Peter Collins In The Star

[iris123]

Practically none of the circumstances that allowed speedway to attract, let's not even say 60,000,but 20,000 don't exist any more.No big inner city stadiums are wanting to stage speedway unless someone offers them big money.Even then the stadiums just don't exist like they did in the good old days.The top riders were banging on the door wanting to ride over in Britain.Not many do now.The British league existed without competition until we had the Swedish problem in the 70s and the competition has grown in strength since then and not just from other speedway countries......if you want to scrutinise the problems speedway find itself in at this moment in time quite a lot stem from what the promoters did back then

[E I Addio]

Overheads still had to be met by promoters of yesteryear and also when the entertainment tax was brought in, the difference now is modern day promoters dont actually promote, they bring in some ludicrous rule ie the T/R or joker open the gate and expect people to flock in, im betting all those that prefer PL as the racing is better would change their minds if the likes of saufutinov and all the other top riders that dont race in the UK were in our league, presently people are being asked to pay elite prices for a premier product, lets not also forget even with 15 heats compared to the 13 of old fans are still short changed as the old second halves now dont exsist, its a simple sport with four riders turning left for 60 seconds, that the sport has gone from 60,000 to under 1,000 for league meetings shows instead of writing off yesteryear as people looking through rose tinted specs theres lessons from that era to be learned today.

 

The era you are talking about, i.e the entertainment tax and crowds of 60,000 is not really the era PC was talking about. For crowds of 60,000 you have to go back to the late 1940's/early 1950's but then what happened ? Within a few years , by the late 1950's the sport had almost died out in this country (far worse than it is today). and was saved not by the worlds best riders (who were already on show), but by the basically amateur Provincial League which brought a regular weekly league programme and a variety of teams.

 

We have been through the T/R and joker argument countless times on this forum and personally I hate the rule but if you abolished it tomorrow you still wouldn't put another few hundred on the average gate of every club nor bring some of them into profit.. Some fans actually like the rule. If that is what it takes to keep TV sponsorship then we have to run with it, that is the unfortunate reality.

 

The main point is that your previous post was based on the statement that the public want to see the worlds best riders but you have provided no evidence that bringing them in would make a significant change to the size of the average gate. We still keep coming back to the fact that we all have our own personal preferences that might possibly add a few here and there or may not but nobody can come up with a viable plan to make a massive difference.

[topaz325]

Well PC probably didnt expect this much attention from the article in the SS but from a guy who has been there and done it (!!) he gets my admiration and thumbs up for the item.

[Vince]

Having the worlds best riders at every meeting wouldn't attract a single newcomer to the sport for the simple reason that unless you already know Speedway you would have no idea who they are.

 

I detest the tactical ride with a vengeance and the world cup joker even more but I don't believe that a single newcomer has been put off by it because they don't know about it.

 

I agree that if riders don't touch the tapes and haven't rolled it should be a good start, I hope never again to see riders allowed to move at the start though. Whichever way you do it makes no difference to newcomers.

 

It's OK harping back to the good old days but they just coincide with whenever you first used to go to Speedway. For some it's the 50's (when the sport was closer to disappearing than it is now) for some the 60's (me, but I can remember some distinctly lacklustre meetings and bad tracks) the 70's, 80's and 90's also get a mention now and again.

 

Truthfully the sport had a small window where it was mainstream, just after the war when people were starved of entertainment and the sport was promoted as (and was) dangerous as well as being available on people's doorstep. It continued to attract national coverage in the press on the back of those few years but eventually that generation disappeared and the interest along with it.

 

To my way of thinking Speedway (along with any other sports) will never again attain that level of coverage so has to be realistic in it's expectations. At the moment that means reducing costs to ensure survival in lean times while taking small steps (like the draft riders) toward future survival. Hopefully in the future it will mean using more up to date marketing methods and producing a product that will appeal to youngsters.

 

Before anybody says that means that I am obviously happy with the way the sport is run now I should say there are many things I believe would help the sport a great deal that aren't done. However as most of those things would mean financial investment and it's neither my money nor do I know the financial standing or restrictions on the majority of clubs then assuming I know better than the people who have those facts would be foolish.

 

As for PC, one of my heroes, fantastic rider and surely as entitled to an opinion as anybody else.

[Humphrey Appleby]

Well PC probably didnt expect this much attention from the article in the SS but from a guy who has been there and done it (!!)

He's been there and done it as a rider, but I don't think as a promoter or administrator which is what counts in this case. I seem to remember he was briefly involved at Belle Vue and Buxton, but whether that was just a 'star' name to help attract investment I don't know. Certainly didn't have the promotional longevity of the likes of John Louis who has done it on both sides of the fence, and who survived in the game as others came and went.

 

I actually do think there are some lessons that can be learned from the past, but competition formats and trivial rules are not really going to make a difference.

Edited December 29, 2013 by Humphrey Appleby

[Jonny the spud]

Wow DAC that was deep. If only I knew what it meant.

[topaz325]

Well what needs to be done.....make the show slicker, prompt start times, less delays (if possible), more advertising (promoting), better music, clean stadiums and toilets would also help......in short dragged up to date....most of which costs money....were all doomed, doomed a tells tha!!

[Tsunami]

Wow DAC that was deep. If only I knew what it meant.

Don't worry Jonny, DAC's contributions do not always mean anything, Check his previous offerings on this thread for a start.

[bellevueace]

Practically none of the circumstances that allowed speedway to attract, let's not even say 60,000,but 20,000 don't exist any more.No big inner city stadiums are wanting to stage speedway unless someone offers them big money.Even then the stadiums just don't exist like they did in the good old days.The top riders were banging on the door wanting to ride over in Britain.Not many do now.The British league existed without competition until we had the Swedish problem in the 70s and the competition has grown in strength since then and not just from other speedway countries......if you want to scrutinise the problems speedway find itself in at this moment in time quite a lot stem from what the promoters did back then

Thats a fair comment as regards to stadia, but lets take Cardiff for example, a huge modern facility in the middle of a major city staging the biggest world speedway event of the season and it barely sells half its capacity, so even if this type of stadia was present in major cities the public interest in the sport is not there. Its no doubt a collection of things, top riders missing, the lack of quality racing in general and also i remember going to the majority of tracks nowadays over 40 years ago, and in that time nothing has changed the stadia are just as i remember them from all that time ago. I agree the most important aspect is what happens on the track but in todays world people do expect more for their hard earned money, take cycling for example, the velodromes are ultra modern will all facilities, they are comfortable, good viewing, multiple outlets etc, speedway in comparison is played out in dirty old stadiums, iffy sound systems at many, terrible viewing (kirky lane) and poor catering facilities along with questionable presentation. The stadia generally has never been upgraded and what was acceptable in the 60,s and 70,s isnt today as potential new fans dont want to be paying good money for such shoddy facilities, the die hards have no problem standing in a field supporting their teams but the sport needs to attract new support, what it offers overall obviously isnt attractive hence the very spartan terracing, its not just speedway though greyhound racing is also struggling. Many of the old stadia still exist swindon, coventry, poole, etc and all had packed crowds. No doubt promoters made mistakes when times were good and not upgrading crumbling facilities was one of them, i know many didnt own the stadiums but that lack of foresight by stadium owners is i feel one of the mistakes made. Promoters today seem to think exposure on sky is the answer to increasing crowds, in reality the tv coverage has not encouraged any increase at the turnstiles, changing racing formulas that worked so sky could always have a last heat decider has been detrimental as we now see with the ludicrous T/R and joker. Hopefully the sport can somehow grow again and become more than the minority interest it is yoday.

 

The era you are talking about, i.e the entertainment tax and crowds of 60,000 is not really the era PC was talking about. For crowds of 60,000 you have to go back to the late 1940's/early 1950's but then what happened ? Within a few years , by the late 1950's the sport had almost died out in this country (far worse than it is today). and was saved not by the worlds best riders (who were already on show), but by the basically amateur Provincial League which brought a regular weekly league programme and a variety of teams.

 

We have been through the T/R and joker argument countless times on this forum and personally I hate the rule but if you abolished it tomorrow you still wouldn't put another few hundred on the average gate of every club nor bring some of them into profit.. Some fans actually like the rule. If that is what it takes to keep TV sponsorship then we have to run with it, that is the unfortunate reality.

 

The main point is that your previous post was based on the statement that the public want to see the worlds best riders but you have provided no evidence that bringing them in would make a significant change to the size of the average gate. We still keep coming back to the fact that we all have our own personal preferences that might possibly add a few here and there or may not but nobody can come up with a viable plan to make a massive difference.

Poole were a big draw because of holder and ward then ward and hancock, promoters try to bring in the GP riders not riding in the UK for early season challenges to give fans a chance to see them and increase their gates, if top riders make no difference at all maybe sky would consider just televising NL meetings? Poole have the best crowds and have two of the best riders in the world leading their team, theres some evidence in there somewhere i think.

[Guest]

Promoters today seem to think exposure on sky is the answer to increasing crowds, in reality the tv coverage has not encouraged any increase at the turnstiles, changing racing formulas that worked so sky could always have a last heat decider has been detrimental as we now see with the ludicrous T/R and joker. Hopefully the sport can somehow grow again and become more than the minority interest it is yoday.

 

I think this really "hits the nail on the head" in regard to the sport in these times.

[bellevueace]

Anyway we all have our own opinions but the one thing we have in common is we love the sport warts and all, lets hope the new season can be the turning point. Happy New Year.

[Ray Stadia]

It is a pity that when Speedway had it's heyday and when Football and Speedway were the popular sports, the 2 sports didn't work together and use the same stadium. I know a few did, have and still do, but most joined up with Greyhound tracks, which I can understand why, due to the shape of the stadium, but Speedway jumped into bed with, perhaps, the wrong bedfellow. All too late now though.

[Guest]

It is a pity that when Speedway had it's heyday and when Football and Speedway were the popular sports, the 2 sports didn't work together and use the same stadium. I know a few did, have and still do, but most joined up with Greyhound tracks, which I can understand why, due to the shape of the stadium, but Speedway jumped into bed with, perhaps, the wrong bedfellow. All too late now though.

 

In speedway's early days didn't greyhound stadiums encourage speedway into its venues. Basically you will find the mindset of football is against sharing with speedway mainly because of the fear of damage to the playing area because of not only bikes running off track on to the football pitch but because of the amount of centre green activity needed for speedway.

And also because of the need in many cases to lift the pitch corners for speedway then have to relay it for the beautiful game?

Edited December 29, 2013 by Guest

[Ray Stadia]

 

In speedway's early days didn't greyhound stadiums encourage speedway into its venues. Basically you will find the mindset of football is against sharing with speedway mainly because of the fear of damage to the playing area because of not only bikes running off track on to the football pitch but because of the amount of centre green activity needed for speedway.

And also because of the need in many cases to lift the pitch corners for speedway then have to relay it for the beautiful game?

I understand why they wouldn't want Speedway now, but may have had a different view all those years ago, when both had good crowds. Agree it has no chance now.

[Humphrey Appleby]

HA is either on a wind up or there really is nobody in. Someone with over 9000 posts on a speedway forum cannot be that badly informed, unless the other 9000 posts where bullshyte as well?

No-one is questioning PC's record (or greatness) as a rider, but I ask again, what promotional or administrative success does he have that raises his views of how the sport should be run above those of anyone else? Would you equally think Wayne Rooney is qualified to run the Premier League because he's good at scoring goals in it?

It is a pity that when Speedway had it's heyday and when Football and Speedway were the popular sports, the 2 sports didn't work together and use the same stadium. I know a few did, have and still do, but most joined up with Greyhound tracks, which I can understand why, due to the shape of the stadium, but Speedway jumped into bed with, perhaps, the wrong bedfellow.

British football stadiums were/are generally not conducive to speedway. Football stadiums tended to evolve in an ad-hoc way, crammed into whatever space was available in towns, which did not lend itself to spacious oval layouts which are in any case poor for viewing field based sports. To get a track around a football pitch generally means it's going to be in the order of 400 metres which isn't ideal for racing or viewing.

 

I suspect football didn't really need speedway anyway.

[iris123]

Thats a fair comment as regards to stadia, but lets take Cardiff for example, a huge modern facility in the middle of a major city staging the biggest world speedway event of the season and it barely sells half its capacity, so even if this type of stadia was present in major cities the public interest in the sport is not there.

For sure it is clear to see that speedway has simply lost it's position of importance in society for a number of reasons.Stadia being one.But imo it was back in the heyday of speedway that the seeds were sown.At that time pretty well no promoter of the sport went out and bought or built a stadium.They were happy to rent from another sport.You take a fairly small football club like Dulwich Hamlet who couldn't have attracted anything near the attendances of the local speedway clubs.But they had a stadium that was decent for the time and when it became delapidated they had something to bargain with,sell off and get a modern,smaller stadium built.If speedway promoters had have had the forethought to do the same i think the sport could be in a better situation now.Ok,a fair number might have just sold the stadium and kept the money......basically as a tenant you don't get the best conditions.Pick of which day you run,all the takings from food and drink etc.If they had have had the forethought back when crowds were on a par with football things might look a little bit better now

It was also about the time of the 60,000 crowds that Sweden started their own speedway league and it was really the head in the sand approach from Britain in the decades that followed that(not only the threat from Sweden,but the FIM and then Poland and the other emerging countries) has produced another big headache for the sport now

[george.m]

in reality the tv coverage has not encouraged any increase at the turnstiles, changing racing formulas that worked so sky could always have a last heat decider has been detrimental as we now see with the ludicrous T/R and joker. Hopefully the sport can somehow grow again and become more than the minority interest it is yoday.

 

You say TV coverage has not had an effect on crowds. If we are to take that point seriously could you show us :

 

1. Where you got the figures from to deduce this? I never knew speedway attendances were published.

2. Where we can see what the forecasted crowd figures without TV are so we can compare these with the actual ones?

 

How else can we tell if TV coverage has had an effect?

 

 

Not referring to you in these points below bellevueace.

 

I cannot understand how some on here think about the general interest in speedway.

You are clearly missing the point.

People viewing speedway is not measured by crowd figures alone.

It is an aggregate of TV audience and crowds.

So in the "good old days", the viewing figure was the aggregate of all the crowd figures in week/month/season.

 

Nowadays we need to add the TV audience to this figure.

Because that is how many people are watching/interested in speedway is measured.

I'm fairly confident, today's total figure is much higher than the "good old days".

 

I'd even go as far as saying the general level of interest in speedway is higher nowadays than in the past.

Shock horror!

How could it not be with all the TV coverage we are now lucky to have?

 

It seems to me the "good old days" are just a mental state of mind of forum members of a certain vintage!

 

Well I have news for those who think the past was better.

 

You've had your "golden years".

For many of us this is our "golden years" .... our "good old days".

And I for one love every minute of going to speedway, smelling it, hearing it.

I love every minute of being able to watch it on two TV channels, sometimes as much as two meetings a week.

So if you don't like it fine.

 

But move over and let the rest of us who have a more positive outlook on life get to the trackside and see the action without you blocking the view and making more noise than four 500cc GM engines!

Edited December 29, 2013 by george.m

[Guest]

 

It seems to me the "good old days" are just a mental state of mind of forum members of a certain vintage!

 

Well I have news for those who think the past was better.

 

You've had your "golden years".

For many of us this is our "golden years" .... our "gold old days".

And I for one love every minute of going to speedway, smelling it, hearing it.

I love every minute of being able to watch it on two TV channels, sometimes as much as two meetings a week.

So if you don't like it fine.

 

 

I wonder how they miscounted the 70,000 crowds at Wembley and West Ham or the 20,000 crowds that went to New Cross and Wimbledon in the immediate post-war seasons from 1946 onwards?

It's amazing to think this never happened but are just figments of older fans who also stood by the sport when it nearly died in the late 1950s were merely part of 'golden years' imagination. I also used to think that Tommy Price was the first English rider to be world champion in 1949. Now I learn it is all a dream.

Oh dear! How the memory can play tricks as one gets older and to learn there were no 'gold old days.'

[george.m]

 

I wonder how they miscounted the 70,000 crowds at Wembley and West Ham or the 20,000 crowds that went to New Cross and Wimbledon in the immediate post-war seasons from 1946 onwards?

It's amazing to think this never happened but are just figments of older fans who also stood by the sport when it nearly died in the late 1950s were merely part of 'golden years' imagination. I also used to think that Tommy Price was the first English rider to be world champion in 1949. Now I learn it is all a dream.

Oh dear! How the memory can play tricks as one gets older and to learn there were no 'gold old days.'

That has absolutely no relevance whatsoever to the points I'm making and you know that fine well!

I'm talking aggregate total "viewing" numbers across the UK.

And, in reference to the original point made by bellevueace, in recent times!

Not individual meetings, not in the 1940s!

 

If you want to continually be negative, pore scorn, and don't have facility of a "Dislike" button as you requested from the mods, at least keep up with the play and stay on topic. Or would that be out of character and too much to ask?

 

Not your memory that's playing tricks!

 

As I said, this is our Golden Years.

Some of us weren't even born then so how could we have been there!

Bully for you!

Let us enjoy our speedway for what it is rather than put everything down!

Edited December 29, 2013 by george.m

[Guest]

 

 

If you want to continually be negative, pore scorn, and don't have facility of a "Dislike" button as you requested from the mods, at least keep up with the play and stay on topic. Or would that be out of character and too much to ask?

 

 

You are a little behind with happenings. I withdrew that "Don't Like' request several days ago. Here's the Link to update yourself:

http://www.speedway-forum.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=75457

I have a negative attitude - not if you read ALL my Posts on the BSF. But then, to cry 'negative' is a trait of some Posters who use that ploy on the BSF when they meet a contradictory opinion to their own.

Debate is about providing when needed an alternative view to a subject. Did you know that? There is often two sides to everything - hopefully in the end reaching a compromise.

Didn't a famous politician once say something akin to: "I don't agree with what he says but will defend to the end his right to say it"?

Edited December 29, 2013 by Guest