The Roar of the Bikes, the Smell of the Crowd er
The Smell of the Bikes .......
It was interesting to read Len Silver’s
letter in the last issue. He didn’t seem too happy with some of my comments !!
Well its likely Mr Silver wouldn’t like my
last article either !! I don’t think I’m alone in my
views over the tactical rules – not if you look at the letters page of the Star
anyway, but there goes Mr Silver “speedway isn’t like other sports” “you cannot
compare football to speedway etc” predictable comments – especially in view of
what I said last time !! Maybe even Mr Silver has some reservations about the
tactical ride rules – I’m given to understand that in a programme earlier this
season he made the following remark :(Len
Lines Rye House v Mildenhall 17/04)
“Morally we were the victors by two points because the Wasps
had to use the tactical double points which saw Wilkinson score 6 points
instead of 3 in heat 5.”
Does that mean we need to have an extra column in league
tables for moral victories ?
Of course crucial to attracting new
supporters is how outsiders view the sport. If even regular supporters think
the rules are daft what chance do we have with outsiders ?
The general public – I’m not sure who Len
Silver means when he uses this phrase - I mean the real general public – the
younger ones don’t even know what
You would have thought that the televised
matches would have improved attendances but I don’t see any evidence of it and really
what image are we trying to portray ? Some of the televised arguments between refs,
team managers and riders are embarrassingly cringeworthy
to say the least. The way incidents, interviews and “the state of the
racetrack” are talked up and overplayed suggests a lack of substance to the
sport. And lets face it a lot of the televised stuff will have done nothing to
change the views of “the first out of the gate brigade”. It doesn’t matter that
the commentator is in apoplexy we can see what’s going on and his cardiac arrest
isn’t going to change it !
Of course the latest phenomenon is a
rained-off sky meeting, a concept almost totally unheard of until this season.
It seemed in the past that nothing short of a tsunami could stop a televised
meeting. One of these along with the post-mortem and peripheral arguments will
undoubtedly have new supporters beating a path to the turnstiles. I’m pretty
certain Sky will be unhappy about this view of speedway’s dark side. Its seems
that the honeymoon is now over and its back to reality TV !!
I know people who have the Sky sports
package who are not speedway supporters and have watched no more than a couple
of races. Then there’s the odd one who would watch matches but has never been
to the local track. The main audience for sky seems to be regular supporters –
not much advantage to tracks in general then but where does the sky money go ? .
What is to be done to get the message across ? – I’ve seen one or two letters recently in the Star
with various ideas. The one about taking the bikes to the local football ground
and doing a bit of a display on the perimeter track at half time was tried at
the Vale ground some years ago and may have had some effect, but these type of
things have to be repeated and of course you have to make sure that new fans
are not disappointed by some of the things ordinary fans put up with, you know,
no ambulance, no paramedic, arguments over track conditions, track grading
after every race, over 2 hours for 15mins of action, the suns in the wrong
place and the starting gates broke. These things are not good and on your first
visit well…… you may think again !
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