 20 21 25 13 16 15 14 11 11 7 7 164 188 2 2 G. Hancock 5 5 19 20 22 20 15 16 14 13 10 9 13 12 4 4 21 25 14 20 137 144 3 3 N. Pedersen 20 25 15 14 15 16 4 4 6 6 9 9 12 11 6 6 17 18 23 25 127 134 4 4 A. Jonsson 8 8 5 5 10 10 15 20 7 7 9 9 20 25 7 7 11 16 13 12 105 119 5 5 L. Adams 10 10 8 7 12 11 6 6 13 12 13 16 16 18 12 12 8 8 6 6 104 106 6 6 H.Andersen xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx 20 25 19 18 18 20 21 25 4 4 9 9 91 101 7 7 M. Zagar 10 9 13 18 4 4 9 9 4 4 10 10 4 4 16 20 12 11 9 8 91 97 8 8 T. Gollob 16 18 9 9 15 18 7 7 3 3 7 7 4 4 6 6 4 4 17 18 88 94 11 9 J. Hampel 4 4 12 16 9 8 12 18 2 2 4 4 10 10 9 16 7 7 6 6 75 91 9 10 A. Lindback 9 9 2 2 6 6 8 8 12 16 4 4 3 3 13 18 20 20 3 3 80 89 10 11 S. Nicholls 10 9 9 9 5 5 8 8 8 8 15 20 8 8 xxx xxx 10 9 7 7 80 83 12 12 B. Pedersen 5 5 6 6 7 7 13 12 13 18 11 10 8 8 2 2 7 7 7 7 79 82 13 13 N. Iversen 2 2 6 6 4 4 5 5 8 8 5 5 6 6 8 8 4 4 3 3 51 51 14 14 T. Rickardsson 15 16 6 6 4 4 11 10 5 5 xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx 41 41 15 15 L. Richardson 2 8 4 4 0 0 5 5 9 9 4 4 4 4 4 4 0 0 2 2 34 40 16 16 P. Protaciewicz 1 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 1 1 3 3 4 4 5 5 4 4 4 4 31 31

That's exactly what i had found in my research on the matter. All the above is what i had presumed to be the reality of the situation. I do hope it's possible to get more than 25,000 in such a big stadium. Deserted stands never convey a good impression. Two things that may work in favour are, as you state, the location and transport facilities of Gelsenkirchen itself, and also the 'novelty' factor of the sport. I'm sure a lot of people will go to see the event out of curiosity or just seeking something different for a change. And as it's being staged within a large population area it should help to add a few more spectators.

iris123 Please don't be so defensive. I wasn't criticizing German speedway i used to follow it closely and even had a subscription to Bahnsport Aktuell which was delivered every month. Also, please do post links to any German speedway videos. Many thanks in advance.

From my researching with Google it would appear that speedway in Germany receives very, very little mainstream media coverage. I was wondering if we are likely to be presented with swathes of empty seats belittling what should by rights be a great advertisement for the sport. I see some of the tickets are priced at £75. I presume one gets to be a passenger on one of the bikes for that sum of money. I've always reckoned, and this applies to Cardiff and tracks in general, that it is better to make the sport more affordable in comparison to other sports. It is preferable to have a stadium with 25,000 spectators paying £10 a head, than one with 5,000 paying £50. The reason Ice Hockey in Manchester took off in spectacular style at the time of it's debut is that the ticket prices were astonishingly good value for money. You could take the family at very reasonable outlay. It would appear from reading blogs from residents in some GP towns and cities, that very few locals attend. The main reason is often the cost of the tickets in comparison to local wage levels. Most are quite bemused and humourous about the yearly invasion of foreign (mainly polish) visitors.

Recently, i was looking for links to South African speedway. As i was aware of in the past there being a considerably successful level of meetings taking place every year. I was very surprised not to be able to find any current activity. Unless, someone knows better.

Oi! are you hinting that i am uneducated? Why do you presume that i can't understand, Danish, Polish, Swedish et al. Nah! to be honest just looking at the pictures would do. I manage to read my newspapers and books like that

I notice that one can watch sporting events live on broadband. I had been on Uefa.com to see if i could watch the champions league match with United this week. Upon clicking on the link, it takes you, in this instance to a non-Uefa external broadcaster. That then turns out to be Sky Sports. I see that one can either set up an account or pay for one-off events. The CL matches are between £1.50 and £2.00. Does anyone know if this is a new service just coming into effect or whether it was in place last year? If so, were the GP's available, or how likely is it they would be if it is indeed a new service. Should all us non-Sky subscribers inundate them with requests?

I've noticed throughout this forum in a wide variety of threads there is an oft repeated request. Someone wants to know the average of a rider when performing for his club abroad. The now defunct site worldspeedway.org used to supply all the info, alas, no longer. However, there is indeed a new source for such stats. The site has been referred to previously on here, in relation to it's (inaccurate?) system of world rankings for riders. One thing it can't be faulted on, and due praise is duly heaped upon it now, is the excellent comprehensive list of averages. The site is HERE. If one goes to 'Euroliga - Club Rankings' you can access every rider and club within 3 league levels in GB, Poland and Sweden. Also, the leagues raced in Denmark, Russia and Germany.

For English readers Swathes of Official details here

Hopefully my first post will be of great benefit to members. I've noticed that many people ask of foreign posters, if there are english versions of websites available that they refer to. I've found that when it comes to Russian and Italian sites one really only has the language of the country concerned. I've always found online transation sites superb for getting the main gist of a what is being said on a webpage. As they are automatic, they are not perfect. Often some of the sentences are unintentionally hilarious. However, once one gets used to the idiocyncracies of a particular translated language, you can certainly at the very least catch the main gist of the contents of a page. Incidentally, a lot of sites translate rider as pilot!. I've given two links below. You can either type or paste the URL of the site you wish to read. They then translate all subsequent links and pages within the site as you browse through. Excellent Online Translator Another Translator