Rules Are A Joke

[rob tatum]

Just reading the posts from various fans from teams am I the only one who finds the rules totally baffling and to be honest left feeling I don't really care. Its all complete made up garbage and has made this basic sport totally unfathomable. And does anyone apart from me think its bizarre how fans seem to go along with it all and SEEM to understand it. I am a fairly intelligent man of 51 who even understands the off side rule in football ,but league speedway rules are plop. IMO

[BWitcher]

Just reading the posts from various fans from teams am I the only one who finds the rules totally baffling and to be honest left feeling I don't really care. Its all complete made up garbage and has made this basic sport totally unfathomable. And does anyone apart from me think its bizarre how fans seem to go along with it all and SEEM to understand it. I am a fairly intelligent man of 51 who even understands the off side rule in football ,but league speedway rules are plop. IMO

 

They're actually quite simple compared to many sports.

 

 

[rob tatum]

There you go it must be me then. Everything is fine the rules are really simple and nothing needs to change. Let's all be honest the way the rules are manipulated every year to suit a team makes a mockery of the sport. IMO

[BWitcher]

There you go it must be me then. Everything is fine the rules are really simple and nothing needs to change. Let's all be honest the way the rules are manipulated every year to suit a team makes a mockery of the sport. IMO

 

The rules are manipulated yes, but that's a different issue to the 'complexity' of them.

 

The other issue I can see is poorly qualified referees and officials. The referees should know the rulebook like the back of their hand. The oversights that have crept in of late are quite simply not justifiable. If they don't know the rules, they shouldn't be doing the job.

 

 

[moxey63]

I believe there is a conspiracy among so-called promoters who along the depths of time have taken the sport from what was reportedly the second-most popular summer sport in Britain into one that is obsolete within the next few decades.

 

I have no proof, apart from what I’m seeing with my own eyes.

 

By breaking down the patience of once-loyal supporters (like I once was) with baffling rules - Golden Doubles, Bubble-trouble-I’m-in-a-muddle, six lap finale, green helmets, match races in KO Cup, ditching the ko cup, allowing TV to invent rules (ones that Stuart Hall would have been happy back in his prime to laugh out loud at)… it’s an effort of “We know best… because it’s our money.”

 

But they make the sport come over as ridiculous to people who previously wouldn’t have a bad word spoken against it.

 

The constant tinkering of rules is either to sell rulebooks or an effort to make promoters appear more intelligent than patrons who gradually get put off by the forever influx of silly damn rules. Maybe it's a trick to make fans believe promoters know best, until their ship starts sinking and they dive off it, hopefully in time for another mad-thinking "I'll sort it out with my ideas" sort of guy to ride to the rescue.

 

I do not doubt that promoters must be of above average intelligence. They are, aren’t they?

 

I provide this reason after much contemplation. My way of thinking is that they have built up financial muscle to be able to purchase the clubs of the sport we follow(ed), so they must have something about them.

 

But then, I question my own logic and am left to scratch my scalp…

 

Because had they treated their businesses with the same pattern of logic they had treated what used to be a terrific sport, many of them would now be penny-less.

Edited August 1, 2013 by moxey63

[SCB]

I don't think the rules are that hard. There actually only about 5 pages of rules that matter. What is difficult is they change and the fans making up rules. People post on here that this is allowed and thats not allowed. It's just not true. We have people saying Poole cheated yesterday, well no they didn't. but it's Poole and people dont like them so they cry foul. Weirdly, when Poole did cheat last year (had riders in reserve and the 1-5 the wrong way around) nobody seemed to give a rubbish when I pointed it out.

[Wolfsbane]

....“We know best… because it’s our money.”

And there ladies & gents is the sport's problems encapsulated in 7 words

[moxey63]

I don't think the rules are that hard. There actually only about 5 pages of rules that matter. What is difficult is they change and the fans making up rules. People post on here that this is allowed and thats not allowed. It's just not true. We have people saying Poole cheated yesterday, well no they didn't. but it's Poole and people dont like them so they cry foul. Weirdly, when Poole did cheat last year (had riders in reserve and the 1-5 the wrong way around) nobody seemed to give a rubbish when I pointed it out.

 

With all due respect, SCB, I cannot be a***** with keeping up with the rules. You mention Poole didn't cheat last night but did last year by naming their side in the wrong order, it is things like this that puts people off, not knowing when averages count, how they count, who can line-up in what position, who can take the nominated race.

 

People who are keyed up on the rules probably think the rules aren't that bad and, as proves in your case, can even tell you how many pages of the rule book the important rules take up!

 

I don't want to be likened to The Comic Guy out of The Simpsons, not saying I'm putting you in this bracket, SCB, but (and I'd been a fan of 30 years at the time) somebody asked me at a match once "Can they introduce a Golden Double now?" and I didn't know the answer, I knew my fingertips were losing their grip on my hailing interest in speedway and its magic-slate rules.

[BWitcher]

 

 

With all due respect, SCB, I cannot be a***** with keeping up with the rules. You mention Poole didn't cheat last night but did last year by naming their side in the wrong order, it is things like this that puts people off, not knowing when averages count, how they count, who can line-up in what position, who can take the nominated race.

 

People who are keyed up on the rules probably think the rules aren't that bad and, as proves in your case, can even tell you how many pages of the rule book the important rules take up!

 

I don't want to be likened to The Comic Guy out of The Simpsons, not saying I'm putting you in this bracket, SCB, but (and I'd been a fan of 30 years at the time) somebody asked me at a match once "Can they introduce a Golden Double now?" and I didn't know the answer, I knew my fingertips were losing their grip on my hailing interest in speedway and its magic-slate rules.

 

With respect, that's hardly a difficult question to answer is it.

 

All sports have rules and many are far more complicated than in speedway. Do you think most fans who watch F1 know all the rules and regulations? Most fans won't even know half the rules that are in football!

[T.N.T.]

Most fans won't even know half the rules that are in football!

 

There are no RULES in football ...... they only have LAWS

Edited August 1, 2013 by T.N.T.

[moxey63]

BWitcher - How many times has speedway fiddled with its rules, say, over the past 30 years? Now, and see where I'm coming from here, how many times have serious sport messed around with their rules - football, tennis, rugby, even snakes and ladders.

 

A sport is only taken as serious as its rules, and when you can bend them that sport stands up like a cheap Christmas card on top of a warm television set.

[BWitcher]

BWitcher - How many times has speedway fiddled with its rules, say, over the past 30 years? Now, and see where I'm coming from here, how many times have serious sport messed around with their rules - football, tennis, rugby, even snakes and ladders.

 

A sport is only taken as serious as its rules, and when you can bend them that sport stands up like a cheap Christmas card on top of a warm television set.

 

They've changed them more than you think.

 

Don't get me wrong Moxey, the sport has a major issue with the manipulation of the rules. My point is that they not all that complicated.

Edited August 1, 2013 by BWitcher

[moxey63]

Posters on here always compare speedway and football, which are worlds apart from each other. Speedway should be compared to.... It's A Knockout... which is the first thing that came to my mind... and then wrestling.

 

Speedway has so many rules... and most of them can be bent to suit whatever team wishes to do so.

 

They've changed them more than you think.

 

Go on then, enlighten us. I must have had my head buried in the speedway rulebook to miss them.

 

One example... I watched Wimbledon tennis the other week and still knew the rules, which I think they used 30 years ago. Don't recall thinking... gee, they brought in a new rule since the last set.

[BWitcher]

Funnily enough my Dad watched a speedway match with me on TV last night. He understood the rules quite clearly too and hasn't watched in years.

 

Tell me about the challenge system used in Tennis 30 years ago Moxey, how did that work?

 

Speedway doesn't have 'so many rules' either. Other sports have far lengthier rule books, but the majority of supporters aren't particularly concerned with studying them in fine detail. In saying that, the majority of speedway fans likely aren't either, it's a small minority of us 'statto' types on here that pull up the rulebook all the time.

Edited August 1, 2013 by BWitcher

[rob tatum]

Rules laws whatever they are called they are too complicated ,change every year and let's face it don't need to be. I reckon anyone with an ounce of common sense could set out some let's say LAWS that even a child could understand at the moment you need to be either a professor of speedway rules or just a professor. I am neither of these I am just a fan of 41 yrs who has watched the sport slowly disappearing up its own over regulated silencer.

[mickthemuppet]

Posters on here always compare speedway and football, which are worlds apart from each other. Speedway should be compared to.... It's A Knockout... which is the first thing that came to my mind... and then wrestling.

 

Speedway has so many rules... and most of them can be bent to suit whatever team wishes to do so.

 

 

 

Go on then, enlighten us. I must have had my head buried in the speedway rulebook to miss them.

 

One example... I watched Wimbledon tennis the other week and still knew the rules, which I think they used 30 years ago. Don't recall thinking... gee, they brought in a new rule since the last set.

Thats because you know nothing about Tennis . There have been masses of rule changes over the last 30 years in Tennis.

[moxey63]

Thats because you know nothing about Tennis . There have been masses of rule changes over the last 30 years in Tennis.

 

Well, I was more confident watching the tennis and following it for two weeks, despite all its rule changes over 30 years, than I ever was in recent times watching speedway. The tennis must have knew I was watching, cos they used what basically were the same one I remembered when Bjorn Borg was at his prime.

 

Now, could a speedway fan who hasn't watched for 30 years renew his interest with the rules that have been introduced since they stood on the terraces in 1983?

 

Thought not.

[Long Eye]

 

Now, could a speedway fan who hasn't watched for 30 years renew his interest with the rules that have been introduced since they stood on the terraces in 1983?

 

Thought not.

 

Many Leicester fans manage to cope with the current rules despite the club closing in 1983 and many not coming back until 2011.

[E I Addio]

BWitcher - How many times has speedway fiddled with its rules, say, over the past 30 years? Now, and see where I'm coming from here, how many times have serious sport messed around with their rules - football, tennis, rugby, even snakes and ladders.

 

A sport is only taken as serious as its rules, and when you can bend them that sport stands up like a cheap Christmas card on top of a warm television set.

 

In the last few days the Ferrari F1 team has been fined for a breach of the rules, not for the first time. The West Indies Cricket team was fined earlier this year for a slow over rate against Pakistan, something that happened habitually in cricket these days as does attempted ball tampering. Is boxing a serious sport ? It sometimes (including now) has up to 5 different people claiming to be world champion at a given weight. I don't think any of those sports are not taken seriously.

Edited August 1, 2013 by E I Addio

[SCB]

Well, I was more confident watching the tennis and following it for two weeks, despite all its rule changes over 30 years, than I ever was in recent times watching speedway. The tennis must have knew I was watching, cos they used what basically were the same one I remembered when Bjorn Borg was at his prime.

 

Now, could a speedway fan who hasn't watched for 30 years renew his interest with the rules that have been introduced since they stood on the terraces in 1983?

 

Thought not.

In fairness, to watch speedway all you need to know is 15 heats, 4 laps. 3-2-10 points unless there is a TR. Team manager picks 2 rider for heat 15.

 

Points limits and guests are extra that you can, if you need to, cope without.