LETTERS: Micro-scrutiny is stifling progress

Former CS chairman, Graham Elliott, has written in with his view on recent events.

Very well said Myke.

Personally speaking when I rolled up at Cycle Speedway Towers I came to it from a background of consistent and constant success in managing Cycling matters with a range that goes from Rider to Team management, Coaching,  Commissairing, Starting Clubs, Running clubs, Negotiating with Land owners, Organising events and so on. Pretty much the whole gamut.

Generally speaking I give myself a maximum of three years in any one role, on the basis that in my mind if after that time I haven’t achieved what I set out to do then I’ve failed, (a word I’m not that familiar with if I so say so myself). Frankly speaking I was glad to be out within two!!

So what went wrong? The simple fact is that nothing prepares you for the degree of micro-scrutiny every word, every decision and every action is subjected to within this sport. It is simply ludicrous. In my time in the chair I tried really hard to seek radical solutions to the long term problems of the sport, however in reality actually ended up spending most of my time dealing with sulking, boorish behaviour, misinformation, rudeness and ignorance, most of which came from people who are not prepared to lift a positive finger themselves, mostly preferring to repeat what had failed already whilst expecting a different outcome.

Rather like this current scenario. I mean does anyone honestly believe that the commission or BC spend their waking hours dreaming up new ways to pick on Birmingham, …….. Cycle Speedway at large or anyone else for that matter??? The reality is that none of it has anything to do with anyone else other than the Club and that is the way the matter should have stayed. It would have been a far more dignified place to be for all concerned, and everyone could have got on with their lives and what in fact they should be doing. However yet again we have the howling mob eating away at the energy of the positive people in the sport.

It would be nice now that the reality is out in the open, if those who were shouting the loudest had the magnanimity to apologise to those that they have been wrongly slating. Perhaps, just perhaps then we could liberate the people who are constantly trying to build a future for the sport to get on with the task they have taken on as opposed to that constant grinding down that personifies this sport as such a negative and lost cause to so many who look in from the outside. I very much doubt though that they have the courage.

The bottom line here is motivation. We are all motivated by personal gain……. think about that for a moment…… yes that’s right personal gain!! No one willingly does anything if they aren’t getting anything out of doing it. Now stop right there moaners….. I can hear the flywheel that keeps that bit of flab between your ears alive coming up to speed already…… People are not fiddling their expenses, (personally I never took any at all and I am not alone in that), nor are they lining their own trophy cabinets by fiddling competitions. 99% of the time its just about satisfaction and enjoyment. Take that away and there is no reason to do it anymore, and that is all that this hullabaloo does. It does the good hardworking people who are trying to help the sport in.

Unless I miss my guess by much the hiatus in 33/18 service will have been down to Myke considering whether he is prepared to continue with Cycle Speedway. So there you have it, the freshest breath of air on the commission in years, an International rider, the editor of the best CS website about currently considering quitting and for what?? The fact that idiots abound and are too stupid to shut up when they don’t know what they are taking about?

The question now is, how many more times can the sport take this sort of shuddering own goal before it realises its killed itself??

Your sport, your call, your future……

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