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It is not an easy leap from Italian football to British speedway, but it has to be made to pay appropriate attention to Shale Britannia: A Sideways Glance at Speedway (Methanol Press, £15). The title barely does the work justice, for it is not so much a glance as a full-on stare. It is an […]

The F.I.M. has just published the official attendance figures for the 2007 Grand Prix Series. Total attendances improved by 2.3% overall from 147,392 to 150,913 though because many of the attendances have weirdly symmetrical numbers you have to assume that these are ‘rounded’ figures not specific ones. I gather that these figures refer to ‘paying […]

“The book is a big read giving an insight into another angle on speedway in the UK. Shifting Shale is an amusing Bill Brysonesque view of the tracks and the tracks which we don’t really get from other writers. Jeff clearly loves his speedway and the people that are so much part of the sport. […]

£9.99 (plus postage)in book form though, for the technologically gifted, £7.50 as a download243 pages400 photographsWonderful insightAbsolutely nothing else like it on the market Click here to buy it The introduction reads like this: Tina Turner famously asked “what’s love got to do with it?” Now that you have this book in your hands you […]

“If the smell of methanol wafting up West Street doesn’t get you longing for summer, Jeff Scott will…[in Shifting Shale] Jeff tracks the 2006 season, helped by a few Sports Argus posters. The use of key quotes adds a nice touch. You’ll read the quotes first, then get wrapped up in about 350 pages of […]

You may have rushed to the phone (or onto the internet) to take advantage of the widely advertised “UP TO 10% OFF TICKETS PURCHASED BEFORE 31.12.O7” special offer for the 2008 Cardiff Grand Prix. This opportunity drew itself to my attention through an insert in this week’s Speedway Star that reinforced the screechy back page […]

With the annual BSPA conference only days away, the collective anticipation of the speedway world in Britain is almost breathless and enlivened by a variety of rumours circulating from sources apparently ‘in the know’. Interest outside the rarefied world of speedway remains constant at zero. The consensus is that something has to be done and […]

The annual BSPA conference is nearly upon us and, as is traditional before the tablets are brought down from the mountain to explain the latest configuration or colouring of next season’s deckchairs, various interested parties are getting their retaliation in first while pretending to put forward helpful suggestions. Because of the wide acknowledgement that there […]

Bibliophiles Corner – Sue Jackson-Scott Shale Britannia – Jeff Scott published by Methanol Press £15, ISBN 978-0955310324. As Jeff was disappointed by the Voice printing his own press release on this publication, I shall give in and tell him, and all other members, my impressions of his book.Don’t show Shale Britannia to anyone who isn’t […]

13th October Downtown Gelsenkirchen isn’t the first place that you’d choose for a weekend break as, even in the sunshine, it has more of the feel of Basingstoke town centre than any self-respecting holiday resort. Tonight will be the first ever Grand Prix staged in Germany, the eleventh of the season and the 100th since […]

Where would we be without Sky coverage of speedway? I think we all know the answer to that. We’d certainly miss regular televised race action and (mostly) slick presentation. We’d also be deprived of one the joys of their regular coverage – the repetitive exaggerated Skyballs TM language used and the spectacular level of cliché […]

Speedway doyen with 58 years experience of the sport has again kindly mentioned my work in his Berwick programme notes of September 8th:- Now, you might recall I mentioned speedway author Jeff Scott on this page last week, and told you he’d be here next Saturday, signing copies of his books “Shale Britannia” and “Shifting […]

30th August The advent of the Super Seven series format in 2007has reinvigorated many of the events that have beenincluded under its umbrella. The super7 concept is thebrainchild of the King’s Lynn co-promoter JonathanChapman whose name, whenever it appears in thespeedway press, invariably has epithets like‘ambitious’, ‘dynamic’ or ‘young’ appear in the samesentence. Whatever your […]

BELIEVE it or not: prolific author Jeff Scott has a day job….The long-time fan, who has just added two new titles to his growing speedway catalogue, spends his working life publicising other people’s books.And his own spare time touring the tracks and flogging his own works of art!This week he’ll be lugging boxes around the […]

SPEEDWAY. It’s all about four blokes on motorbikes turning left, right?Wrong? Not in Jeff Scott’s world, anyway – and it’s a world I’m quite happy to inhabit myself. Author, photographer and shalesport obsessive, Jeff has been a regular face at tracks up and down the country since embarking on his Showered in Shale project, a […]

Rumours in the Speedway Star claim that a three-league structure for next year could be dictated by attendance figures. It has been mooted that there would be nine teams in each league those withAttendances greater than 1000Attendances greater than 750Attendances greater than 500 It’s a plan that raises more questions than it answers, particularly for […]

13th July 2007 ‘Shale Britannia’ – A Sideways Glance at Speedway’Author: Jeff Scott The book contains 245 colour photos taken at every track during 2005 and 2006. That allows the now-closed Wimbledon club to be featured. It has four photos – the outside of the stadium before a meeting (page 55), the empty entrance to […]

Book Review: Shifting ShaleShifting ShaleBy Jeff Scott£20, in softback Regular visitors to the site will hopefully be familiar with the work of author and speedway obsessive Jeff Scott. We’ve featured excerpts from his work and tried to somehow help him minimise the losses his publications always seem destined to make. He’s just published his fourth […]

A selection of photographs from ‘Shale Britannia’ appears in this week’s ‘Big Issue’ on page 25 I buy a copy every week anyway and would encourage everyone to do so. If you only want to buy this one it’s the one with a rather fetching picture of Natasha Beddingfield on the front (issue number 752 […]