Poole 2018

[mikebv]

Kim Jong Un-placed...

Kim Jong Un-derperforming..

Kim Jong Un-der pressure for his place

Kim Jong Un-available, (R Schlein is to Guest)

Edited May 26, 2018 by mikebv

[Aces51]

No need for panic at Poole yet. If you look at the points won v points lost, Poole, Leicester and Belle Vue are the poorest teams at the moment and not much between them.

We have suffered significantly because of the loss of Steve Worrall and having to ride with 3 guests at home last Monday but we are where we are. Plenty of time for things to change for all teams.

[ray c]

17 minutes ago, Aces51 said:

No need for panic at Poole yet. If you look at the points won v points lost, Poole, Leicester and Belle Vue are the poorest teams at the moment and not much between them.

We have suffered significantly because of the loss of Steve Worrall and having to ride with 3 guests at home last Monday but we are where we are. Plenty of time for things to change for all teams.

Could be the closes season for a long time all 8 teams could be battling for playoff places 

[DC2]

37 minutes ago, ray c said:

Could be the closes season for a long time all 8 teams could be battling for playoff places 

 

Seven.

 

[sommelier]

1 hour ago, Starman2006 said:

Wouldnt it be better on consentrating on the Ippo side and what you could have..

Why ? Gavan puts very constructive, knowledgeable posts on here....!

[ray c]

31 minutes ago, sommelier said:

Why ? Gavan puts very constructive, knowledgeable posts on here....!

In which he does

[Starman2006]

1 hour ago, Aces51 said:

No need for panic at Poole yet. If you look at the points won v points lost, Poole, Leicester and Belle Vue are the poorest teams at the moment and not much between them.

We have suffered significantly because of the loss of Steve Worrall and having to ride with 3 guests at home last Monday but we are where we are. Plenty of time for things to change for all teams.

Definately..

[Steve Shovlar]

Several riders you would have thought would have been affordable have priced themselves out of the UK by a fair margin.

Sorry to say we can’t expect to see any top rider coming in. If middle order riders price their value so high, what chance a proper number one?

[Pinny]

The thing is, even the so called top riders i.e Kildemand seem to come in and take the piss. 

The whole of British Speedway is an absolute shambles.

Neither league are as strong as they used to be. Can you imagine a prime Jason Crump or Rickardsson in this so called top flight now? Theyd only lose a race all season when they raced each other!!!

As much as I like Jason Doyle, top bloke and rider and brilliant to watch... can you imagine him topping the EL averages and winning the world title when the likes of Rickardsson, Adams, Crump, prime Pedersen etc were about?

the fact that many teams heatleaders are also heatleaders in the second division underlines what a mess the sport is in.

nobody wants to invest money into it and why should they?

grotty stadiums, a sport stuck in the past with its presentation.... its no wonder the top riders here leave their top gear in Poland and Sweden. They can turn up in the UK on second rate machinery and still earn a wage whilst making a mint on the continent riding their best gear. 

Im a carpenter and if I had two jobs, one paid $100 an hour the other $50 and I had to have a set of tools for each job, id have my top tools on the $100 job and cheaper tools on the $50 an hour job. 

Until money that matches Poland and Sweden appears in the UK somehow then the sport will get worse. 

Doesnt help how the promoters and leaders of the sport are an absolute shower of sh1te either.

[GWC]

Pinny it’s a ‘shambles’ as there is no money in the sport and what little tv money is not enough to attract top riders.

Money rules in Poland and Sweden but from what I see you occasionally get a good race so having teams stuffed with overpaid riders only evens the whole contest out. Racing here isn’t not worse quite the contrary.

UK now hopefully lives within its means and will sustain the sport in the future while we produce our own ‘stars’.

 

[mikebv]

6 minutes ago, Pinny said:

The thing is, even the so called top riders i.e Kildemand seem to come in and take the piss. 

The whole of British Speedway is an absolute shambles.

the fact that many teams heatleaders are also heatleaders in the second division underlines what a mess the sport is in.

nobody wants to invest money into it and why should they?

grotty stadiums, a sport stuck in the past with its presentation.... its no wonder the top riders here leave their top gear in Poland and Sweden. They can turn up in the UK on second rate machinery and still earn a wage whilst making a mint on the continent riding their best gear. 

Im a carpenter and if I had two jobs, one paid $100 an hour the other $50 and I had to have a set of tools for each job, id have my top tools on the $100 job and cheaper tools on the $50 an hour job. 

Until money that matches Poland and Sweden appears in the UK somehow then the sport will get worse. 

 

Spot on...

And to a huge amount of people, (but incredibly not all!), glaringly obvious..

The only way the Sport over here can move forwards is to accept the current operating model and business plan is bollocks and radically and fundamentally change it...

Pay what you can afford to a level of rider willing to commit 100% to British Speedway..

Don't even try and compete with Poland and Sweden as all you will create is, naturally, riders who will give it their best shot but inevitably, save their best for where the real money is..

Whilst at the same time you wil be raising salary expectations from the other six in the team as the No1 salary will set the benchmark.. 

At the moment we have a race to the bottom..

And nobody wins that...

[GWC]

3 minutes ago, mikebv said:

Spot on...

And to a huge amount of people, (but incredibly not all!), glaringly obvious..

The only way the Sport over here can move forwards is to accept the current operating model and business plan is bollocks and radically and fundamentally change it...

Pay what you can afford to a level of rider willing to commit 100% to British Speedway..

Don't even try and compete with Poland and Sweden as all you will create is, naturally, riders who will give it their best shot but inevitably, save their best for where the real money is..

Whilst at the same time you wil be raising salary expectations from the other six in the team as the No1 salary will set the benchmark.. 

At the moment we have a race to the bottom..

And nobody wins that...

So what alternative plan would you propose?

And your budget is a quarter of Poland and Sweden (probably)

[Arthur54]

2 hours ago, sommelier said:

Why ? Gavan puts very constructive, knowledgeable posts on here....!

I'm convinced he's got a soft spot for Poole, not a sign of him on the Ipswich threads with his in-depth statistics of riders

[mikebv]

46 minutes ago, GWC said:

So what alternative plan would you propose?

And your budget is a quarter of Poland and Sweden (probably)

Run the sport at a level to what is affordable through the income it generates.

Delivered by a price point that reflects its current position within its Sporting peer group, (rather than a price point agreed upon just to try and desperately cover unsustainable running costs)..

On nights/afternoons you can attract most locals to visit you..

The World Champion, Jason Doyle, could walk through the centre of Manchester today and 10,000 people will walk past him without the slightest inkling of who is his..

Therefore trying to sell a Speedway meeting in Manchester (for a minimum £18), with the main thrust of your advertising that Doyle is there isn't going to encourage many takers..

Time for the Sport (in Britain) to go back to year zero, unravel all the myriad of reasons told to those who run the sport by the many who no longer attend, and start again...

Seven man teams? Six man teams? Five man teams? One League? Two Leagues? Three Leagues?  Four Leagues? National or Regional? Maybe even No Leagues?!

Agree a structure that provides clear aspirational movement between levels for riders and teams, and bring in clear unambiguous rules and regulations that all supporters get to see and have explained to them.. 

In short. Bring credibility and integrity. Deliver a price point that perceives value for money but covers costs, and a level of racing that delivers four riders per race of fairly similar capabilty, that are 100% committed to British Speedway...

If that doesn't work then give up...

But we are a long, long way short of that vision at the moment..

[Starman2006]

15 minutes ago, Arthur54 said:

I'm convinced he's got a soft spot for Poole, not a sign of him on the Ipswich threads with his in-depth statistics of riders

There you go Arthur. Thank you.. Yeh, i think he's a closit poole fan,  it seems many are on here. They all want us to win the league really, so they can all congratulate us...I mean, why would they want to talk about  our club and not there own..

[STEVEHOLS54]

1 hour ago, GWC said:

So what alternative plan would you propose?

And your budget is a quarter of Poland and Sweden (probably)

I personally think it is heading towards one big league with perhaps some regional breakdown but with the top group of teams in each regional league then going into some kind of play off situation. Just a thought.

This fixed day thing is probably killing crowds with some teams and we are already seeing the monkeying around with those clubs choosing to ride on Wed.  A prime example being KL with both Lambert and NKI missing matches as the Danes get priority on a Wed. But lets not kid ourselves - Speedway in Uk is continuing to decline and not helped by the lack of finaccila clout big time compared to POL where they have so much more money and still attract a young crowd plus the more mature.

Something really has to give. The Champ seems to be ok but then its not reliant on the big boys. There must be a way one can combine the two with maybe open racing nights and then those riders who choose to ride here have to choose if they want to fit in with that clubs race nights to minimise fixture loss.

It saddens me when I look at things such as the video of the RH v Swindon meeting where in many parts it looked like one man and his dog in attendence.

We have to accept that with POL/SWE being far away from UK financially - factor in the SGP - plenty of SGP/SEC qualifiers - open meetings in POL - World Team meetings, good quality young riders meetings of all kings incl Euro and World U21  qualifiers and finals - Polish Junior league meetings etc/etc, a lot of these guys get plenty enough meetings without having to fly all the way to UK. Guys like Hans Anderson do it as they know they are in their later years so they will only do POL/SWE/DK/UK as it works financially until they bow out.

If we dont change things then surely only time before some of the top teams start to fold.

[GWC]

I agree Mikebv we should do what Ole Olsen suggested 10 or more years ago and start again.

We may even have missed the boat with that idea as with the rider pool getting smaller each year average riders now command high wages.

I can only see the sport surviving in a semi pro bases with crowd levels as they are and the number of clubs currently running.

Other historical sports like cricket - golf - boxing even dog racing survive off TV money but the GP’s are now hoovering up most of the cash for speedway.

[DunRobin]

22 hours ago, STEVEHOLS54 said:

Let's put things into perspective here.

CH  was dropped only because of the CRAZY BSPA rule which gave likes of Chris a 12.53 GSA. He was never going to achieve anything like that, and based on his VERY in and out form since the Darcy accident and personal relationship split issues at home he was arguably no better than a 7 pointer last s eason. As his real GSA turned out to be while with KL. I am not even convinced he would have scored higher than 8 even if he had rode for Poole. Just look at his results and av in both POL and SWE to  see how he had fallen from grace. His POL team should have been relegated to Nice 1 had it not been for the Laguta drugs case which got his team relegated instead of the rightful wooden spoonists Torun.

He was dropped to give Poole a better chance of having more points throughout the team. Had KK ridden to anywhere near his potential/real av it would not have been a problem.

Let's not get into the KL issue as enough aired on it. He got his ban, served his time and most know the visa issue is more complicated but nobody can talk about it for fear of their posts being removed.I don't know the actual issue but have maybe an idea. Not for this post but is jut another kick in the teeth for Matt on top of the other issues of riders not performing.

On paper Matt had a very attractive team which SHOULD have had all round strength to take some of the pressure off Kurtz who is still finding his way. On paper Spaniak should have been a very strong reserve and Woryna should have been regularly banging in 7/10 per meeting against the quality overall in UK. Sundstrom should have been steady and at least holding his assessed lower GSA at start of the season based on what he could do in POL/SWE. The facts are that none of then did. With also Josh coming up short the problem is evident. Even Killer didnt do it in my eyes (but then his results in POL in 2017 and early 2018 said its own story and his fall from the SGP).

Maybe some Poole fans partly deserve the gloating form others based on how the team was lauded up. You can blame the management as well for that as Poole have always been high profile in how they advertise/play the media on signed riders.

But the forum is there for the lovers/haters and in betweeners when it comes to contributions. Suppose it makes the thing more interesting to have different views even if some of them seem to go out of their way to be antagonistic towards others. The latter we can do without but suppose you cant have it perfect 

I said many years ago that Chris Holder would not stay at the top for long, due to his lifestyle. His choice I know but I think his performances have proved me right. I agree that having Chris Holder in last season on a 12.53 av would have been madness for Poole & Matt Ford made the correct decision there. I honestly believe that if Chris had changed his lifestyle, he would have stayed at the top for longer. Modern sport requires much more attention to fitness, even if you are riding a bike.

[stevebrum]

Just now, DunRobin said:

I said many years ago that Chris Holder would not stay at the top for long, due to his lifestyle. His choice I know but I think his performances have proved me right. I agree that having Chris Holder in last season on a 12.53 av would have been madness for Poole & Matt Ford made the correct decision there. I honestly believe that if Chris had changed his lifestyle, he would have stayed at the top for longer. Modern sport requires much more attention to fitness, even if you are riding a bike.

However on on balance signing KK on an 11 turned out to be even disastrous than anyone thought. Holder would have added more value even on his higher average.

[DunRobin]

2 minutes ago, stevebrum said:

However on on balance signing KK on an 11 turned out to be even disastrous than anyone thought. Holder would have added more value even on his higher average.

Possibly so but they would have lost 1.53 in return & with the averages game, it can effect team choices so much more. Swindon took a gamble & it paid off but if Doyle had been injured earlier in the season, it could have gone totally pear shaped.

Edited May 26, 2018 by DunRobin