Then and Now

“Some of the more far seeing promoters are ready to put their whole resources into discovering a pooling system. These are the ones who can see that unless teams are made more or less the same strength the crowds are going to discover another form of entertainment.

Too many complaints were made last year of runaway victories, with the result that the first ominous signs of disquiet among followers was beginning to show itself.

Let these rumblings be a warning! The public expect to see close racing and there is only one way to do it – reorganise the teams. We call upon ALL promoters to discard their personal feelings and get down to real co-operation.

Some promoters feel that what they have got they should hold, or if they are forced to part with a rider, then a big transfer fee must be obtained. Can’t these people see that unless assistance is given to some of the weaker teams speedway’s days are numbered, and then their star riders will not be worth any more than raw novices?

The public want to see team racing – teams of equal strength battling every heat for supremacy. This is the public’s wish and it is up to the promoters to see they get it.”

Editorial Speedway World December 8 1948

“ I am all for change when it is in the interests of British Speedway but I am not convinced that dropping the limit to such a figure is in the complete interests of the sport. This move would just enable clubs to ‘cheery pick’ other clubs assets and I can fully understand Avtar’s view on this.

One of the problems, though, is that when a so called bigger /rich club speaks out everyone considers it to be an act of self-interest, but I can tell you that the likes of Coventry, Swindon, Poole and Peterborough have bent over backwards already to try and accommodate other clubs and if we bend any more we would break”

Matt Ford article on www.worldspeedway.tv/en/latest 26 November 2007

These two views on what should happen when you have a major imbalance in the strengths of teams within the league appear far apart both in years and the possible solutions. Yet it appears that when Mr Ford was travelling from Poole to Coventry for the BSPA Conference he put the wrong details in his sat nav and ended up on the road to Damascus judging by his apparent conversion and I am just surprised that he didn’t follow Saul’s example and change his Christian name. Following the assumed incident on the Damascus bypass, according to the BSPA press release issued on 2nd December following the BSPA conference, his views were now that

“the top clubs in the Elite League have done this (the reduced points limit) in the best interest of the sport in general. It’s a case of short term pain for the long term in my view. The imbalance within the Elite League last season could not continue and we all believe in these measures”

It will be interesting to see if Mr Ford, and other promoters who shared his former views and one assumes had similar conversions whilst travelling to the conference, are long term converts or reverse to their former views.

In 1948 the Speedway World was worried that promoters would want big transfer fees for their riders but in 2007 the riders have become assets just like any other fixtures and fittings that the promoting company owes and rather than sell them promoters would sooner earn loan fees for them for the next decade. Some riders appear to have signed contracts which would seem to have no end date judging by the years they spend out on loan or in one recent case in retirement yet remain the “asset” of the promoting company or personally belong to a promoter, who says that slavery is dead, with whom they signed a contract years before. This trend would appear to be encouraged by the BSPA judging by the following quote from George’s Journal in the Newcastle programme of 18th March 2007.

“However the club has had a rethink regarding its status as with a couple of our assets coming to the end of their careers we have to carefully look at the strength of the clubs asset list and bring in new faces to maintain the value of our retained list, a specific requirement of the BSPA”

S.Bear