Harry The Goat

I'm with you, waytogo28. I too believe streaming could be a lifesaver, but there seems to be disappointingly little of it happening at present and it doesn't seem very well publicised. I'm amazed that more clubs are not trying it, and that the ones that are are not shouting louder about it. Do they want to get people watching or not? If there *is* a central place to locate available livestreams, I've yet to find it. I had to dig up all the info below myself by laboriously looking through the websites of each club in the Premiership, Championship and NDL. There appear to be just three regular livestreams right now: Glasgow - https://tv.glasgowtigers.co.uk/ (£11.95, next meeting on Friday 2nd July) Edinburgh - https://www.edinburghmonarchs.co.uk/live-stream (£11.99, not sure of next meeting) Poole - https://www.poole-speedway.com/pirates-tv (£9.95, next meeting on Wednesday 30th June) Berwick have used streaming but only for occasional one-off meetings, I think. Don't know why they don't do regular meetings. This week I am planning to visit Poole on Wednesday and Glasgow on Friday while simultaneously remaining in the West Country without leaving my armchair :-)

I agree with everyone - live streaming is such an obvious thing to do (you'd think...). Now that my team (Somerset) has folded, and with Swindon not running this year, I'm looking at travelling a minimum of 2 hours there and 2 hours back to see any live speedway at my nearest tracks (Poole / Wolverhampton / Plymouth). I'm not really up for going such a long distance on a regular basis, so I'll happily pay for a live feed to watch as a 'neutral' supporter. Had to laboriously trawl through the websites of each and every club just to check who was offering a live stream right now. Answer: hardly any of them! Tuned into Edinburgh's meeting last Friday against Redcar and was very impressed with their presentation. If Edinburgh can do this, why can't many other clubs? Now hoping to watch the Glasgow meeting this Friday.

Yes, great images - thanks for posting the link. Michael Lee in Pic 098, I think.

Hey Dickie, the centre green bloke is Rob Dyer, who previously did the June 12th meeting (remember?). He's VERY good. I hope we see him again. Enjoyable meeting. Thought Sheffield rode well and were unlucky to come away with no points.

Good summary there. I agree. But a couple of things on the presentation side have room for improvement IMO: 1) Parade. We've started having just a helmet-free lap from the riders and an out-of-sight coin toss. The 'old' way had a much greater sense of occasion and was far better. 2) Excessive delay between heats (a real bugbear of mine). All the waiting around can get so tedious. A faster pace to a meeting is always more entertaining.

Very enjoyable meeting, some good close racing and very slickly run indeed. All done in LESS than 70 minutes! - 15 heats + 3 track grades + 2 short hold-ups for falls (Vicentin, when leading Heat 10, and Atkins at his 'bogey' second bend in Heat 11). Meeting started early, around 7.25pm, following 7.15pm rider introductions. By 8pm we were starting Heat 10. Meeting finished just after 8.30pm. They should run EVERY meeting like this, even when not trying to beat the weather. It was a terrific pace - exactly what is needed in this sport, instead of the ridiculous long gaps (and silence/inactivity) between heats we usually have to put up with. Vicentin is box office - terrific rider and clearly a character too. Look forward to seeing him ride again. Zack Cook was promising. Behind the scenes, Covatti and Jack Holder were there for them in the pits, spannering. Anders Rowe did really well, although the announcer kept mispronouncing his name(!). Anyone else noticed how Rowe begins races? He's the only rider who looks down at the tapes rather than looking to the side at the poles the tapes are fixed to. I see he only turned 17 last month. He's got great potential. Crowd very thin, as expected, but I think people who didn't come missed a treat.

I found it an enjoyable meeting, more so than I was expecting. Very close up until the last three heats, before which I thought the result could go either way. Well run too - it finished before 9pm - and there were no falls. The only hold-up was when Covatti broke the tapes on his first ride. He didn't seem to be on fire tonight, ditto Kurtz. But Grobauer was impressive, and I'm enjoying watching the reserves Rowe & (particularly) Atkins, who are clearly very keen and trying their utmost and will surely improve their averages noticeably over the course of the year. Schlein very dominant (he's a great rider) and Harris put in a solid performance too, as you'd hope. Crowd noticeably thin though, about the same as last Friday's U21 event. The new(?) on-track announcer is perfectly good but I miss Pete Chamberlain from previous years - anyone know what's happened to him and if he'll be back?

Weather forecast looking ok so far for Wednesday (10th). Let's hope no rain-off again. Pity we haven't got Charles Wright this year. Anyone else notice how well he's performing of late? The season's barely begun but he's scored 82+2 points already! 11 for Redcar on 5th April 11+1 for Peterborough on 1st April 13 for Redcar on 31st March 13 for Redcar on 30th March 13+1 for Redcar on 29th March 9 for Redcar on 23rd March 12 at the Ben Fun Bonanza on 17th March

I did a quick tot-up of the number of home fixtures over the past few years... 2009 - 26 2010 - 23 2011 - 25 2012 - 25 2013 - 27 2014 - 25 2015 - 24 2016 - 27 2017 - 18 2018 - 17 2019 - 14

Yes, you're not alone.

Hope so. There are few enough riders coming back to the team from the season just gone. Just Nico so far. Would be good to have a semblance of continuity, despite dropping down from the PL.

If you think the adult season ticket isn't too enticing, look closer at the student version - £203 for 15 meetings. Whereas you'd pay a total of £210 if you attended all meetings at the £14 per meeting student price. A saving of just £7 over the year. Has this been thought through?

It used to be £2 until this year, when they whacked up the price by 40%!

Thinning fixture lists... Thinning crowds... I wonder if there's a connection? Speaking of things thinning, I went for a haircut yesterday. It's the second one I've needed since the last home league meeting (June 25th).

Huge applause to you BurntFaceMan for all your efforts, and for revealing all this. And what a massive disappointment to hear it hasn't worked out. It's unbelievable that some promoters have not been interested, just unbelievable. Do they have ANY nose for business whatsoever? Sadly, I think you're right - 'doomed' is the right word...