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Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

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    #26
    Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

    Those five mentioned never all drove in the same race, mind. The peak is often thought of as being the mid 80s, with Prost, Senna, Mansell, Piquet in their prime and a lot of really competitive racing. There was also a hell of a line up in the period 2010-12.

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      #27
      Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

      ursus arctos wrote: Though the shadow of Senna's senseless death will always weigh heavily on that era (see also, Dale Earnhardt)

      Reed, the Weehawken Grand Prix is slightly more likely to actually happen than the Governors Island Cricket Stadium, but if it does, it will almost certainly be a Formula E race.
      What the hell is Formula E? (I could look it up, but asking in this manner is more conducive to conversation).

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        #28
        Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

        It's a loved-up drug for babies.

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          #29
          Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

          Electric-powered only, cars

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            #30
            Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

            The nineties was mostly bog-awful for F1. Five of the seasons were just processionally dominated by the best car, there was no season with more than two truly competitive cars. 2005 - 2012 was miles better.

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              #31
              Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

              My interest in F1 peaked and then rapidly disapated in the late 90s/early 2000s. Maybe I should try again.

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                #32
                Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

                Speedway. Bleedin' obvious this. Belle Vue racing at Hyde Road/the Zoological Gardens in front of 10-15,000 on a saturday night. Riders spannering their own bikes. Two valve engines. Riders who hung out with the fans after it was all over. 12,000 at Kings Lynn for the annual Pride of the East with rarely seen Polish riders. No dirt deflectors. Speedway on World of Sport every weekend in the summer. The World Final on ITV. The Daily Express Spring Classic from Wimbledon on BBC Sportsnight. England vs USA Test Matches. Speedway riders ghost written weekly columns in national daily newspapers.

                I still love the sport mind you.

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                  #33
                  Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

                  Ole Olsen, Peter Collins, Ivan Mauger will forever stick in my memory, purely due to World of Sport, which is also where I saw baseball for the first time.

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                    #34
                    Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

                    Yes, speedway is the correct answer. Not just because you could play it on your own bike ("you braked, yer cheat!").

                    Cradley Heath was the Raith Rovers of its time - somewhere you never found on the map but it sounded special.

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                      #35
                      Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

                      While we're 'doing' motorsport, and at the risk of boring the shit out of you, I'll chuck rallying into the mix.

                      Looking at things from a purely UK perspective, in the 70s it was possible to rally just about anything so long as it had basic safety equipment. For a (relatively) modest amount, a talented driver could turn up at a National event in a Ford Escort or Opel Ascona and having a good chance of challenging the top 'works' drivers. Future stars like Ari Vatanen and Malcolm Wilson made their name in just this way.

                      Forestry roads were available in a wide variety of locations, NIMBYism hadn't become an issue as few people had re-located to quiet rural areas where rallies tended to take place, and this also enabled road rallies to take place in the hours of darkness using open public roads.

                      Rallying made the news on a regular basis - especially the RAC Rally, which was often a top item on the radio and TV news, with leaderboard updates on Radio 2 throughout the event and Top Gear “rally reports” every night with William Woollard presenting – fondly remembered halcyon days....

                      Now - well, I could just say "everything's fucked" and leave it at that, but for those who don't follow the sport I should probably outline a number of the bigger problems that threaten to extinguish the sport in this country.

                      Rallying now only makes the news when someone dies. In 2014 there was a terrible accident when three media personnel were killed by a rally car in the Borders, and amongst the repercussions of this was a comprehensive safety review which has placed a huge burden on the volunteer organising teams who run rallies. An ageing population of organisers and marshals are struggling to find the time and manpower to run events, and some have already thrown in the towel. Meanwhile spectators are made to feel like criminals for trying to watch rallies from anywhere but a couple of small, taped-off locations where the view is often poor.

                      The cost of rallying has become almost unsustainable for those who are not well-sponsored or independently wealthy. Mandatory safety equipment requirements are increased year on year, often with only spurious ‘safety’ benefits. Rich businessmen buy World Rally Cars with four wheel drive, phenomenal power and suspension technology that rip up roads with buzz-saw tyres, wrecking the cars of the clubman competitors who are faced with extensive repair bills. These cars cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to buy and run, and no one without a ridiculous amount of talent is going to get themselves noticed in even a £20k Subaru as the power and handling differential is too great to be bridged by skill alone.

                      In England, only a very few forests remain in use - due in part to antisocial spectator behaviour, in part to NIMBYs and in part to a risk-averse attitude (following the fatalities and some other serious incidents), the Forestry Commission have found it preferable to refuse access to rallying and turn over their woodlands to mountain bikers and Go Ape activity centres. This leaves us with a rallying calendar heavily biased towards Wales.

                      Recently, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) have announced that they need to double the prices they charge organisers to use their forests, in order to meet the cost of road repairs (see the point above about roads being wrecked by ever-more powerful cars and aggressive tyre technology). The debate about this crisis has reached Welsh Assembly level as rallying brings a lot of income to Wales (and there are a lot of people in the motorsport industry who run their businesses from Wales as a result). Discussions about a possible solution continue, but if a settlement cannot be found, this will price most competitors and events out of the best and most popular stages left available for rallying. It’s not being over-dramatic to suggest that this would be the final death knell for rallying in the UK as we know it.

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                        #36
                        Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

                        As somebody who cares a lot about the condition of trails and wild lands, I'd say I'm sympathetic to the Forestry Service's position.

                        I really did like the Colin McRae video game, though.

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                          #37
                          Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

                          Well, yes and no, Reed. NRW in Wales are racking the price up whilst their equivalent bodies in England and Scotland aren't - which hasn't been satisfactorily explained - and the quality of their road repair work is often very poor. We strongly suspect that they are being ripped off by their contractors and that we're paying the price.

                          Also, they were only too happy to have us when we were their only non-timber related revenue stream - now that mountain biking and activity centres have exploded in popularity, we're being pushed out.

                          I'll admit that both those leisure activities are Greener than motorsport, but neither of them is really much friendlier to wildlife as the habitat is changed for ropewalks and MTB trails and the woods are full of people noisily enjoying themselves 300+ days a year, rather than noisy rally cars maybe three times a year.

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                            #38
                            Sports that were better in the 1970s than now

                            gérontophile wrote: Ole Olsen, Peter Collins, Ivan Mauger will forever stick in my memory, purely due to World of Sport, which is also where I saw baseball for the first time.
                            Owing to my dad taking me to the '63, '65 & '67 World Finals at Wembley, Ove Fundin was my hero, beating off (ooerr etc) Barry Briggs (booo) and Ivan Mauger (BOOOOO) to take 2 of the 3.

                            Used to get down to Poole Pirates around those years too...happy days.

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