MethanolPress
latest post
more from the blog
BSPA Website Competition
08/06/2010
To enter the BSPA website competition to win one of the three signed copies of Shale Trek, click on the contact button above* and answer the following question: Name the riders who won the 2009 National League Best Pairs Championship? Please provide your name and address along with your answer. * Please DON’T submit your […]
Top 10 riders competition
18/05/2010
Who are the all time Top 10 riders at your club? The new British Speedway Directory & Track Guide tries to answer that question for every existing speedway team. Fans, promoters, officials, historians and members of the speedway media were quizzed and they came up with some surprising often-controversial answers! To enter the competition to […]
Eileen Shepherd 20th June 1931 – 14th April 2010
08/05/2010
My trip to the Isle of Wight on Tuesday night was spoilt by news of the shock death of the lovely Eileen Shepherd. There was a tribute in the programme that read: Eileen Shepherd 20th June 1931 – 14th April 2010 Please join with us this evening in remembering one of our ever-present founder shareholders […]
HD adds lustre to seating, team suits and Sky revenues
11/04/2010
People say that the sports programming shown exclusively on Sky Sports has historically been the real engine of subscriber and revenue growth for the Rupert Murdoch owned Sky satellite channel. Premiership football has definitely driven many people to sign up with Sky Sports who otherwise wouldn’t have done so and, if its boosters and/or press […]
Attendance Queries
31/01/2010
Attendance figures for the 2008 and 2009 Speedway Grand Prix (SGP) series have finally been released from where they’d been held in a file marked ‘Top Secret’ inside the BSI/IMG bunker located on the outskirts of London. A quick first glance indicates that the SGP World Championship outlook remains cloudy and its popularity with fans […]
Shale Snapshots 2009 (pt.1)
A single random image has been chosen from every speedway event I attended in 2009 (every British speedway track was visited).
Observer Sports Books of the Year 2009 – “honorary mention” for Quantum of Shale
06/12/2009
“Finally, an honorary mention for Jeff Scott’s Quantum of Shale: More Tales from the Shale (Methanol, £20). Scott writes extensively (one might even say obssessively…) on Speedway and Quantum is of his usual high standard. Needless to say if mud and noisy bikes don’t interest you then neither will this, but if they do, Jeff’s […]
Speedway Grand Prix 2009 – Rider earnings
30/10/2009
The fastidious Charles McKay has now collated the cumulative Speedway Grand Prix prize money totals earned by each rider during the recently completed 2009 season. They make pitiful reading for many riders concerned and also their accountants (but do accord with the derisory levels set by the FIM rules and regulations). Based on these figures […]
Promotion/Relegation Meetings 2009
21/10/2009
Congratulations to the Edinburgh Monarchs for triumphing through the Premier League Play Offs for the second successive season to again take part in the promotion/relegation meetings that could potentially see them join the upper tier of British Speedway. They certainly look to have put together at team that, on its present top-notch form, could stand […]
"Speedway is broken" claims Matt Ford
11/10/2009
Far more relevant to the future of the Elite League level of the sport and its overall reputation than the Internet debate over the post Heat 15 goings on at Arlington last night*, Matt Ford’s interval comments appear to have attracted little consideration or attention. In a wide-ranging chat with Kevin Coombes, Poole Promoter Matt […]
More Kleenex Venues Rumoured
03/08/2009
After the borefest of the Latvian GP, it’s hard to get excited about tittletattle in the Star claimed to be “whispers from the corridors of power” that trails notionally ‘exciting’ news that the SGP might expand into Russia in 2010 and, in as yet unspecified years ahead, to “India, Asia & Australasia”. All these countries […]
Irene Best
30/07/2009
The charming and friendly Irene Best has sadly passed away. Proud to be from Newcastle and even prouder of Newcastle Speedway, Irene typified the warm welcome you receive in the speedway office portacabin at Newcastle Stadium (aka Brough Park). Even more importantly, her love and dedication to the sport typifies the unassuming modesty of so […]
“We are all entitled to an opinion though, in some cases, it is better to defer to those who know best…the riders”
26/07/2009
For those of us outside the charmed circle of speedway bigwigs and journalists who receive press releases from the BSI Press Office, we have to suffice with the thin informational pickings provided by the cleans whiter than white SGP website. Occasionally the SGP Press Officer, Philip Rising, selectively responds to real or imagined comments about […]
Kenny Smith 1954-2009
14/07/2009
From Scunthorpe Press Release 13th July 2009 Kenneth Ian Smith 1954-2009 R.I.P. After a near three-year battle against throat cancer, Kenny Smith, the Scorpions’ Team Manager, died on Monday morning at 6.15 a.m. at his home in Yarm. Over recent weeks his condition had deteriorated but after being told he only had days to live […]
Sometimes I watch the Speedway Grand Prix whether I want to fall asleep or not
14/06/2009
Riders and some pundits have rightly complained that the Speedway Grand Prix series organisers (“BSI – an IMG Company”) wish to stage the various meetings on sub standard tracks that sometimes verge on the dangerous. There have been some real shockers, so thank goodness last night that round four of the Speedway Grand Prix was […]
Elite League Reverse Ferret?
26/05/2009
It’s not that long ago that the tablets came down from the 2007 BSPA Annual Conference mountain. We then learnt that the Elite League promoters were to self administer some tough tasting medicine to address both team strength inequality but also build a more viable long term future for the upper tier of British speedway! […]
Even Cheesy Costs Too Much in 2009 for BSI Speedway’s Showpiece Event in Cardiff
30/04/2009
A snippet about entertainment at Cardiff that appeared in the lengthy coverage of the Prague Grand Prix (the first of the 2009 series) in this week’s Speedway Star inadvertently yet again reveals the desperation of the cost-cutting measures that BSI Speedway appear keen to undertake. Arguably, it also signals they have already planned for 2009 […]