ENTERTAINMENT

Last week I was having a rant about a lack of personality in our game.

Thanks to those who have written (I’m getting more responses than usual just now, but I think that’s ‘cos a greater number of you have nowt else to do!) and – in the main agreed.

This time up, I feel I might examine what I reckon is the main reason for this dearth of personality – and to me that’s the rise and rise of the Fun Police.

Professional speedway is a combination of three things, none of which can really survive without the other two.

Speedway is a business, a sport and an entertainment.

A successful sporting business requires delivery of a full package of entertainment to the customer.

When in Britain in winter months I often go to watch Elite League ice hockey. They like a wee altercation – two players swapping punches, blood and snotters flying – and, when it all calms down, the two guys get a couple, maybe four minutes in the penalty box to cool off. No harm done. The crowd, needless to say, love it!

Back in the day, I followed our Bandits to Len Silver’s Rayleigh track – and watched Dougie Templeton trying to haul an opponent off his bike during a race — he missed his tackle, but enjoyed a scrap with the guy after the heat.

In the very same meeting, our manager Kenny Taylor, unhappy about some first-bend shenanigans, ran to the tapes, grabbed their red flag and waved it as the riders came round! The two Rockets obediently slowed up, of course – the Berwick boys thought “Och, it’s just Kenny!” and carried on. 1-5!

Chaos evolved — with a side order of bedlam. Great stuff!

The outcome? Nothing much. Not a word said to Doug, and a phone call to the pits from the referee (the late great Arthur Humphries) saying “You’d better not do that again, Ken, some of the crowd didn’t like it”.

For the record, wee Len thought it was all great stuff – our guys were providing his clientele with some great entertainment at no extra cost!

Now if that meeting happened today, Dougie would get a hefty fine and a month’s suspension – maybe more – for attacking another rider, and as for Kenny, that would be his promoter’s licence up the Swannee, probably sine die!

It’s much the same with banter. When I first came to Shielfield, there weren’t any barriers to what I could say on the mike – obviously no bad language, I suppose – but if I wanted to infer that folk from another track (maybe somewhere on the left-hand coast) had more fingers than the rest of us, or didn’t have a beauty pageant as they found it easier just to give the cup to any girl who had less than two heads, then that was fine.

I might also have been be heard to say that the visitors’ top man — always a pantomime villain in my book — was not a nice person

Our folk laughed and cheered. The visiting fans got mad, they shouted and yelled at me. Then went home talking about the insults – only to come back in even greater numbers at the next match, paying to shout and yell some more

Even earlier, I even remember the great Ian Hoskins (son of the even-greater Johnnie) who, finding his meeting at Old Meadowbank going a bit flat, slipped a member of the visiting team twenty quid (a fair amount back then, you didn’t get much more if you scored a maximum) to start a fight!

Yer man pocketed the dough, looked around, walked out onto the centre green and cheerfully laid out the home team manager (who wasn’t in on the deal) with a friendly straight left. The rest of the night went with a swing, as I recall.

Nowadays, in common with all announcers and presenters, I’m very limited in what I can say whip up atmosphere – I think the authorities prefer us whipping our public into a state of apathy – and if I were to say something naughty try to create a stir, you can bet I’d be getting (yet another) stiff written warning from the powers-that-be for my collection!

Don’t even start me on not being allowed to hold a interval event – penalty kicks taken by riders, showmen diving off fifty-foot platforms into a wet sponge or whatever – because it would interfere with the flow of races….

In my book, were I in charge, riders could take a swing at the opposition if the need arose. I ask you, two fit men, wearing helmets and suits of leather, who’s going to suffer? – with team managers welcome to rant and rave in public view.

Tell me, was the last meeting – the double-header – at Shielfield not really good entertainment? Dancing mascots, irate team bosses confronting referees finger-to-finger and all the fun of the fair?

An argument with the referee is part and parcel of the night’s entertainment and should be encouraged. Of course it is, predictably, another facet of the game that officialdom, which takes the show so seriously, has gone out of its way to discourage. Such stuff should all be part of the entertainment package. Really, it’s just common sense….

Of course, common sense is like deodorant. Those who need it, never use it.

Having said all this, the most entertaining thing that people pay to see at speedway is speedway.

Without the excitement of motorbikes going sideways (and those of us who have been around the block often forget just how amazing this is to a newcomer) you are stone cold dead in the market.

You can shoot off your fireworks, send in your clowns, pull off great stunts, but all that is only frosting on the cake.

But for me, I’d always want to sprinkle my frosting on top of the main event………
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Want to disagree with Dick (as so many do?). He is always happy to hear from interesting people on dick@crystalfm.co.uk