25yearfan

Mildenhall?

One of Englands finest, and without doubt Ipswich Witches greatest ever rider. In fact theirs no doubt whatsoever that the emergence of the at the time 28 year old John Louis as a Foxhall 2nd half speedway rider near the end of the 1969 season who before had never sat astride a speedway machine before, then almost unbelievable rise up to 4th in the 1972 Wembley World Final 3 years later and top level service for the Witches until his 1981 departure to Halifax moulded Ipswich into one of the hotbeds of speedway. Johns swansong as a rider was as King's Lynn number one in 1983-84 when despite being in his 40's, well past his best and in an era when the top flight of British speedway was the strongest League in the planet he topped the teams averages in both seasons. R.I.P John Louis.

100% which goes back to what I said in my earlier post, speedway racing has been open to both males and females since 1988 so quite simply if a girl is the best option then she will get the ride! Unfortunately I feel Celina Liebmanns inclusion in the Comets team is a PC stunt rather than her being the best option!

Great to see Workington speedway back at their natural level although I suspect the team may need strengthening at some point to avoid attendance levels dropping. I've never seen Celina Liebmann live in a meeting but from what I can make out from following her results over the last few years is I'd gauge her level at about a 7-8 point NL standard but a bit short of being competitive at Championship level. She needs 10 meetings to try and give herself a chance to get better but I'll be surprised if she lasts the season, though I hope she proves me wrong! I don't get all this recent clamour over females racing in speedway because the sport along with its cousins grasstrack and longtrack were made multi sex sports way back in 1988. Back then a handful of girls briefly rode for junior teams and Simon Cross' sister Julie Cross rode at Telford before many years of no girls until Jessica Lamb rode a few meetings in the 3rd Division in the early 00's.

If the laws of the land are applied Osbourne and Co will be severely reprimanded for the planning breaches and the current application for change of use will be thrown out. A question for those who may know - With the stadium carpark now built on would it be possible for speedway to restart at Blunsdon stadium without such a facility? - Where would supporters park?

Just noticed this! At my age computer basics get the better of me sometimes! Can I move my post into the Swindon stadium thread?

If the laws of the land are applied then the planning breaches will be brought up and the changes of use proposed will be thrown out. A question to those who may know - With the old stadium car park now built on would it still be possible to stage speedway racing in front of four figures at Blunsdon Stadium without the car park? - Where would supporters park?

100%! Right decision to call it a day.

Not an easy man to get on with at times with his draconian, old style headmaster like management/ people skills but together with his wife he was a very good speedway administrator and manager. The fact the highly efficient Tony Mole employed the husband and wife team over a number of years at quite a few tracks speaks volumes. The indoor ice speedway meetings he promoted with Ian Thomas over many years and at many venues and different Countries were a big success and became a regular part of the speedway calender. Graham also had a decent racing career but like others have rightly stated, his riding abilities went under the radar somewhat mainly I think cause he rode in the 70's/80's golden period for British speedway when Britain had 3/4 times as many riders as they do now and spent many years at Hull Vikings when he was team mates with legends like Ivan Mauger, Barry Briggs, Kelly Moran and Dennis Sigalos. Presently British speedway could do with more riders and Managers as good as Graham Drury was.

Most fans of closed tracks stop going to speedway, its proven. If even half of the defunct tracks fans went to other tracks then in theory Birmingham would be getting at least 2000 a week watching them already with Perry Bar being inbetween two of the best attended tracks in the Country of years gone by in Cradley and Coventry! In speedway terms Wolves were one of best attended tracks in the Country but I bet that no more than 2-300 of them at the most will go to Birmingham this coming season and that is even for odd visits. Fairplay to Tolley for putting his money where his mouth is but he is clutching at straws with weak teams and the only way he'll reduce his losses would be to have a team challenging for the title.

Mike Parker was everything you say he was! Speedway certainly would of been in a much worse state if the Provincial League of the early 60's and the new Second Division which started in 1968 hadn't actually occurred! In terms of being a ruthless Businessman closing down tracks, its easy to judge when its not your own money being lost. You can be the biggest speedway enthusiast in the World but continually losing money loses its appeal after a while. Mike Parker obviously got out of running loss making tracks as soon as he could and sold on the profitable ones eventually as well. You've only got to look at the publicised huge losses currently being incurred by Nigel Tolley in keeping speedway going at Birmingham to see that investors looking to make money out of speedway tracks in this Country wouldn't touch the vast majority of tracks with a bargepole. In years to come he won't be getting many plaudits for it as most would of forgotten it or are not around anymore to give them. I take it Mr Tolley must have a very successful Business away from speedway to subsidise the huge losses?

My dream League set up in the UK would be 3 Divisions, British League, National League and Conference League of 20 teams each!

I'll be surprised if she attains her 4pt assessed average but she is no dud, I reckon she'd be a 7-8pt averaged rider in the NDL. Good luck to her!

Fair play to Tolley for putting huge amounts into bankroll speedway in Birmingham and also provide the few other tracks who make money another team to ride against thus helping to keep the League going. But one day he will tire of losing money at such an alarming rate so will get out and then who else would be prepared to take on the reins? Trouble is with speedway is the ageing fanbase, its an over 60's club and kids aren't interested or/and have no idea it exists. I suspect if you went into Ipswich Town Centre today with a clipboard and asked people who look like they are under 20 years old what is speedway a large percentage would have no idea and Ipswich is one of British speedways hotbeds and still get decent crowds. Birmingham is like London in that much of the population are ethnics who don't have any interest and likely don't know speedway exists while many of the original White British population have moved away from the City. London had speedway 5 nights a week in the immediate post war years which was before the ethnic migrations to this Country and as late as 1971 London had four speedway teams. Smaller Cities and Towns seem to fare better as knowledge of speedways existence is much more visible and is seen as part of the "fabric" of the area. - I think nowadays London could maybe support one speedway team but it would need a brave person prepared to sp*nk money at a level similar to Nigel Tolley in order to make it happen. The outside viewlines at Perry Bar aren't great but I suspect that more fans would put up with this if a successful promotion was in charge. And going with my instincts I'll be surprised if the Brummies 2024 are challenging to even get into the play off's. Many speedway fans have also been under the impression that the One stop shopping Centre wasn't available anymore for people going to speedway but its been mentioned on here in recent posts that is not technically the case if one knows the parking rules there. Surely the speedway promotion could make this clearer?

The biggest problem with Swaffham is that its too far away from Norwich and too close to King's Lynn in a rural area. Even the popular stock cars and bangers have struggled to make it pay there. I've always thought Swaffham raceways an Arena Essex clone apart from the old raceway Tavern that used to be on the 1st bend at Arena. Ronnie Russell looked at it years ago but I think the only way it would work is if a NL team was run from there in conjunction with King's Lynn.

Bradford Northern drew very big crowds for a couple of seasons but these soon tailed of after the novelty factor wore out. Biggest cock up in that part of the World where speedway was concerned was losing Halifax Dukes speedway at the Shay which was always well supported and I think would still get viable crowds in modern times. Yes shame this new track mentioned by Phil Morris didn't materialise, how close was this to actually happening?

A very brave move cause all the logic suggests its not viable. The only place that in my long time following British speedway where I've seen 2 seven man teams at one track work was when Cradley ran at Wolverhampton a few years ago and even this fell by the wayside eventually. This worked cause Cradley was an exceptionally well supported club. Even back in the glory days of the late 60's and early 70's Belle Vue and King's Lynn tried running two teams at the same track in the the top 2 Divisions (yes they were only 2 Divisions in them days before anyone mentions it!) and eventually moved the lower tiered team to another venue (Belle Vue Colts moved to Rochdale while King's Lynn Starlets moved to Boston!) cause fans chose watching the senior team over the before mentioned lower tiered team. Most people who follow speedway haven't got the disposable income to follow two teams. What will likely happen if one of the Oxford senior teams is having a mare is that supporters will probably do what Belle Vue and King's Lynn supporters did back in the 1968-1970 period and chose to only watch one team. I hope it works but speedways history, common sense and logic suggests not.

What a great innings, legacy, what a great life!

The 1992 Ipswich junior team that was probably the best team ever had Ben Howe, Laurence Hare, Savalas Clouting and Shaun Tacey as its most regular team members. Leigh Lanham didn't come on the scene until gone half way through the 1993 season! So you'd like to wipe Mildenhall Fen Tigers from the speedway map by disbanding the 3rd Division? The current BSPL cannot be trusted to create a new junior League set up, just look at the farce that was the Premiership Junior League of a couple of years back!

And this goes back to what I was saying before, the NDL has to remain one of the reasons being is that its the easiest way for new tracks to enter the league system.

Agree completely. I think the objection was cause they saw it as fans running "ghost" teams with no intention whatsoever of reopening a track in the teams area. I see where the authorities are coming from in that respect but when Rye House ran in the 1999 Conference League using Mildenhall and Eastbourne as home tracks the consortium doing it didn't reopen Hoddesdon the next year, Len Silver did. But if the 1999 consortium hadn't reopened at Mildenhall and Eastbourne would Len Silver have been motivated to reopen the track the following year? In this day and age of not enough tracks any possibility/spark or little acorn that may lead to a track reopening has to be encouraged or at worst not hindered and/or nipped in the bud.

In effect they did destroy it cause the Midland development League was running very well at the time. I agree with the sentiment that "ghost" teams aren't ideal but unfortunately in modern times British speedway is in no ideal state so if any "ghost" team can spark a possible reopening of a track in the "ghost" teams area in the same way that Rye House, Scunthorpe and Oxford reopened their own tracks after "ghost" teams using their name rode in meetings on other tracks then surely thats a good thing?

Kent got in a spot of bother with the BSPL cause the track they rent, Iwade tried to stage a NORA meeting which I believe had nothing to do with the Kent promotion. Therefore I hear they are looking towards the NORA set up next season and leaving the BSPL umbrella? Mildenhalls problem is that when a heavy grippy track surface occurs on their West Row track the inexperienced nature of most riders at NDL level who aren't used to grippy tracks means that crashes are inevitable. The last meeting against Leicester in the cup final was raced on a grippy surface cause of the time of the year. I commented at the meeting that had this been a higher League meeting most of the crashes wouldn't have happened and the more experienced riders would of relished the conditions. Like a previous poster hints upon, Mildenhalls track gets an unfair repututation because of the above reasons.

100% but another reason the BSPL destroyed it was because it was successful. The still born Premiership Junior League is still very painful to mention.

Fair enough iainb but you say that as a Leicester fan presumably? Ask Mildenhall fans about the virtues of the 3rd Division cause without the 3rd tier Mildenhall speedway wouldn't exist.