Anyway, the Brummies want Barker again, and Coventry want Barker, and Coventry - as the club who own his registration - should have the upper hand. Except that Ben Barker, after seemingly agreeing terms with Mick Horton to ride for Coventry in 2013, decided that he now wants to ride for Birmingham. This is a blow to Coventry's team plans, but not unsurmountable, and Barker's off-track activities have left him with few fans at Brandon in any case.
Coventry have refused Birmingham permission to talk to Barker. This may have been the case from the beginninng, or it may have been a recent development. Regardless, as it stands, Birmingham cannot offer Barker a team place for 2013. The next step should be that Barker submits a transfer request, although I would argue that writing to the BSPA and giving ill-advised interviews to the Birmingham press and Speedway Star have done that for him. In which case, the clubs have to agree a fee. If a fee cannot be agreed, the decision goes to a tribunal, a fee is set, and the transfer is completed. All very simple.
Except for one thing - the feeling coming out of Birmingham, and I will stand corrected if I am reading it wrong - is that they cannot afford a transfer fee, and want Barker for another year on the cheap, and are using the rider to get just that. But that's not how it works. If Barker does not want to ride for Coventry, then he does not ride for anyone without Coventry's permission or a transfer fee being paid. In a sport where making the play-offs is worth money, why should Coventry give their rivals an advantage they don't want to concede. It would be madness to do so.
Let's not forget that Mick Horton's bullishness has already handed Birmingham a fantastic number one in Chris Harris, and that - if they play ball - they also stand to get the use of Josh Auty for a season. But, no, the games continue, the Pravda-lite propaganda spews forth, and nothing gets sorted.
Ben Barker and Josh Auty are young British riders. I'd love them to have every opportunity to progress in the sport, even if that isn't with my club, who previously have been very good at just that sort of thing. The ball would seem to be in Birmingham's court - pay up or pipe down.
ITEM: Talking of young British riders, it's good to see that opportunities for riders who've come through the National League are up this year on last year. Joe Jacobs, Adam Ellis, Stefan Nielsen, and Jake Knight have secured places so far, with Ben Reade expected to be added to to the list at Plymouth. Add that to Lewis Blackbird and Ashley Morris, who found team spots halfway through last season, and the rest of the recent crop (the Worrals, Birks, Irving, Newman, etc) and things look to be picking up.
Clubs could do more, of course, and I'm specifically looking at Berwick, Redcar, and Edinburgh here. Plymouth would make the list, too, but their late start earns them a reprieve. Until it is mandatory to include young british riders there are always going to be holdouts, however, and it's disappointing nothing was done at the AGM, but the lambs obviously led the lions on that one.
Things are also looking better in the Elite League, with the percentage of team places going to British riders increasing on last season. Again, it's not enough, but I do get the feeling that the Elite League are keener on legislating for the use of young Brits than their Premier League counterparts. Unfortunately, though, this is one situation where it has to come from the bottom up - hopefully the academy at Lakeside, the training tracks at Northside, Scunthorpe, Iwade, and Lydd, and the various regional Development Leagues will help this come to pass.
Until then, get behind the British lads and, if you can, throw a bit of money their way in sponsorship. A little goes a long way when you're just starting out and you never know what it might achieve.
ITEM: So it's Coventry Storm, then. The name and logo for Coventry's freshman year in the National League had been a closely-guarded secret, probably because they hadn't thought of one, but last week Blayne Scroggins sprang into action and the Storm it is!
Within minutes of the name and logo being released, I found where they'd "borrowed" it from - a high school in Minnesota. This was disingenuous of me, but the reason I went looking is because it seems to be the done thing in speedway, as the following examples show:
Georgia Tech University / Coventry "Bees"
Los Angeles / King's Lynn Stars
Wests / Sheffield Tigers
Still, it's a fair name, and a good logo, and at least they stayed away from using Wasps, or Hornets, or any other "almost the same but slightly different" insect name. Maybe "Swarm" would have been better, but it would have reminded people of a bad Michael Caine movie, and nobody wants that.
I'm looking forward to seeing the National League boys next season, perhaps as much as the Elite League team as it stands. I hope I won't be alone.
ITEM: The 2013 team line-ups for the Polish EkstraLiga were released this week, and were salivated over by some British fans, all too eager to point out how much better their league is than ours.
This is a common theme, of course, but it ignores the realities that the sport facesi n the UK, and the fairytale world they seem to operate in in Poland, where a cavalier attitude towards paying tax and the absolute compliance of the local authorities can be taken for granted. Even so, some riders are owed huge sums - the grass may be greener on the other side, but you still have to mow it.
But you know what? I looked at their teams, and despite being envious of their dedication to using homegrown talent, I saw nothing that attracted me, or that would worry me if I were competing with them. With the possible exceptions of Torun and Gniezno, some sense of financial (and therefore team-strength) reality looks to be biting, and most teams wouldn't look out of place in the Elite League. Indeed, over two legs, I might even fancy some of our sides against theirs!
It's time we stopped knocking what we have. Yes, the people who run the sport in the UK are sometimes not what we would like, and they make stupid decisions that seem baffling to sensible outsiders. But as a product, the Elite League can be speedway at its finest. It can also be horribly dull, but show me a speedway meeting that doesn't have that potential!
It seems strange that, after six months on pointing out all the little (and some not so little!) problems we have in our sport, that I should find myself being so positive about young Brits, Coventry's NL prospects, and British speedway as a whole - I guess it really is Christmas!
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