Elite League - The future

[MFE]

Well done to Poole on their brace of EL titles, certainly the best team won this season, (albeit without a brit in the team) however there is much to concern to average speedway supporter surely.

 

a) The abject failure of any young brit to force their way into the UK squad. we are still relying on the old guard to do the business - this is the very basis for the success of domestic speedway, and we are failing miserably with no home grown talented riders.

 

The fact that with the withdrawl of Rickardsson, we now have no-one in the whole league, with the charisma to attract fans from their armchairs to the turnstyles - there is no Mauger / Olsen / Nielsen factor, riders we pretended to hate, and loved to see "our rider" beat, fair, square or otherwise.

 

c) GP Riders now treat the EL matches like Challenge matches, getting their machinery checked out for the upcoming Grand Prix, they cannot wait to depart after a meeting, and put nothing back into the sport, very few have time for the fans - Hancock, Loram excepted. This is noticeable to most supporters and you tend to think the £12 admission maybe better staying in our own pocket.

 

d) The BSPA have meddled with the rules season after season alienating the traditional supporter, whilst selling their soul to Sky TV, for instance the squad system for the No8/9 riders has been widely flouted with teams recruiting just who they like to replace any rider, for seemingly any reason.

 

e) The Tactical Sub rule is crazy. its obvious the amount of opposition, go back to the original system - if it aint broke, dont fix it!!!

 

f) Discard the rider grading system for 2005, let each team build up to the Poole combined average this year - so simple, and so easy to explain to a new supporter.

 

g) This year the season died at the end of August for so many teams, a competition need to be devised to carry the season through to mid-october for everyone, not just the select few.

 

h) With financial problems reported in Poland & Sweden, now is the time to get tough with the riders, when they sign for an EL team, they turn up and ride (unless genuinely injured, naturally) - There have been too many weak excuses for non-participation, example: Crump signed presumably a contract to represent Belle Vue between March and October, to pull out of the ELRC to get married within the contracted British Season is poor, and its irrelevant that the staging date has been changed due to a rain-off, he is (or should be) contracted to ride!!!

 

i) Promoters should be penalised (fined) if the track preparation is poor, too many times this season, I have waited for ages for the track)s) to be regraded and prepared to the level it should be.

 

j) The Rider Replacement rule should have a time limit to cover each absence, a team should not be able to use for the whole season.

 

k) Teams must to allowed to rebuild within guidelines, if the team is not performing on track, it does no-one any good to see a team continually as the whipping boys, as Coventry have been this year!!

 

Finally, can anyone advise why this season a rider had to have 12 matches to get an official average, yet Ronnie Correy comes back with Belle Vue, and gets one after 6 matches, sorry, this sport has much to offer, yet is open to so much ridicule, due to poor BSPA management decisions.

[stevehone]

very good post

[Guest Carp]

j) The Rider Replacement rule should have a time limit to cover each absence, a team should not be able to use for the whole season.

Agreed wholeheartedly with this one especially. Personally I'd drop one point from the from the average used to grade an R/R rider per calendar month they're out (regardless of whether they're being covered by R/R or a guest), thereby making R/R a less palatable option over time, and eventually ruling it out once they reach a reserve spot (when they're replaced by other league guest).

[Bees_Man]

I would send that to CVS at the BSPA. Don't expect a reply though !

[MFE]

I can see what you are getting at here Carp - but then again are you not adding another complicated rule - why not: 4 weeks maximum. then to be replaced with a Junior!

[tape2tapevideo]

The reason why no Brits are coming through is because the conference league is being used as a old boys reunion and not what it is meant for only Buxton, Newport and maybe Oxford and swindon are using this to bring on youngsters.

We need a ruling that says 6 & 7's must be British, if a swede or Pole drops down, you drop him and give another English rider a chance. In 1974 we stopped the Swedes riding and for Years England were Great.

We also don't have proper second half racing where as you used to get the so called super stars out with the youngsters, so the Kennets, Gachets, Weatherleys and Owens of this world are not getting the oppotunity.

Bring 'em back and maybe not tomorrow but soon you will see the rewards.

[SCB]

Can I start by saying on the whole I agree pretty much with this post, with the few exceptions I have picked out

 

a) The abject failure of any young brit to force their way into the UK squad. we are still relying on the old guard to do the business - this is the very basis for the success of domestic speedway, and we are failing miserably with no home grown talented riders.

I've replied to tape2tapevideo's post about this and this is something that winds me up, as people saw on the Danny King thread, with reference to poor Ed Kennett.

The fact that with the withdrawl of Rickardsson, we now have no-one in the whole league, with the charisma to attract fans from their armchairs to the turnstyles - there is no Mauger / Olsen / Nielsen factor, riders we pretended to hate, and loved to see "our rider" beat, fair, square or otherwise.

I think thats more down to promotion, the only time I personally have seen Tony Rickardsson as what you could charismatic was when Chris Louis was pretending to be him on the crashes and cock-ups 98 video!! Yeah he smiles a lot and gets excited but I can't see what people see in the guy. Before anyone says anything that not a dig at the guy but for me he is too "normal".

 

However I think Crump (more the old version) and Pedersen (as much as I don't like him) are great for the sport, flippin ek, everyone and their dog seems to "hate" (in inverted commas as I hope nobody really does hate him) Nicki Pedersen and he is always causing trouble or being arrigant, same with Hans Andersen BUT you know when they're on tele or at a meeting something WILL happen, at the worst it'll be some spectacular riding!! Crumpy however, is loved/"hated" about 50/50, we have here a guy who desperatly wants to win and we have sene him go through every emotion in the last few years, we've seen the guy laughing, crying, going mad, smiling and falling off his bike when he finally achieved what he has been so close to doing now for 4 or 5 years! Some people love that throwing of googles and swearing at TV cameras other hate it, we need more of it and not just on Sky.

 

Sadly (I think AndyM said it last week) the powers that be are a boring bunch of gits who won't allow a fight or winding up over the PA or any other sort of winding up. They'd prefer to give the riders a fine or a ban. We all love a couple fo rider crashing (not that bit, we dont like that bit) and walking back to the pits with a couple of members of their pit crew between them as they wave to each other in a les than friendly way and give each other some stick, all while the crowd leans over the fence and gives the opposition a piece of their mind, it's great. 99% of the time it's forgotten about 20 minutes later when the riders and fans are in the bar. The only riders we don't like at Newport after a fight or a bit of a comming together are Wild Will Bevridge and Mick Powell and even Will got a big a cheer as you'll get next time he was at Newport (he won a heat in the pairs to get us 3rd place over all!!), Phil Morris has a brilliant love/hate relationship with the fans, we'll boo him one week and quite happily have him in the team the next. I remember 1998 when Anders and Nigel Sadler had a fight, a week later they were riding at 3 and 4 together for the Wasps and we had already forget about it!!! Best meetings at Newport? Almost always the Glasgow meetings, there's always loads of tension and something controvertial (99 and 2002 were brilliant!).

 

i) Promoters should be penalised (fined) if the track preparation is poor, too many times this season, I have waited for ages for the track)s) to be regraded and prepared to the level it should be.

I agree with this more than any other point you ahve made. I'm not in the habit of doing "I agree" posts but I had to for this.

 

j) The Rider Replacement rule should have a time limit to cover each absence, a team should not be able to use for the whole season.

Just say a facility is only available for 28 days, if a rider is out for 29 days then he has to be replaced.

 

k) Teams must to allowed to rebuild within guidelines, if the team is not performing on track, it does no-one any good to see a team continually as the whipping boys, as Coventry have been this year!!

Coventry were in the same position as Poole at the start of the year, why should they get special privilages because the management cocked up? Admitadly had the rules been better it would have been easier to sort out but I don't see why they should be allowed a stronger team. There will always be whipping boys, someone HAS to come last, the points limit (or grading) is introduced to try and make it so that every year it someone different, it's not perfect but it's certain not a bad idea.

 

Finally, can anyone advise why this season a rider had to have 12 matches to get an official average, yet Ronnie Correy comes back with Belle Vue, and gets one after 6 matches, sorry, this sport has much to offer, yet is open to so much ridicule, due to poor BSPA management decisions.

It was 6 meetings to get an average in the EL. Any rider who had rde 6 meeting and had an assed average got a real average 7 days after meeting number 7 (Ronnie was assesed), all other had to wait until the begginign of the following month after there 6th meeting.

 

What you should be asking is, why didn't Sergei Darkin get an average for Coventry? Seems someone in the BSPA WAS helping Coventry, despite the Coventry fans claiming the whole world (in BSPA's little universe any way) was set against them.

 

The reason why no Brits are coming through is because the conference league is being used as a old boys reunion and not what it is meant for only Buxton, Newport and maybe Oxford and swindon are using this to bring on youngsters.

We need a ruling that says 6 & 7's must be British, if a swede or Pole drops down, you drop him and give another English rider a chance. In 1974 we stopped the Swedes riding and for Years England were Great.

We also don't have proper second half racing where as you used to get the so called super stars out with the youngsters, so the Kennets, Gachets, Weatherleys and Owens of this world are not getting the oppotunity.

Bring 'em back and maybe not tomorrow but soon you will see the rewards.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No, No, No!!!!! Why do we live in a society that say we should throw everything at people and give them a chance? How does that help anyone? If you say to a 16 year old, "Here's a team place" they're going to think, "<expletive>, this is easy, I don't have to do anything and I get a team place. Make the kids work for it, don't make it easy (thats something I believe should be done in life, not jsut speedway BTW). This "give them a chance to at least fail" attitude sucks, it should be, "let them prove they're good enough".

 

We live in a society that likes the under-dog and people are constantly praising the lesser team/person for improving or catching up and forgetting about the person who is already there. How do you think this makes the person who is already there feel? (I know how it feels!). Take Ed Kennett and Danny King, you all praised Danny King as much as possible 2 weeks ago, just a week after calling Ed Kennett a failiure, why the bloody hell do you lot think that the kids are scared to move up if they're good enough? You hypocrites just want to drag down the decent kids (Ed Kennett) as he is the top guy, yet all you want to do is praise the guy who had nothing to lose, if Danny had faied you have all said "I knew it was too early for him to go into the EL" yet Ed has "failed"(sic) and you all say he is the EL failure of the year and he doesn't get a 5 page thread of well dones. So the top PL GB boys have it all to lose and nothing to gain, the middle order/bottom PL guys have nothing to lsoe and all to gain, sadly they're all likely to fail (Danny King being an exception rather than the rule).

 

Sadly this doesn't just happen in Speedway, it happens in education and work and all it does is demoralise the people with a bit of talent when they're constantly ignored or given stick for slipping up once or twice. You're better of being just an average Joe who occasionally does well and getting praise than being the top guy who occasionally slips up and get stick for it as they're expected to always be great!

[fireblade]

The conference league has just about every decent youngster there is.

 

Oxford have used older riders and more experienced youngsters as much as anyone.

 

Speaking for Boston - at the start of the season - richardson, Lambert, Dennis were all 15. Rolph was in his first full season. Cockle only 18.

 

Only used one old hand as defined by the rules.

 

even the moggies have used young lads.

 

If there is anyone out there who wants to ban older riders - name them and replace them with a 15-16 yr old and tell me how many teams you are left with.

[Old Saint]

i) Promoters should be penalised (fined) if the track preparation is poor, too many times this season, I have waited for ages for the track)s) to be regraded and prepared to the level it should be.

 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Just a thought on this point. Cricket has an Inspector of Pitches so why not a "supremo" for track preparation in speedway?

[MFE]

Wow SCB thats quite a reply, let me offer my take on it!

 

Firstly I stated that no brit has forced there way into the UK squad! you mention Danny King and Ed Kennett two excellent young riders for the future and I really hope they rise to the pinacle of the sport, they are certainly talented enough, but it is true surely, that they are not ready or been able to force there way into the UK team in 2004. there are several other young riders in this category also.

 

I was thinking more of seasoned guys like Chris Harris, David Howe, Simon Stead, Leigh Lanham, Stuart Robson, Oliver Allen, several of these guys should have advanced this year to heat leader status, its disappointing it has not happened and their careers seem to stall at second string level.

 

You mention Tony Rickardsson, surely you are not serious, this guy oozes professionalism, personality and sportsmanship, and is the only "name" left on the circuit that makes fans get along to the track. In the past only Mauger, Briggs, Fundin, Moore, Olsen, Penhall, Neilsen and Gundersen have been his equal, in my generation. Your point on Crumpy may be valid but he is not universally liked, mainly because he does not go out of his way to be liked by the crowd, excellent rider though, no question on this!

 

The Rider Replacement Rule has been abused widely over the past few seasons, I think 4 weeks is sufficient, you say what if a rider comes back within 29 days well replace with a CL rider unless concrete proof is supplied to the BSPA as to when the rider will resume - example Wolves have used R/R for Nermark all season, and Oxford have done similar for Ulamek in the second half of the season, despite him turning out for his overseas club.

 

With regard to Team strengthening once the season is underway, I will agree with you to a point, the Coventry Management were guilty of rank bad team management last winter, but should that mean the promoter sees fans leaving in droves suffering a reported heavy loss on the season, plus possible knock-on effects next year in trying to win these supporters back, and put the sport at potential risk at the venue, any venue in the future, I say, think again, at what you are advocating.

Edited October 12, 2004 by MFE

[tape2tapevideo]

The conference league has just about every decent youngster there is.

 

Oxford have used older riders and more experienced youngsters as much as anyone.

 

Speaking for Boston - at the start of the season - richardson, Lambert, Dennis were all 15.  Rolph was in his first full season.  Cockle only 18.

 

Only used one old hand as defined by the rules.

 

even the moggies have used young lads.

 

If there is anyone out there who wants to ban older riders - name them and replace them with a 15-16 yr old and tell me how many teams you are left with.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No body is saying Ban them, what we are saying is give the youngsters a chance, You of all people remember when in a second halfs when you had a qualifying heat with juniors and two of them made it to one of the four heats before the winners of thos went to a final, ok some were lucky and others weren't, but what a thrill when Middleditch beat Kennett or Thomas beat Jessup and so on, but that is how Carl Glover , Arthur Price and a lot of others including the Coloins boys etc, got their chance, you will never know if they can beat them unless they get a chance.

The old hands are good and can help, like I said before, You can learn so much by watching and listening to the likes of Malc Holloway, but no more than two per team. If you want more go watch the Southern Riders meetings, great people who love ridering for fun, but we are talking about tomorrow and I want to see the Simon Lamberts make the grade and a lot more like him.

I like Sean Wilson and the late Kenny Carter, am a Brit and proud of it.

It's only a opinion and it's mine.

Edited October 13, 2004 by tape2tapevideo

[sjw ministerofport]

Why not get rid of the rider replacement and guest rider facility all together.

 

Just an idea each EL team has to sign a Conference rider and a lower order Premier rider as members of their team ie(8-9). In the event of one of the team members getting injured, If the rider was either one three or five the team manager could move the rest of the team around to cover and the place left could be filled by one of the team reserves. The reserves spot could then be filled by the Conference rider and the reserves average awarded to the Conference rider. If the rider scored more points than the award then the award would be deducted. If they used the Premier rider he would recieve half of the average and have it deducted if he scored more points. All the riders should be Brits, this would give us a chance of bringing on riders for the future. Both riders should be in the pits and their team mates should teach them the finer arts of being a rider.

 

I know this may sound crazy but whats more crazy than golden doubles.

[Guest bispham_seasider]

You mention Tony Rickardsson, surely you are not serious, this guy oozes professionalism, personality and sportsmanship, and is the only "name" left on the circuit that makes fans get along to the track. In the past only Mauger, Briggs, Fundin, Moore, Olsen, Penhall, Neilsen and Gundersen have been his equal, in my generation.

 

From the perspective of someone only just re-introduced to speedway by Sky tv's coverage this year - I'm sure Tony Rikardsson is a very nice person, but I really fail to see where he's oozes personality? Professionalism, sportsmanship, riding skills yes in abundance. Just my take on it, nothing more.

[SCB]

From the perspective of someone only just re-introduced to speedway by Sky tv's coverage this year - I'm sure Tony Rikardsson is a very nice person, but I really fail to see where he's oozes personality? Professionalism, sportsmanship, riding skills yes in abundance. Just my take on it, nothing more.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That was what I was getting at. I just can't see Tony running around as the life and soul of a party, mainly due to his professionalism.

[martin palmer]

One thing I hope the BSPA bring in next year to help the british lads, is a fixed average for any brit moving up from the CL to PL ( or maybe EL) of 3 points, fixed for at least 2 seasons. Its seems rediculous to me that a rider like Craig Branny, who i rate highly, does well in the CL, is snapped up for the PL, only to exceed his 3 point starting average, and lose his team place because 4.5 is too difficult to fit into most teams building plans. Help the boys out by giving them 3 for at least 2 seasons...COME ON BSPA...YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE.

[purcatt]

A problem for youngster moving up from Cl toPl, PL to EL is the difference in pay days, if the British boys are going to keep progressing up the ladder, there should be some facility available from the BSPA to help them, if they don't have a particularly good season when they move up in the first season it becomes a vicious circle, if they are not earning much, they havent the money to spend on their equipment, how many youngsters have we seen move back down again!