Rules are made to be amended

The change to the rules regarding the Elite League title playoffs, reducing the teams involved from 6 to 4, announced by the BSPA in June both surprised and upset both the sports supporters and even some promoters.

The official reason given by the BSPA was that a 6 team playoff system was too unwieldy and Sky Sports did not the time to cover more playoffs in their schedules but according to the conspiracy theorists on the terraces the change had more to do with stopping Poole reaching the playoffs following their signing of Hans Andersen, which itself had resulted in theories about race fixing and convenient rider illness to reduce team averages, rather than television schedules.

No one was more upset with the goal posts being moving mid season than the Poole promoter Matt Ford. In his programme notes for the meeting against Lakeside on 17 June he said “this meeting could possibly be the last live Sky TV meeting as an Elite League club...catastrophic decision... a black day for British speedway ... why continue in a league where we have absolutely no confidence”

Mr Ford has expressed his anger about the changes to rule 16-4-1 regarding the top 4/6 play offs but he has been very quiet about the apparent catch 22 situation in the same rule regarding the relegation/promotion playoff and who exactly takes part from the EL and how they are determined. The rule when talking about the EL says on page 39 that the play off for relegation is between the EL bottom placed team and the winner of the PL top 4 play off. Yet the same rule says on page 40, when talking about the PL states that the winning team from PL top 4 play off to compete against loser of the EL relegation play off (as an aside whilst the rule book states how the fixtures in EL top 4/6 playoffs are determined (rule 18B3) nowhere does it state how they are determined in the PL/NL and there are no cut off dates in any of the three leagues for determining who takes part in the title playoffs) So if the rule on page 39 is correct and the PL team loses it would according to page 40 then race itself!. So were the rules written so that if an unexpected team finished bottom of the EL their promoter could claim that page 40 of the rulebook applied but if his team finished next to bottom that page 39 applied or maybe as the words EL bottom team are in bold on page 39 which shows that they have been amended from the rules in 2008, when we did indeed have a race off between the two bottom team in the EL, that the rules were changed in the EL section but someone forgot that this mean that the wording of the rules in the PL section should be changed accordingly but either of those things would happen in a professional sport like speedway would they?

So this got me wondering if this the first time that such a major change in how a league was run had occurred mid season.

League speedway in Britain started in 1929 and there were two leagues, the Southern League and the northern based English Dirt Track League (EDTL). The first league match in the EDTL was at Barnsley on the 6 April where the visitors Burnley won 17-11. Following this meeting the original company behind the EDTL went into liquidation and the new owners decided to change the meeting format to 9 heats with teams consisting of 6 riders plus 2 reserves rather than the 4 heats and teams of 4 riders and 2 reserves used at Barnsley. Despite the fact that the new league didn’t officially start until 20 April the Barnsley v Burnley result was allowed to stand which in the end didn’t matter as Burnley withdrew from the league in late July as did White City Manchester and both Belle Vue and Warrington were expelled and the final league table showed teams having between 24 and 18 matches.

The Southern League was more organised, well at least all teams completed the season, but once again the meeting format and team made up changed mid season and like the 2009 playoff change some of the changes were said to be as a result of sponsor demands. The season started off with meetings consisting of 6 heats and established stars from the 1928 season were banned and they had to earn their living by talking part in the races following the league meeting for the Golden Helmet /Gold Gauntlet etc.

The first change to the race format, announced in the Speedway News of 13th June, was that in future league meetings were to be over 9 heats and this was said to be because “It is believed that by increasing the number of events the matches will be made more interesting. One of the advantages will be that if as team should happen to drop behind in the first few races, through bad luck it will have a good chance to retrieve the position”

Late July bought another change and some confusion caused by the wishes of the league “sponsors”. Fans and indeed promoters were led to believe that in future “Star” riders would be allowed to take part in league meetings. Wimbledon were scheduled to race Coventry, who following the change could include the “Star” Jack Parker, at Plough Lane so it was announced that the Dons had signed the Aussie “Star” Vic Huxley who had also been made the Wimbledon captain and this information was included in the programme. So the fans were naturally confused when it was announced that in fact whilst Parker could ride for Coventry the rules prevented Huxley riding for Wimbledon. Confused fans, so some things haven’t changed in 80 years, contacted the Speedway News to ask what was going on and the issued dated 1st August said “It appears that when the league idea was originally started it was the intention of the “News of the World” the proprietors of which are supplying the league trophies that these races should be limited to English riders. This idea was carried out as far as possible but it was found necessary to include some of the “A” grade overseas riders so as to bring some of the weaker teams up to a higher standard. In fairness to the overseas “Stars” it was decided to also exclude the English “Stars” but public opinion has been so definitely in favour of at least some of the “Stars” appearing that it was decided to include the leading English riders in various teams. This, while meeting with the demand of the average speedway enthusiast, confirms with the original idea of comprising the different teams of English riders wherever possible. At the present time it is felt that there is no justification for the inclusion of the overseas “Stars”. “

Being the first season of league racing in Britain it is not surprising that the speedway authorities were learning on the job but fast forward 30 years and they still seemed to making things up as they when along.

In 1959 the National League, the Elite League of the day, started the season off with the Britannia Shield competition where meetings consisted of 15 heat matches followed by a 5 heat reserves match. Just prior to the National League itself starting the SCB decided that league meetings should be over 18 heats with 9 riders per team but following complaints from the Speedway Riders Association teams were reduced to 8 riders. Then on the 8th June the SCB decided that the format used in the early season Britannia Shield completion should be used for National League meeting. So at the end of the season of the total of 144 league meetings 22 had been raced over 18 heats and the rest over 15 heats.

3 years later the National League got even more confusing when the SCB decided to introduced handicap racing. The first suggestion was that the rider handicap would be decided every month by a committee chaired by the SCB secretary Mr W Fearnley. This idea was unpopular with the SRA who wanted 2 grades of handicap rather than the suggested 3 and confusion was caused by the fact that riders had different handicaps depending on if they were riding at home or away. After various alterations the idea suggested by Charles Ochiltree was adopted where only the reserve and the supplementary reserve started off scratch with other riders starting off 10 yards apart from the Big 5, Briggs/Craven/Fundin/Knutsson and Moore, who started off 20 yards. Later this was further revised so that the supplementary reserve, a rider allowed to replace an injured reserve, started off 10 yards and the reserve only started off scratch if his average was below 4.

Now fast forward to the Conference League of 1999 and 2000. The rules for the format of the league were the same for both years, 23.4.4 (1999) and 15.4.4 (2000), and stated that “For the British Conference League teams must complete a minimum of 6 home and 6 away matches and a maximum of 2 home and 2 away matches against the same club. The second visit to or from a club shall not count towards the minimum number of fixtures”

The rulebook gave no indication of how you would decide league positions if teams raced differing number of fixtures, back to the EDTL of 1929, but in the end this problem did not occur in 1999 as all 7 teams rode the same number of fixtures. In 2000 the number of teams in the league increased to 10 and once again no team took the opportunity to pick the teams they raced in the league and all planned to race a total of 18 league meetings until the British weather intervened and at the official end of the speedway season, 31st October, two fixtures were outstanding Mildenhall v St Austell and Boston v St Austell. The Mildenhall fixture was the real problem due to the fact that the top of the league table shown Sheffield with 31 points and Mildenhall having 30 points but Mildenhall still had a meeting to race. They requested an extension to the season to allow them to complete their fixture and hopefully become league champions but this request was turned down although they were awarded the bonus point for the missing fixture which meant they were equal on points with Sheffield who were declared champions due to their better points average a decision which still upsets Mildenhall fans. The whole episode raises a number of questions. Why didn’t the rules contain a rule which explained how if a team, quite within the rules, choose not to race every team in the league how the league championship be decided or was once teams agreed that they would all race the same number of fixtures were the rules changed?

S.Bear