Post by admin on Apr 15, 2007 9:17:35 GMT
The bubble bursts:
A cautionary tale on the folly of hubris
Well, it was bound to happen, that’s my view.
BSI has recently sounded the alarm bells down at Reading, the club it assumed control over amid much fanfare during the last close season They say they need 2,000 paying customers to make it pay, but, apparently, only 800-or-so of the terminally addicted are passing through the turnstiles at Smallmead on a weekly basis. Whoops.
If attendances don’t rise, changes are being threatened. The club, elevated to the Elite League after the BSI takeover may make a humiliatingly rapid return, the bulldog’s tail between its legs, to the Premier League (a step not even Ronnie Russell at perennial wooden-spooners Arena Essex countenances), otherwise a more “economic” team will compete in the Elite League.
Some of us warned the Reading supporters to be wary of becoming part of the BSI stable. But they dismissed us as BSI-haters, or of simply being green with envy that the wonderful BSI hadn’t picked “our” club. They weren’t concerned at all: the future was bright; the future was BSI. All of a sudden, after years in the wilderness, their club were a force to be reckoned with – they gloried, for a time, in the power and influence being part of BSI brought their club. Did they not realise that BSI is a commercial entity, dedicated to the pursuit of profit and with a seeming obligation to pay CEO John Posslethwaite circa £350,000 per annum?
If they did, they didn’t care – a heady cocktail had entered their system.
Power’s the ultimate drug and unmatched in its ability to destroy those whom it ensnares: look at Tony Blair. Blair’s hopelessly addicted to power, that’s why he’s hanging around Downing Street when his time passed years ago. That’s why he fawns embarrassingly (and inflicting reflected embarrassment on this country) over the likes of George W Bush, Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi. That’s why he’s lingering around, hoping for an upturn in fortune that’s never going to come. It’s downhill all the way for Blair and the only question is whether he’ll have any reputation left when eventually he topples from power. Personally, I doubt it very much; history will remember him as the most shamefully, shameless prime minister ever. And rightly so, he is.
BSI and Blair have much in common, although neither would care to admit it. They’re both playing on a myth of their own creation that bears little resemblance to the truth. Blair’s myth is that without his “charismatic” presence the Labour Party would’ve remained unelectable, when the truth was that by 1997 the electorate were so sick of the sleaze ridden Tories they’d have elected a Labour Party led by Michael Foot. BSI’s myth is that they and they alone rescued the speedway world championship from the abyss and turned it into the success story it is today. The truth is they didn’t and it isn’t.
Reading’s fans didn’t have long to wait before the bitter truth of BSI’s takeover was revealed.
It wasn’t long before concerns started mounting, especially when rumours started circulating that the long-standing Racers nickname was under threat. Now, rumours, as well all know, are merely premature facts, even in the cruel, crazy town. And, sure enough, the Racers name and all the history and tradition that accompanied it were dumped in the bin: the Racers were dead; long live the Bulldogs. The what? Didn’t BSI realise, or didn’t they care, that Bristol was the home to speedway’s Bulldogs? I favour the second option. They didn’t care, but they should’ve done.
People are sentimental creatures and none more so than speedway supporters. They grow strangely attached to such apparently prosaic things as their team’s nickname – changing the name loosens the bonds that tie club and supporter. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the new logo was a Loony Tunes inspired creation that brought forth a flood of ridicule from rival supporters. And then there was the Danny Bird fiasco, entirely avoidable and enormously damaging. The loss of a favoured rider, such as Danny Bird – through whatever circumstances, in this case a cock-up on the averages front – was another error of judgement. The bonds loosen some more.
In fairness, BSI did put together a powerful side, quickly picking up the subtle ways and means of building a title-challenging team by taking advantage of various iniquities in assessed averages – bringing in Janusz Kolodziej, the reigning Polish champion on a 4.00 assessed average at reserve, for example. But that wasn’t the masterstroke it was made out to be – even the dimmest of the dim could see that was going to be a blinding move: it wasn’t rocket science, was it?
I recall watching the first televised EL fixture of the season and wondering, as I often do, which planet John Postlethwaite – uber-boss of BSI – resides on. It doesn’t appear to be planet earth and you can be damned sure it isn’t Planet Subedei. Reading, I dimly recall him saying, was chosen by BSI because of its proximity to London. Really? I had to glance at my atlas after that one. The atlas confirmed what I already thought: Reading is bloody miles away from the capital city of empire.
And does a speedway club really need a sporting director? No, I don’t think so either. But there is Sam Ermolenko, firmly ensconced as “sporting director” of the Reading Bulldogs. What he does, I know not, but I’d imagine he gets well paid for whatever it is.
Everyone kow-tows down before and gives eternal thanks towards the great and almighty BSI, saviours of speedway, but the truth is that they’ve done little or nothing at all for the sport and been richly rewarded. It’s about time a little boy, or girl – we don’t want to be sexist – cries out that the emperor’s naked, it’s all a sham, just like the Wizard of Oz (the worst film of all time, incidentally), when the curtain is cast aside, John Postlethwaite is revealed to be just a man and not an especially good promoter of speedway.
Come back Patt Bliss, all is forgiven and beware the folly of hubris, for nemesis is surely just around the corner.
A cautionary tale on the folly of hubris
Well, it was bound to happen, that’s my view.
BSI has recently sounded the alarm bells down at Reading, the club it assumed control over amid much fanfare during the last close season They say they need 2,000 paying customers to make it pay, but, apparently, only 800-or-so of the terminally addicted are passing through the turnstiles at Smallmead on a weekly basis. Whoops.
If attendances don’t rise, changes are being threatened. The club, elevated to the Elite League after the BSI takeover may make a humiliatingly rapid return, the bulldog’s tail between its legs, to the Premier League (a step not even Ronnie Russell at perennial wooden-spooners Arena Essex countenances), otherwise a more “economic” team will compete in the Elite League.
Some of us warned the Reading supporters to be wary of becoming part of the BSI stable. But they dismissed us as BSI-haters, or of simply being green with envy that the wonderful BSI hadn’t picked “our” club. They weren’t concerned at all: the future was bright; the future was BSI. All of a sudden, after years in the wilderness, their club were a force to be reckoned with – they gloried, for a time, in the power and influence being part of BSI brought their club. Did they not realise that BSI is a commercial entity, dedicated to the pursuit of profit and with a seeming obligation to pay CEO John Posslethwaite circa £350,000 per annum?
If they did, they didn’t care – a heady cocktail had entered their system.
Power’s the ultimate drug and unmatched in its ability to destroy those whom it ensnares: look at Tony Blair. Blair’s hopelessly addicted to power, that’s why he’s hanging around Downing Street when his time passed years ago. That’s why he fawns embarrassingly (and inflicting reflected embarrassment on this country) over the likes of George W Bush, Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi. That’s why he’s lingering around, hoping for an upturn in fortune that’s never going to come. It’s downhill all the way for Blair and the only question is whether he’ll have any reputation left when eventually he topples from power. Personally, I doubt it very much; history will remember him as the most shamefully, shameless prime minister ever. And rightly so, he is.
BSI and Blair have much in common, although neither would care to admit it. They’re both playing on a myth of their own creation that bears little resemblance to the truth. Blair’s myth is that without his “charismatic” presence the Labour Party would’ve remained unelectable, when the truth was that by 1997 the electorate were so sick of the sleaze ridden Tories they’d have elected a Labour Party led by Michael Foot. BSI’s myth is that they and they alone rescued the speedway world championship from the abyss and turned it into the success story it is today. The truth is they didn’t and it isn’t.
Reading’s fans didn’t have long to wait before the bitter truth of BSI’s takeover was revealed.
It wasn’t long before concerns started mounting, especially when rumours started circulating that the long-standing Racers nickname was under threat. Now, rumours, as well all know, are merely premature facts, even in the cruel, crazy town. And, sure enough, the Racers name and all the history and tradition that accompanied it were dumped in the bin: the Racers were dead; long live the Bulldogs. The what? Didn’t BSI realise, or didn’t they care, that Bristol was the home to speedway’s Bulldogs? I favour the second option. They didn’t care, but they should’ve done.
People are sentimental creatures and none more so than speedway supporters. They grow strangely attached to such apparently prosaic things as their team’s nickname – changing the name loosens the bonds that tie club and supporter. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the new logo was a Loony Tunes inspired creation that brought forth a flood of ridicule from rival supporters. And then there was the Danny Bird fiasco, entirely avoidable and enormously damaging. The loss of a favoured rider, such as Danny Bird – through whatever circumstances, in this case a cock-up on the averages front – was another error of judgement. The bonds loosen some more.
In fairness, BSI did put together a powerful side, quickly picking up the subtle ways and means of building a title-challenging team by taking advantage of various iniquities in assessed averages – bringing in Janusz Kolodziej, the reigning Polish champion on a 4.00 assessed average at reserve, for example. But that wasn’t the masterstroke it was made out to be – even the dimmest of the dim could see that was going to be a blinding move: it wasn’t rocket science, was it?
I recall watching the first televised EL fixture of the season and wondering, as I often do, which planet John Postlethwaite – uber-boss of BSI – resides on. It doesn’t appear to be planet earth and you can be damned sure it isn’t Planet Subedei. Reading, I dimly recall him saying, was chosen by BSI because of its proximity to London. Really? I had to glance at my atlas after that one. The atlas confirmed what I already thought: Reading is bloody miles away from the capital city of empire.
And does a speedway club really need a sporting director? No, I don’t think so either. But there is Sam Ermolenko, firmly ensconced as “sporting director” of the Reading Bulldogs. What he does, I know not, but I’d imagine he gets well paid for whatever it is.
Everyone kow-tows down before and gives eternal thanks towards the great and almighty BSI, saviours of speedway, but the truth is that they’ve done little or nothing at all for the sport and been richly rewarded. It’s about time a little boy, or girl – we don’t want to be sexist – cries out that the emperor’s naked, it’s all a sham, just like the Wizard of Oz (the worst film of all time, incidentally), when the curtain is cast aside, John Postlethwaite is revealed to be just a man and not an especially good promoter of speedway.
Come back Patt Bliss, all is forgiven and beware the folly of hubris, for nemesis is surely just around the corner.