mikebv

Another excellent publication this week... So sad to see the photo of Stoke's demolished stadium... Another one bites the dust (literally)...

Dont think Bob is being cynical.. Just being quite realistic based on the clear evidence of past experiences of other clubs within the 'local ish' vicinity.. There has been success stories over the years around the country which should inspire some belief, (Birmingham and the NSS two that spring to mind, as well as of course Kent in the South East), however, the odds are heavily stacked against Speedway clubs coming back from 'the dead' and it would be wrong to ignore that starting point.. Bottom line is the local population around Rye House didnt come out to support the sport in enough numbers, be that because of the quality of the product, the price charged to watch, or the 'opening hours'... Therefore. No point taking personally someone else's opinion of a situation, especially given that (a lot of) previous similar situations shows that their opinion of the likely outcome is probably the way things will unfortunately turn out.. Best of luck to those who will try and fight to save Speedway at Rye House, it will though be a huge fight to overcome, and there's nothing negative about being realistic about that.. Indeed, for some it might prove as an inspirational challenge for them to succeed where many can only see failure... Bottom line is that if enough of the population of Rye House desperately want Speedway it may get saved, if not enough show that they are bothered, it definitely wont.. As I say, best of luck to those willing to fight, but let's be brutally honest, another Speedway track closed for good will hardly send a ripple around the UK sporting world will it?

Excellent post THJ... For me it always comes down to finance, so if there is any racing it probably only should be done by those who can either comfortably finance any losses or feel that their buisness plan, (with all the Covid 19 restrictions), can deliver a profit.. And those who fall within that criteria may be very few in numbers I would think.. Personally, I think a season of no losses/minimal losses, for the vast majority of teams who seem to lose high five figure sums annually, might not be the worst scenario in the world. Especially if they use the money saved as a promotional budget next year, to really make an impact both locally as an independent business, and nationally as a BSPL collective..

As a Supermarket manager I can 1000% concur....

Not sure why you can't do both.. Do BV at the very start of the year (as you say great racing to launch the series), and then do Cardiff maybe as the penultimate one, so hopefully all still up for grabs, meaning no threat to crowd levels dropping, which could happen if you run the last GP when all could be done and dusted. (Leave that to the Poles who can guarantee a crowd).. A 10k crowd at the NSS paying £25 to £30, around five months before Cardiff, wouldn't impact the GP crowd levels in Wales I would suggest.. Suppose it depends on how much the organisers want for the rights to hold a GP at the NSS...

And at most football and rugby matches you are stood shoulder to shoulder, or sat next to, another human being, meaning body heat is shared.... At a lot of Speedway meetings you would be stood in splendid isolation or have a row (or even a block) of seats to yourself.. No issues with social distancing though which can only be a positive... Let's be honest, the sport struggles to get a big following in June, July and August, every year, so getting one in November will be a big challenge, however as November would probably be play off time, maybe that would entice a decent following away from their warm armchairs? And keeping the league to one home and one away, should mean most clubs are in with a play off chance through the often equally as cold October. The last thing any club would want is a few 'dead rubbers' on cold and miserable evenings as that could decimate the fan base on those nights... For me, if due to non availability of riders, you end up with contrived septets across the sport, which will seriously undermine any competition, added to the fact many say they lose considerable amounts of money every season.. Maybe it would just be better to bank the cash they usually lose and use it to market the club to come back stronger next year?

Spot on... Just like in 12 months time A and E depts will be full of drunken bastards effing and jeffing at overworked, underpaid nurses because they have had to wait a few hours to get treatment for self inflicted wounds. .

I think it will mean the biggest crowd in years....

Agreed, however.. A proper professional sport should have such decisions made by its governing body, and not unilaterally by individual members of that organisation... As that just leads to chaos as each member seeks out getting their own way based on their own needs and wants.. Fair play to Glasgow for their leadership on this matter, however the sport has a National leadership team who should be leading the way forward and agreeing the process to be followed..

Have you moved into Speedway promotion Ray?

And no other clubs in the history of speedway have manipulated the (deliberately?) ambiguous rules for their own end?

Watching clips of football from the past decade or so, there is also a huge amount of players who just seem to have 'dissapeared', with many teams having wholesale changes in squads in around just five years or so.. My lad is in a League One U17 youth team and the competition for places is incredible at that level with young lads coming through all the time trying to get into that first team, and experienced players dropping down into it from the two divisions above... Often the players dropping down have been replaced by either purchased foreign imports, or foreign imports who have been at the clubs from eleven years old, such is the huge 'trawler net' used these days by the leading clubs.. At my lads club, only three players in the first team squad have been there over three years, with many ending up non league and working full time when their contract ends, as the next batch of younger lads have come through to replace them, or better players from the leagues above have dropped in, desperate to remain a pro and try and get back up the levels.. For the vast majority of pro footballers their 'shelf life' is nowadays shorter than ever given supply well exceeds demand...

Without going 'all our yesterdays', watching the many various meetings on YouTube from the 80's showed just how it worked too.. Crowds seemed to be very healthy indeed when compared to today.. Hardly any full time professionals on show, and all mainly with one decent bike and a 'good enough' spare.. The best riders were also in the main, the only ones who rode in the top league at the same time, and for many of them it was a 'toe being dipped into the water' to see if they could compete at that level before moving up permanently, rather than the necessity it has become for dozens of riders of various standard so they can earn more to afford the cost of riding.. It was interesting to read Shawn Morans interview in the SS a couple of weeks back where he said he got £35 a point riding for Sheffield in the early 90's. That's equivalent to £88 a point today. I wonder how many world class No1's in the top league ride for £88 a point today? (And given their outgoings even be anywhere able to afford to).. Indeed. Could you get away with paying £88 a point to a second tier No1 nowadays? As you say, they had a pretty good business model, heaven knows how they lost sight of it..

Been the obvious next step for around the last decade or so... Yet, for some reason, British Promoters have steadfastly chosen to have their businesses hugely adversely impacted by running disjointed fixture lists, using many contrived septets of borrowed riders, (to accomodate individual riders own agendas), all on many nights when you wouldn't ordinarily want to be running a 'show' in the entertainment sector.. A very strange business plan..

That's the main reason they run them isn't it? And they are aimed time wise for a global market rather than the UK one, hence the running of them early afternoon behind closed doors, (China does like a bet).. At the old stadium the owners made far, far more from running these events than they got from the Aces..

Worrying times I would think... Councils will be under huge pressure across the country post Covid 19 as budgets from central govt. will no doubt have to be slashed to pay for the billions of pounds of borrowing it has done to pay for the current crisis.. And from what I remember of my visits to Poole, you could get a good many apartments not too far from the waterfront in a 'nice' (and quite expensive) area of the country..

Can only think this kind of thing is inevitable.. And the extra ace up their sleeve may now be this... They now know riders will ride for 50% less than they did so what's to stop them saying that next year "you ride over here exclusively and we will give you 100% money".. Effecively a 100% pay rise...

Spot on there Dean... That piece on Andreas Jonsson was excellent...

Chris is one of those riders who when you watch the racing on YouTube from the past five to ten years or so appears in loads and loads of meetings for a good many various teams, and was often it seems very much an in demand guest.. A rider who came across as someone who gave his absolute all in every race regardless of who he was riding for.. One of those '100% triers' that the sport is built on and the fans often appreciate the most.. Best wishes to him and his family, and let's hope he can overcome his current issues and find himself in a better place in the not too distant future..

Another great read this week.. Best two compliments I can pay it are, one, I now buy it every week and, two, I still have things to read about well into the week after, such are the diverse articles that are in there and the detail that they are covering.. An outstanding magazine, especially given the current situation..

Three main reasons.. 1. You would be very lucky to run team speedway every week to anything like a consistent fixture list, at least with any semblance of credibility, given how many riders may not be available at any given night due to the many who DU, and also how many will need to ride in their own leagues abroad as a priority.. 2. Individual meetings will give riders more chances per week to ride thus more earning potential, eg two league meetings or the chance to ride seven nights a week if they so wish and were capable.. And 3. When everyone has to start paying bills again, and pay back the bills they were allowed to miss/pay less, during the current crisis, I would think paying out for Speedway four times a month may be very, very low down their priorities..

Big IF I know, but.. IF there is any racing, then it shouldn't be hard to coordinate a decent amount of meetings for clubs and, (possibly more importantly), the riders.. Run individual meetings and each club could run once a fortnight on nights that they feel could deliver their best return.. That would mean plenty of meetings for riders and the meetings would, I would suggest, get more fans than the usual individual meeting crowd levels given the speedway fraternities longing to see some action.. It would also mean the fans, who could be under financial stretch at the time of going back to 'normal', wouldn't be expected to fork out weekly just to get a 'league' completed in just a few months... 22 clubs riding over a 14 day cycle (presuming all come through this), would mean some clashes, but with basic planning you could ensure they are kept geographically apart and I would also suggest that there needn't be any restrictions on levels of riders who can ride where, ie The NL clubs could run with Premiership riders if they saw fit and felt it was an earner for them to do so.. And with a clear 'set in stone' fixture list, with consistent race nights, and riders booked well in advance, (so can be advertised) ,clubs would have a fortnight between meetings to promote their next offering.. The meetings themselves could take on any format, eg a traditional 16 man, 20 heat meeting or something much more innovative which could give some pointers for the future based on customer feedback... The important thing would be giving as many riders the chance to make as much as possible in the short time available. With the added bonus that their equipment will still be 'nearly new' next year so may not need upgrading... It always seems to be widely publicised by many clubs that they lose money each year so maybe this break from paying out those thousands and thousands of pounds that dont get covered by income, may help down the line? For those it applies to, it may also be a good time to renegotiate rental costs with landlords who may be pretty desperate to see their facilities used again and could be more open to discussion, which again can only be a good thing for the sport going forward. (And maybe could help subsidise some lower admission costs upon restart)? Lots of mainly British riders riding the length and breadth of the nation every night of the week, for however many weeks it is possible, can't be a bad thing can it? Maybe even wrap some meetings up in a several round 'British Championship' to add interest? I am sure though that 'behind the scenes' the Promoters are working on a plan...

It isnt hard to be pessimistic is it given the already parlous state of the Sport.. If nothing else it may give those who run the sport a moment or two to reflect on why their sport always seems to live on a knife edge re how many teams last the season/start the following one, and provide them with the inspiration to change things.. There does seem to be a few more pro active promotions about now so some maybe have already realised that the 'same old/same old' simply doesnt get the cut through anymore, and actually be able to influence the radical change needed to move the whole sport as an entity forward.. What an opportunity in this enforced break to do so, as when the sport returns I would think it gets a 'free hit' as to what it can put out.. Be interesting to see if tracks do something 'different' and gauge reaction from their output..

I think if they want to run a league with any credibility they will need riders who are 100% available, and with so many overseas riders with team places currently you would think that this would mean mainly British riders (excluding those lads with Polish and Swedish contracts).. If it all becomes a bit 'Mickey Mouse' then it would probably be better to run individual events to see the season out, maybe give the riders more meetings too. Some could do five or six a week which would be a struggle to do if they were in teams I would think..

And even if they lift the 14 day quarantine over here, Poland may still keep theirs in place meaning riders wont dare leave Poland as to return would see them miss meetings for a fortnight.. Lots of hoops to jump through to get any Speedway this year in the UK I would think..