From England Being A Force Why Are We Struggling To Produce Young British Riders?

[stratton]

I have no idea myself but why have Britain gone from being a force in Speedway to zilch.I have no idea ,we had bucket loads of riders at one time.I think going up to about the Loram, Screen, Havelock ,Louis, Wilson,(era) we were ok.Since then its got pretty desperate, is it because of exspense, maybe youngsters have more things to do now? Training facilities, INVESTMENT in youngsters.Harris has done very well and i like Auty is there anybody else? What are the reasons i have no idea.

[keef]

There doesn't seem to be the same amount of riders coming from grass-track nowadays. Also youngsters cant come out of school, as in Poland and Scandanavia, and have a skid on their local track. We dont see many top British riders in the main events on Sky, unlike the 70s when Britain was number 1 in the world, and speedway was shown on mainstream tv. Swindon and other clubs riders should promote in the local schools. You never see local lads in the team compared to the 60s/70s when half the team were local, and mostly British. You see STFC involved in the community, why not the Swallows? more should be done to help British riders, too many overseas riders are coming into the Uk.

[The White Knight]

Sadly nowadays there does not seem to be a will to produce really good British Speedway Riders any more. The reasons for this, to my mind are:

 

i) Lack of Training Facilities from a National Acadamy to local Training Schools. I know there are a few Tracks out there doing their best to bring on new Riders. There is, however, NO National Strategy for Training. This should be set up and run by the Promoters (could not be done under the current Financial Crisis) and should have been done years ago.

 

ii) Too many other distractions, a lot of young folk these days would rather stay in and go on the PC/Games/Internet or watch Television. The youth today seem to be a bit of a sedentary lot. You no longer see kids out in the Street playing Football and getting Excercise like you used to.

 

iii) Finally - I know this has been mentioned before but EXPENSE does come in to it too. Speedway is still a very expensive Sport to start from scratch.

[stratton]

Sadly nowadays there does not seem to be a will to produce really good British Speedway Riders any more. The reasons for this, to my mind are:

 

i) Lack of Training Facilities from a National Acadamy to local Training Schools. I know there are a few Tracks out there doing their best to bring on new Riders. There is, however, NO National Strategy for Training. This should be set up and run by the Promoters (could not be done under the current Financial Crisis) and should have been done years ago.

 

ii) Too many other distractions, a lot of young folk these days would rather stay in and go on the PC/Games/Internet or watch Television. The youth today seem to be a bit of a sedentary lot. You no longer see kids out in the Street playing Football and getting Excercise like you used to.

 

iii) Finally - I know this has been mentioned before but EXPENSE does come in to it too. Speedway is still a very expensive Sport to start from scratch.

White Knight ,you are so right kids dont do so much Sport at school nowadays when i was there i think PE teachers did most things in there spare time after school.In my youngests last school year they had only 2 competetive football matches all year to me its as important as English.Even local football numbers have dramatically gone down alot of that is because of lack of pitches.Going back to the young ones surely theyre are loads who would get the buzz and excitement out of learning to ride having a spin. EXSPENSE and all these health and safety issues (noise) stop alot of it also people cant afford to do it for nothing such a shame i would love to have the Talent WHOOPS natural? talent coming through again.

[The White Knight]

It would be great to see new BRITISH Riders coming through sidney - but - it isn't going to happen any time soon.

 

These things ARE cyclical, of course - perhaps we can always hope..................................................................

 

..............sometime in the Future (but sadly not in my lifetime - I can't see it anyway).

[chunky]

ii) Too many other distractions, a lot of young folk these days would rather stay in and go on the PC/Games/Internet or watch Television. The youth today seem to be a bit of a sedentary lot. You no longer see kids out in the Street playing Football and getting Excercise like you used to.

 

We say exactly the same about darts; we're not not getting the youngsters we used to, because everyone wants to sit at home. Your last sentence says it all. Remember when you were young, and what it used to be like Christmas morning? All the kids were OUTSIDE playing with their prezzies, like bikes, skates, footballs etc.

 

Strange thing is, we are now better set up to produce riders, with the lowering of the legal racing age. Of course, that is negated by the fact that speedway is no longer "cool". Kids have absolutely no interest in speedway,either as as spectator or as a participant. Why that is, I really don't know, but it makes me very sad.

 

Steve

[stratton]

We say exactly the same about darts; we're not not getting the youngsters we used to, because everyone wants to sit at home. Your last sentence says it all. Remember when you were young, and what it used to be like Christmas morning? All the kids were OUTSIDE playing with their prezzies, like bikes, skates, footballs etc.

 

Strange thing is, we are now better set up to produce riders, with the lowering of the legal racing age. Of course, that is negated by the fact that speedway is no longer "cool". Kids have absolutely no interest in speedway,either as as spectator or as a participant. Why that is, I really don't know, but it makes me very sad.

 

Steve

Steve we would finish school play either football,cricket,or Tennis play down the fields thats all we did.Was never forever asking mum and dad for money we made our own fun.I was always aloud to go to speedway it didnt seem exspensive to go maybe it was relative to the time? i dont know. From 1970 (you could leave your backdoor open crime seemed low )until now things are so different it is amazing really.

[fatface]

Some valid points, some very obvious points too. It's all too easy just to dismiss the younger generation as playstation-playing layabouts. I don't think that's true. I work for a major youth sports organisation and we come across thousands of active, lively youngsters who have just as much vim and vigour as any previous generation. What is a lot different to the past is the sheer breadth of choice of what to do with their leisure time for every young person now be it in sport or arts. Ultimately for an already minor sport like speedway it means a much thinner spread of young people trying our sport. This is exacerbated in the UK by lack of track time and cost. To my mind the best way of working with our very shallow talent pool has to be through grass track racing. That is the amateur grass-roots of our sport. Do the BSPA have any collaboration with the grass track world and if so what? If not, then why not? That surely is the most appropriate first rung on the competition pathway for any budding British speedway rider.

[robert72]

you have to put abit of blame on ronnie russell, he opened the gates to jens rassmussen and peter schorak and the rest followed which limited the brits, then the end of the british league juniors,also national junior league that produced riders and also grasstrack brought in a number of riders.

 

you only have to look at promotors over the last 20 years, they seem to rather give an unknown overseas rider a chance than a brit

[chunky]

you have to put abit of blame on ronnie russell, he opened the gates to jens rassmussen and peter schorak and the rest followed which limited the brits, then the end of the british league juniors,also national junior league that produced riders and also grasstrack brought in a number of riders.

 

you only have to look at promotors over the last 20 years, they seem to rather give an unknown overseas rider a chance than a brit

 

The only part of your post I agree with is the final sentence. I do believe that too much effort is spent on acquiring unknowns from overseas.

 

However, while it is easy to blame it on the foreigners racing over here, but the only way to for a rider to reach a higher level is to compete against better competition, regardless of where they are from. If we closed our doors to foreigners, the overall standard here would drop, and British riders would not be able to attain the standard achieved by the Poles, Danes, Swedes etc, who would still be continuing to compete with each other.

 

Unfortunately, kids today aren't attracted to the sport like they used to be; as I've said before, it doesn't seem "cool". Of course, there is also the expense. Going back forty or fifty years (here I go again!), a new rider could pick up decent used machinery at a reasonable cost, and could at least be competitive with that equipment. It doesn't work like that now.

 

Steve

[keef]

According to the SWindon manager and riders the other night at the supporters club quiz, the youngsters in Aus, Poland, Scandanavia, have good training facilities for their 80c.c machines. Over here we dont have the same. Swindon are hoping to start a training school soon. Rosco was saying he would like to see the BSPA buy the defunct Newport track, but it wont happen. He was also saying speedway is so expensive now to when he rode.

[stratton]

Some valid points, some very obvious points too. It's all too easy just to dismiss the younger generation as playstation-playing layabouts. I don't think that's true. I work for a major youth sports organisation and we come across thousands of active, lively youngsters who have just as much vim and vigour as any previous generation. What is a lot different to the past is the sheer breadth of choice of what to do with their leisure time for every young person now be it in sport or arts. Ultimately for an already minor sport like speedway it means a much thinner spread of young people trying our sport. This is exacerbated in the UK by lack of track time and cost. To my mind the best way of working with our very shallow talent pool has to be through grass track racing. That is the amateur grass-roots of our sport. Do the BSPA have any collaboration with the grass track world and if so what? If not, then why not? That surely is the most appropriate first rung on the competition pathway for any budding British speedway rider.

I notice having watched sport every week with youngsters under 8s upwards this is footy. Alot of these lads are talented at other sports athletics Tennis,Snooker, ect for me it is enticing them to the sport you want them too.