ITEM: I like a home win for the Bees as much as any Brandon regular but there are times when you have to wonder whether it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. What am I talking about? On June 21st the reigning Elite League champions - the Swindon Robins - are in town but as things currently stand they may be missing all seven riders. Now I'm sure Mssrs Patchett & Rossiter could put together a team of 6 guests (and R/R) that would stand a very good chance of earning some points at Brandon, even allowing for events going on elsewhere, but would it really be a contest? It's a tricky one.
I've written in the past few weeks about how fixtures should be sacrosanct, and that - as long as an adequate replacement under the regulations is permitted - teams should adhere to the fixture list whenever possible. And, as I said, against a rag-tag team of guests the Bees should easily take the points. But we wouldn't be facing anything near a Swindon Robins team, and at the only time they're programmed to ride at Brandon to boot.
So what are the options? If you were to go down he route of postponing the meeting (which, again, I'm torn on), finding another Friday to host the meeting would be best. However, with Coventry operating National League this season in addition to the Elite League, there are no available Fridays until August 30th. This could be doable, of course, but leaves little wiggle room for rain-offs later in the season.
Another option would be to switch the fixture with another EL side, one who haven't go to so many riders involved in the World Championships. King's Lynn is probably the best option here of the teams still to race at Brandon, but they were in town only last Friday. Poole are the next best option, and if were Mr Horton and Mr Patchett I'd be on the 'phone to Mr Ford, trying to sort something out a.s.a.p.
Of course, it may be that the Bees, who will be missing Krzysztof Kasprzak themselves, may want to offset that by facing a weakened side. There's no shame in that - the fixture list will always throw up occasions when the visitors (or hosts) are weakened for one reason or another - but you do wonder what effect it might have on the crowd. Having said that, depending on what guests were booked, and if a few local favourites were included in their number (Harris, Schlein, etc), the attendance might stand up quite well. It's a lottery, though.
If it were my decision I'd try and switch the fixtures but if that were not possible I'd insist on it going ahead. This season has seen too many suspicious and convenient postponements already, and to add another to that list would be foolhardy.
ITEM: I've been looking through the Polish statistics for this season so far. Don't judge me, I had some time on my hands and was curious. Regardless of the actual ins and outs - Woffinden and Iversen are the top performers in the EkstraLiga and Piotr Swist is still going strong in II.Liga, if you're interested - one thing that impressed me was the dedication to tracking two homegrown youngsters at reserve in every team.
The young Poles - under twenty one years of age at the start of the season - stay at reserve for the whole campaign, no matter their average, and finding the right one can prove to be a match winner. Piotr Pawlicki and Patryk Dudek, who can mix it with the best in the EkstraLiga, are in that position, and are racking up vital points for their sides, who are riding high in the league.
Could this work in British speedway? Well, obviously it could - we do have enough riders to fill those positions - but is it something that would not leave the fans shortchanged with unbalanced sides producing processional and strung-out racing? I'd say, yes, with a few caveats.
We couldn't do it now, absolutely, as of tomorrow. Not two under-21s in each of the 23 senior teams. The Elite League sides would be carrying dead weight, with only a handful of riders of that age anywhere near the ability to no get shown up, meeting after meeting. In the PL, there are more who could mix it with the major body of riders in that league, but probably still not enough right now, although there are some riders making huge gains in the NL this season.
What I'd argue should be done is that, from next season, all EL teams have to field at least two ACU license holders (eligible to ride for TeamGB), one of which must be under-25. In the PL, the same, except that one rider must be under-23. Then, each season, drop that age down, and increase the number of ACU license holders. Hey, presto, you've got yourself a path for your homegrown youth to progress into senior racing!
Like so much of what I write about what should happen, and how it would benefit British speedway, it's a pipe dream. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas, and promoters interested in the very short term don't, by and large, like to introduce restrictions on their team building. Still, there's everything to gain from doing it, if introduced slowly and steadily, and very little to lose. Back the Brits, FFS.
ITEM: So last night saw the dawn of a new era in world speedway and it was... a bit of a mess.
OneSport are a sports marketing firm from Poland. This season they've pumped money - and found commercial partners to pump money - into promoting speedway on the continent, largely with an eye of earning the same kind of riches that BSI leech out of our sport. Their main project is raising the profile of the European Championships, drawing in several high profile Grand Prix riders, no doubt to the chagrin of BSI, but they've also dipped their toe into reviving the World Pairs, last seen in 1993.
The Pairs ceased to exist when it was folded into the World Team Cup, adding a reserve rider to the competing duos, before that competition expanded back to five, and now four, riders once more. The UEM, now calling themselves FIM-Europe, who are responsible for operating the European Championships, have run a Pairs competition since 2004, dominated by the Czechs, and so the format is one still familiar on a big stage in eastern Europe.
Last night's event, held at Torun and in association with the Polish federation, was an attempt to widen the event to include the top riders so often missing from the UEM event, and saw no less than 9 Grand Prix riders taking part (and would have been 11 but for injury) from the 21 programmed places, but was beset by problems for some of the nations in actually getting a 3-man team together. Sweden lost Fredrik Lindgren to British commitments, while Denmark missed out on Nicki Pedersen (to injury) and Niels-Kristian Iversen (apathy), and could only field two riders,as could the USA. Worst of all was the Czech team, which lost Lukas Dryml, again to British league action, and was forced to employ the services of Matej Zagar, a Slovenian, as its senior rider. Needless to say, this took some of the shine off the esteem of the competition.
It didn't help that they chose to hold he meeting on the same night as a round of the World Longtrack Grands Prix, a World Championship qualifying meeting, the Scandinavian final of the European under-21 championship, and an Elite League meeting in the UK. With so many other events taking place, it was always going to be difficult to field the top riders for each nation.
You may have noticed I made no mention of a British team entering the event, and that's not because they finished an embarrassing last, but because they didn't enter. It would have difficult to find three riders to take part at any rate, with Woffinden injured, Harris & Kennett riding in Austria, and Nicholls retired from TeamGB. Danny King, you'd presume, would have been available, but Ben Barker, Lewis Bridger and Craig Cook were all riding in the Premier League. Probably best we didn't, eh?
As for why the British didn't send a team, the truth probably lies in not wanting to support yet another organisation existing solely to damage their own business. I give the BSPA a lot of stick (and rightly so) on the blog, but I can support their decision here. The Grands Prix have already made a mess of British speedway's calendar, with nothing coming back to the clubs in return but disruption, and to support another BSI in doing the same would be suicide, both financial and actual. No, let them do what they want on the continent, but hold fast to what's best for British speedway, thank you very much!
It remains to be seen how OneSport will fare in the long run. I can see a battle with BSI on the horizon, with BSI (probably quite rightly) making noises towards the FIM over "their" riders competing for a rival organisation. How the FIM approaches this issue will decide more than just the prospects of two rival marketeers - with the PZM so firmly in bed with OneSport, and Poland still the money tree of world speedway, there may be more at stake than you think.
How nice, for a change, to have some trouble brewing that's not of our own making...
ITEM: Delays, eh? What do you do about them? It's been a bit of a theme these past few days, with meetings taking far longer than hey should do, although - as always - there are mitigating circumstances in every case.
Whether it's Coventry with remedial track work, Stoke with problems with visibility caused by a low Sun, or Eastbourne and a lengthy injury delay, three meetings these past few days just about reached the 3-hour mark - far too long for 15 heats of speedway, even on a pleasant spring evening.
With Coventry the delay seemed all the more worse, because of a delay to the already-late-enough 8pm start, and that could easily be allayed in future by switching to 7.30pm, like most every other sporting event that takes place with an evening start time. The 8pm is there because Colin Pratt grew up around Hackney speedway - "Make It A Date, Friday At 8" - but there is little good reason to continue, other than to give tardy workers more time to eat their dinners!
No track has perfected the "between races" entertainment game, and I'm not even going to begin to suggest how that particular problem might be solved, but the new potential supporter I took to Brandon on Friday was initially impressed by how speedily things ran, until the bizarre sight of a dozen men standing around doing nothing while Danny King directed the track repair took place, at any rate.
This is the key, of course - make sure he attention is focused directly on the action on the track, and quite how that can be ensured is the question for the ages. Intermediary races? Referees being quick on the 2-minute buzzer? Naked cartwheels from the start girls? I don't have the answers. But it is something, unlike the lack of big name riders or the weather, that promoters can solve. Ideas on a postcard to your local track...
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