Jon Cook 24.08.05 (Oxford Speedway)

Jon’s thoughts on speedway & speedway life (from 2005) as they appear in Showered in Shale

JON COOK “began watching as a kid” at the age of thirteen when he was taken to speedway by his dad. He fondly recalls going to Wimbledon (“the jewel in the crown”), along with Reading, Rye House and Cradley Heath, which he fondly recalls as “fantastic” and as a track located among the houses (“it wouldn’t happen now”). Though he’s now nearly forty [in 2005], Jon remains as excited as ever at the build-up to any speedway meeting. He believes that the “build up is always as exciting as the first time you went or the previous time. It’s a very intensive fifteen minutes in two and a half hours; the fastest hours of the week, and the whole thing builds up during the evening. It’s so different from other sports – there’s the noise, the cranking up of the bikes and the butterflies; the theatre of it all, plus it’s very intensive in snippets. These feelings never lessen over time, so you don’t ever think ‘oh here we go again’”. If pushed, Jon feels that the only comparable sport is dogs – “because it has a similar programme with bursts of action, though the difference is that between the races there’s nothing to watch and just boredom, cos there’s no cumulative build up”.

Talk of the uniqueness of speedway sparks Jon’s over-riding anxiety of a gradual decline in public interest, which he believes inevitably means, “there’s unlikely to be twenty tracks existing in ten years time”. The variety and number of speedway stadiums of his youth immediately remind him of the gradual death of the city centre track within the sport, which he views as a result of “health and safety getting their claws in over noise, dust and danger” but also as indicative of part of a general trend away from the concept of community. “Speedway is treading a fine line and carries on okay until someone tries to stop it” and inevitably bring up concerns about noise, dust or spectator safety. The stadiums that he visited as a youth have become defunct or fallen into disrepair. The latest to go the way of all flesh is Wimbledon, “sadly they have to face the facts that the era of speedway in the area is over – like many places the area has changed completely and is no longer the white, working class place that it once was”. There were high hopes among the Elite League promoters that Plough Lane could have become the neutral showpiece stadium for the whole sport, but sadly the reality was that it didn’t fulfil expectations and leaves the search for such a venue still ongoing.

Jon supports the idea of my book [Showered in Shale] and believes that it is a good one, especially if I can manage to capture something about the values of the people and country “through the eyes of sport – it’s a good way to look at England through the perspective of speedway”. For him speedway, like Englishness, is something to take pride in and to be protected; since both share the same values of uniqueness and, in some ways, both are bastions of a particular way of life under threat through the rapidly changing mores of a more disinterested and throwaway society. Jon is keen to stick up for speedway and he passionately believes that we should celebrate our “British values” and he worries that it’s increasingly the case that there’s “no respect left for the country and our history”. He sincerely believes that we should strive to hang onto our values, local communities and traditions. Also that we should take pride in them rather than be apologetic, while we still endeavour to pass them on “down the generations” so that they too can grow up “safe, secure and happy”.

Where Jon lives and where Jon works he views as a redoubt for an English way of life and an outlook on people and their communities that is under pressure within contemporary society by ‘modernising’ outside forces. His involvement in a speedway life is his way of escaping and protecting himself from these rapid changes elsewhere in society and the country (“I’m very fortunate to work in speedway to be able to escape from things in the country that really wind me up!”). He and his family have been part of the Shoreham Beach community for some time and consider themselves fortunate to be part of something that is comparatively cosseted from the dilution of the national values of our culture, as it happens throughout the rest of society. Locally he supports his local traders, schools and neighbours and he’s concerned about the impact on the delicate local eco-system of his community that will be wreaked by the incoming people that the development of the nearby industrial units will attract. When he ventures around the local area in search of sponsorship for the Eagles he’s shocked (“things have gone in such a short space of time”) by the changes he notices in Central Shoreham, Eastbourne and Brighton; which he already knew extremely well from when he ran a contract cleaning business, “I’ve seen all sides of it” from its glamour image to its seedy side.

Jon’s strong desire to maintain and retain the vibrancy of his local community also finds clear expression in the make-up and constituency of the Eastbourne Eagles club, which he characterises as unique, which he characterises as having “an unorthodox look to our speedway” and a make-up that “flies in the face of the average professional team”. He views Eastbourne as the “team of the South East” and as a club that is still strongly tied to and meaningful to the people within its local community. He believes that this is also aided and exemplified by the genuine and old-fashioned team spirit that’s fostered by the predominantly English make-up of the squad. Many modern Elite League teams are composed of a heterogeneous group of riders who just fly in for the day of the meetings (and fly out again), but have little or no real connection to the place. Jon believes its essential to have riders who are local born/based or are part of the community because they live and socialise there. Therefore, it’s still possible for the fans and neighbours to get first hand contact with the performers in everyday community life, particularly since the riders aren’t closeted away in their huge houses with security fences. The heroes you admire at your local track are still part of “real life” and still part of your life. This is also carried on at the track before and after each event, since contact is still highly likely and easy to achieve every week. The Eagles 2005 squad has David Norris who is “really local whereas Dean [Barker] isn’t but appears to be”. Deano lives in Lancing and is very much part of the area. Jon himself was born in Brighton and grew up in nearby Portslade; he believes that if “you can’t have Brit riders then the next best thing are Aussies and New Zealanders” of which the Eagles have Adam Shields and Davey Watt. They both live with their partners in Poole (“which is unfortunate”), while Steen Jensen has a Scottish mother and has often shown himself to be “totally besotted with the Eastbourne scene when he goes down town, where’s he’s loud and proud to be an Eastbourne speedway rider”. Nicki Pedersen is the only real superstar and foreigner with a demanding travel itinerary to match (“wherever he puts his head down during the season is his home for the night”) but, nonetheless, he’s just one of the lads when he’s with the Eagles, mixes in well with the leg pulling team spirit (“[British] humour runs through our pits”) and has absolutely no airs and graces. Jon views Nicki as a special talent and a gentle person “who’s earnings might be right up there with the top sports people but the fans are still able to share a beer with him afterwards or to be in the same room because, like the sport, he’s approachable and you don’t need to be one of the chosen few to get access – like in football for example”. He believes the fact that both Trevor Geer and himself are ex-riders (“I made my debut at the Old Berwick track with Eastbourne”) helps with the understanding of the riders and that this in turn aids team spirit and bonhomie. However, even Eastbourne Speedway has slightly lost the camaraderie gained when they “used to tour together as a team” but, unfortunately, the changed nature of the Elite League means that is no longer the case, since they only ever “go for the night and then return”. Nonetheless, Eastbourne under Jon’s management and promotion still strives to retain the visibility of the riders in the community, their understanding of the local area and the fans and thereby retain the “lovely feel” of the club and the sport of speedway.

Another benefit of a predominantly British or English domiciled team is that, as Nigel Wagstaff pointed out to me about the Eagles, it keeps costs down that otherwise might have to be spent on airfares, hotels and accommodation for foreign based riders. These costs have to be borne by any club that chooses to look outside the UK for its riders, irrespective of whether they ride at reserve or are the team’s best rider. Cost control is also an issue for a team like Eastbourne which finds itself out on a limb in East Sussex, unlike many other Elite League clubs, when it comes to nearby large sized conurbations from which it might attract regular or floating support.

Jon believes that while speedway is a minority sport in this country as a percentage of the total population and, for that matter, when judged against the size of its attendances; it, nonetheless, still engenders strong personal feelings among the fans and enables close links and connections with the performers. To maintain this it’s Jon’s idea to have an open pits policy before every meeting for the general public at Arlington, so the fans can meet the riders in their place of work on a regular basis; though sometimes the riders ”don’t like it” and this level of close interaction can have unintended consequences. Earlier in the season, one fan innocently and in an attempt at encouragement, said to David Norris “good to see that you actually got going [last week]” which was a well-intended point that upset Floppy. However, on balance, Jon views it as “the beauty of the sport where fans have the contact and feel that they can share an opinion”. He also highlights that the down side of this accessibility, particularly because speedway is such a community based sport, is that fans can have the opportunity to take against riders, often for the most minor, innocuous and “personal reasons”. If the fans didn’t have the expectation of being able to interact with the talent, then it is highly unlikely that they could even fall out with a rider because they once ignored them or spoke to them rudely.

Not that Jon is a great fan of interaction when it concerns speedway forums on the Internet. “I don’t tend to look at it, except very occasionally when things have gone well. I’m the promoter and the team manager, so why bother to read about it when I’m the one who has to do it, along with Trevor? Some of the people who give their opinions you wouldn’t take seriously in person, so why bother when they’re in writing?”

Technology has had a big impact on the visibility of the sport and nothing has had greater recent impact than television and the Sky Sports television contract. This season the BSPA had organised a seminar for the promoters about “how to properly present yourselves on the telly” which Jon felt was “strangely timed” given it’s the sixth season of live coverage. However, laudable though the aim of this coaching was, Jon believes that a key reason the Sky programmes have worked in the past is precisely because its “endeared itself to the viewing public by being off the cuff and often cringeable – the still ‘untouched’ and ‘real’ feeling appeals when so many other things are false or scripted”. Jon tries to avoid appearing if possible, but realises that along with the print coverage in the Evening Argus that “people do notice locally more and appreciate what my job is” as well as what the club does and he takes pride in their pride in that. He does wish that people would come along more consistently to watch the Eagles at Arlington; though he believes that their absence is more of a function of “their available free time rather than the importance of the meeting”. The lack of attendances is a problem that the sport has in general, though the lack of new fans coming into the sport is the real concern. Jon affectionately mentions the “eclectic group of fans at Eastbourne speedway”, which he thinks is the case with the diehard supporters round the country, though he also believes that “some of the newer tracks get a better cross section and representation of the general public”. The sport desperately needs to find ways to “appeal to a new group of supporters who don’t usually attend to improve your crowd”. How this might happen is open to debate and no one has yet to find the magic solution. Anything that increases local awareness should be embraced and even rider selection can play a part. For example, he thinks that both Coventry and Wolves missed an opportunity when they failed to sign Antonio Lindback, who might have attracted more new fans within their catchment areas than in the more ‘blue rinse’ area of Poole. Though, in many respects, Jon believes that “speedway has an identity crisis – what is this Team GB nonsense? It’s an English team – the Swedes and the Poles are proud of their country and identity and so should we”.

When it comes to the regulation of the sport there are always lots of theories about what could be changed to make things better. These debates of create more heat than light though Jon thinks that it’s self-evident that there should be an immediate change to ensure that “BSPA rules should ban promoters from betting as they can influence the result”. Apart from that, decisions are taken collectively and should be lived with on that basis, even when these decisions don’t necessarily benefit your team…….

 

Jon Cook RIP

 

LOCKDOWN does strange things to your perception of time, meaning and fun. Previously normal things become unimaginably exotic while small happenings and happenstances stand out like never before. Like it or not, there is more time to reflect and take time to ponder. Of course, last (2020) season, we more-or-less had little or no British speedway to distract us either. Let alone watch live. The only major (senior) event was the national championship. But, thankfully, for those unimpacted by the pandemic and with funds to pay for the access, there were the top tier speedway seasons of Poland and Sweden (albeit badly abridged) to watch with an intensity like never before as well as the chance to enjoy a shorter more compact Speedway World Championships mostly staged in Poland. Though it often flew below our British speedway focussed radars, many other European countries also managed to stage their national championships.

Looking back on it all now, like so many coronavirus era experiences, the edges are slightly blurred by the repetition so, even though it only happened recently, who did what to whom has got a bit lost. Luckily, help is at hand in the form of the new 2020 edition of the Speedway Yearbook whose full colour presentation immediately leaves its traditional monochrome rivals from Methanol Press and the always comprehensive Front Page Books behind.

Last season it was the soon sold-out new big format kid on the block bringing the results and copious carefully constructed, chosen and curated original details in glorious four colour on all the major European speedway events (Speedway Grand Prix, Speedway of Nations, Speedway European Championships, World Under 21 Championships and their qualifiers). Rounded out with extensive meeting-by-meeting race-by-race scorecards for selected top tier leagues (Ekstraliga from Poland and Eliserien from Sweden in 2020), scorecards from Liga 1 in Poland plus a healthy smattering of all the national championships (Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Italy, Poland, Russia, Slovenia and Sweden) and qualifiers, if staged. More-or-less wherever there is sufficient depth in the rider talent pool to hold a serious event (or, even, sometimes, when there is not).

We all know that – for example – there is the odd national and regional difference when it comes to what to include and how to present speedway statistics. For example, in Poland they calculate rider averages on a points per race basis whereas here – in what we like to think of as the home of speedway – we go for a four race cumulative total. It is effectively the same thing in incongruously different numbers. Such minor differences aside, since time immemorial speedway stats have stuck to the basic knitting of scores, riders totals, heat results and race time since time immemorial. These are the vital metrics and parameters of our understanding that flesh out the visual thrills, spills and compelling sights of the on track race action.

Beyond its innate European exoticism, easy-to-read visual appeal, four colour presentation throughout and big format what really makes the Speedway Yearbook compiled and edited by Slovenian Robert Cankar sing are the variety of original ways he assesses each meeting and the visual impact of their presentation. Some of these ways of analysing a speedway meeting are so useful you simultaneously feel they’re always been around and shocked they haven’t been considered before. I haven’t been this excited to get a Speedway Yearbook through my letterbox since last season when the 2019 edition arrived or, of course, when Robert Bamford’s magisterial 2008 Speedway Yearbook arrived. While you may not realise you want or get fully on board with them all, Cankar not only contextualises each meeting with new information but also provides additional ways – both visually and number tabulated – to interpret and understand the oft-overlooked but often relevant minutiae that underpins the spectacle of each meeting.

To mention some of these in not necessarily impact or alphabetical order: we get – start times and actual meeting durations; [net] overtakes (the “passing index”) per rider and meeting; actual start and closing temperatures; graph analysis of such variables as gate performances (in profile across the whole meeting and on average); time speed graphs; rankings (for example, at SGPs) by excitement and fastest events and races. Plus there is a Top 200 Speedway Riders ranking. This is a complex affair involving rider birth signs, inside leg measurements as well as weighting every meeting/point scored according to the strength of the field (“start list”), volume of rides undertaken and the resulting averages. Tapes offences, exclusions and non-finishers are also taken into account (negatively) too. Though not official and also subject to possible methodological query, nevertheless the resulting table effectively ranks and sorts riders across all the speedway leagues to compare them (and also includes their 2019 rank position, if available).

To whet your speedway tastebuds, before further visual improvements in 2020, this is what a small section of the page dedicated to the British FIM Speedway Grand Prix looked like about Cardiff back in the 2019 edition.

 

Oh, and I forget to mention, there are a variety of lustrous full colour photographs – on almost every one of its 144 pages – mostly from Jarek Pabijan but also from various other European speedway photographers including Kristijan Kro, Judy Mackay, Jan Sroubek, John Bo Jensen, Taylor Lanning, Roger Hultgren, Erik Kruse and Jacopo Chiarandini amongst others.

Like any Yearbook, you can dive its pages, pick selected leagues or events, follow your club(s) as well as read chronologically. Different things will stand out to different people. Some of the things that struck me and/or leapt out from this 2020 Speedway Yearbook include:

Masks! This accoutrement for the pandemic era wasn’t yet a thing for some events (Australian Solo Championship), is defied by some on podiums and worn with style and élan by others too. Easily the silliest looking in their (ineffective) transparent masks are Leon Madsen and Grigorij Laguta. Chris Harris wears his camo version with fearful ferocity in France while they say you can house train a dog quicker than some men (like Krzysztof Kasprzak) master the concept of mask use being over their nose as well as mouth.

SGP meetings this season took longer but – because they were staged on proper regularly used tracks throughout the series – featured more overtakes.

Australians took Gold and Bronze (Rory Schlein and Jason Crump) in the British National Championships but neither raced in any of the five Australian Solo Championship rounds; while a Brit (Chris Harris) took bronze in the French national Championships but was fifth at Belle Vue in ours.

Endless track maintenance at four heat intervals (plus before semi-finals and final) supervised by FIM Race Director and expert ‘accidental’ camera-bomber supreme (in the virus enforced trackside absence of Monster Joe Parsons) Phil Morris ensured slowest heat times immediately afterwards at five of the eight SGPs.

The Italian National Championships are a six meeting endurance event starring a whole load of rider surnames that would sound like a delicious meal on any menu.

Robert Lambert is ranked eleven in the Top 200 Riders chart.

The hottest start temperature at any meeting in Europe was held at Leszno (32c) – in Australia it was at Mildura (34c) – and the coldest at Lublin (7c)

The Speedway Yearbook 2020 would look good alone on the bookshelf of any speedway fan.

To order your copy of the Speedway Yearbook 2020 go to the ABC Speedway website.

 

 

SO “farewell” to yet another pathologically dull BSI Chief Executive we barely got to know or notice. Without fanfare or a ceremonial speedway airhorn farewell salute, Steve Gould has suddenly left his job leading the Speedway Grand Prix series barely nine or so months after he joined to replace Torben Olsen. For a long time now there has been more drama and excitement served up in the Chiswick offices of the SGP rights holders BSI than there has been out on the track. It is in Chiswick that BSI boffins invented the miracle of timed qualifiers; crossed the defunct World Pairs competition with It’s a Knockout to create the ridiculously unpopular Speedway of Nations competition; presided over an ongoing but catastrophic collapse in television audiences worldwide and also established a roster of prolix social media channels that contractually can’t show the very SGP & SoN speedway races for which they exclusively hold the rights.

To lose one CEO could be an accident but to lose two CEO’s in under a year looks positively criminally careless. Especially when Steve ‘London 2012 Olympics’ Gould had been brought in to sprinkle “some stardust over the Grand Prix series”. It definitely reveals more than the Lifetime Achievement Trophy for Services to World Championship Speedway Royalties presented in Torun last October (2019) by the FIM – in recognition of BSI’s payments of over £24,937,515 to the FIM –  that sits on his office bookshelf does about the man who hand-picked them both – BSI’s very own Very Senior Vice-President of their innovative but acclaimed Caravans, Trailers & Motorsports Division: Paul Bellamy. Having risen without trace himself, Bellamy is unafraid to appoint chief executives in his own image and is especially drawn to those also prone to get high on their own supply.

And yet, though bracingly anonymous, arguably Mr. Gould is the most successful EVER chief executive at BSI having been informally brought in to initiate a massive but top secret face-saving cost-cutting campaign. Though publicly Gould appeared hopelessly out of his depth; less charismatic than his predecessors Bellamy and Olsen (quite an achievement!); blithely ignorant of the basics of speedway; barely able to read simple pre-prepared anodyne interview soundbites nor able to master the basics of SGP product proposition on offer. In reality, this serial incompetence was a smokescreen that enabled Gould to fly beneath the radar to mastermind his thrillingly inept – and ultimately comprehensively losing – bid for the exclusive rights for the SGP series for 2022-2031. Rather than just fail to declare interest at the outset and suffer severe loss of sports rights agency status and market share, on behalf of parent company IMG BSI’s Gould assembled a brilliantly plausible bid deliberately designed to go ultimately down in a blaze of meh and ‘was that it?’ reaction at the FIM. While a proven track record of failing to execute on their own strategic plans, BSI should have been excluded from the get go but, instead, assembled a masterly bid of such pitiful scale and ambition that it massively drove up the contract bid price of their rivals Eurosport/Discovery Channel to eye-watering almost criminally expensive levels.

Having had twenty years of marking their own strategic plan homework and failing on every key performance metric they set themselves (except when erroneously reported upon by their hand-selected compromised but embedded media boosters) – whether it is capital city centre big stadia venues; big brand name sponsors and commercial break advertisers; global recognition for the sport and its riders; deluxe toilets; burgeoning worldwide television audiences on terrestrial stations – looked at coldly BSI were never going to win any sensibly run bid auction-cum-beauty-contest.

Indeed, BSI Speedway Ltd have so bastardised and devalued speedway in general but also the speedway world championships in particular for sponsors, advertisers and television companies alike that – even before Co-Vid 19 hove into view on the distant horizon – the SGPs survival to the end of this decade in anything approaching its current massively declining format looked seriously unlikely. Doubly so, if ever the present Polish Ekstraliga pipeline of riches that in reality underpins its business model ever begins to financially falter. Unless BSI could get their laughably unfulfilled strategic ambitions from two decades back re-presented as new initiatives and their bid contents presented with a straight face as if meant to be taken seriously by the speedway CEO equivalent of Forrest Gump, then their continued incumbency at the SGP seemed highly likely to ruin both company profitability and whatever remaining vestiges of credibility IMG have in Motorsports if their bid was – despite decades of virtuoso bungling – accidentally successful.

With Olympic Steve ‘Mystery Man’ Gould flying blind at the helm and Bellamy talking drivel while backseat driving, BSI’s covert guaranteed failure mission got accomplished with flying colours. Sadly, despite saving BSI an estimated of £25m in costs over the duration of the next FIM contract and another c.£30m of royalty payments also due from the eventual victor to further swell FIM coffers over the 2022-2031 period, Gould still left BSI by mutual agreement barely minutes after he had been hand-picked and anointed by Paul Bellamy. Once BSI’s traditionally flimsy back office structures and shocking customer experience kicked back in with a vengeance – plus general managerial ineptitude got further cruelly exposed by the virus – Bellamy urgently had to find a sacrificial victim to avoid any blame or any further stains upon an already distressed and severely stained leadership career at the SGP well-known for its broken promises and bungles. The virus continues to see Bellamy caught in the headlights of his trademark executive indecision and stymied like a dying goldfish gasping for air outside its suddenly broken bowl. Indeed, while CoVid continues, seemingly at random it also (slowly) forces BSI Speedway into the delay and/or belated cancellation (at glacial speed) of its various scheduled 2020 SGP series events. These cancellations now include the Cardiff British Speedway Grand Prix cash-cow upon which the whole BSI SGP house of cards ultimately depends for its meaning and profitability.

When the history of the BSI era SGP circus gets written and the World Speedway Truth and Reconciliation Commission identifies and sentences the guilty parties who knowingly ruined British and Swedish Speedway, grateful hosannas will ring forth for Gould along with chants of “Gould. Always believe in your soul. Gould.” Or the more prosaic, “There’s only one Steve Gould! Stevie, Stevie, Stevie Gould”. The name of this soon-to-be hallowed man of integrity – who almost single-handedly managed to save the bare decaying husk of what is left of speedway after the ministrations and nightmare-curse-cum-fever-dreams inflicted upon it by BSI via their barely transmissible and, ultimately, supremely missable de-invigorated SGP world championship series – will live on in glory forever after.

When all is said and done, we are left with brief but glittering memories of Steve Gould walking briefly amongst us. Who, amongst those lucky enough to read it – can really forget Gould launching himself on the unsuspecting SGP world with an all-holds-barred no-depth interview with Paul Burbidge in the pages of the Speedway Star? Or, indeed, how he so pointedly and magnificently called out its culture by parading around the SGP pits with his flies undone throughout? Some sniggered, while others recognised it as the deliberate searing rebuke of BSI management it really was.

There are so many (copyright: Speedway Star) interview Gould-Burbidge highlights they should be published as a book. Meantime here are some of the timeless insights and gems this brilliant masterclass from Steve Gould in shape-shifter magician level mis-direction threw up:

Gould insists BSI Speedway is working hard to expand the sport’s horizons beyond its traditional heartlands in the UK, central Europe and Scandinavia. He said: “Taking the sport to new countries such as Russia is what we’re all about. We are looking to broaden the horizons of the incredible sport speedway already is and take it into new markets where we can showcase our amazing riders and the incredible stories they have to tell. I am a firm believer that the product is a fantastic one in terms of the action on the track. It’s then a case of how we tell the story of that product. You only have to go to Poland [Gould had yet to go there as BSI CEO when this Burbo interview was conducted] and experience the fervent passion and nature of those fans to understand what the potential of the sport could be. That’s not to say we could perhaps achieve that level of fandom across several markets. But that gives me confidence that the product is good enough to take to new markets.”…

Asked if he was confident he could take the SGP series outside Europe, Gould replied: “We are confident we will do that. I wouldn’t put a timeframe on that. But we are always open and very keen to take the series outside Europe. We will engage in any conversations we can to take it back to Oceania or even to the States potentially one day.”…

(C) Speedway Star

The [IMG] business is keen to keep speedway within its vast portfolio of sports, which features everything from tiddlywinks, tennis and golf to World Rallycross and UFC, and Gould believes the [SGP] series can continue to flourish under BSI’s leadership. He said: “I think BSI has proved over the years what we can do. I know the FIM has great confidence in BSI Speedway. There’s a strong desire to continue to promote speedway and take the sport to the next level over the next 10 years. We really believe in the sport and we have taken it from where it was back in 2007 when we acquired the rights to where it is now. BSI has raised the bar within the sport in so many different ways, taking it to several new markets, increasing safety for the riders, introducing technological innovations, or continuously developing the production of the events. Also important is that we have brought the sport to new audiences through digital and social media. The list goes on and on, and that constant pursuit of improvement is really what convinced me this was the place for me.”…

But (no-one ever seriously asks), who next will get chosen as sufficiently independent minded enough to take Paul Bellamy as seriously as he takes himself? In the final dying season and half of the BSI era of “global speedway” (that barely left Europe), whoever it is won’t even half fill Steve Gould’s bargain basement shoes. If they are stand out, they definitely must be unafraid to lead from the front but not parade about with their flies open – the BSI equivalent of a Freemasonry Handshake – in obscure SGP locations. Nothing less than a Chief Executive with the talent, drive and skill to work the long hours required to pretend to want to discover new concepts, fans and sponsors while embracing the challenge of closely mentoring staff is needed to carry on the stunning speedway world championships legacy of Messrs. Postlethwaite, Bellamy, Olsen and Gould.

You are automatically drawn to some people in life. Others find you. Knowing them makes life better and helps you see it anew or for what it really is. The late Gordon ‘Gordie’ Day was a gentle soul with an intense curiosity about life and people. He charmed and was charming. He found everyone and networked effortlessly without fear or favourites (though he had them). Time in his company felt precious and he taught many so much. Lightly. Without ego and show or, often, even without you knowing. If you looked and listened, you could learn (and he aimed to always learn too). He wore his hard-won knowledge and wisdom lightly and – always – retained his wonder and humility. Gordie liked to share his bounty and play nice. He was gracious but down-to-earth. He knew how to choose his words or moment. How to be a man – a gentle man – but, more importantly, how to savour your blessings wherever you found them.

Having touched so many lives, Gordie will be deeply missed by family and friends as well as a vast roster of passing acquaintances. Everyone will have a story. Many will feel blessed to have known or met Gordie. His passing is a huge loss and definitely not just in speedway circles. Rest in Peace Gordie.

From Showered in Shale

Gordon ‘Gordie’ Day arrives shortly afterwards and is a friendly, bearded, middle-aged man who works full time for the club, in an official capacity as their media and PR man. It’s quickly apparent that he’s infectiously enthusiastic about all things Poole, frighteningly knowledgeable about the club and generally has an easy charm that you’d expect from the PR man’s PR man. I’m already chuffed to be welcomed by Poole Speedway as their guest and to be shown the behind the scenes preparations for a race night, never mind to have the added bonus of Gordie’s company and insights.

In additional to his official tasks and duties, Gordie has taken it upon himself to become the custodian of the club’s history and with it has the task to guard, as best as he can, the flame of the club’s success for future generations. Gordie embarked on the marathon task of “recreating an archive of Poole history” because he found many of the “stars of yesteryear” had, what he politely calls, an “imperfect memory of events”. Particularly when you compared their recollections of events to what the records indicate as the reality of what actually took place. Although it’s a slow process, it’s also a labour of love inspired by his devotion to the club since his father first took him to watch Poole at Easter 1951. Subsequently, during his attempt to restore the materials required for this archive, Gordie has discovered the club’s own record keeping and its storage of memorabilia was far from satisfactory, though this set back hasn’t deterred his efforts or determination to succeed.

Gordie is a willing and very capable evangelist for the club, which he claims comes easily to him since, “I’m a Poole man”. He has an intense pride in the club but then that’s because “speedway is to Poole, what football is to the people of Manchester, Madrid or Milan”. It’s a phrase Gordie uses with ease and confidence, which, I imagine, comes from his confidence in its truth as well as the number of times he’s used it before. There is no doubt that the speedway club in Poole is effectively part of the lifeblood of the place and inspires a widespread and enduring fanaticism throughout the area. Gordie proudly relates that the sport is “very big in the town” and many local people are filled with the “Pirates’ Pride and Passion”. Despite this devotion and fanaticism for Poole Speedway, he always finds it “amazing that Poole people still cheer the opposition” but then “care and consideration” are also part of the core values automatically upheld by the vast majority of the club’s loyal fans. These devotees still regularly come in sufficient numbers to worship at their Dorset speedway shrine, around 7,000 in total every fortnight, and are rightly seen as the numerical equals to the regular attendances of their nearby rivals, albeit one with a different sports code, Bournemouth Football Club.

In fact Gordie stresses that as a club, or as part of people’s lives, Poole Speedway club arguably inspires greater love and devotion than the Cherries at Dean Court. To support his claim, Gordie reels off an impressively long litany of achievement and success for Poole, though it’s a huge list of achievements, that Gordie is able to remember and recall with ease. There have been “doubles and trebles” scattered among a rich history of success that includes eleven league titles and three cup-winning seasons.

Poole Speedway club has always been very special to Gordie and has been part of his own life, ever since he “cried so much at the noise” during his first addictive visit in 1951 to Wimborne Road with his father. After that particular day, there has never been any another activity with such enduring significance for his imagination or for his life; there’s never been any doubt that he’d “always want to come back”. Like many others from the area – and I believe in all seriousness – Gordie quietly but earnestly notes, “we’re all in love with the same girl and her name is Poole Speedway!” This love of a lifetime has inspired devotion from a very large number of suitors in the Poole area; I’m sure that Gordie still has rival suitors despite the time, care and attention conscientiously lavished upon her by Gordie over the years!

At the age of 60, it’s his 54th season and enthusiasm remains resolutely undiminished while he carries out his many duties throughout the stadium. It’s a “full-time job” that involves “dealing with sponsors and riders; all the admin of invoicing and contracts as well as [his own speciality] working with the press”. On a race night, these responsibilities revolve around a very strong element of pastoral care for the riders and the various employees of the track. He also has to ensure that the many administrative tasks, that pack the hours that lead up to a race day, all go smoothly. Throughout all this intense activity, Gordy is keen to stress that, “we still like to enjoy ourselves though!” As we wander to the far side of the stadium to try to sort out the exact whereabouts of the key for a locked gate, we briefly pop into his office handily located on the apex of the first bend. Gordy also has to search for a solution that will allow the electronic scoreboards to actually work at tonight’s meeting, since the laptop which contains the required software program to operate them is, unfortunately, absent having “been borrowed” since last week. It’s precisely these unexpected tasks and problems that it’s Gordie’s responsibility to quickly resolve. The required software program isn’t easily or widely available, since it had to be specially commissioned and developed by the club because the complexity of the metrics required, to accurately run a speedway scoreboard and its score system, is very specialised.

The idea that you might answer your own software requirements is symptomatic of the trend, at Wimborne Road, to try to control, wherever possible, your own affairs and destiny. This equally applies to all activities throughout the stadium and includes their own track shop for which they mostly produce and source their own Poole merchandise and memorabilia to sell on these premises. Not only does this enable the club to ensure that they control the quality of the products but that they always manage to maximise the revenues and profits from these activities. An example of this strategy of control and ownership, would be the recent set up of their company, Pirate Videos, to produce their own videos, and latterly DVDs, of all the speedway fixtures run under their auspices at Wimborne Road. Given the importance and popularity of the club within the local area, their aim to retain these revenues and profits is to be admired as sensible business practice and, in the context of the spiralling expenses that afflict the sport generally, makes strategic sense. Particularly so, at a successful club like Poole, with its back-to-back League Championship and Cup victories, because these regular triumphs will have boosted its already healthy weekly attendances and further increased the demand for its Pirates branded merchandise.

Nonetheless, they don’t rest on their laurels at Poole Speedway, so they also have a very proactive relationship with the local media and go to great lengths to ensure that the radio, television and newspapers have all the information they require. This is managed and coordinated by Gordie, to ensure the national and regional media has the appropriate level of access to the riders, management and other club officials. This thereby enables the print and broadcast media to create interesting news pieces or to provide regular insightful comment for their readers, listeners or viewers. It’s a very well-oiled and efficient PR machine, which Gordie professes himself happy with, since it generates a level of coverage that befits its importance and its own view of itself, within the local region and, to a lesser extent, nationally. Not that as a truly professional PR man Gordie ever really rests from his continual search for more avenues and new ways to make Poole Speedway appear fresh and all the more thrilling to his extensive network of contacts. I watch Gordie carry out many last-minute tasks in the blazing hot sunshine as we rush around the grounds of the stadium, while his pride in the club shines through in the wealth of anecdotes and snippets about Poole speedway that pepper his conversation. Speedway is a very broad church and he’s been privileged enough to have met and known a wide variety of its many unique characters, from riders, too numerous to mention, as well as many others that form the great and the good of the sport. Whatever the capacity of their involvement, within Poole Speedway or at other speedway clubs, whether they’re promoters, reporters, fans, mechanics or from the back office staff; at some juncture, Gordie’s path has inevitably crossed with them. Consequently, Gordie has a rich network of people, met throughout the years that he’d consider friends as well as an extensive catalogue of incidents, events and memories to fondly remember or endeavour to recall. Sadly diplomacy and discretion, never mind his job position, dictate that these stories remain confidential!

Whether he talks about notable individuals off the track – from Dave Lanning to Ian Wooldridge (“who lost his hair banging his head on the wooden roof of the old stand”) – or on the track, you really could listen to Gordie for hours. You can readily believe him when he says “I still feel like a little lad when I walk into Poole stadium, particularly as so many of my heroes have ridden here!” Doing the public relations work that he does for the speedway club is “an ideal job that just knocked on my door, one day” and involves the simple proposition of “getting them interested and keeping them interested”. All jobs and sports have their irritations or faults and for Gordie these are the frequent “rule changes” and “guest riders”. Another slight bugbear is that he wishes some other speedway promotions, and their press officers would “take the sport more seriously” (like he does and the Poole promotion does) but, ultimately, he only really feels any anger towards some of the ill-informed “idiots that go on the Internet”. These anonymous people anger him, particularly those whose opinions cause unnecessary damage or who are erroneously given undue importance by others, even when they are not in full possession of the true facts or the complete picture. Gordie prides himself that he goes out of his way to always listen to any of the “7,000 people who come here every fortnight”. He is adamant that he will speak with absolutely anyone who wants to come up and talk about what’s on their mind as well as what concerns, troubles or delights them about the Poole club.

Gordy has seen so much over the years and so believes that, despite the inevitable changes in popularity, personalities and equipment, speedway remains a “macho sport” with the ever-present danger of injury for any of the riders involved. The example that immediately springs to his mind concerns former rider John Davis, whose horrific scars from his career includes the 250 stitches he required after an accident on the track; he then concedes it’s “part and parcel” of the work, “they fall off and get hurt”. Although Gordy is of the school of thought that the riders shouldn’t sit around too long after they’ve claimed on “their insurance” but should always remember “that it’s best to come back quickly”, particularly before the understandable “doubts can set in” the riders’ minds about the possible dangers or long-term advisability of regularly competition in the sport. Most riders do rush back extremely quickly, get back on their bikes and start to race again after an accident, often too early and without proper recovery so, to judge them by their actions, it’s an opinion shared by the majority of modern speedway riders. Ultimately in Gordie’s opinion, when it comes to the speeds generated or the combustible and potentially lethal combination of men and machines “there’s no such thing as a safe safety fence!”

Unable to resolve the scoreboard problem without the laptop, we stroll back out into the bright sunlight. The “weather’s too good for speedway”, Gordie jokingly concedes, before he banters with the catering staff as to whether the club would be better served by an outdoor barbeque tonight, “just imagine it now with the aroma of roasting prawns and meat drifting across the stadium”. After we retreat back to the cool shade of the reception area, Poole co-promoter Mike Golding talks animatedly with Gordie about the match programme for tonight’s fixture, which he was studying intently when we arrived. I’m impressed at the intensity of his interest in this document and the level of attention that he gives to the small but important details that make up its content. He’s not happy with the quality of the photographs that have been included, ”they look really anaemic inside this week”, and though his critical comments were a softly spoken aside I’m sure that they’ll be promptly acted upon, but is the sort of detail that would probably rules the club out of contention in the annual Speedway Star programme awards. This further demonstrates that the professionalism exhibited throughout this speedway organisation starts at the top of the club and doesn’t happen by accident. Their brief conversation is bizarrely interrupted by the arrival of a courier with surprise gifts for Mike, “for all your help at the [Cardiff] GP”. These tokens of esteem are a gift-wrapped bottle of some sort along with an incongruously large bunch of flowers, which Mike quickly puts down as though not to be seen with them. Gordie and I then head off through the large, spacious and glass-fronted home-straight grandstand to investigate the situation in the pits among the Poole riders and mechanics.

Gordie has a word for everyone in the pits, with all the Pirates’ and the Eagles’ riders, staff and mechanics, as this area gradually crowds out with people as they prepare for the rapidly approaching start time. Gordie’s role with his riders appears to be to adopt the role of a benevolent uncle for his charges. In this capacity, he spends considerable time with Poole’s young Polish star rider and heat leader with the very bright dyed blond hair, Krzysztof Kasprzak (KK), mostly to offer reassurances about the accommodation difficulties he experiences when he rides in England. These problems inevitably result from the logistical demands that a gifted riders’ travel schedule will place upon them, their machines and mechanics throughout the period of their career when they ride in the Polish, Swedish and British Leagues as well as the Grand Prix. Krzysztof carries on his family dynasty and destiny, since he has followed in his father Zenon’s footsteps to become a successful rider, albeit in a slightly more complicated era of frequent inter-country air travel that is required in order to fulfil complex race commitments. KK’s schedule for the week has already seen him ride in Poland on Sunday, Coventry on Monday and Sweden on Tuesday before recently arriving this afternoon in Poole. The next week will find him with yet another demanding schedule that involves Poland, England, Sweden, England (for two nights, hurrah), the Czech Republic, Poland and England again. This type of schedule is not at all uncommon for a select cadre of Elite riders throughout the summer months at the height of the season. It’s also something for which they are well rewarded by their various clubs and sponsors as well as being personally cosseted throughout, as much as possible, by all parties who keenly try to protect their investment.

From Poole’s perspective, it’s vital to ensure that they’ve considered every possible aspect of all their riders’ schedules and, in this instance, to ensure that KK arrives on time and as refreshed as possible for every Poole meeting that they expect him to compete in for them. Thereby, with the potential distraction of all these details taken care of, the team will, hopefully, perform to its best abilities without incurring the irksome and unnecessary fines that are inevitably levied when some riders don’t turn up. This is a far from simple task, one that is already fraught with difficulty and anxiety when it applies to just one member of your team but, exponentially much more complicated, when it also applies to three other gifted riders within your team like it does for Poole Speedway. Ryan Sullivan, Bjarne Pedersen and Antonio Lindback all operate in this frequent-flyer realm of demanding inter-country travel schedules and also remain of vital importance to Poole’s chances of success on the track. It’s the type of challenge that other tracks, with less prestigious rosters, would relish. Though it’s no surprise to Gordie that Poole have such a roster of star riders since “everyone wants to ride for Poole” and he knows the club can attract riders with this high level of ability because “it’s easy with the crowds we get”. The present appeal of Poole has been gained under the “shrewd” stewardship of promoters Mike Golding and Matt Ford but another strong influence is the appeal of the chance to work under the expert guidance and tutelage of the England and Poole team manager, Neil ‘Middlo’ Middleditch. Gordie believes that if the club management and facilities are “good enough for the five times world champion Tony Rickardsson”, then they should be even more acceptable for anyone else of lesser abilities!

Back in the realm of the practical realities of speedway life for its riders, Krzysztof finds himself at work in the home side of the pits with his uncle Darek, who is hired by KK to work with him in England. Primarily his role is to be a mechanic, but, also, to be a familiar face and someone with whom KK can speak in Polish without the further difficulties that attempts to communicate in your second or third language can cause on a day-to-day basis. It’s a very sensible approach for the rider’s own mental equilibrium and it definitely benefits Poole, as a team, to have a gifted and contented rider. However, there are still some outstanding logistical concerns about the locally rented house that will be used on the nights that KK intermittently stays in the Poole area. Gordie is taciturn with KK who manages to combine an interesting mix of polite and excitable, along with his broken English, when he outlines the problem. In contrast, Gordie exudes a confident calm as he reassures him that it’ll be easily sorted and that, instead, he should just concentrate on what he does best – his riding. After we walk on, it’s noticeable that KK resumes the impressive display of warm up callisthenics we originally interrupted. This involves sprints up and down the length of the home pits lane before he again continues with his various athletic stretches and bends.

Further down the pit lane Poole’s polite, perfect English speaker and intelligent Swedish reserve, Tobias Johansson, isn’t plagued with such a difficult travel schedule but, instead, has had some problems to adapt to the particular demands that racing on UK tracks requires. In comparison to Sweden, it really doesn’t help that the tracks in the UK are mostly completely different from each other, “it’s a different structure in the UK with tight corners”. The fact that our tracks bear little similarity to the type and shape of the tracks Tobias has grown up with, and learnt to ride on, is a major problem that continues to affect his mental approach and confidence. Consequently, he’s failed to achieve the level of form that he exhibits in Sweden. It’s a situation that worries him and the club. Even more mystifyingly to Tobias, when he thought about and investigated possible explanations for his lacklustre form, are the comparisons he can make with other riders that he regularly beats in Sweden. For example, included in tonight’s opposition for Eastbourne is David Norris, who is a “successful rider in England” but in the Swedish League “he struggles as a reserve with only a three or four point average”. But, for Tobias, the situation is reversed. We leave Tobias to ponder the mystery of it all, just as the flame-haired Poole team manager, Neil ‘Middlo’ Middleditch, arrives to motivate, counsel and manage his riders who are already in the pits to prepare their equipment.

Excitingly I then get to walk round the freshly watered and newly prepared surface of the Poole track in the blazing sunshine with Gordie as he patiently outlines to me that, for most local fans, the Middleditch family represent a “dynasty at Poole”. Neil’s father “rode from 1950 to 1962” before he then went on to manage the team but, throughout, still remained “an absolute gentleman”. Neil also rode for the club that he now manages and is “Poole Speedway through and through”. Gordie would be only too happy to introduce me to Neil later, for a brief word, if there happens to be a temporary and convenient respite in his managerial duties. [Footnote 1 the Poole track surrounds a large centre green with its historic football pitch. It is hallowed turf upon which the famous Middlesbrough footballer and hero, Wilf Mannion, actually played on for Poole Town in 1948. Gordie often delighted ex-World Champion, former Poole rider and committed Middlesbrough fan, Gary Havelock, when he reminded him of this fact.] Gordie patiently explains the weekly difficulty that the management the racing surface of the Poole track creates because of the different drying times that various sections of the track exhibit. The vagaries of the weather and its basic layout regularly combine to ensure that some areas are more difficult to prepare and subsequently ride than other apparently similar sections. This particularly affects those parts of the track prone to shade, such as the third bend where, as we walk round, it’s evidently the wettest. Overall, the Elite League “mostly has good racing surfaces” so, usually, it’s a negligible factor in the perception that speedway is “a hard game” or one that “people pretend to be hard”. Gordie immediately corrects himself, “the job is hard, there’s no need for pretence” since it’s a sport that’s “often raced high on adrenalin”, with riders often getting “uppity, when they stand and shout and scream” but away from all the action “really they’re all pussycats”.

 

From Shale Trek

Another passenger in the car will be a diffident young man who’s stood with our group and turns out to be a reporter from the Speedway Star. “I’m Paul Burbidge”. Anyone who reads the Speedway Star on a regular basis will have seen the Paul Burbidge by-line. It’s increasingly appeared on a diverse range of articles about speedway personalities, clubs and major events. Paul belongs to the new generation of young reporters who bring youthful verve, insight and élan to their writing on the sport. Though he only lives 70 miles from the Isle of Wight, Paul hasn’t previously been to a speedway meeting there. His trip this afternoon and evening to the Challenge Meeting against Bournemouth will form the basis for a subsequent two-page article in the Speedway Star about a trip to what he describes as “British Speedway’s unique outpost”.

When I suggest to Paul that he’s the only one in our group not working for nothing he replies, “Well, sort of …” Paul tries to establish with Roy what attractions he can look forward to on the Island but doesn’t thrill to news there’s a brand new Tesco on the Island. “I’m doing a feature on the logistics of running the Club on the Island. It looks like a massive logistical exercise getting everyone across the Solent to the Stadium. I haven’t been to the Island since I was 10, I think”. Paul covers football as well as speedway but it sounds like speedway is his first love. Apart from his work with the Speedway Star, he also produces reports and articles for the Bournemouth Echo, the Dorset Echo and the Press Association. “I do a bit of football at Portsmouth for them. I get more work if they stay in the Premiership! The Internet has changed a lot of the week’s news. It’s very different nowadays to what it was. We’ve got to move with the times!” Roy’s keen to let us know that he too has embraced new technology, “I use the Internet to sell the advertising boards. I sent two invoices by post and 34 by email.” With an assortment of speedway riders’ vans and various other vehicles just about to be given the signal they can drive onto the ferry, we make our way out to John Bramall’s red Skoda with Roy on his mobile phone still orchestrating yet more administration. Paul has a brief panic about his ticket, (“Did you give me mine?”) Roy remains phlegmatic (“I thought I did”). While we wait for permission to drive on board, Paul gives a brief run through his speedway reporting career. “I’ve been doing it since 2003 really, since the Pirates did the treble!” In recent years Poole have been used to considerable success on the track, large crowds and, of course, from a press point of view, there’s the addition benefit that if you get to deal with the best Press Officer in British Speedway, Gordie Day. Paul treats it a privilege to cover Poole and to work with Mr Day, “He does talk in riddles sometimes but, if you listen long enough, it all falls into place!”….

….Gordie’s keen interest in and love of music isn’t something I previously knew about. “Bournemouth has been a real breeding ground for musicians in this country. I remember when Tony Blackburn was a singer in a band called Tony Blackburn and the Rovers. They were just a Bournemouth band. Shows his sense of humour hasn’t changed at all. I saw Zoot Money and the Big Roll Band with Andy Summers playing lead guitar for them – he’d later go on to gain world fame with The Police. I saw all my heroes at the Winter Gardens. So many people played there or got their big breaks there. Some perfected their skills outside – Ralph McTell and Al Stewart were both buskers in and around Bournemouth during the early 60s. I played for a band called the Stoolpigeons from 1963 to 1965 (they split up in 1966) before leaving to work in London. I played for a number of bands in and around the London until coming back to the Poole area in 1973. The last gig I played was 1989 in Seattle in Washington State. We played quite a few times in America. Phil Katz from Seattle started me and my wife going to America. I played with him. He’s a Professor of Mathematics and his son is a humongous guitarist and works for Disney. I love America. The people are so friendly and there are those beautiful lakes in Seattle. I went there in 1979 and 80 and learnt about Japanese, Vietnamese and Chinese food for the first time. We had a seven-week holiday and it took me months to get used to England again and not being able to go out at 9 o’clock to eat and to eat anything we liked! The music community is just as close as the speedway community.”

From Quantum of Shale

After a walk through the back-straight grandstand bar and disco area towards the pits in search of Poole Press Officer, Gordie Day. He’s widely seen as the best speedway Press Officer in British speedway and sets the standard by which all others are judged (and, unluckily for their clubs, often found wanting). Gordie wears his expertise lightly and, on any race day in Dorset, dashes hither and thither but always has time to have a few thoughtful words with pretty well everyone he encounters. When I find him, typically he’s down the far end of the Poole pits deep in conversation with one of the rider’s mechanics. He gradually works his way along the riders’ bays and then has an animated chat with Poole team manager Neil ‘Middlo’ Middleditch. It appears that everyone at Poole Speedway this afternoon has some form of hand injury since Middlo also has a strapped-up wrist. It turns out his bandage is the result of a mountain bike injury…..

…Gordie returns with the would-be sponsors and their broad smiles tell their own story. Gordie waves them off with a few polite words and pleasantries before he continues his race-day meet and greets with various members of staff and the small knot of Poole fans that have congregated there to wait to have a word with him. After the breeze has been shot, with no time for the grass to grow under his feet, Gordie strides purposefully back across to the centre green and kindly poses for a photograph by one of the tractors parked there. Proud of the club, but offhandedly modest about his own contribution, Gordie takes me on my own track walk. Just to find the time for such a gesture is a mark of the man and it’s a privilege I appreciate, particularly given how many other people he could be with and all the things he has to do. Gordie speaks frankly about some of the current issues facing the sport. “You should ask yourself all sorts of questions. For example, why haven’t BSI been able to get more sponsors with national or internationally known brand names? They were close to getting Vodafone in 2005 – for the Team Speedway idea – but, once they heard that if Antonio Lindback got injured they had no replacement (unlike Formula 1 where they have the car and just get another driver), they walked away! I think when he arrived John Postlethwaite thought he’d become the Bernie Ecclestone of Speedway but, once he got here, he realised there was no money in it! Sunseeker [makers of yachts, sports boats, performance motor-yachts and offshore cruisers] is the biggest company in Poole but they’re not going to sponsor speedway as none of the crowd – the demographic, as they call it now – can afford a yacht! I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but speedway’s dying! Look how many Coventry had [on Sky] the other night! Clubs just can’t survive on these crowds! Look at the crowds and what do you think the average age is? They’re old! Possibly sixty plus, and we’re all going to die. Fuel costs go up, admission prices, food, everything goes up, and the one thing that doesn’t is the pension. Would you come and watch it every week if you had to pay? You have to ask how and why has speedway frittered away the gift of 10 years of prime-time coverage on Sky? It must tell you either something about the appeal of the sport or the people running it or, even, its wider appeal!”

“What’s going to happen with Peterborough? If they go out of business, is promotion and relegation going to work? I don’t think so! We need to adopt the system they have in baseball and football in the US. We should abolish the Elite League and Premier League and just have Northern and Southern Leagues. Then there are local derbies, each league has its own play-offs and the winners of each conference race-off to be overall champions. We also need to get the connection back with the clubs!” I ask whether Gordie means connection for the riders or the fans. “Both! If you look back in the past, the Poole team had five or six riders that would return each year. And some youngsters bubbling under who might, or might not, make it. You pretty well knew who the team would be without having to think about it! Nowadays, the riders change clubs so often we don’t really know the make-up of the team, never mind the fans. When you go to Eastbourne, how many youngsters do you see? Everyone says we have lots of kids, but, they’re brought by their grandparents not their parents. Speedway just isn’t the main entertainment anymore! It is for a few people but they’re not aged between 15 and 30 with lots of disposable income. These people would be the future of the sport! Or the future of whatever they decide to spend their money on. We all love and respect our present fans – they’re our lifeblood – but they’re ageing and times are tough! We’re even struggling here this year and Poole is an essential and integral part of this community! Sure new clubs start and have big crowds in the first flush of enthusiasm, but, where will they be in five years? When Somerset first opened it had 3,000 but now it has 1,000. That is the trend over time – unless speedway reinvents itself as sexy and interesting for the youth and the young adults of today. Presently that just isn’t happening. Look around you, speedway needs to sort itself out sooner rather than later. With the crowds there are nowadays, it can’t support the level of cost. We need the excitement back! We want people to say ‘I really want to see Eastbourne’, not ‘Oh, how many times have they been here this season already!’ No matter what happens, we always do well here at Poole, but we need everyone else to be doing well if the sport as a whole is to survive! We do well because we have high standards. I remember Neil Street telling Jason off when he was winning all his races as a junior (“a good rider would have been under you then”). You have people who are prepared and want to pass on their knowledge. Chris Holder won’t be having his name on the side of the van and thinking he’s made it, ’cause he’ll still have his feet on the ground. When he gets 12, Boycie or someone, will tell him he should have got 14. We know we do well here but if you look around [speedway] you can see things need to change, if we’re all to have a future!”

26 Shades of Shale

Ex-Poole Pirates press officer Gordie Day laments the road that took us to this situation. “We should have walked away from the FIM years ago. I’m sure Bob Dugard would agree if you asked ‘what have the FIM ever done for speedway?’ We should have formed our own association like Formula 1 or the MotoGP. They haven’t got silencers and, if you chat to Boycie, he tells you that the sound of 30 bikes at the start of the MotoGP is unbelievable! You have to remember that the noise at speedway is part of the show! It sounds like they’re doing 80 when really the average is below 50. Think about it? If you stand on the pavement and hear a car go by with an old exhaust, you think they’re doing 70 – when it’s only 35 or 40! Okay, we’re different to the MotoGP because we’re a city centre sport but the noise is still part of our show!”

Photo credit: Bournemouth Echo

MOVE over Krzysztof Kasprzak, there is a new speedway singing sensation on the block – those amazing Swedish newlyweds Carolina Jonasdotter and her speedway rider hubby Fredrik Lindgren. Their loved up cover of Lady Gaga’s ‘Shallow’ has already lit up the speedway musical universe (although – yet again confirming never work with animals or children – the show was nearly stolen by their adorable dachshund).

Surely it is time for the already relentlessly promoted “20th anniversary” (whoops, what an error, after ONLY 19 years since the first one in 2001) Cardiff British Speedway Grand Prix rights-holders BSI to really – finally – do something newsworthy? And real/independent media headline deserving by having Lindgren become the first speedway rider to ride in a Grand Prix after delivering the musical prelude beforehand? Dueting beforehand with wife and business manager Carolina in their tribute band (suggested name: Lady Garbled) would definitely sell tickets and, if Fredrik won, achieve something never done before in speedway and unlikely ever to be beaten either. It would definitely close the BSI SGP era memorably and altogether less humiliatingly having just been rejected by the FIM – for their long track record of badly broken expansion promises – for exclusive SGP rights contract for 2022-2031.

Carolina and Fredrik – along with Rapper Krzy – join a rich tradition of speedway riders seizing their moments in the sun to take to the airwaves or lay down some immortal grooves. Mainly onto vinyl but latterly, of course, straight-to-video mp3s. There are just too many wonderful shale-tastic tunes, songs and sounds – that immediately get your body moving, drag you to the dancefloor or get your throttle hand twitching – to recall.

Here are some brief but truly evocative singing speedway rider highlights to be going on with:

Karl Killmeyer: ‘Speedway Fox’ (1950s) (younger brother of pre-war rider Leopold Killmeyer)

Sammy Tanner: ‘The Flying Flea’ (1959)

Eric Chitty: ‘When I Grow Too Old to Dream’

Reg Luckhurst: ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart’ B-side: ‘Was it Rain?’ (12/03/1971)

Reg Luckhurst: ‘In the Misty Moonlight’ (06/08/1971)

Malcolm Brown (International Speedway Star): ‘No One but You’  (10/1973)

The Rivals*: ‘Speedway’ B-side = ‘Hoskins Still Rides’ (1974)

Aka * Speedway rider Supergroup Bert Harkins, Graeme Stapleton, Peter Collins, Jim McMillan, John Louis, Scott Autrey, Dag Lovaas, Nigel Boocock, Terry Betts, Pete Smith, Martin Ashby, Malcolm Brown & George Hunter

Egon Müller: ‘Rock & Rollin’ Speedway Man’ (03/1977)

Egon Müller & the Speedway Family: ‘Hit Ya Booty’ B-side: ‘Gold Rider’ (12/1977)

John Davis: ‘Speedway Rider’ B-side: ‘Stadium Instrumental’(!!!) (1979)

Peterborough Panthers (with Graham Walker Showband): ‘Aces of the Track’ (70s)

Johny McNeill: ‘I want to be Ivan Mauger’ B-side: ‘No.7, Your Friendly Reserve’ (possibly 1982)

Shawn Moran’s Pit Squad: ‘Motorbikin’’ B-side: ‘Night Circuit’ (12/84)

 

Rye House Speedway: ‘Blast Off with the Rockets’ (date unknown)

Ego Müller: ‘Ein Leben Am Limit’ 2019

Carolina Jonasdotter and Fredrik Lindgren: ‘Shallow’ (14/02/2020)

Miscellaneous not speedway riders but still, possibly, musical joy

Speedway: ‘My Loves Goes Stronger’ (1971) [with particularly satisfying knobbly back wheel full frontal dominating this album cover]

Phil Clarke: ‘Speedway Rider’ (05/05/1978)

The Pastels*: ‘Speedway Star‘ (1991)

Rockin Ronnie: ‘Belle Vue Aces’ (1984) [dedicated to Alan Wilkinson]

If you want to learn much much more about Speedway Grand Prix headline musical acts – from Right Said Fred (Gelsenkirchen) to The Magoos (Cardiff) (fresh from Chris Morton’s Twenty-Fifth Wedding Anniversary celebrations [controversially not held the year before the actual date] when they played their whole incredible set list TWICE!]) via FIM Race Director Phil Morris (Prestatyn Pontins holiday camp^) and that one who won that singing show whose name escapes me (Cardiff), then this is the book for you!

Also whilst it is not a singing record, back in 1974 Tee Mill Promotions produced an LP (complete with booklet with words by Philip Rising) recording the European final at Wembley and World Final at Ullevi.

With thanks to Billy Jenkins, the indispensable Speedway Plus, Mr. S Bear, the speedway hive mind of the British Speedway Forum and the Reverend Michael Whawell…

…please get in touch via the comments or website contact pages with more speedway sounds (or corrections)

^ sadly since deleted from the Phillip William Morris Wikipedia page. The only existing summary of the missing material reads: “Minimal investigation quickly takes anyone to the Morris Wikipedia page. It reads as if written by his alter ego or a VERY close family member and lists his many achievements as well as his numerous post-speedway racing career television appearances on The Weakest Link and
The Colour of Money plus his speciality pub quiz and intelligence-led popular programmes Brainbox Challenge, Are You Smarter than a 10 Year Old? and Eggheads. Space is also found for his karaoke win in Prestatyn that subsequently saw him appear on Channel 5 with Sinetta. As a keen singer and dancer, Morris has also strutted and crooned his stuff in his key role in the Welsh Boyzone tribute band Boyozone. Popular demand has seen them so acclaimed they headlined the Barry Island festival and even re-formed with a different all-star line-up for a one-off by popular demand gigs in Porthcawl…..It’s always a delight to watch whenever Phil relives the athletics promise of his youth (hat tip: Wikipedia) to foot race almost any and every fallen SGP rider, especially younger ones – Greg rarely falls off, nevermind that he definitely never runs nowadays – from the track or centregreen on
their run back to the pits. Notably “fit for his age and fitter than many younger than him”, Morris generously gives them a head start before inevitably he manages to overtake. Morris generously gives them a head start before inevitably he manages to overtake. Sight of Phil (“fairly tall at six foot”) in magnificent full flight signals to us all that his duties are so important and numerous and well-executed that he has to run to do them all. Overtaken riders (or loudly mentored trackstaff) are just collateral damage for the greater good of any SGP show. Inspiration for men in their 40s everywhere, Phil bests the riders on regular basis despite all their personal training, psychology coaching, exercise and nutritional regimes. Mainly because they wear a steel shoe on one foot and Phil doesn’t or that they don’t know they are always racing whether they are off their bike or on it. Apparently unaware that all this running actually suggests the opposite of managerial effectiveness and control, like a thinking man’s Welsh Forrest Gump, Phil runs everywhere. Of course, as Peter Oakes revealed in his Speedway Star column, Phil was a gifted schoolboy sportsman and used to
run for Welsh Schools.”

[apparently some of the detail in this Wikipedia page entry – according to Phil Morris – was a spoof written by the friend (he had authorised to manage his social media) who went rogue. Like with Ernie Wise’s wig, it is often hard to see the join between fiction and reality.]

* The Pastels used to regularly watch the Glasgow Tigers when they raced at at Shawfield (and sponsored David Walsh).

WHENEVER the current circumstances of British Speedway are discussed, you are apparently never more than three minutes away from the suggestion that an independent body is needed to run the sport in the UK to restore it to its rightful and/or former glory. What exactly this will involve is either discussed in painful copious detail or remains airily broad-brush. Certain ‘hooray words’ frequently recur. Mostly “independence” and “leadership”. Preferably of the strong type. Lapsed and existing fans regularly bemoan the (alleged) ills of the current structure and direction of speedway in Britain. They also frequently rail against a system where promoters make, amend or ignore the rules as well as endlessly revise stuttering revival plans while also getting to mark their own homework on the results. Unsurprisingly this system of assessment tends to deny the existence of problems (whether structural or temporary) in favour of celebrating real, ongoing or imaginary triumphs.

If there is consensus on the need for an independent body to make difficult decisions and dictate in authoritarian fashion, its terms, make-up, strategy and leadership remains subject to endless debate and dispute. Those wishing for a vegetarian with extensive speedway knowledge and experience to head things up often tend to mention ex-referee Tony Steele. However, overwhelmingly, time and again people demand that successful sports entrepreneur Barry Hearn is given free rein to work his proven sports revitalisation and revolution magic. “Only Barry Hearn can Save British Speedway” has been said or claimed so often, you could be forgiven for thinking it is a proven fact, legal requirement or a specially written shale flavoured Buddhist mantra to chant at home. Or, better still, outside the bar of the BSPA AGM hotel in protest at imputed inactivity inside. After all, the story goes, Hearn is the man with the contacts, marketing savvy, ego, proven track record and personality big enough to knock riders, fans and promoters heads together. And, thereby (almost magically), wrangle speedway back into its rightful status as part of the national consciousness and national conversation it once notionally enjoyed as its birth right.

After all, Barry Hearn is the sports entrepreneur who took snooker from obscurity to fame – and back there again – as well as made darts the unalloyed joy to watch and talk about nowadays its boosters so often hail. Obviously, we have to set aside any reservations about such comparisons with snooker and darts – not least, both these pastimes aren’t quite proper sports (either) like speedway as well as the dangers of intractable internecine governing body disputes, variable (frequently satellite paid subscription) broadcast coverage and inferior almost no-name brand sponsors – and instead look to the sunlit uplands that speedway supposedly still merits but currently doesn’t have but might gain or start to properly beckon under the mythology of Hearn’s firm hand of authority, leadership and marketing pizzazz.

Until Audible (major audio platform that part of Amazon – last year Michelle Obama’s Becoming was the most downloaded Audible content; in 2018 it was Stephen Fry’s Mythos) made their five-part “Speedway” podcast (available to sample or buy here), no-one had ever to my knowledge – on the record, anyways – asked Barry Hearn for his thoughts and ideas on the state and likely future prospects of British speedway. Podcast researcher, producer and writer Chessie Bent along with acknowledged speedway fan and F1 Presenter Jennie Gow have now righted this wrong to fill this gap in our knowledge.

Bazza Hearn laconically but confidently gives them his take on the possibilities, problems and qualities of speedway: “It doesn’t necessarily need a Barry Hearn, what it needs is someone with my ethics. They have to be passionate about the sport but they have to be business minded. They have to be realistic and they have to graft their nuts off… in those days they were getting good crowds, big crowds at speedway, and I don’t know why the sport is in the demise it currently is. Somewhere along the line, they made a wrong move or didn’t maximise or maybe got complacent. It was easy but now we see a sport that looks to be <sigh> I won’t say it’s terminal decline because they’ll always be hard core pockets of resistance. But would you wanna be a speedway rider? And put your life on the line at all those speeds for nothing? Or for very little? They were household names thirty years ago, famous people, and big crowds at Belle Vue and places like that. People still talk about it and probably because some of the premises are slightly in decline as well they’ve not offered the level of entertainment value today’s consumer wants. And when you couple that all together. Whereas, if something is going higher and higher, it’s quite easy to ride the coattails but it actually works the other way round, it’s really difficult to stop the decline.”

Hearn continues, “motorsports is massive….[so] where did it all go wrong?….the Blazers, while they love the sport, are just not the businessmen of today. If you don’t treat it like a business that’s fine you will still have people who absolutely love it. What’s not fine [is] if that passion is not shared or is not delivered in a package that’s acceptable to today’s consumer [then] that passion is wasted cos you’ll get nowhere…better people than me would have to do market research to say ‘is this a reasonable proposition? Or, are wasting our time?’ It’s a hard decision to take but you either invest or work to take it forward or you give up. What you don’t do is just sit there in a slowly declining market because it’s boring”

Sadly, studying to these responses or reading between the lines, it turns out Barry Hearn appears to be the one person on the planet who thinks speedway can’t be saved by Barry Hearn. Or, possibly, can’t be saved at all. It is hard to say if Hearn’s disinclination to get involved comes from an antipathy towards motorsports, avoiding a thankless impossible task or because there is insufficient margin, time or personal interest for him to be bovvered to consider it further. It definitely isn’t because Hearn hasn’t heard of speedway or doesn’t know enough about it (if he didn’t he could easily find out) but clearly for Barry this speedway parrot wouldn’t zoom even if you put 5000 volts through it.

Other interviewees include: Scott Nicholls| Sophie Blake| Keith Chapman| Paul Bellamy| Chris van Straaten| Steve Park| Mark Webber| Arnie Gibbons| Billy Jenkins| Reverend Michael Whawell| Nigel Pearson| Kelvin Tatum| Joe Parsons| Phil Lanning| Professor Simon Chadwick| Ellie Norman| Krystian Natonski| David Rowe| Bert Harkins| ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton| Dickie Davies|

AWARDING the exclusive rights to for the Speedway Grand Prix and Speedway World Cup (latterly Speedway of Nations) 2001-2021 has been hugely lucrative for the awarding body The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM).

According to various business entities – a veritable alphabet soup of Benfield Sports International Limited, BSI, BSI Speedway (An IMG Company), BSI Speedway Limited, IMG Worldwide Holdings Inc & WME Entertainment Parent LLC – annual company filings at Companies House, these “other commitments” – primarily/effectively royalty payments made to the FIM – are published in those official documents as follows:

2002       £851,152

2003       £778,813

2004       £887,020

2005       n/a

2006       £817,595

2007       £1,042,459

2008       £1,045,940

2009       £1,476,749

2010        £1,415,292

2011         £1,541,739

2012        £1,601,116

2013        £1,567,634

2014        £1,560,450

2015        £1,747,660

2016        £1,895,174

2017        £2,373,357

2018        £2,089,617

2019        £2,245,748

Total      £24,937,515

The level of prize monies paid to competing Speedway Grand Prix, Speedway World Cup and Speedway of Nations RIDERS are DERISORY compared to the above (or BSI revenues* for 2001-2018 of £129,445,136). These are set by the FIM and paid separately from the above by the exclusive rights holders.

Though FIM royalty payments for the exclusive SGP rights contract for 2022-2031 are likely to have performance and incentive based component, the FIM are probably looking at ‘earning’ £3,000,000 per annum.

 

*excludes 2004 as NO accounts were filed for 2004 & 2005, though 2005 is available in brief form as it was re-stated in the acquirers 2006 financial filings

 

THE FIM will announce the winning  bidder for the tender for exclusive rights to the Speedway Grand prix and Speedway World Cup/Speedway of Nations this Saturday evening at their annual Gala Dinner at an unassuming five-star establishment in Monte Carlo.

So will this announcement herald the start of the long sad goodbye to BSI running the SGP? Even the most gullible optimist at the FIM is going to struggle not to heavily discount the magnificence and eloquence of BSI’s future ambitions by the metric of their past performance.

Though media heavy breathers have relentlessly suggested otherwise with their unabashed reverence for the almost god-like magnificence of all things BSI, in real world we are spoilt for choice when it comes possible reasons for BSI’s possible loss of the tender. Despite paying the FIM around £2m in royalties per annum over the last decade alone, BSI still weren’t able to beat a rival who will, ultimately, continue BSI’s two decades of running badly distressed product(s) further into the ground over the lifetime of the contract (to end 2031) without significant/any real gains in popularity, recognition and interest from the general public, sponsors or media.

Points for the FIM to consider about BSI’s tender bid could include:

years of unkept promises

declining television audiences

almost total lack of national free to air programming

failure to attract global or notable sponsors (whether new or existing ones they enticed away from individual speedway clubs or riders)

almost complete lack of credible national media coverage (actively discouraged by BSI press accreditation supervision in preference for serial brown-nosers or cut and paste BSI in-house newsletter style reporting, interviews and other content)

pitiful social media messaging and total failure to use action clips from an action/extreme sport

failure to find new markets or stage meetings in promised geographies (America? Middle East? Spain? Asia & Japan, anyone?)

failure to innovate

prioritisation of staging partner income (& sub-licensing) over new venue identification or development

cost-cutting that borders on permanent asset damage to the SGP and/or good name of speedway

shockingly dull follow my leader racing on tracks chosen and/or deliberately prepared to deliver comparatively crash free television

poor staff hiring decisions – whether so-called executives (long track record here), BSI staff but especially media freelancers

failure to invest even £1 in new rider talent pipeline

approaching twenty year failure to allow donation collections at Cardiff for the SRBF

bungled roll out of brilliantly un-innovative innovations that fail to add value (latest: qualifying time)

serial drinking of own bathwater

failure to apply/implement technology solutions

histrionic trite hyperbolic English language broadcasts preferred over engaging informed sports journalism

Poor print & broadcast souvenirs – cut n paste over-priced (but glossy) programmes & laudably excitable but banal DVD commentary

disastrous forays into credit cards, loyal schemes and games/gaming (particularly abject failure)

overwhelming (but unjustified) air of superiority [partly explained by SGP business model, executive salary levels, pension contributions, bonus and/or share sales]

fail to invest – across the board but especially in marketing & new marketing development

risk-aversion coupled with cost-cutting

almost complete failure of big stadia initiatives

partner walkaways & handing back the keys – especially worrying at the event and broadcaster level

failure to protect integrity of the product

ongoing serial product dilution & decline

organisational snafus – way too numerous to attempt to list

often economical with the actualité

failure to refresh participants, formats or quality of product delivered

hollowed out British Speedway product quality and revenues

inability to settle upon an effective event structure that excites fans, broadcasters or sponsors

minimal due diligence on venues and/or of partners

abandonment of control over marketing – via cost-cutting and, worse still, sub-contracting

simultaneous rigorous policing of – to no verifiable observable external end – and poor exploitation of SGP brand

ran the product into the ground and squeezed the product (quality/pipeline/credibility/future development opportunities) so dry that impossible to any longer make out like gangbusters at previous rentier levels: revenues from 2008 to end of 2018 stand at £98,638,674 and profits – excluding inter-company payments and dividends (£3,255,882 was paid to IMG in 2016) – at £17,571,175 for an operating profit margin percentage of 17.81%.

There is an altogether less lengthy but nonetheless impressive list of reasons for the FIM to green light BSI’s tender proposal for further exclusivity from 2022 to 2031. These include:

Weapons grade levels of self-importance and self/paid third-party congratulation

Can dress mutton as lamb

Long-time professional friendship with Welsh Government officials

Market leader in broadcast audience & paid attendance declines

Proven track record of rider underpayment and lack of support

Special tin ear only hears criticisms it can manage to erroneously blame on others

Innovator – expanded series to maximise revenues but ensure minimum drama

Innovator – serial premium priced admissions user

Innovator – first to roll out air fence advertiser panels (that they subsequently pretended was a rider safety feature)

Innovator – sets world standard in colour coded access wristband, access pass and lanyard design

Innovator – ran secret Witness Protection programme that guaranteed sport and riders worldwide anonymity

Innovator – planted fake news operatives at heart of Speedway Star to run disinformation campaigns

Innovator – planted rider agent at heart of English language broadcast output to gaslight viewers and run disinformation campaigns

Innovator – disintermediated best hotel, travel and premium dining onto sub-contractor partners

Innovator – emerging ability to claim ninety years of existing practice was their market leading iconoclasm (first: times; next: tyres and/or saddles)

Innovator – implemented media obedience training scheme

Innovator – intensive existing club sponsor discovery programme

Innovator – serial appointer of uninspiring or low-knowledge candidates to executive positions

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) £100+ million Promoter of “the Championship” – aka the  Speedway Grand Prix (SGP) & Speedway World Cup (or Speedway of Nations) – contract is still up for grabs and a decision is expected shortly. With only BSI IMG and Eurosports Events (part of Discovery) the only two bidders remaining in contention in the FIM auction for these exclusive rights to promote and stage “the Championship” from 2022 to 2031, now might be a good time to briefly review BSI’s bid strategy such as we can intuit it from their frequently self-regarding business performance over the past two decades.

Rather helpfully the FIM provide a useful hand-holding template for bidders as well as various requests for further detailed information. The FIM are keen to establish, “the vision of the candidate with regard to the organisation and promotion of the Championship and, more precisely, to its marketing positioning, its promotional and commercial strategy, and ultimately its business model” as well as “an outline of a multi‐year business plan for the Championship, including the investment the candidate is ready to commit in order to develop the Championship together with projected return on investment.”

As my initial blog on the FIM tender clearly showed, BSI have been able to achieve hard to beat close to incredible rentier margins – over the last decade and longer – by exclusively holding the exclusive rights to “the Championship”. This performance is primarily because they have ‘free rode’ on the (pre-) existing speedway universe and its infrastructure (riders, venues, fan base) without need or requirement for investment, contribution or – worse of all – long term strategic vision for the sport. All they had to do was pick up and run with whatever bits took their fancy and leave the rest without having any obligations or duty of care. Almost every BSI ambition, goal or promise made originally – at the time of signature on a two decade exclusive contract – or subsequently has mainly not been met while also being hailed as a stunning achievement by heavy breather media either in BSI’s employ or beholden to them as major advertiser as well as on an access, grace and favour basis.

Sorting the reality of the wheat from the word fellatio chaff is pretty straightforward even if we pick out a few of the FIM tender document metrics

<Geographical expansion of the Championship>

If conquering new geographies or discovering new SGP staging countries were BSI donor organs, then almost universally the speedway body has completely rejected the transplant and, more worryingly, either the new markets and new audiences patient is dead or theoretically barely just alive on life support. The best that can be said when it comes to the future (and next contract) is that so many countries and geographies remain studiously unexplored. Primarily because, like the dead parrot, speedway wouldn’t vroom in most of these places even with the 10,000 vaults of strategic investment and actual serious marketing spend that BSI have never yet really committed to exploiting these new business/market opportunities. Worse still, the blow-in one-off speedway big night out (on mediocre, often one-off, tracks) BSI business model definitely doesn’t even build up to an evening of thrills on a regular basis. Let alone provide the foundations for a community or, presented as these SGP meetings currently are by BSI Speedway, generate never mind sustain curiosity. Given BSI Speedway are a European based organization, it has proven completely beyond their investment horizon, wit, ingenuity, planning, intelligence and basic business ability to even try out events in any of the European motorcycle mad countries – such as Spain or Portugal. All this despite, in latter years, often boasting that their acquiring parent company owner IMG is the biggest/best/most global sports rights marketing company in the world. In this respect too, IMG have been truly pitiful too as they apparently have no inclination to leverage their expertise, event templates or worldwide media/television contacts but, instead, prefer to maximise and bank significant inter-company payments their lack of activity – to outside observation – scarcely merits.

Looking at specifics, BSI’s foray into Italy – a pre-existing speedway nation (PSN) rather than new market prior to their arrival on the scene – ended in failure. The one-trick speedway marketing pony of big city big stadia of John Postlethwaite – that saw Philip Rising hail him (his number one advertiser) as a  “genius” – has regularly flopped expensively and embarrassingly badly (even if we ignore that such tentpole events have a cost base way out of kilter with actual or potential revenues). Though Cardiff is the one swallow that makes a summer, this alleged business expansion model was anything but scaleable. Examples of BSI’s modern city big stadia strategic failure are legion throughout Europe – from Hamar, Norway to the Friends Arena in Stockholm via Gelsenkirchen, Germany – these events have struggled for crowds as well as either profitability or popularity. Though hard to believe possible, ventures to continents further afield have only been of the even more pitiful variety. Indeed, though BSI Speedway have reserved their ‘new market’ expansionary activity to Down Under, their business model, smarts and acumen has been found sadly wanting if judged by their ill-considered and ham-fisted multiple abortive SGP adventures to break into both Australia and New Zealand (both PSN) which all ended in acrimony and failure.

Of course, to pick a few random examples, with a bright future to talk up for the purposes of their respective tender documents, bike mad countries such as Japan, Thailand and America (or ambitious oil rich ones like Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi) will all probably find passing mention as serious new market opportunities in the BSI and Discovery bids. I expect that they were probably all mentioned in the original BSI submission over twenty years ago. Like talk of sightings of the Loch Ness monster, aliens and unicorns, the ambition to take the Speedway grand prix to new faraway locations has been so often mentioned – but not even vaguely started to happen – in the interim that if these promises were a rock the size of Stonehenge, they have been worn smooth by their repetition and inaction into a tiny pebble meantime. Indeed, at the time BSI first breathed news of the United States of America as a possible new country option for the SGP to develop for the greater good of speedway, Greg Hancock still had well over a year to go until his thirtieth birthday!

<Sponsors>

Rather than find, develop or source their own, BSI Speedway have never been unafraid to poach – but rarely retain – existing speedway club sponsors (especially British ones) with the promise of the SGP bright lights and celebrity as well as the joys Millennial Stadium corporate hospitality entertainment options. Where BSI Speedway really stand out is in how they have perfected their little name unknown brand regional sponsor strategy rather than take the route of landing big name global brand widely known sponsors. BSI have almost a 100 per cent record in failing to entice big brands attracted to and keen to exploit their shrinking often ageing SGP audience demographic.

Just a brief glance back in time to 2003 shows the SGP was sponsored by such illustrious brands and businesses as: Teng Tools, Kamasa Tools, Wales Tourist Board, Karcher, Fiat Commercial Vehicles, JCB and Castrol. By 2008 the key/major SGP sponsors were: Visit Wales, Wonderful Copenhagen, Dansk Metal, Speedy Hire, JAK Workwear and Veidic. Fast forward to 2011 and the SGP had somehow by a miracle retained the sponsorships of Visit Wales (and rather amazingly continue to get gifted £ millions of Welsh taxpayers money for – it seems – absolutely no accurately quantifiable benefit), Dansk Metal and Visit Copenhagen. Continuing to attract the Local Tourist Board expertise BSI Speedway IMG have made their sponsorship watchword, saw Leszno Spread Your Wings, Gorzow Haven and Goteborg.com added to this illustrious obscure European regional towns/countries with ideas above their station and budget to match roster along with sponsorships from global brands such as Nice, Mitas, Neva FM, Just Eat, Exide Batteries and Polska Grupa Energetyczna. By the present day (2019), BSI had attracted many notable sponsorships including those of the world famous Az company from Torun, Anusol the hot Turkish tyre manufacturer and – if judged by their logo – the prestigious horse grooming company Adrian Flux.

<Revenues (sources)>

Arguably this is an area where BSI have shown some innovation to clearly demonstrate that they are really an events staging company who just happen to have the rights to something – speedway – that they have little or no interest in and less duty of care towards. The basic BSI revenue model combines income from five channels, namely:

TV rights

Sponsorships

Staging rights sub-contracting (covered under the “venues” sub-section heading below)

Brand licensing

Ticket sales

Naively speedway fans often wrongly assume that exclusive ownership of the SGP rights means that BSI will seek to maximise the numbers of fans attending as they erroneously presume that this is the primary focus and aim of their business. Obviously, getting more fans through the turnstiles theoretically involves exciting racing by talented riders on tracks that enable and encourage overtaking. Sadly, of course, the reality is vastly different as BSI have preferred to serve up only one leg of their very wonky stool (talented riders) on a regular basis. The brute reality is that selling tickets to fans is the lowest priority of the BSI SGP revenue streams. Obviously, as a sports marketing company, the sale of television rights is the stock in trade of BSI. Judged by the UK experience, television audiences have been on a precipitous decline for many years.

Though this is an existential threat for speedway generally, it barely impacts the BSI revenue model as so long as they maximise the volume of rights sales, the quality and calibre of the full live product shown is irrelevant as they are very practiced at delivering exciting show reel style highlights edits that mask the turgid processional reality of the majority of the actual racing. Those who disagree with this analysis that the SGP is an endless series of processional races with little or no drama really do need to explain the reason(s) why the television audience figures are declining if it is not the quality of the product shown? Given the professionalism of the pictures and edits, it can only be commentary team, the programme format, the inconvenience of its broadcast time or basic lack of popularity for Grand Prix speedway. [Obviously the dim bulbs at both BSI and the FIM appear to continue to believe that this is because the SGP isn’t an exact replica of Formula 1] It is also worth noting that the current FIM contract with BSI appears to have no penalty clauses at all for poor performance – on track or off (aka whether it’s for performance or sackable Twitter comment reasons) – just so long as the FIM fail to get paid their £2 or so million rights royalties every season. Once the contract was awarded – in dubious circumstances according to the late John Berry among others – BSI could treat “the Championship” but especially the SGP with impunity without penalty, fear or consequence provided they pay the FIM their fee and adhere to the FIM’s hardly userous technical staging rules and regulations.

Anyways, I digress, BSI’s business model to maximise television rights sales to anyone and everyone – no matter how obscure or how limited their subscriber base or audience figures – provided they pay has seen the speedway television audience whither on the vine. While, simultaneously, national and/or PROPER free to air broadcasters – to be clear let’s list the only proper free-to-air national television stations in the UK: BBC 1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 or Channel 5 – studiously steer clear of serving up or inflicting the guaranteed turn of live SGP racing product upon either their advertisers or audiences.

With a “championship” bid from Discovery channel who own Eurosport (and Eurosport Events) on the table at the FIM we do, now, also need to reality examine the possible strength and promise of their television audience proposition and credentials. These are something Simon Downing, Head of Factual and Sport Discovery UK terms, “our growing motorsport offer” that Eurosport hope to parlay into the “go-to destination for some of the most exciting two wheel championships”. If the definition of “free to air” television channels is stretched to breaking point beyond all credibility and rationality then a whole number of “Freeview” channels no one has heard of or even chooses to watch unless smashed off their face when in control of the remote, then – maybe at a complete push – we could start to count mish mash ultra-obscure with watching-paint-dry style content channels such as DMAX or Quest. These channels are so obscure they aren’t even the late night channels speedway fans usually skip over or pass out in front of randomly. If we glance at the BARB audience share figures for September 2019, then DMAX fails to reach 99.63% of the UK viewer audience while Quest does fractionally better by failing to reach 99.09% of UK viewers. Both of these perform way better than Eurosport who – even if you combine their premium channels 1 and 2 – only reach 0.17% of the UK audience. If we combine the total audience of Quest, Eurosport 1, Eurosport 2 and DMAX then 98.55% of the UK television audience DON’T watch these channels at all. This is quite a shop window. It is worth noting that Eurosport are likely to enjoy similarly poor audience share figures in other European countries. As a UK comparison, in September 2019 BT Sports – despite being ‘Premium’ (aka NOT free to air) satellite channels – had over three times the audience share (at 0.58%) of Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2 channels combined (at 0.17%). Or what the Speedway Staroptimistically hails as a “broadcasting giant” – in recent articles without byline in the same issue – and Eurosports’ “potential reach to 87 million viewers”. POTENTIAL is something very different from likely. It is theoretically possible, of course, but only if every other television channel in existence suddenly ceases to exist and viewers still want the comfort of something showing in the background.

Even robust, highly regarded well known commercially independent sports specialist satellite channels – such as Sky Sports in the UK – have struggled beyond the false dawns of first blush interest to make live speedway (British and SGP) of any stripe a success or, indeed, attract advertisers at severely discounted rates. Many years after they – sensibly – frequently relegated SGP live broadcasts to the moving wallpaper Siberian wastes of Sky Sports 3 and Sky Sports 4, the commercial decision that saw Sky Sports walk away from two remaining years of their contract to hand the speedway keys for free to a (notionally) rival satellite broadcaster (BT Sports) rather than continue indicates that the SGP and live speedway generally has product and engagement issues. If we dream of a fantasy world where there is SGP live broadcast success, its traditional OAP audience demographic has very limited appeal even to highly specialist companies specialising in age related products.

With the sponsorship revenue stream suffering from a severe lack of global and big brand sponsorships – these are only notable by their complete absence – via their initial sponsorship of Greg Hancock, Joe Parsons of Monster Energy rather cannily leveraged these SGP sponsorship travails at BSI. Given free reign by inept management execution and lack of marketing and executive vision at BSI Speedway, Parsons did so in a manner that haloed and aligned with the recognition and dominance ambitions of his beverage brand within the lucrative Polish market while securing a long term relationship with BSI where the tail wags the dog. BSI fell on the Monster opportunity like a thirsty man in a desert suddenly finding an oasis, albeit filled with a peculiar coloured and noxiously flavoured liquid. Not only did BSI get a substantial annual payment but they also made a very significant one-off marketing spend cost saving – that they can now no longer add back into their operating cost budgets without wrecking their balance sheet and profit margins – by sub-licensing all the key/major aspects of SGP event promotion to Monster Energy. Judged by the evidence of their eyes at any “Championship” event, most fans and any casual observers (an increasing rare beast and endangered species) would be shocked to discover that Monster are NOT the series sponsor nor are they the meeting sponsor but, in fact, are just a valued partner. The fact that BSI have been more happy to facilitate Monster effectively cannibalising and co-opting the visual and marketing presentation of the SGP/SWC/SoN series to their brand – while long term diminishing its mindshare appeal to other major sponsors entrants via this plaster everything in Monster Energy signage barrier to entry – demonstrates who wears the trousers in this relationship. But also shows revenue short termism trumps any (should there be one) long term series development strategic plans at BSI.

Though the SGP riders are talented, outside speedway they are almost completely unknown to the general public and, thereby, passing custom or global brand sponsors. It is often said that SGP rights holders BSI have run the world’s most successful witness protection programme for the last two decades. Adult white males aged between twenty and fifty from any geographic location seeking a new life and protection can instantly be guaranteed complete anonymity provided that they agree masquerade as a rider competing in the speedway world championships. Even if somehow the SGP is found on a late night internet only television broadcast and suspicions get aroused, then decades of endlessly processional racing plus – this season – breathless chatter about meaningless practice times and gate positions quickly dulls the enthusiasm of even the most dedicated and enterprising bounty hunter.

<Investors> & <Venues (circuits, cities, events, countries)>

After early contract talk about big (or capital) city big stadia SGP stagings, BSI Speedway quickly settled down into finding poorly equipped venues and obscure regional European locations. It is almost as if BSI could only contractually fulfil their FIM SGP rights obligations by reneging on every public promise they ever made. Of course, they could this without penalty from either the FIM or court of public opinion as their co-opted print and broadcast media chums (and freelance employees) otherwise busied themselves excitably chorusing their imaged amazing triumphs. Initially it looked as if these Grand Prix event locations were chosen by BSI as part of a social responsibility initiative running an unofficial Duke of Edinburgh Shadow Scheme to tax the ingenuity, wild camping and map reading skills of ageing SGP fans. Invariably inaccessible by public transport, BSI Speedway compound the sheer difficulty of just getting there by ensuring either no details, minimal details or inaccurate details appear as part of the “customer experience” that so motivates (according to SGP stenographer Paul Burbidge in a BSI company newsletter style interview conducted for his other employer the Speedway Star) and excites BSI MD Steve Gould. What information there is always assumes that every SGP fan travels by car – with caravan in tow being a sensible precaution – or white van. Unless old people with sticks can’t badly struggle to traverse a kilometre or so of mud bath style stubble fields or wheelchair users run the risk of falling from their seats then BSI Speedway’s events organisation really doesn’t feel it has properly done its job. Equally, unless there is the real jeopardy of getting crushed by the turnstiles in an out of the way forest, the “customer experience” is deemed as falling short of rights holders expectations. But why – in God’s name – have places like Daugavpils (Latvia) or Krsko (Slovenian) been chosen in the first place by BSI as SGP meeting locations? It goes without saying that watching any SGP meeting combined with the opportunity to visit the Museum of Military Vehicles, see cement factories or wander “Stalkers” leisure park are irresistible even to non-speedway fans. Obviously enough, these decisions have historically really/actually been made by BSI Speedway on the basis of the availability of local government financial (and marketing) support rather than any real attempt to develop the sport or its audience (as the press releases and media comment claims).

Basically any down-at-heel fly-blown backwater with an inflated sense of worth and ambition has no trouble finding kindred spirits on the BSI executive floor provided that they have money to burn. Far from making the Speedway Grand Prix a serious glamour event, BSI Speedway are effectively able to sell in or sub-contract the staging rights to these kind of places with the promise that really all they need is a track in a field as BSI will provide a trailer load of staging equipment and can guarantee live international broadcasts prominently featuring the location name. Given speedway likes to see itself as developing greater appeal, showbiz glamour and gravitas rather than just a track in a random field in a one horse town, this is obviously enough selling the sport short in pursuit of BSI revenues, rentier profits and profit margins but also failing to serve the medium and long term development interests of either the world championships or speedway. Though personally I liked going to Krsko – and enjoy the circa 2km walk from the station along the factory lined river – according to The Voice: The Official Journal of the Friends of Speedway Krsko is a two horse town where one horse has died and the other is attending its funeral. The Voice also notes that Krsko is so small/obscure fails to gain mention in The Rough Guide to Slovenia, even for its nuclear power plant. The local library does have a small section that doubles up as the Slovenian National Speedway Museum but this shuts at 1pm on Saturdays/race day so even this synergy fails to work, let alone attract additional fans to the area when the SGP circus is in town. Looked at generously, BSI’s new market expansion has completely failed to get going while their idea of developing speedway appears to be learning to correctly pronounce the name of whatever flyblown regional towns are mug enough to pay their staging fees or make a significant financial ‘marketing’ contribution to their coffers.

The number of new riders (who manage to progress to a decent professional standard) or new fans – if judged by, for example, paying attendees at these venues and UK television audience figures – BSI’s choice of relentlessly obscure SGP locations has inspired can be counted on the fingers of a badly maimed hand. These are just some of the low and lowering standards that the FIM will judge the tenders of both BSI and Eurosports Events against in their scrupulously judicious decision-making to put the best interests of “speedway” first in the award of the 2022-2031 the exclusive “Championship” contract later this month.

BSI Speedway have just commenced their search for a Vice President to lead and strategically mastermind their current (and possibly future) exclusive rights to “the Championship” aka the FIM Speedway Grand Prix, FIM Speedway World Cup and/or the FIM Speedway of Nations. What a fabulous and excessively well-paid job for any appropriately qualified speedway fans to shape and influence the sport we all know and love. For all interested fans and would be candidates the job specification and requirements are pasted below in full – as it appeared on LinkedIn this week and elsewhere earlier in the month on the day on the Torun SGP (October 5). It does seem a tad unprofessional of BSI not to manage to list their advert in full but then such is their historic legendary lackadaisical approach to specific detail. It is peculiar that would be candidates have until February 2020 to apply when by then, if the FIM contract bid fails to go their way, the prestige and relevance of this job will effectively expire in a puff of methanol perfumed exhaust with the last wave of the chequered flag of the final meeting of the 2021 FIM Speedway Grand Prix series. But then, such is the appeal of IMG’s unique “Events Leadership Academy” that those who get to partake of its wonder are instantly spellbound.

Interestingly given that BSI Speedway are currently embroiled in a two way tender contest-cum-auction with Eurosport Events/Discovery Channel conducted by the FIM for the exclusive rights to 2022-2031 “championship”, posting this advertisement at the start of October while the auction remains underway seems strange timing and to knowingly breach BSI Speedway’s own best interests when it comes to preserving the “commercial confidentiality” of dull, publicly available or easily guessable facts, business strategies and operational procedures. This self-inflicted release of a sub-set of the BSI Speedway’s crown jewels via a cut and paste of large sections of their proposal to the FIM seems particularly odd given BSI’s notorious but often mis-placed vigilance and relentless hyper-sensitivity about getting others to protect any alleged “commercial confidentiality” that pertains to their tender bid (though, of course, this has already submitted in full to the FIM by 30 August 2019).

Understandably, if there were a mind-blowing set of innovations for the future of the SGP, new market expansion joys, pending big name/big brand sponsorships or national broadcaster free to air television partners to breathlessly announce or, even, some other wonderfully wildly impressive bid winning big reveal masterminded by BSI Speedway MD Steve Gould – leveraging his Olympics and Caravan Demolition Derby (or whatever it is) expertise – in the winning BSI Speedway tender document, sensibly you would want to closely guard that information. Sadly of course, we know none of the above is going to happen and, if judged by this Vice Presidential job description, when the FIM open BSI’s SGP Pandora Box to stare upon the majesty of its innovations and strategic contents, they – like speedway fans worldwide – will be sorely disappointed. Though second guessing the top notch plans, ideas and ruminations of BSI’s executives is often a fool’s errand, historic past performance along with this VP job description suggests their tender for 2022-2031 will hold modest ambitions if – and I quote exactly – the sad reality of their mission is encapsulated by the boldness of a vision that only aims to: “Innovate and develop the Series including transponders, on-board cameras, voices, games etc.”. It is as if the FIM requested a memorable Valentines and marriage proposal that BSI chose to answer, cater and decorate with a ring, culinary delights and floral tributes bought last minute on the way there from a nearby budget petrol company service station. That said, once we get to read about the stupendous joys of the fine detail of this (hopefully triumphant) BSI tender in the pages of the Speedway Star, hear about it on BT Sports or savour this news via heroic social media messages from the SGP Twitter and Instagram accounts who wouldn’t fail to just be entranced by such a truly compelling and innovative approach to romance and lifelong happiness that FIM’s and BSI’s relationship together has already delivered in full?

Briefly returning to the present moment, it only seems a few minutes ago that BSI Speedway appointed their new Managing Director Steve Gould and paraded him to an expectant speedway world at the FIM Wroclaw SGP with his flies open. This was unfortunate but much less embarrassing than the ‘interview’ conducted by his stenographically minded staff member Paul Burbidge for the pages of his other employer the Speedway Star. Predictably in trademark Burbo style, this no-depth paddle in the shallows style interview saw difficult questions remain unasked and stones serially unturned but, rather marvellously, saw easy to anticipate questions either badly bungled by Gould or apparently answered using pre-prepared comments auto-generated by a Twitter bot apparently only able to access the text of previous BSI press statements and sentences randomly lifted from Gould’s own Managing Director job description. Buzz words galore untethered from any recognisable SGP event reality along with airy talk of “innovation”, “the spectator experience” and “wonderful narratives” couldn’t disguise that shale novice Gould may require close supervision and additional armbands to go with his stabilisers if going out in public or attempting to talk knowledgeably about speedway for some time yet.

Or else, heaven forefend, the sudden appearance of this advert could well indicate that Gould has already resigned, been canned or – judged by his SGP programme columns – found the position significantly beyond his capabilities without additional hand-holding guidance and direction. The perception that Gould lacked sufficient ept was double underlined at the last Grand Prix meeting of the 2019 series in Poland (Torun) when the ghost of Christmas past Paul Bellamy was resurrected in public for a keynote presentation/interview in the course of which he was rather randomly given a lifetime achievement award from the FIM. Possibly for his role in helping BSI to sabotage speedway in Britain or, more likely, for services to the FIM completely unconnected to size or cumulative total of monies contractually paid by BSI Speedway as rights royalty payments. Whatever the reason for the award, not only was the trophy less ugly than that given to 2019 speedway World Champion but news of this accolade almost brought the many speedway hatted Nigel Pearson perilously close to ecstasy in the SGP World Feed comms booth. For a long time seen as the poor man’s John Postlethwaite, the arrival of both Torben Olsen and now Steve Gould on the BSI Speedway/IMG scene has somehow retrospectively gifted Paul Bellamy a degree of gravitas, intellect and statesmanlike heft akin to that enjoyed elsewhere by high calibre politicians such as Lembit Opik or Mark Francois.

Though employment advisors the world over advise not exaggerating, obviously shading the truth or, worse still, lying in your job interviews, this advice doesn’t usually have to be given to advertisers. Unfortunately, if judged by the job spec requirements of this VP position, both the content, rigour and quality of BSI Speedway’s current FIM bid tender document as well as the organisational relationship between their fitted as standard hyperbole and verifiable reality has – once again – been untethered as well as thrown open to question by their claim that there are “currently 12” (twelve) Speedway Grands Prix events in the current BSI series! Though this job description claim is only twenty per cent (20%) inaccurate – if only there were a book to consult about the current number of events in the SGP series –  so counts in their speedway universe as comparatively spot on, being this far unglued in a job description for your most senior staff member appointment either reveals a worrying internal lack of knowledge about their own corporate history and series parameters or else suggests a routinely casual approach to factual accuracy.

Continuing to pointlessly gild this turgid lily, the job description suggestion that “occasional travel/weekend work may be required” flies in the face of the awkward fact that practically all BSI Speedway events are – currently – held away from their head office in Chiswick. If we assume the newly minted VP (open flies optional) travels to all events via commercial airline the day before the meeting and returns the day after, then it appears that there are likely to be a minimum of twelve weekends away outside the country (England).

Something the job advertisement is coy about is the likely pay, benefits, pension, ancillary benefits, SGP branded athleisurewear and incentive bonus scheme that also comes with this august position. Of course, we can try to guess using publicly available information found at Companies House. Even though occupying a much less prestigious executive position, the highest paid director at BSI Speedway (most would guess this to be John Postlethwaite though this is not confirmed by the accounts) two decades ago in 2000 – when the series was half its current size and without the global reputation for excellent and thrills that delights so many SGP media heavy breathers – enjoyed “directors emoluments” of £375,061 to go along with a much-needed pension contribution of £31,628. Though, I haven’t formally checked, I expect all the SGP riders that season (and subsequently) who put their lives and future livelihoods on the line for BSI and to entertain fans worldwide doubtless earnt roughly similar sums for competing in the speedway world championships. Of course, in the two decades since then, doubtless senior executive remunerations have seen re-assessment and upwards revision, despite various pass-the-parcel style ownership changes allied to numerous years of ongoing cost-cutting brought on by expansion failures, operational bungling, difficult trading conditions and the collapse of – for example – the UK television audience or, indeed, the paying fans component of Cardiff attendances. Whatever the sums involved in their remuneration package, whomever gets appointed to this VP position will to continue to enjoy speedway fan goodwill they take for granted as well as the best speedway reporting VIP access, freelance contracts and regular space adverts merit.

Job vacancy:

Vice President, BSI Speedway

Summary

IMG Events are searching for an enthusiastic, hardworking, individual to join the Motorsports team to run the BSI Speedway series Reporting into the Senior Vice President & Managing Director, Motorsports, the successful candidate will be responsible for all the Critical Planning, Sponsorship and Operation of the FIM Speedway series. Application deadline is Sunday 24th February 2019 at 11:59pm.

Key Accountabilities

  Ensuring existing promoter agreements are delivered and events run smoothly

  Responsible for managing all club, venue & city relations

  Identify new promoters/venues and negotiate new & existing contracts

  Establish the calendar for all Speedway race series to meet FIM deadlines

  Monitor ticket & hospitality sales, sponsorship revenue and other critical revenue streams

  Oversee the Marketing strategy for each event

  Identify new events, both fully owned or as Joint Ventures

  Focus and build on the customer journey

  Manage the overall relationships with the governing body and local federations

  Represent IMG during the SGP/SWC/SON FIM Commission meetings

  Ensure contractual agreements with FIM and local federations are delivered

  Manage the relationships between IMG and FIM officials, riders and teams

  Manage the renewal process of IMG rights agreements beyond 2021

  Oversee the operational delivery of all events including logistics, security, guidelines, suppliers etc

  Ensure that temporary tracks are delivered

  Ensure that specific and critical logistic projects (events that are outside Europe) are delivered

  Ensure that all events, both promoted and fully owned are run safely and in a proper manner

  Responsible for approving BSI Speedway Health & Safety policy

  Ensure risk assessments and method assessments are in place for all activities

  Ensure event responsibility check lists are agreed and signed by all parties

  Ensure CDM plans are in place for any temporary construction

  Consistently review and update our critical plans

  Ensure we have all the necessary procedures in place for any critical incidents (including event postponements and cancellations) and that all team members, both internal and external are trained to handle these.

  Manage any insurance related issues and ensure we have sufficient cover and contractual protection in place

  Oversee the sponsorship targets, ensuring targets are met

  Work with the designated sales team to ensure sufficient new business targets are approached and that existing partnerships are renewed

  Manage critical accounts directly including series partners, city and government support

  Oversee the activation team and ensure that all contractual obligations are delivered

  Ensure that existing broadcaster and media agreements are delivered

  Renew broadcaster agreements in key markets

  Work with IMG Media identify new territories/partners

  Ensure IMG are not in breach of any existing broadcaster rights

  Oversee the newly developed OTT platform

  Ensure growth from our digital media strategy

  Contract and oversee host broadcaster and key TV suppliers relationships

  Ensure that all communication is approved and in accordance with strategy guidelines

  Grow the Series through main media in all territories

  Continue to find new growth opportunities across all parts of the business

  Manage and grow the SGP Academy further

  Expand the calendar into new markets where possible

  Innovate and develop the Series including transponders, on-board cameras, voices, games etc.

  Responsible for the Speedway P&L

  Agree projections and ensure these are met

  Set sponsorship targets and marketing budgets

  Identify any risks and report these as soon as possible

  Ensure our financial exposure is minimized and outstanding amounts are collected

Required Knowledge & Experience

  Demonstrable experience in running a Series or similar operation

  Established knowledge in budget management

  Experience in managing and motivating a team Working Conditions

  This is a permanent position based in Chiswick, London

  Working hours are 9:00 – 17:00, Monday to Friday

  Occasional travel/weekend work may be required

Why IMG

We want you to have a career you’re genuinely excited about – as well as opportunities to learn and challenge yourself or mentor others. As a senior member of the Events Division, you will have access to development tools including the Events Leadership Academy and the Events Mentoring scheme to support your career and personal development with IMG.

Business Overview

IMG Events

IMG own, operate or commercially represent more than 800 events around the world, including culinary and music festivals, mass participation events, international fashion weeks and leading tournaments and championships in more than a dozen sports.

BSI Speedway

The FIM Speedway World Championships form part of the motorsports department of IMG Events. The championships are a worldwide motorbike racing series, with currently 12 Grand Prix and 4 W [sadly this advert ends just as it gets really exciting…]

THE Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) deadline to submit expressions of interest (tenders) to identify candidates interested in winning a £100+ million contract from them by becoming involved as a Promoter of “the Championship” – aka the “FIM Speedway Grand Prix World Championship, FIM Speedway World Cup & FIM Speedway of Nations And On an optional basis any other Track racing disciplines/series” – with a view to concluding a multi‐year contract (2022-2031 seasons) has now passed. Though we don’t yet know who has submitted a tender nor the specifics of their proposals, we do know the metrics the FIM tender sets out as key requirements that will form the basis upon which the FIM will assess bids (published on their website here) and award this substantial contract. Granting exclusive rights for “the Championship” is also hugely lucrative for the FIM! Historically and, if there is a bidding war, even more so in the future. Rather naively I had always expected the FIM to seriously exercise their duty of care towards federation national associations in its supervision of this exclusive “Championship” rights contract but – as the substantial negative impact of the Speedway Grand Prix championship series under BSI Speedway effectively hollowing out top level British Speedway has shown – fee payments appear to trump such considerations. And what a financial bonanza the exclusive grant of these SGP and Speedway of Nations/World Cup rights has been for both the FIM and BSI Speedway over the past two decades.

In their 2002 accounts, BSI stated their commitment to the FIM to 2021 was an incredible £26,713,953. That roughly works out as a royalty/fee of £1,405,998 per annum paid by BSI Speedway to the FIM under the terms of the contract to hold exclusive rights to the fourteen or so events that usually comprise the “Championship”. Yet, by 2017, the commitment of BSI Speedway for the next year (2018) had risen to £2,089,617. Even FIM Race Director Phil Morris would struggle to come up with an expressive enough flamboyant on track gestures to capture the enormity of such contractual payments. As context, for the latest ten year period (2008-2017) for which we have publicly available accounts the financial position BSI Speedway looks as follows:

Year                          Revenues                                  Operating Profit                   O/Profit as % of Revenues

2008                         £8,691,922                               £2,248,146                               25.86

2009                         £9,146,194                               £2,262,295                               24.73

2010                          £9,395,860                             £1,190,753                                20.34

2011                           £9,278,857                              £2,144,826                               23.11

2012                          £10,086,560                           £2,161,873                                21.43

2013                          £8,861,274                               £2,067,363                              23.33

2014                          £8,783,989                             £1,595,155                                18.16

2015                          £7,850,975                              £1,775,793                                22.62

2016                          £8,608,299                             £422,651*                                 4.91

2017                          £9,355,289                              £289,017                                   3.09

Total                         £90,059,219                            £16,877,872                             18.74

 

While we await the 2018 tablets to come down from the BSI Speedway mountain, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Speedway Grand Prix takes a wry look behind the scenes of 2018 series and is available here, in all good bookshops (including Waterstones) or at Amazon. Interestingly, though revenues increased in both 2016 and 2017, in their accounts BSI Speedway have chosen to show a substantial decline in operating profit due to a “new transfer pricing policy” resulting in “an increased intercompany charge”. That said, in 2016 BSI Speedway introduced new accounting procedures into their financial statements that saw a dividend* paid (I am assuming this as an inter-company payment to parent company IMG) of £3,255,882 while they still managed to report an operating profit of £422,651. Quite a stellar year! This substantial sum is higher than any reported operating profit of the previous decade. Though possibly comparing apples with oranges if we add this dividend back into the operating figures, the BSI Speedway decade adjusted margin rises back to 22.34% which is much more in line standard performance. In rough laywoman’s terms for every £4 of revenues, BSI Speedway has reported £1 operating profit in their accounts at Companies House. For example, this might means we could see my purchase of £10 Cardiff programme (editor: Nigel Pearson) as generating circa £2.50 operating profit for BSI or my £20 FIM British Speedway Grand Prix ticket generating around £5 operating profit. The fact that there is a margin as incredible as 25 per cent indicates that the contract signed by BSI Speedway was extremely advantageous to them from the get go. Any business with a 25 per cent margin is truly laughing all the way to the bank. BSI Speedway have guarded their exclusivity with some zeal and, praise where praise is due, they have subsequently developed a franchise model where gullible local, regional or national government’s with budget can pay BSI for the privilege of signing a one-sided Don King style contract that sees the franchisee effectively bear all the risk (financial and reputational) and costs. If any event messes up – and many have – then it is the franchisee and not BSI who catch the cold. Sadly, BSI’s serial UNambition when it comes to searching out and then resourcing new markets and territories has regularly seen sub-contractees – in, for example, both New Zealand and Australia – get stuffed up with all the costs to the extent that they can’t make the events financially successful so they either sustain serious losses or else hand back the keys.

What should concern the FIM more is that there has been much more rigorous “cost control” (according to the BSI Speedway company accounts) across the business since 2015. This compounds the effects of years of under-investment. Arguably if investing sensibly for the medium terms, these rentier margins of 25 per cent could have seen a short term deterioration of ten to fifteen points in order to develop new markets and audiences in the short term. The corporate nature of BSI Speedway as the subsidiary of a much larger multi-national (BSI Speedway Limited appear to have TWO parent companies IMG and their parent company WME Entertainment Parent LLC) has far from either leveraging or delivering the oft lauded global media contacts or tried and tested sports marketing expertise has left them stuck as a hamster on a treadmill delivering their budgeted revenues, margins, cost saving and expected returns. Arguably, the management worldview of BSI Speedway is predicated upon them being a hamster that roars like a hamster. That cost-control has been the case has been obvious to regular SGP fans – whether of the physically attending or armchair variety – for a substantially longer period than just from 2015 (more like from when the real knock out format of the SGP series ceased to exist). It could be argued that effectively sub-contracting  SGP entertainment-cum-presentation to Monster Energy has also been the key component factor in this cost-saving strategy as BSI Speedway have effectively saved substantial sums of marketing spend by leaving that to their valued and esteemed sponsorship partner. Monster Energy have – in turn – shown they are happy to do this heavy lifting skillfully for their own corporate and promotional ends. All this means though they have significant incumbency benefits – and start out as favourites to win the auction and beauty contest aspects of the FIM competitive bid process – going into a tender with many years company accounts boasting of cost-saving strategies and parsimoniousness in the face of difficult trading conditions is really not a good look for the relentless positivity and pragmatism required for your pitch about the decade ahead. Indeed, regular BSI bemoaning – in Private Frazer from Dad’s Army fashion – in their accounts could possibly see them morph more into Corporal Jones as the tender discussions unfold.

It is, of course, sensible to remind ourselves that if – for example – the ECB decides to sell cricket’s soul to a satellite broadcaster (& a proper one with a decent subscriber audience to boot), then UK cricket gets the money. They can choose to invest it in the grassroots or fritter it away on nonsense, that is their prerogative. In the case of British Speedway, the FIM gave away twenty year’s worth of possible revenues (or part share in said same) to a third party private company. So not only did British Speedway not see a penny but BSI Speedway – in additional to their parasitic rentier income – had no investment obligations or requirement to show any duty of care in their strategic and operational decision-making. As their interests are completely inimical to all and all British Speedway clubs, the BSPA and SCB, expanding the series from five events to ten or twelve prime weekends every summer is an easy one to make as it comes without any transactional or reputational costs to BSI Speedway. If this bastardises Friday and Saturday night speedway during the summer and on bank holidays – tough. If “top riders” and “star riders” decide to prioritise signing on for the SGP ten times (minimum) a season in the back end of beyond on a Friday afternoon, then also tough. Though not the only factor, such obligations make their decision to skip riding in Britain much easier to make. It is worth emphasizing that BSI Speedway company accounts take great pride in making ZERO charitable or political donations. In fact, BSI Speedway so guard their precious revenues that they have always refused to allow SRBF collections to take place outside the FIM British Speedway Grand Prix. This is very telling. Indeed, on Friday nights since 2018 – when BSPA Press Officer Nigel Pearson was the interview host for Nicki Pedersen and his client Tai Woffinden – and again in 2019 (this time televised SGP practice again with the BSPA Press Spokesman in attendance) have chosen to directly compete with the BSPA PL Pairs shared event traditionally held that evening at the Oak Tree Arena in Highbridge. This can only reduce the revenues raised that British Speedway clubs get to share between them.

Existing “Championship” rights holders BSI Speedway (BSI) have submitted a tender bid and while we don’t know the contents of their latest bid proposal, we are in a position to assess the current state of play as well as compare where we find ourselves in relation to what BSI originally promised and subsequently claimed they would do with the SGP with their original two decades of exclusivity. Additionally in the public domain are the statements and claims made by new BSI Speedway CEO Stephen Gould in an all-holds-barred narrow-ranging more paddling pool shallows than in-depth ‘interview’ conducted by BSI employee Paul Burbidge in the Speedway Star.

Interestingly, in the wording of its “minimum components” section it appears that the FIM wish to specifically rule out BSI Speedway continuing to hold the exclusive rights for the Speedway Grand Prix/Speedway World Cup and/or Speedway of Nations (henceforth known in the tender document as “The Championship”) from 2022 to 2031. The FIM demand as a minimum: “The Promoter will, at its own cost if necessary, use its reasonable endeavours to ensure free‐to-air television coverage of each event in the territory in which that event takes place” [my emphasis]. Given that BSI Speedway have completely failed to entice BBC, ITV or Channel 4 to the speedway world championships party this looks something a stretch to manage to get the Cardiff FIM British Speedway Grand Prix shown on UK terrestrial television from 2022 onwards. Indeed, traditionally BSI Speedway have approached the sale of television rights of “the Championship” as a two decade opportunity to either keep speedway a closely guarded secret or ensure proceedings are shown on as obscure as possible pay-per-view or subscription satellite channels where few viewers can afford or find them. On the basis of this single requirement, the BSI Speedway tender appears to fall out of the tender discussions reckoning at the first fence. Worse still, not only has BSI Speedway seen the – UK, for example – television audiences figures they did manage to get collapse precipitously, their approach to coverage in national or independent media outlets (whether print, broadcast, online or social media) has almost rendered the world championships and world cup invisible to all those without powerful microscopes.

Even within the charmed circle of the heavy breather tame specialist outlets that do cover SGP or WC/SoN events, it is hard to claim that the FIM minimum requirement of “best endeavours to enhance the Championship’s value, image and level of coverage on all media” has been achieved, let alone consistently so. Obviously, in the growth area of social media, the SGP has its own Twitter account but this appears to operate this either as a mock-heroic spoof account or as some kind of fake news experiment where events reported bear little relation to activity on the track. Of course, though we can “join the [SGP] conversation” – and are often implored to do so – for many life is too short to indulge in the speedway equivalent of talking to yourself while holding your crotch in a hurricane.

Even if we assume BSI Speedway have not fallen at the first fence, it is hard to set aside their apparent deliberate act of self-sabotage with their recent appointment of Steve Gould as their CEO to succeed Torben Olsen following his promotion to some he knows nothing about within the IMG Motorsports Division. In the pantheon of less than brilliant leaders though none matched the sledgehammer levels of self-admiration show by John Postlethwaite – Paul Bellamy and Torben Olsen were equally unafraid to regularly drink deep drafts of their own bathwater. Sadly, current/new CEO Gould would get excluded by any fair-minded referee as an act of kindness not least for requiring stabilisers on his speedway leadership bike or consistently failing to get under power. Fearlessly interviewed in the Speedway Star by BSI’s own SGP webmaster and twitter bot manqué, even with dolly drops and patsy questions Gould did not make a compelling case – let alone an accurate or modest one – for either his knowledge or future strategic vision despite hyperbolic claims about his Olympic credentials. Though it is probably asking for too much corporate self-awareness on the part of BSI Speedway but, if they expect to be taken seriously or compete against others with their tender, they probably need to immediately stop all public appearances, utterances and written comment by Gould. That said, while some critics say Gould can barely dress himself in speedway terms, he did create a stir at the Wroclaw SGP by parading round with his flies open to all and sundry. Luckily, the FIM don’t award SGP contracts on the basis of dress sense or dressing yourself, let alone Gould’s recent investigations of SGP “customer touch points” [spoiler alert: the customer “journey” has room for improvement from its current breakdown on the metaphorical hard shoulder]

Obviously, there is a lot of guff to provide to make the appropriate tender for this Jewel in the Crown of the Motorcycle firmament that the FIM deems its universe. For all who claim that the FIM or BSI Speedway have lost touch with speedway grass roots – whether its fans, riders or communities – there is little reassurance to be had from many of their tender requirements. Apparently with a straight face, the FIM demand to know, “The vision of the candidate with regard to the organisation and promotion of the Championship and, more precisely, to its marketing positioning, its promotional and commercial strategy, and ultimately its business model”. If in the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man is king, then the FIM want some free market research about the championship whose rights they own as well as some ready drafted BS filled business plans in braille while they play their own version of blindfold pin-the-management-speak-tail-on-the-corporate-speedway-donkey. Some of the more laughable requirements include: “A description of how key promotion rights will be implemented (including considerations about the media offering (Live vs non Live) and the strategy to grow the audience of the Championship (Traditional vs New Media)”

Other information requested by the FIM as part of this tender – that I will return to assess and comment upon in future blogs – includes request for details about:

<Manufacturers / Teams /Riders

<Sporting development of the Championship

<Geographical expansion of the Championship

<Sponsors – captive & non-captive

<Revenues (sources)

<Investors

<Venues (circuits, cities, events, countries)

<Temporary track/barriers construction strategy (staff, material and devices)

<Media: Identification of international media partners for the Championship/Media management strategy/TV broadcasting plan + opportunities/New media activation

<Audience: public/fans & ways to engage with the fans including social media accounts

First off, surely the FIM know by now that BSI have singly failed to find any big brand sponsors for the SGP series or other “Championship” events, let alone capture them for goodness sake? While it is probably true that BSI Speedway have pretty well held British Speedway hostage with their SGP series (“The Championship”) since its inception – while all the tame print, online and broadcast media money can buy went all Stockholm Syndrome – at least until its suicide pact really kicked in, we could kid ourselves that the grown-ups in the room at the FIM might – at some point – either ride to our rescue, contribute monies to British Speedway or question the long term strategic value of the series expansion vis-à-vis the wild claims for future development made by BSI at the time of contract signature? Sadly, this tender document confirms what the BSI Speedway accounts at Companies House also reveal, namely that while speedway speaks many languages the only one that really gets heard is financial.

Whether this is dressed up as a royalty, rights payments and sponsorship revenue splits, while speedway in Britain, Sweden and Denmark declines (or ‘thrives’ like never before if you are in denial and/or somehow on or tangentially on the BSI payroll) according to your metaphor of choice – tanks, runs on empty or out of fuel – the FIM cat has fattened in tandem with BSI Speedway’s guzzling of the cream of speedway’s present and future revenues. In reality, once all the flim-flam, hurrah words and blah blah of series development parts of the tender has primped, primed and excited the FIM assessors, it is all a question of how much dosh and gelt can be got or further mined from the still just about warm speedway body politic. This is made very clear in the tender document:

>The level of contribution offered to the FIM in terms of the exploitation of the promotion rights

>The minimum financial fee (in Swiss Francs) that can be provided by the candidate and which must be paid to the FIM at the signing of the contract

Further key financial guff states winning bidders must cross the FIM’s palm with silver (preferably lots of it):

>The Promoter is invited to make a financial offer to FIM in consideration of the grant of rights.

>The proposal should include a title sponsorship revenue split with the FIM and a contribution to the FIM Awards ceremony.

>Payment of any monies from the promoter to FIM shall take place in Swiss Francs.

In almost any competitive tender, though fine words, ambitions, plans and strategies are all part of the equation, the trump card factor is invariably always financial. So, how much money are we talking about to be the winning tender bid here? Let’s have another brief look (see above) at the existing publicly available information from BSI Speedway about their revenues, operating profits and existing payments to the FIM to make a stab at the sort of monies likely to be involved in the winning tender. Given BSI Speedway appear to have generated over £90 million in revenues and a nearly 25 per cent margin over the past decade (to 2017) by pursuing a stringently UNambitious business development strategy that leaves almost all new audiences and markets unexplored, there is clearly huge headroom left to exploit given how much BSI Speedway have historically chosen to leave unexploited upon the table. Indeed, to date BSI Speedway have been primarily farmers NOT hunters. Though I think their exploitation of gullible governmental franchisees model is canny and, arguably, innovative (albeit not good for the development of speedway generally), it is not outside the bounds of possibly for revenues to be in the range of £150-180 million over the next decade. Compound growth could take the victorious bidder some way towards such revenues, just so long as they manage or mitigate the possible poison pill of television rights contract values uncertainty and/or decline during the FIM exclusive “Championship” contract changeover/ transition period. Taking the lower bound of this anticipated range, surely the FIM should expect total (aka the mix of fixed and shared results oriented incentive bubble) annual fee payments of the winning bid to be in the £3.5-4 million per annum range?. Obviously, acknowledging that wild assumptions are often the mother of all bad misapprehensions and judgements, then the bubble advance non-refundable payment the FIM should anticipate from the winning bid must be around £10 million (at whatever Swiss Franc exchange rate applies)?

Whatever the winning figure or whomever the exclusive rights holder for the “Championship” turns out to be for 2022-2031, the FIM will decide without outside influence, discussion or appeal. Their tender document states, “According to the results of the various exchanges and discussions with the candidates, the FIM will select the candidate which, in the FIM’s sole opinion and discretion, best serves the interests of the Championship and the interests of motorcycle sport in general (Decision of the FIM Board of Directors to be held in November 2019). The FIM will not be required to give reasons for the acceptance or refusal of any particular proposal.”

Based on their award and supervision of BSI Speedway’s original 20-year exclusive contract, it is hard to take seriously let alone place any faith or credibility in the FIM claim that their corporate governance has the best interests of “motorcycle sport in general” or British Speedway in particular at heart. Indeed, the (unanswered) questions asked and observations made in the Speedway Star by the late John Berry in November 2002 still stand the test of time to remain pertinent for the good ship FIM and all who sail in her. “In short, the Grand Prix saw primarily the British promoters (but also some other nationalities) subsidising their riders’ appearances in the GP, whilst also having to do without their services from time to time. In return, they had the opportunity to stage one GP event per season. Then along came a promotions company [BSI] with no previous interest in speedway. They did a deal with the FIM whereby the FIM allegedly sold them the rights to promote the GP series. The FIM, who paid no transfer or loan fees for the use of the riders, who paid no cost for the riders to arrive in Europe from all over the world, who made no contribution to equipping or training those riders, simply ‘sold’ the right to use those riders, along with the World Championship copyright title, to people who had no connection with the sport. They also ‘rented’ them the use of speedway’s supporter base. Huge amounts of money were bandied about, suggesting a great deal had been done and the inference was that the federations would be handsomely recompensed for the use of their assets. Now I have been asking the same question since day one of the deal: what has happened to all that money? As yet, I have had no indication at all that any monies have been paid to any federation by the FIM from the monies allegedly paid for the GP rights. Maybe the FIM have even more luxurious junkets? Maybe there are more and more FIM quasi-officials who scurry around the world in their navy-blue blazers trying to look important? But so far as I am aware, no money at all has filtered back to the BSPA coffers.” And, as no answers had been forthcoming, the late John Berry then repeated in a letter to the Speedway Star in February 2003, “And again I have to ask the question that only I seem interested in. Where is all the money allegedly paid to the FIM for rights and assets that arguably were not theirs to sell? Because I see no benefits whatever finding themselves back into speedway racing.”

ALL our heroes today have become digital apparitions haunting our mobile devices’ screens, even speedway’s heroes. The fast action thrills, spills and glamour of the Speedway Grand Prix can be seen like never before. But with more and more meetings staged in increasingly remote locations – and as fewer fans get to attend races in person or watch on their screens – beneath the surface international glitz something has been lost even as speedway’s mystery and lustre widens and deepens.

For one long hot mostly glorious summer, unafraid to fully embrace his inner Proclaimer, speedway author Jeff Scott travelled nearly 10,000 miles throughout Europe hitching lifts and using public transport to attend every SGP meeting from trackside. Although back stage access is usually closely guarded from the prying eyes of the public with stringent security, Scott gained exclusive pre-meeting pits lane access at every Speedway Grand Prix meeting of the 2018 season. He also watched all the action as well as met the fans, sponsors, riders, mechanics, track staff and many others involved in these meetings.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Speedway Grand Prix: One Man’s Far-flung Summer Behind the Scenes  gives us a unique snapshot (available to order online here) of the timeless appeal of speedway as it also reveals something of what really goes on at the pinnacle of this thrilling sport in the SGPs. Scott’s unauthorised and unsupervised sideways look behind the scenes at the people, places, events and characters of contemporary World Championship Speedway reveals its many glories and pitfalls as never before. Travelling the highways, byways and pit lanes, Scott discovers some of what we are unable to see on our screens and challenges the usual often gung-ho reporting narratives and messaging.

With the proper oblique glances, even the unheard voices of the digital ghosts of World Championship Speedway can speak to us. Open this book and let the seance begin.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Warsaw

Chapter 2: Prague

Chapter 3: Horsens

Chapter 4: Hallstavik

Chapter 5: Cardiff

Intermission: Landshut

Chapter 6: Malilla

Chapter 7: Gorzow

Chapter 8: Krsko

Chapter 9: Teterow

Chapter 10: Torun

Afterword

THE highest and lowest live speedway grand prix (SGP) television viewing figures for 1999 to 2018 are in and don’t make pretty reading. The patient remains on the critical list but, thankfully, the eyelids are fluttering. The info below also includes the average for each season – if available – from all live SGP meetings for which BARB speedway viewing figures are available.

These are the closest we can get to oranges with oranges comparisons. They are fact rather than opinion based. They use the widely-adopted industry standard analytical template for assessing UK television audiences. These are publicly available, independent, statistically significant verifiable results that use a published methodology and template.

Screen Shot 2019-05-12 at 16.06.51 Screen Shot 2019-05-12 at 16.07.06

From these statistics, the golden era of live SGP viewership over the last nineteen years are the years 2006-2008. Since then, there has been a dramatic decline in audience interest. Praise where faint praise is due, after Sky Sports handed back the keys and walked away from British and grand prix speedway, at least the BT Sports audience for the SGP series is better than those obtained during the troubled Eurosport era (they failed to trouble the scorer from 2013 to 2015). Indeed the British SGP rose in 2018 – after a truly awful 2017 – but still remain at a level that is less than half the SGP historic lifetime average. The lowest ever viewing figures for an individual SGP meeting were recorded by BT Sports in 2017.

Interestingly, the figures BT Sports have got nowadays for the live British speedway have been praised by many with vested commercial interests without any independent corroboration or verification. Indeed, they are so good that BT Sports have corporately decided that they no longer wish to declare them to BARB. Whether BT Sports would take this position if they were rising significantly for either their sports or speedway live broadcasts is a counterfactual question to ponder.

Riders, fans, sponsors, media and rights holders alike need the British television speedway audience patient to continue to recover and show further signs of life during the 2019 SGP series – starting with the Warsaw Speedway Grand Prix – rather than relapse and require the last rites.

 

With thanks to Mr S. Bear for his kind help compiling these independent and verifiable live broadcast British television SGP viewing figures.

As creatures of habit, we all have favourite places to stand and watch or people to stand with at speedway. One of the great pleasures of traveling to tracks dotted around Britain to research and sell my books was some of the life-affirming lovely people I met doing so. Bristol Bulldogs and Swindon Robins fan and charming man Harold Davies was one of those lovely people I had the great good fortune to meet. A modest friendly observant & gentle man with reassuring accent to match, Harold had a  curiosity about people and a love of life to go with his love of speedway. Time passed quickly and enjoyably stood next to Harold at Blunsdon watching the racing. All seemed and felt right with the world in his unassuming easy company.

Sadly, though Harold passed away this month (July 2018) whenever the bikes roar at Blunsdon that small section of the home straight concourse will remain forever his and gently reverberate in his memory, despite his physical absence. Rest in Peace Harold.

From Shale Trek

I set my table up in its traditional position at Blunsdon under the lee of the home-straight grandstand, adjacent to the yellow hash-marked floor that designates the fire escape access-way at the bottom of the steep stairs that lead down from the Legends’ Lounge, grandstand bar and toilets. My appearance invariably causes an outbreak of deep sighs and various small passive-aggressive acts of resistance from the old age pensioners who usually stand in this position every week and, quite rightly, resent the unannounced arrival of an unwanted interloper. Harold Davies (89) is the most personable of these veteran Swindon speedway fans. “My father took me to speedway when I was 10 years old! I worked for the BBC doing the Antiques Roadshow. I used to put the set up. I worked for them for 32 years. I’ve broken me hip when I tripped over a cable in the bedroom.” Harold is pictured in Quantum of Shale but questions my camerawork, “Why didn’t you take a photo of all of me?” Harold’s dad took him to see the speedway in Bristol. “It was the Bristol Bulldogs with Cordy Milne, Jack Milne, Lionel Van Praag – all the lot of them. They used to do leg-trailing, not foot forward like they do now! I watched Billy Hole and Johnny Hole after the war.” I question Harold to find out the secret of how he’s remained so alert and active, “Doing the job I was doing was the best job I ever had. I used to work at the chocolate factory when I was 14.”

From Bouquet of Shale

Over recent years, my book display at Blunsdon wouldn’t be complete without the presence of ex-Antiques Roadshow worker, Harold Davies (90). As usual, he arrives with Anthony Roberts (a.k.a. Rob) shortly before the rider parade and introductions. Because my display table temporarily occupies their regular viewing position we – in the spirit of speedway fans everywhere – amicably rub along together. Harold rummages inside his jacket pocket for his wallet and, for half a moment, I think he’s about to buy a book. Instead, as befits a proud Bristol Bulldogs fan, he takes out a clipping from the Letters page of the February 8th edition of the Bristol Times. “I’ve been keeping lots of clippings by my chair for you but you haven’t been here! When will you next be here? We go to the New Forest on the 17th.”

[ Jeff] “Will you be horse riding?”

Last year Harold needed two sticks to walk but, this year, he’s down to one. “Ho, ho! Not with my hip! It’s been a year now. It’s just getting a little bit better and now it’s the other one. I have some ointment but I don’t know if that will help? They’ve re-laid the track you know.”

[ Jeff] “Yes, I’d heard. Is it any better?”

[Harold] “I dunno! You should’ve seen the crash here last week. We went to Somerset and saw their captain [ Jason Lyons] go straight up in the air and his bike followed him. We saw an England and Australia match once where one rider swallowed his tongue. He never rode from that day till this. I forget his name. What’s this with Poole? It’s a carve-up! I reckon that Žagar wanted to come back here. Poole had pulled the eyes over the Control Bureau and they wouldn’t let us keep Žagar. It’s all wrong! He wanted to stay – he don’t want to ride there [Eastbourne]. They say he has what’s it – hay fever – but I don’t know. What’s this with Poole at Belle Vue? 50-40! Bristol used to do that when they were getting 5-1s all the time. No one wants to see that. They’ll make that up in no time [at Wimborne Road] and get a crowd to see it!”

…. Heat 10 sees Eagles Kling and Dryml surprisingly out-gate the master of Blunsdon, Leigh Adams. Their glory is short-lived since Adams scythes through them both on the back straight of the first lap. Absorbed by the action, Harold also ventures down memory lane, “My wife died in 2006. We emigrated to the US in the 1950s but my wife didn’t like it and we came back. Her sister was over there. New England. We only stayed a month so it was like a long holiday.”

[ Jeff] “When did you get married?”

[Harold] “It was the 12th June [eyes dance] 1947!”

 

…. Though he lives in Bristol, Harold won’t go to the Cardiff Grand Prix. “I went the first year but it was too noisy. I didn’t have any earplugs and I don’t like the indoor. Speedway should be outside. I didn’t like it so I didn’t go again. When the girl was singing, ugh! It’s better like this!” Harold waves proprietarily at the panoramic vista that is the Abbey Stadium home straight. Harold isn’t happy with the volume levels at Blunsdon either. “The music is too loud here I told them. You can hardly hear or have a conversation. I’d prefer to listen to ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’, bet you don’t know that?” I don’t so Harold gives his West Country accented rendition of the song.

[Jeff] “You should volunteer to sing on the centre green.”

[Harold] “Ha ha ha.”

[Jeff] “I’d come to see that.”

[Harold] “Lots of the old songs would be good.”

[Jeff] “It’s right for the demographic.”

Screen Shot 2018-07-24 at 11.50.04

From 26 Shades of Shale

Over recent years, any visit to Blunsdon isn’t complete without the presence of ex-Antiques Roadshow worker Harold Davis (91) and his friend Anthony Roberts (aka Rob) stood by my book display table. Tonight Rob’s here alone. “Harold has had a stroke and he lost the use of his leg and hand. He’s in Frenchay, it happened a couple of weeks ago. He’s gradually using his leg and his hand but, when you’re 91, it takes longer, doesn’t it? Would you like to sign his Get Well card?”

 

Like so many others, I am really very sorry to learn of the sudden death of true speedway fan, speedway historian and lovely man John Jarvis on April 7 aged 71. John was precisely the kind of modest, sincere, slightly obsessive, softly spoken man who typifies the values of what makes the speedway community so special. John deliberately wore his knowledge, experience and expertise lightly and affably. He had a genuine curiosity about all speedway people (whatever their role, responsibility & status or otherwise, preferably otherwise sometimes). I think (in my experience) he could clearly see their strengths, passions, frailties and foibles but always chose to see the best in people as well as offer kind words of encouragement and compassion.

Given his track record and skills as a researcher, historian and elegant writer, John could have quite rightly been precious and dismissive of those who knew less or were struggling to vaguely try to emulate him. Instead, he was true to himself and his love of and passion for the broad church that is British Speedway, by welcoming any and all into the charmed circle of the community. He played nice, kept his curiosity, forgave and shared openly. While knowing much more than he let on, he had no time for cliques. If asked for advice or thoughts, John gave it honestly in that lovely soft accent of his. If John felt advice should be given he offered it casually in passing as if by accident as something to be possibly borne gently in mind but, maybe, not really.

John seemed to turn up everywhere. That was always welcome and, somehow, reassuring. Suddenly he was just there, appearing from nowhere. He was a man you could admire for his understated passion for speedway and the certainty in the world his presence projected. His eyes had warmth and wisdom. Though a hoverer, John was not at all peripheral to the heart of speedway. Now John has left us, his absence will be noticed with a smile of recognition at the happy memories and the sadly missing warm glow of his friendly fellowship.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

From Bouquet of Shale

Speedway historian and co-author of the acclaimed Homes of British Speedway, John Jarvis, comes over all wistful when he recalls how many meetings and speedway tracks he used to visit each season. “I used to do 180 a year! This year I’ve only done 50 – most at Newport where I haven’t missed one yet! That’s 38 I think? I’ve been keeping notes to make sure is up to date but nothing much has changed. I help Rob Bamford who does the updating nowadays. There’s probably seven or eight new training tracks to add but nothing much really. It’s too comprehensive really. Some bloke did some research and got in touch to say ‘Luton didn’t run in ’36.’ They did in 1934 and in ’35 as a training track so, probably, that’s wrong but, apart from that, it’s probably too accurate really!”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>

Co-author of the still indispensable Homes of British Speedway reference book, John Jarvis sits in the shade of the section of the home-straight grandstand that overlooks the first bend. John points to an old age pensioner and asks, “Do you know who that is?” I don’t. Apparently, it’s ex-Newport and Wolverhampton rider Cyril Francis. “They let him in free each week.” John then asks rhetorically, “You’ve come to see the end?” Like many who care about this South Wales speedway club, John has concerns at the size of the crowd. “There can only be 350 here when he [Steve Mallett] needs 800 to break even. You need 300 to make the National League pay. Tomorrow he’ll get 200 maybe 250 if Dudley bring some down. Birmingham brought some last week. They say Tony Mole is looking at it in case Birmingham doesn’t run next year.

“He’s here today.”

[John] “In his Workington top this week, he was in his Birmingham top last! I haven’t been anywhere else this season – not Swindon or Somerset – just here! I haven’t missed a single meeting Premier League or National League. I like to support Steve Mallett because he’s a nice man. His mum is nice too.”

“She’s the one walking the dog.”

[John] “She works in the burger bar at National League meetings. He must be losing money every week. It’s a question of when he stops! They’re all nice, only the son is a prat! It’s amazing how things change. You ask Glyn Shailes – in ‘98 or ’99 when Swindon did the fixture list they’d say ‘Put in Newport first meeting, they’ll bring 600!’ It’s a natural cycle for clubs. They come back and attendances are high and then it falls off.”

 

 

Sky Sports and BT Sport have finally reached agreement to allow open access to all their satellite channels for all their subscribers. Whatever happens in the negotiations with BT Sport over broadcasting Premiership League racing, this definitely means that British Speedway will be broadcast live on Sky Sports next season….albeit that currently the only confirmed meeting is the British Speedway Grand Prix in Cardiff.

Given the combined possible satellite television audience numbers now in play – BT TV’s UK customer base of 1.7 million and Sky’s 12.74 million subscribers in UK & Ireland as well as with the potential of BT Sport availability to over 5 million households – the boost to the national profile of British Speedway that the oxygen of publicity live broadcast grants to the sport, its riders and clubs must surely be much harder for Premiership promoters to justify walking away from now that the powerful showcase of Sky Sports is back in play? Mutual interest allied to BT Sport need to source low cost the summer live sports broadcast hours – something that speedway provides – should see some movement on terms towards agreement rather than the suicide options of terms intransigence (BT) or swallowing the poison pill of outright refusal (SCB/BSPA)?

That said, the signs are not good if judged by the mood music of the stalled negotiations and, on the speedway side, the increasing insistency of the heavy-handed hints dropping from various sources via the pages of the Speedway Star over recent weeks. Though, apparently, Premiership “promoters are pondering a new tv contract” for the 2018 season they are not exactly rushing to accept the [three year] deal without balloon payments that is currently on offer from BT Sport.

Without doubt, the feast days of big balloon payments plus individual meeting staging fees promoters somehow managed to fritter away without anything concrete to show for it in terms of national recognition, robust attendances or home grown rider development are gone. And, in its place, is the pending famine of BT Sport current meeting staging fee offer that for most premiership clubs will only barely cover lost gate receipts.

Compounding the collective failure to invest Sky Sports era monies wisely, the ongoing independently verified collapse of the Speedway television audience in the UK (both Speedway Grand Prix & British League racing) over the past decade or so, surely means that if any commercial broadcaster is brave enough to offer to bear the costs of putting on live coverage without charging British Speedway promotors/clubs for this service (let alone making any payment for doing so) then it would be foolish not to accept even the current ‘derisory’ offer. Unless, of course, there is an alternative development strategy (and serious marketing budget/plan) already on hand and ready to go to take its place.

Though the price of the live broadcast television tail wagging the speedway dog is well known to historically include producing pitiful crowds, rider wage inflation and product perception dilution, this is the strategic road British Speedway embraced. The time to actually sensibly question the real or imagined benefits of the television broadcast deal passed by over a decade ago. Understandably, the reality of reduced fees/revenues has concentrated the promoter hive mind. Just last week, taking an onion from his pocket, Poole Pirates promoter Matt Ford told Speedway stenographer Paul ‘Burbo’ Burbidge, “We’re going into a year where we’re probably going to have no television money”. Whether that is factually true or an exaggeration still remains to be seen. What is certain that the nuclear option of walking away with ‘no deal’ is likely to be exponentially more harmful for the prestige, recognition, prosperity and long term prospects of British Speedway – whatever its future incarnations – than almost any alternative scenario.

Now, with the dashboard warning light flashing, even more than usual, rather than blame others, live in an imaginary parallel universe or play the victim British Speedway needs to play the cards it has dealt itself shrewdly.

 

Postscript 28.12.17

“One PL track is believed to have suggested that banning the cameras will result in an increase of 200 spectators per meeting at his venue. How he arrives at that mind-boggling conclusion is anyone’s guess.” Philip Rising, Speedway Star, 30.12.17

“Speedway’s future is very much on the line because there are few sports that can flourish without the regular exposure a TV contract guarantees.” Peter Oakes, Speedway Star, 30.12.17

“Some have produced statistical evidence that their crowds went DOWN once BT started their coverage last season.” Anonymous,  Talking Point column, Speedway Star, 30.12.17

Speedway attracts many different types of obsessives. We all bring our own particular flavour. There are many theories about why this is a rich tradition in speedway circles or, indeed, what drives this behaviour. Whether it is the numbers (team/individual scores, averages, race times), the form filling (scorecard), gender (usually male) or collectables (programmes, memorabilia, equipment, race jackets) – we all mark, retain and store our individual speedway experiences in our own distinctive ways.

Few speedway fans went to as many meetings or recorded them so distinctively or unassumingly as Nigel ‘Noddy’ Fordham who has just sadly passed away (December 2107) from a stroke. Like many completists, Noddy had all the programmes from every meeting he had ever attended. Also like many speedway fans, he was affable, knowledgeable, well-travelled and keen to chat. In addition to his length of speedway service, what really set him apart were the wide-ranging but meticulous records of everything to do with every trip to every speedway meeting that he kept so studiously too! Hopefully, his family, friends or the speedway community can – somehow – preserve this unique record for posterity? It is, of course, only one man’s life in speedway but, at the same time, is emblematic of the selfless dedication of so many who love speedway enough to contribute their energy and time without reward or payment beyond the pleasure it brings and the preservation of its make-do-and-mend, hail-fellow-speedwayer-well-met culture.

Many are just fascinated with speedway per se – its people, places, dramas and communities – Noddy was one such speedway fan whom it was a pleasure to meet and briefly know. As Peter Oakes writes in the Xmas 2017 edition of the Speedway Star, “Anyone who has been involved in speedway will have known Noddy”. Quite an accolade. Nigel ‘Noddy’ Fordham RIP.

From Quantum of Shale

Though I’m absolutely positive that compared to some people, Nigel ‘Noddy’ Fordham’s attendance record is merely a footnote in history, I’m extremely impressed by his dedication and fastidious record keeping. “This is my 41st year in going to speedway; I’ve been to 4,747 meetings in this is my 94th meeting of the season. I’ve been to 1,135 meetings at Ipswich and I have all the programmes from every meeting I’ve been to! I used to be an official but it was too much trouble and I gave up two or three years ago. You get treated like a piece of shit by the promoters who don’t respect you and take everything for granted! You get promoters like Len Silver and Buster Chapman, they’re genuine speedway people ’cause they put money back into the sport. Rye House, King’s Lynn and Lakeside all do Juniors. None of us [unpaid helpers] get paid ’cause we don’t want to be paid but respect would be nice. It’s a word: RESPECT. Anyway, it means I can travel round more. I’ve been to most places in the world that stage speedway and this includes places like Russia, the Czech Republic and Italy. This year will be my 25th year going to the Czech Republic. It’s basic speedway in the raw over there! The Golden Helmet is the star meeting. There’s 32 heats and there’s six riders in each race. It starts at 12 and there’s tons and tons of passing. They even do moped speedway out there! Oh, you want to see it, it was funny! I haven’t got a favourite rider although I used to follow Zdenek Tesar around everywhere. I went to see him one winter and stayed in a hotel nearby so I could see him play ice hockey. He told me, ‘I’m a good goal minder!’ After the first quarter he’d let none in and after the second quarter he’d let five in! Ha! Ha! I like all speedway riders ’cause they’re supplying me with my sport that I enjoy. Plus, people don’t realise how dangerous it is and that they put their lives on the line. I used to follow John Louis everywhere. In 1975 I had my hair dyed with tiger stripes when he went to Wembley. He came third. It once took me 61 hours to hitch to Lvov – which was Russia but is now the Ukraine – to see Chris Louis ride in the World Under-21 Final the year that he won it. The golden rule of hitching is never walk! Always stand in the same place under the lights or by a roundabout. It’s rarer here but easy in Europe. This is a bad year, this year, as I’ve only been to 94 meetings. My best year was 1983, I think, I did 210 meetings that year. I’ve got a 632 page record book at home. I can tell you every mile I’ve done! Every track, every rider, every ref and, today, is my 948,000th mile. In the winter I rewrite it all again! There’s train miles, tram miles, hitch-hiking miles, flight miles – I always try to think of new things to record. It’s been my life and I love it! I know too many promoters just take the money but, it’s all about the riders and the racing really, so I’ll always keep going.” We’re interrupted by news that Tom Brown has exited the Healthcare Vehicle and, after consultation with the track doctor, has withdrawn from the meeting. I’m not exactly sure why the doctor’s note subsequently makes its way into Craig Saul’s possession (rather than the Incident Recorder’s) but it allows him to tell us, “The doctor’s note here says it’s a weight-bearing injury!” According to Noddy some of the more-experienced riders should by now have won the CLRC, “Benji Compton should be up the top there. He’s been riding too many years – he’s been up and down. He ain’t gonna make it! Tom [Brown] has tried too hard tonight and then you get out of control, don’t you? That Darcy Ward does look good but I can’t believe he’s Australian – that’s the worst thing!”

From Bouquet of Shale

Nigel ‘Noddy’ Fordham reveals that tonight is his 108th meeting of the season. This takes him to a grand total to 4,963 meetings. “I’ve now travelled over a million miles. I achieved that at the beginning of October when I went to the Czech Golden Helmet. They promoted the meeting, for once, with posters and that so we got a big crowd there!”

From Shale Trek

Though the stadium might not be quite as packed as the organisers would hope, various speedway personalities are here including Nigel ‘Noddy’ Fordham whose speedway meetings attendance record never fails to impress. I wonder where he’ll be when he sees his 5,000th meeting? “I’m not gonna have it at Ipswich! We might not have a club, John Louis is retiring and there’s no one taking it over. He wants £100 grand for them! I’m gonna have it at Coventry where I’ve saw my first ever British league meeting. I’ve been to 16 Pardubice Czech golden helmets on the trot.”

From 26 Shades of Shale

The great and the good head down to the [Poole] pits including Neil Middleditch, Gordon Day, Peterborough promoter Rick Frost and wife Julie, Craig Cook as well as Shane Parker (in an Australian top) deep in mobile conversation stood in the grandstand area that serves as the post-meeting dance floor. Also drinking in the atmosphere is the extremely well-travelled Nigel ‘Noddy’ Fordham. He has notched up 5,022 speedway meetings! “Look at the management shirt Zielona Gόra management team gave me! It’s a management shirt! I’m the mate of the bloke who runs it.”

“Was the five thousandth meeting there?”

“I forget! Nah, it was at Ipswich. I shall see three of these [Under-21s] finals. I shall miss the second one. You can’t miss world finals can you? I don’t reckon there’ll be many here.”

The riders file back and forth from the pits to the track to inspect it. Noddy’s in his element. “Alright, Marek!” “There’s Martin – Martin!” It’s Martin Vaculik, “He’s a good rider – I know him from going to Chechnya three or four times a year. He rides in the big league in Poland for Tarnow. There’s Chris [Durno], we’ve been to so many meetings together.” Shane Parker passes in animated conversation with Darcy Ward, while Chris Holder ambles along behind in his trademark surfer dude clothing. It’s a style he favours on race night and days off. “Alright Shane!? Awright Darcy!? You did well at Lakeside!” Darcy walks on without answer. “Look, they’re blowing more of those adverts up on the centre green. They’re a pain. They really get in the ****in’ way! Is Auty riding?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Or Vadim Tarasenko, he hasn’t got a visa.”

Though Noddy’s disposition is as warm as the sun, he’s frustrated that the complexities of speedway remain unappreciated by the general public. “That’s the worst part; people think you just put 3-2-1 down. I do it properly afterwards [waves programme]. It’s a typical BSPA thing, not leaving any room for anything! I think there’ll be a lot of dust coming up here this afternoon.”

Screen Shot 2017-12-23 at 13.24.37

 

 

Photo credit: Ipswich Star

Known and recognised by huge numbers of people throughout the British Speedway community because of his extensive speedway merchandise trackshop empire (as well as being Europewide & further afield for his football ground hopping activities), sadly Dave ‘Rat’ Rattenberry has left us all too suddenly and, at 68, far too soon.

Screen Shot 2017-11-14 at 18.49.31

Always happy to meet or briefly encounter people (& then not remember them but recall what made them tick), Dave was an interested, keen and perceptive student of human nature as well as a thoughtful observer. Naturally entrepreneurial (and a keen negotiator or controller of costs), Dave worked hard, knew the value of money, accidental forgetfulness and rewards of success but also really enjoyed life (his and seeing that of others). He had had a close relationship with his mother that made him gregarious and personable as well as left him at home in who he was, wherever he was. Studiously without airs and graces – and proud of it –  Dave’s curiosity about people drew many into his orbit. Blessed with an easy fluency with language, Dave always knew more than he let on or how he presented himself to the world. Dave could see foibles but knew discretion and, though very well able to look after and stand up for himself, knew the power of diplomacy and the time for careful words. Dave relished his hobbies and had an understated but effortlessly encyclopedic knowledge (people, places, grounds, stadiums, players, riders, team, merchandise, places to stay, places to eat(!), where he’d been and ways to get there).

The rich tapestry of the speedway community as plays itself out at each and every speedway meeting in Britain is both unique and similar. It is a rich mix of many threads bound together making the whole more than the sum of its parts. The interconnected circles of the Venn Diagram of Dave’s working life in speedway touched many. Dave will be missed and his many threads (not just those he made!) will continue to be remembered affectionately. Rest in Peace Rat.

Screen Shot 2017-11-14 at 18.38.30

Dave appeared in all my books. Here are some brief snippets that kinda catch Dave Rat as he was out in the wild:

(from Shale Trek)

Round at the trackshop, Bill, John and Rat stand ready for the turnstiles to open behind their perfectly set out stall. The cornucopia of Wolverhampton speedway merchandise on offer should cater for every need, age group and pocket. Dave Rattenberry even has an impressive display of the mugs with the peculiar colour photo resolution that in many ways is his trademark. On some of them, PK looks like he’s suffered some sort of terrible poisoning that’s caused his skin to go orange while on another his face is so red you could half suspect he’d been horrifically burnt in some form of hushed-up tanning salon accident. Ever the salesman, John Rich concedes, “They shouldn’t be red, they should be gold!”

(from Bouquet of Shale)

Since I know Dave is a football ground hopper, I’m suddenly keen to establish exactly how many grounds he’s been to. The answer is 3,268 grounds! When I jokingly ask, “What? Approximately?” missing the ‘humour’ Dave replies, “No, that’s dead on!”

…..

Dave Rattenberry’s taken a night off from masterminding his extensive and lucrative trackshop empire to savour the thrills of this Monarchs versus Brummies Premier League clash. Some could suspect that he’s been sent under cover as a secret shopper. Thirty minutes before the rider parade, Rat eats a cheeseburger with gusto. He returns to the burger van 15 minutes later to savour-cum-wolf-down the chips that he’d earlier denied himself. It’s not long until Rat joins us on the terracing to eat some fudge.

…..

Dave Rattenberry studies the second 125cc Support Races – once again featuring careful bends and exhilaratingly speedy straights. After the riders finish, Rat enquires, “What age are these?” Since it’s the Under-15 Championships, I can’t resist replying, “I’m guessing – under 15!” It’s news that only confirms Dave’s opinion, “I know! They’re only children, they’re all only children!”

……

If there was a competition for the most exotic mobile phone call of the afternoon, then Dave Rattenberry wins hands down. “You’ll never guess who that was? [pause] Ivan Mauger – he wants me to sell his book! John Rich rings me up right [from Stoke where he’s on duty in the trackshop] and he says ‘There’s a man here who’s got some Ivan Mauger books – do you want to speak to him?’ He puts him on and the man says ‘It’s Ivan Mauger here!’ John didn’t even know it was Ivan!”

……

I lose track of the conversation during Dave Rattenberry’s explanation of the best route from Buxton to the M6 motorway. He warns about speed cameras and also the overzealous policing that you can apparently expect in Staffordshire. “George Andrews got done last year for eating a banana in his car! It was front page news in Stoke!”

……….

Bill Gimbeth and Dave Rattenberry are again out and about on yet another speedway tour together to see key meetings (and share a room afterwards). Dave survives the arduous trek from the substantial grassy parking area outside Shielfield Park but continues to clutch his emergency rations of a half-eaten pork pie. He swiftly transfers this to his pocket for later when he spots how short the queue is at the refreshment kiosk. It’s been a hard season to run a trackshop even if you have the array of merchandise Rat displays throughout his empire. “It’s hard, it’s flipping horrendously hard this year! Last night, John [Rich] took £100 at Scunny. I don’t pay any rent for the Conference League but there’s still the petrol and paying John out of that!” Should Dave’s burger come without enough relish, luckily he’s already taken an onion from his pocket.

……………

(from 26 Shades of Shale)

Carefully picking his way back from the catering facility to his trackshop lair via a crowd bottleneck, Dave Rattenberry gets hit by shale as the riders roar into the first corner at the start of heat 7. With the rapidity of eye movement that sets apart predators from prey in the wild, Rat checks his chips for impromptu additional flavour. While he devours his mid-meeting snack with great gusto, Rat asks, “What have you written about me this time?”

Screen Shot 2017-11-14 at 18.41.37

The top 40 Speedway Grand Prix rider  prize money earnings ($) 2005 to 2017 with average per SGP and per SGP series too…

Screen Shot 2017-11-27 at 12.36.07

with thanks to Mr. S. Bear of Windhill Manor, Shipley for these earnings figures

Speedway Grand Prix dollar prize earnings for the 2017 series again show most riders earning less than the Help – whether it is BSI’s Torben Olsen or headline sponsor Monster Joe Parsons. Surely this still isn’t right?

Screen Shot 2017-11-27 at 10.49.11

 

Once again, thanks to Mr. S. Bear of Windhill Manor, Shipley for compiling these SGP $ earnings figures. SGP rider earnings ($) for 2016 are here

To see total Speedway Grand Prix earnings ($) 2005-2017 go here