ITEM: Regular readers will know that my default position is that there's plenty wrong with British speedway. Not a week goes by when I don't point out some inconsistency or foolishness, holding the sport back and damaging its already shaky credibility even further. I know I'm not alone - social media and fan forums are full of it, too - and the general picture can sometimes be a bit gloomy.
But you know what? What we have is still pretty good. There are thirty-three tracks staging speedway in the UK, more than in any other country in Europe or the rest of the world. We have three 15-heat leagues, with thirty-three clubs racing - again, more than any other country in the world - and two "junior" leagues, with another thirteen teams taking part. Add to this a steadily-improving youth championship, and a thriving amateur scene, and - numbers-wise, at least - speedway's in pretty good shape in the UK.
Quality-wise, we have the world champion racing in the UK, and he will line-up in upwards of thirty meetings - we will see him more times than fans in any other nation. He is joined by six other GP stars, five of them in the current top ten, and four riders from the 2012 series. Further to that, many of the riders on show in the Speedway World Cup who are not currently riding in the GP series also ply their trade in the Elite League.
While we may not have the strength-in-depth of the Polish and Swedish leagues, the racing across our three leagues is often second-to-none, as exciting in the second or third tier as that in the Elite League or the SGP series. The number one sports channel in the country has a weekly show dedicated to the Elite & Premier Leagues, and local radio stations up and down the country present live broadcasts from the tracks. Yes, the national newspapers largely ignore us, but how many other "minority" sports have a weekly magazine of the quality of the Speedway Star?
When it comes down to it, if you are a fan of watching four slightly-unhinged men ride 500cc bikes with no brakes, for four laps around a 300 metre - give or take - dirt track, the UK speedway scene is in rude health. Yes, there are challenges ahead, and financially the picture looks as good as it does for the rest of the country - pretty bad - but we have every reason to be positive about the present and the future of speedway in the UK.
And it's important that we are. Because there are just about enough of us at the moment to ensure we can survive the dips and troughs of this recession, and we can ill afford to lose anyone - or, more importantly, put any potential new fans off attending a meeting. This is what we can do. We can also do the usual of pointing out the stupid stuff those in power do, but don't - whatever you do - let it stop you from going to the track and enjoying your speedway. While it's still there we can change it, once it's gone it's gone forever.
ITEM: Birmingham are bankrupt! Or so a report on a German website said, after interviewing Martin Smolinski last week. Brummies' owner Alan Phillips denied this was the case, although he has been very vocal about the club's money worries over the past week or so.
The source of the Brummies' woes is that old chestnut: not enough people coming through the door to pay for the team they're not coming to watch. Phillips is especially aggrieved because he feels he's given the Birmingham public a team to be proud of - riding high in the league, and half-full of home-grown (English, if not Brummie) riders.
Now, a less-charitable person than I - alright, me - might argue that you really shouldn't be assembling title-challenging sides, especially flying in your reserves from Germany and Italy, if you can't afford it. But, you have to speculate to accumulate, and this is where Phillips is possibly being a little naive.
I'm no businessman but I'm pretty sure that 6 months - or even 18 months, if you start from his initial takeover of the club - is a pretty unrealistic yield time for any investment. Such things are usually realised over a period of years, not months, and especially at a time of economic woes the whole world over. If Phillips has been told that crowds will dramatically increase if he builds a title-challenging side then he has been lied to, as simple as that, another victim of the carny mentality pervading speedway.
A clue to this lies in his questioning of the whereabouts of the 6000 fans who attended Birmingham's opening night six years ago, wondering why they - or a significant potion of them - aren't attending speedway anymore. The simple answer to that is that most of them are attending speedway - Birmingham, as with any new track on their opening night, and especially one so centrally-located, attracted a great deal of curious fans from other clubs. Of the rest, a large chunk would have been curious onlookers who found that speedway wasn't their cup of tea, and more still would have been old Brummies fans wondering where Hans Nielsen or Neil Evitts were, and didn't come back because these new-fangled bikes smelled wrong.
Yes, Birmingham's crowds are disappointing, especially compared to other recent start-ups who seem to have held onto a decent portion of their fans, but the sport is a hard sell in a city with so many other distractions. Add to that the average age of those who do go, the anachronistic nickname, and the awful colour scheme, and Birmingham speedway looks pretty unfashionable. Would you sell a group of teens on an evening surrounded by the older generation, shouting for the custard-yellow "Brummies"? Like I said, hard sell.
So what's to be done? Cutting costs is the obvious answer, which may have an effect on the team's title chances but what's the point of winning the title if you don't get to defend it? Or perhaps the Brummies, as one of the sides following the fashion for two team managers, might dispense with the services of one of them?
Or maybe they could be bold? Instead of moaning in the local paper that the people of Birmingham aren't supporting them, find out why they're not. Faced with an ageing fanbase, let kids in for free until the end of the season - they won't come alone and the entry fees you lose from those who come already must be minimal. Re-brand the team so that there is something cool to attract those kids - perhaps the Birmingham Bulls (only keep the Brummies as part of it because you don't want to upset the oldies)?
I don't know what the future holds for Birmingham speedway anymore than I know what the future holds for the rest of the sport. But I do hope that, even if Phillips isn't able to make it pay, that someone can, on a budget that is sustainable. The Second City needs a speedway team - and so does Liverpool, Leeds, Nottingham, Bristol (but that's a matter for another time) - and it would be a shame that getting your sums badly wrong was the reason they lost it again.
ITEM: I'm not so blindly loyal to my team that I'll defend everything they do, and I've certainly been a critic of Mick Horton in the past. However, every so often, a bubbling cauldron of anger rises in me, and all because some idiots have taken a potshot at the Bees.
This time, however, it was the Storm that were coming in for some flak, over the dropping of Brendan Johnson, in favour of a returning-from-injury Oli Greenwood. "This is a travesty!", they said, "They've got an Australian in their team!". "Poor old Brendan," they opined, "Increases his average and gets dropped for his trouble!".
There's a grain of truth in what they said, of course. Johnson was let go at the expense of Greenwood, who himself was replaced by Robert Branford, the "Australian". However, Branford, - the reigning British under-21 champion - may have been born and bred in Australia, but he has an English mum. He's committed himself to representing Team GB on the world stage (should it ever come to that) and so should, to all intents and purposes, be considered British.
And, yes, Brendan did improve his average - by exactly two points, from 5.25 to 7.25 - but that really doesn't tell the story of his whole season thus far. That average was earned from just four meetings, ad two of those were huge home wins against two of the weakest teams in the competition, Kent & Stoke. Brendan's old average - 5.25 - was earned over a much longer period of time, and is closer to his 2013 all matches average of 5.11. I'm not knocking the lad - he's better than I'll ever be - but the statistics speak for themselves.
Brendan was unfortunate in that Oli Greenwood was ready to resume his racing just as that new average kicked in, and that - realistically - he was the only candidate for Greenwood to replace. Greenwood is younger and averaged higher in 2012 than Johnson, and has been tipped for bigger things by those who know such things. Although disappointing for Johnson, it's a no-brainer for the Storm.
What could have been handled better is the manner of his departure, which I gather - at least from young Brendan - involved him being told he wasn't doing his job. Now whether that's true or not - and that's the beauty of opinion - it's a little harsh to be told so, especially when the alternative (a rider with a little more potential has become available to us) makes much more sense.
What really got my goat was the way Coventry were attacked for their skullduggery against a young British rider. These critics chose to ignore - or maybe have had their heads so far buried up somewhere that they weren't aware - that Coventry presently has more team spots open to British riders than any other club in the UK. Fourteen British riders can get regular rides because of Coventry speedway, and that's without the opportunities presented at the monthly training schools, and forgetting that Brandon is staging the British under-19 championship in September!
Mick Horton made it abundantly clear at the start of the season that the Storm had to be self-financing, a sensible decision given the perilous fortunes of speedway clubs in the 21st century. To this end, it also has to be moderately successful - play-offs or narrowly missing them would be the minimum, I'd argue - and a side to challenge for that position has to be assembled. However, the second caveat of operating the Storm in the National League this season was that it should also provide riders for the future, and so you'll find no Jon Armstrongs or Tony Atkins down Brandon way. This is a team of young racers, with three having graduated from the Midland Development & Northern Junior leagues in the last few months, who may go on to ride for the Bees or other sides at a higher level than they currently race at.
The alternative is that Coventry do not run in the NL because the team loses too much money, and after that why bother with second-halves because the jump would be too large from MDL to EL. Seven team places lost, hundreds of rides a year around a FIM-approved track gone, all because some very vocal hangers-on decided Coventry should stick with an underperforming rider. I think we got this one right.
As for Brendan Johnson, I hope he gets a team place somewhere else. He seems a good lad and isn't the worst rider I've ever seen by a long, long way. He could do a job at Kent, or Stoke, or Buxton, and I imagine all three will be on the 'phone before too long, if he hasn't called them first. Good luck!
ITEM: As if its not bad enough that the travelling circus known as the Speedway Grand Prix series disrupts and feeds off the EL like a fat leech picked up in a swamp by an unwitting backpacker on his first trip away from home, now the GP qualifiers are starting to play havoc with our schedules, too.
This weekend's meetings not only forced several clubs to go short-handed and travel with guests (and saw an outbreak of whinging from the Swindon area on a scale not seen since the magic roundabout was first laid out) but didn't even get completed! Lonigo went off fine, and even gave us an unexpected qualifier in the shape of Vaclav Milik, but Esbjerg was hit by rain.
Denmark has a thing for rain, it seems, at least our equal in unseasonable weather if past meetings - or non-meetings - at Vojens are anything to go by, and so the field assembled for the qualifier has to get together once more, on an unspecified date, and further disrupt our schedules.
The common sense decision would be to stage it this coming Friday, when the world's media, speedway glitterati, and two of the 16 riders involved will be in Denmark already, for the next day's GP at Parken in Copenhagen. But common sense and speedway so seldom go together and no doubt the FIM will be finding a new date which will not inconvenience the Poles but right royally screw with us Brits, like they always do.
Bringing things full circle, this is why - more than ever - we need to stay loyal to what we have in this country, because the international powers-that-be certainly don't give a flying fig for British speedway and have overseen its gradual erosion while protecting the Poles (the Swedes, as usual, have remained neutral, on their Tuesday island) at all costs. Stay loyal, stay true, stay positive, yeah?
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