Why is it?

[Guest]

Why did British fans suspect some conspiracy when a home rider won a world championship?

The two  main happenings were victories by Jerzy Szczakiel (Poland) and Egon Muller (Germany).

Edited May 8, 2020 by Guest

[The White Knight]

25 minutes ago, gustix said:

Why did British fans suspect some conspiracy when a home rider won a world championship?

The two  main happenings were victories by Jerzy Szczakiel (Poland) and Egon Muller (Germany).

I don't think there was any conspiracy as far as Jerzy Szczakiel was concerned - Mauger fell off thus gifting the Title to Jerzy. A Track accident, that is all in my humble opinion.

[chunky]

18 hours ago, The White Knight said:

I don't think there was any conspiracy as far as Jerzy Szczakiel was concerned - Mauger fell off thus gifting the Title to Jerzy. A Track accident, that is all in my humble opinion.

The problem was, I feel, the ego of British speedway fans at that time. Everyone was so convinced that, in order to be World Champion, you HAD to ride in the British League. The fact that was proven to be incorrect not only shocked people, but caused resentment and suspicion, as there was "no way it could happen".

[iris123]

5 minutes ago, chunky said:

The problem was, I feel, the ego of British speedway fans at that time. Everyone was so convinced that, in order to be World Champion, you HAD to ride in the British League. The fact that was proven to be incorrect not only shocked people, but caused resentment and suspicion, as there was "no way it could happen".

But we had this discussion a couple of weeks back elsewhere. And the feeling also came from Dave Lanning's commentary at the time, with Jerzy. Lanning felt the ref was doing everything in hi power to get a polish champ....as well as what you have said

[chunky]

Just now, iris123 said:

But we had this discussion a couple of weeks back elsewhere. And the feeling also came from Dave Lanning's commentary at the time, with Jerzy. Lanning felt the ref was doing everything in hi power to get a polish champ....as well as what you have said

Dave ALWAYS like to stir things up!

I'm sure you agree, but watching some of the stuff from the 70's, there are so many things you couldn't imagine happening now. Some crazy refereeing decisions, races continuing with bodies sprawled across the track, and as for the starts...

Plus, speedway was a very different beast in Eastern Europe. Look at the reactions to the World Final incidents when Samorodov and Klementiev were excluded.

[Mr Ore]

2 hours ago, chunky said:

The problem was, I feel, the ego of British speedway fans at that time. Everyone was so convinced that, in order to be World Champion, you HAD to ride in the British League. The fact that was proven to be incorrect not only shocked people, but caused resentment and suspicion, as there was "no way it could happen".

There was a statement from Len Silver at the time, saying that Billy Sanders should be awarded the title, because he rode in Britain, whilst Egon didn't. In the words of Dizzy Rascal; Bonkers.  Egon turned up for an indoor meeting at Wembley and was booed by maybe a couple of hundred moronic Brits for no reason at all. Brilliantly he took to the mike and speaking  in perfect English, politely questioned their irrational negativity, which of course none of them had the balls to reply to, before doing a couple of songs with his band to huge applause from the vast majority.  .  

Rambling on ,at a time before making our own way to foreign meetings and saving a fortune, we were on an organised trip with around 4 coaches, stopping for breakfast in Bavaria in the exceedingly early hours. A group of Peterborough fans came over to the table I was sat at with my mate, to ask how we had been given a huge breakfast buffet , while they only had a couple of slices of ham, cheese, and bread each. I suggested that looking at the menu and speaking politely in German to the waiters may have had something to do with it, rather than them shouting, "Here, Adolf, what about a bit of service ?".  Sadly such attitudes  still remain. and in the political field in many cases.   

No doubt these who took the superior attitude then are the same ones who moan now the boot is on the other foot, having done a complete U turn themselves.to become the hard done by. . 

It wasn’t just speedway though where the British arrogance showed. I honestly believed Jimmy Hill’s analysis that German football was slow and boring with no passion, until I saw my first live Bundesliga game between Bayern and HSV, which was stunning and so superior to what our leagues churned out at the time . We then had the allegations of England losing because of cheating foreign teams. Again, having seen Dennis Bergkamp, amongst others, playing in Holland and his attitude to the game immediately ruined by his coaching over here which saw him spend most of his time on the floor.

When cycling was very much a minority sport  it was laughable that the likes of Phil Liggert revered riders as being English speaking as if it implied GB were doing well, didn’t he know that they were probably all English speaking ? Obviously, the top English (speaking) rider at the time; Lance Armstrong, was also the biggest drug taker. Makes you proud to be English (speaking) .

 I don’t think you could top show jumping for the ultimate quasi nationalism from the commentators, one of whom was also an announcer at many big events. When all GB riders had been eliminated the Australians, who had been declared as such earlier, were suddenly also representing the Commonwealth and the Germans/Dutch/Italians etc. Europe, to make it seem we were part of any victory. .  

The ultimate was a jump off between an American and Argentinian, well before the Malvinas conflict, in which the American was announced as, “Riding for the USA and Northern Hemisphere”.  Had the Argentinian won what’s the betting he would have been representing the World to give us a share of the kudos? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chunky]

3 minutes ago, Mr Ore said:

There was a statement from Len Silver at the time, saying that Billy Sanders should be awarded the title, because he rode in Britain, whilst Egon didn't.

It wasn’t just speedway though where the British arrogance showed. 

I didn't want to quote your whole post, but I agree 100%. You sound just like me!

[Mr Ore]

1 minute ago, chunky said:

I didn't want to quote your whole post, but I agree 100%. You sound just like me!

Many thanks.

My only known link with you is that I once played your dad at darts.............................................. and got completely hammered. The start of my downfall.  , although I subsequently have a football cup winners medal and 23 teams darts ones. 

[iris123]

A good spoof was the Only a game programme where they took the p out of the English attitude by doing a commentary of the 1974 World Cup final where the commentator just talked about the English referee Jack Taylor and didn’t mention the foreigners 

[Terry]

20 minutes ago, Mr Ore said:

There was a statement from Len Silver at the time, saying that Billy Sanders should be awarded the title, because he rode in Britain, whilst Egon didn't. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Len said the same thing about Les Collins when Brucie won in 82!

[salty]

And I didn't want to quote your whole post(Mr Ore) but I agree 100%. Nothing worse than the coverage of the Olympics in my book, where coverage of seemingly every event is so GB biased. I sort of understand it but it gets to the point where coverage of events with no GB interest gets forgotten.

Going back to Speedway and the 1983 Final, it's true that British Speedway was in a trough as the country struggled. I seem to recall a lot of comment in the Speedway Star that the 1983 season had been affected by the lack of a World Champion plying their trade and a repeat in 1984 would be another big blow for the domestic product.

Then there were comments like these in Peter Oakes post Norden report. Alongside respect for Egon's achievement there was " he will in the days and weeks ahead be labelled the champ who buckled on the title belt because the track was tailor made for his own particular ability" " there were even pit whispers that HE commanded the interval work". Then Billy Sanders...."I know I'm a better speedway rider than him - how's the sport going to benefit?" and finally Bob Radford "a general feeling.....he isn't the World Champion that Speedway needs"

 

 

[waiheke1]

On 5/9/2020 at 8:47 AM, gustix said:

Why did British fans suspect some conspiracy when a home rider won a world championship?

The two  main happenings were victories by Jerzy Szczakiel (Poland) and Egon Muller (Germany).

In 73. The controversial exclusion of the Russian rider when he clashed with Plech late in the meeting, and the refs decision to make up a rule to award Plech points?

In 83 arguably because, to quote a certain Brit "ole olsen has some of the fastest bikes in the world  and he just passed him like he had a puncture" (may not have recalled the quote exactly). Plus it was an indisputable fact that Egon had unlimited practice laps and that the track was totally different on final day than the previous days practice.

But surely if you want to look for home rider conspiracy, you look at 1982....

That said, there are plenty who say Nielsen in 86 and Ermolenko in 93 only won the title due to a poor refereeing decision, and they weren't home riders...

[Terry]

44 minutes ago, waiheke1 said:

In 73. The controversial exclusion of the Russian rider when he clashed with Plech late in the meeting, and the refs decision to make up a rule to award Plech points?

In 83 arguably because, to quote a certain Brit "ole olsen has some of the fastest bikes in the world  and he just passed him like he had a puncture" (may not have recalled the quote exactly). Plus it was an indisputable fact that Egon had unlimited practice laps and that the track was totally different on final day than the previous days practice.

But surely if you want to look for home rider conspiracy, you look at 1982....

That said, there are plenty who say Nielsen in 86 and Ermolenko in 93 only won the title due to a poor refereeing decision, and they weren't home riders...

I thought it was a terrible decision by the ref not to award Plech the win or at worst a rerun after he was clearly knocked off by the Russian.

Nielsen and Ermolenko should both have been excluded in my eyes in 86 and 93..I still regard Ermolenko as the luckiest world champion ever.

In my opinion Szczakiel and Muller were worthy world champions.

I should add I don't mean when Sam was clearly knocked off by Hans. I mean when he stopped in the rerun and was hit by Hamill. I don't know what the ref was looking at!

Edited May 9, 2020 by Terry

[chunky]

39 minutes ago, Terry said:

I should add I don't mean when Sam was clearly knocked off by Hans. I mean when he stopped in the rerun and was hit by Hamill. I don't know what the ref was looking at!

I don't think you'll find too many out there who would disagree with you...

[waiheke1]

40 minutes ago, Terry said:

I thought it was a terrible decision by the ref not to award Plech the win or at worst a rerun after he was clearly knocked off by the Russian.

 

The rules didn't allow the ref to award the win. Or to award second like he did. 

[chunky]

1 hour ago, waiheke1 said:

That said, there are plenty who say Nielsen in 86 and Ermolenko in 93 only won the title due to a poor refereeing decision, and they weren't home riders...

Don't know if you remember the incident in 2000 (I can't remember what round it was) when Loram lifted and put Rickardsson in the fence. For some unknown reason, Rickardsson was excluded, and ultimately, that had a HUGE impact on the final standings.

[chunky]

3 hours ago, Mr Ore said:

Many thanks.

My only known link with you is that I once played your dad at darts.............................................. and got completely hammered. The start of my downfall.  , although I subsequently have a football cup winners medal and 23 teams darts ones. 

That's cool!  When and where did you play him?

[Terry]

1 minute ago, chunky said:

Don't know if you remember the incident in 2000 (I can't remember what round it was) when Loram lifted and put Rickardsson in the fence. For some unknown reason, Rickardsson was excluded, and ultimately, that had a HUGE impact on the final standings.

It was the second round in Sweden. Mark clearly knocked off Tony and was very lucky not to be excluded. Mark Loram was my favourite rider so obviously I was over the moon when he won the championship. But there's no denying things did go his way that year.

 

[chunky]

1 minute ago, Terry said:

It was the second round in Sweden. Mark clearly knocked off Tony and was very lucky not to be excluded. Mark Loram was my favourite rider so obviously I was over the moon when he won the championship. But there's no denying things did go his way that year.

That's my point. People often concentrate on what happens at the very end, but that really was a defining point.

[Mr Ore]

13 hours ago, chunky said:

That's cool!  When and where did you play him?

Can't remember the actual year or (possibly as it will age me) don't want to) but it was at the Duke of Buckingham in Kingston. Not an official match or anything, just put an initial up, chalk and play,  A really lovely guy, as you know.

Sorry to stay off topic but at a barbecue for residents where I lived at the time, after far too many beers and bottles of wine a neighbour "told" me I was playing in the final league match (last ever for a few years until the team reformed) for his pub team that evening. I could hardly stand up let alone see the board. I was drawn against a guy called Richie in the singles. Yes, it was Mr Gardner who just happened to be World Pairs Champion at the time. I've never been so happy to be beaten in 12 darts to save my own blushes. Another really lovely guy, appreciating that I obviously hadn't come prepared, and offering encouragement.