Wembley World Finals-Len Silver

[norbold]

It seems to me to be the height of arrogance to say that the WORLD championship should be held at Wembley every year. It would be bad enough if Great Britain was the leading speedway nation as it was back in the 50s, but with the rise of Sweden, Denmark and Poland, why should GB have any rights to stage the World Final at all let alone every year?

[cityrebel]

On 08/01/2018 at 7:18 PM, coventry1963 said:

Out of interest, how did Wembley maintain their track when they were in league Speedway? Was it taken up each week between meetings? I remember going to watch Coventry there and the track bends were so flat that the only overtaking that could be achieved was by getting underneath an opponent, no chance of an outside pass. That was also an issue on several world finals as the lack of banking was a real problem and not conducive to racing, whereas the 1981 final track clearly had an outside line available.

In the early 1970's there were very few football matches played at Wembley after the FA Cup Final. The charity shield was not a regular Wembley event when the lions rode there. The league matches in the 70's were not the best racing wise, but the sense of occasion seemed to compensate for that.

 

[Ben91]

The Grand Prix series is best for the sport. The World Champion should be the rider who is consistently the best across the season, there shouldn't be a fluke champion who has a good night.

The sport in this country needs a huge shot in the arm if we are ever to see a GP meeting held at Wembley again as there simply isn't the interest at the moment to make it a viable prospect (without going into the logistics, benefits of Cardiff due to it having a roof etc). Downward slopes can be stopped if caught early, something that happened in 1981 isn't the catalyst for the place British Speedway is in now however.

 

[Hot Shoe]

On 1/8/2018 at 8:19 PM, George Dodds said:

During the 1966 football World Cup one game was played at White City because Wembley's owners weren't prepared to cancel the lucrative Saturday night greyhound meeting for a mere World Cup qualifier - how times have changed!

 

The 1966 World Cup match held at White City was actually on a Friday (15th July) because Friday was a regular Greyhound evening at Wembley. The next evening (Saturday 16th July) England played at Wembley.