arthur cross

No they're not. What's more, not even greyhound owners are currently permitted to attend the tracks to watch from the stands whereas horse racing is permitting a very heavily controlled return of its sport's owners to their grandstands (and did so as early as the Derby & Oaks day at Epsom on 4th July). Instead, the greyhound tracks are requiring confirmation the day before of exactly which trainers and kennelhands will be attending each upcoming meeting while the racing office staffing is at its minimum - overall, that's meant more animals than humans in attendance with at least one track managing to stage 14 races (84 dogs) while keeping its human register below 50 people despite that number needing to cover trainers,, kennelhands, track staff, racing staff and management. At least most (probably all) tracks are insisting that a senior management member is effectively the on-track referee of the meeting, making sure the greyhounds and their kennelhands parade far enough apart pre-race, that the greyhounds are loaded into the traps either 2-or-3-at-a-time to create some social distancing rather than all-6-at-once and that the kennelhands only gradually collect their greyhounds on the back straight after the race rather than the usual rush of everyone-at-once. Greyhound racing made a big effort to make sure it could re-open closed-doors immediately it was allowed to do so on 1st June (even explaining its case and then getting a special 2-week exemption before that for its tracks to be used only for time-trial sessions in that fortnight to comply with that sport's rulebook about making sure the runners had up-to-date form and were closer to race-fitness) - having worked so hard back in May to secure such an early closed-doors return (which has protected most of the betting-televised meetings, therefore around two-thirds of the overall pre-covid total), it's now being very careful how fast it does any degree of open-doors.

Yes it's a greyhound track - what's more, it's currently one of the busiest closed-doors greyhound tracks with 6 meetings a week (mid-morning into lunchtimes every Mon-Tue-Wed-Thu plus both Friday & Sunday nights), each of those meetings on its own being worth more in betting industry tv-fees than a speedway meeting's rent plus catering profit. Let a crowd in for speedway and risk the news a couple of days later of a covid-positive spectator ? - if that scenario happened, that's a fortnight's quarantine for anything at the stadium and so, given their hectic dog schedule, bang go 12 greyhound fees !! Are you still wondering why any of the greyhound landlords that enjoy the bonus of speedway revenue have had to protect their bigger (and all-year-round) revenue first ? !!

Kent's one of the seven speedway tracks (Birmingham, Newcastle, Poole, Sheffield, Swindon & Wolverhampton being the other six) who rent their tracks from greyhound landlords and at least some of that list of tracks have faced a very awkward situation (with Poole in a category of its own as its greyhounds haven't resumed behind closed doors for televised betting whereas the other six all have). Where the dogs have resumed, it's for between 3-and-6-times a week all year long (unlike speedway's 7-month season), heavily covid-regulated for stadium staff or trainers/kennelhands and with each of those meetings worth far more in betting shop media rights than any single speedway rent or the food/drink profit the speedway generates. But if any of those tracks go "open-door" for a speedway crowd and is then notified of a covid-positive spectator soon after doing so, it's just about guaranteed to be quarantined for a fortnight with the consequent loss of betting shop media rights. Now put yourself in a greyhound landlord's position - would you gamble between 6-to-12 closed-door greyhound media fees on 1 smaller speedway rent/profit ? !! In Kent's case that you refer to, it's the top end of the range - 6 dog meetings a week (mid-mornings-into-lunchtime all of Mon-Tue-Wed-Thu plus Friday/Sunday nights) so a 12-meeting cost of being quarantined. It's difficult (and understandable) for many speedway fans who only use their home track's stadium for speedway to grasp just how small a chunk of the overall stadium turnover their action provides in a shared greyhound/speedway situation but you'd do well to at least respect the overall situation even if you don't like it.

The horse racing crowd experiment at Goodwood on Saturday 1st August is going to be carefully monitored by many sports (the horses have their own track and grandstands on the same West Sussex countryside estate as the motor racing track best known for its historic car races). Goodwood's been chosen for several reasons - it would be racing that day anyway to complete its major meeting of the year, the 5 days of Glorious Goodwood that run from Tuesday-to-Saturday and usually attract between 10,000 and 25.000 each day, and this year it'll be the first 4 days behind closed doors for broadcasting and betting (as with all other UK horse racing since the resumption on 1st June from lockdown) before a very limited crowd join in on the Saturday. Only Goodwood's 4,000 annual members (horse racing's version of a season ticket) will be allowed in which means they're easily traceable and very familiar with the track's facilities once they get there instead of being newcomers or once-a-year-for-a-big-day spectators - there's also the bonus that the countryside location of the track with no trains and very few buses means everyone will turn up by car to avoid any transport social distancing issues. Effectively, Goodwood's membership is being used as just about the best possible guide to how a crowd of about 20% full capacity copes with all the post-covid issues of any queues getting in and out of the course, any queues for food-&-drink or toilets during the meeting and also how awkward it is for stewards to maintain social distancing guidelines without completely frustrating the crowd - a horse racing crowd will expect to move from pre-race paddock to the trackside grandstands via placing a bet, using the toilets or going for food-&-drink so I doubt each Goodwood member will be restricted to a numbered seat all day (something their membership wouldn't normally give them). If the Goodwood experiment works well, it'll become a key guideline for how other sports with fans familiar with their home venue can resume soon afterwards which is where speedway crowds as well as football, rugby and all other sports will be looking to learn from Goodwood's trial.

Two major problems regarding the government's hopelessly mixed messages on covid-easing in relation to crowds attending sports events. Firstly, given the current restriction that while churches can re-open, singing in them remains banned as it's deemed to be a riskier transmitter of covid-particles, how ridiculous if sports crowds are told they can gather together again but can't cheer for their team ? !! Secondly, as witnessed especially clearly on the first day of English pubs re-opening last Saturday-week and, coincidentally, in Burnham-on-Sea just a couple of miles from the Somerset Rebels' home track, the current fall-out from a customer finding out they're covid-positive the day after innocently attending a crowded venue is horrendous. The covid-positive bloke there has become a social pariah and the pub manageress has gone public on how it was left entirely to her to track-&-trace the rest of her 80-or-so customers from that day's business with precious little help from the officialdom supposed to deal with that matter. If dealing with the aftermath of a crowd of 80 is that wretched, how the hell are any of a speedway club, its stadium landlord or the government agencies going to cope with following-up any subsequent covid-positives among a speedway (or any other sports) crowd of several hundred ? !! No wonder Ladbrokes-Coral found such a scrambled response from their 4 local authorities (no clue from them about exactly where Monmore in Wolverhampton, a long-time Ladbrokes asset, fitted into those mixed answers as the only speedway venue among the quartet with the other 3 being Ladbrokes' 1980's downsize rebuild of former speedway venue Crayford in the Kent outskirts of London plus the long-time Coral pair of Hove on the Sussex coast and Romford in the Essex outskirts of London).

The coronavirus ending to the Southern League South Division season was catastrophic for Poole Town FC because the relentless rain during the autumn & winter making their current home too boggy (plus a decent run in the FA Cup qualifying rounds before that) meant they played just 9 home league games for crowd-income in the 7 pre-coronavirus months of the season while keeping their away league schedule more than up-to-date by playing 18 of those with all the costs that entails (the travelling in their division stretches from Truro in Cornwall to Surrey & West London) !! Incredibly, thanks to the 3rd most away-points in their league, they were only 7 points off a play-off place when the season was declared coronvirus-void with at least 2 games in hand on everyone above them plus a crazy run-in (all to be squeezed into 7 weekend and 6 midweeks) of 12 home games & only 3 aways !! They were appealing for their fans to prop up their away-funding even well before the virus struck so they're utterly skint and with no clue yet when they can start having a crowd pitchside for their 2020-21 season.

Several things worth mentioning (with the benefit of greyhound involvement as well as speedway) ... hopefully the following helps explain several bits of recent posts on this thread ... Firstly, of the 7 dual-usage greyhound and speedway tracks in either the Premiership (Sheffield, Swindon & Wolves) or Championship (Birmingham, Kent, Newcastle & Poole), it's only Poole that has separate home straights for each sport and, therefore, each sport's spectator accommodation set up very differently - the west side at Poole is the dogs' home straight with the indoor-dominated areas for that crowd whereas the east side at Poole is the speedway home straight with plenty of outdoor but covered seating - all the other 6 dual-usage tracks have adjacent home straights that lead to much more shared usage of the crowd facilities (albeit a far greater proportion of speedway's fans want to watch their action from outside rather than inside). Even if anyone ever thought before a few months ago about savagely-cut crowd capacities for social distancing, no-one surely went as far as reckoning indoor and outdoor capacity-cuts at the same venue could be regarded differently, yet that could actually now be the case at Poole given that outdoor sports crowds are likely to be welcomed back (eg, football, rugby or cricket) on an earlier and busier basis than indoor sports crowds (eg, snooker or basketball) - the logic is that any coronavirus symptoms disperse far more easily in an open-air situation than an enclosed one. Secondly, whereas tracks like Sheffield and Newcastle have had 4 greyhound meetings a week on the lucrative betting-shop schedule for many years, Poole has only had 2-&-a-bit greyhound meetings a week on that schedule - what's more, none of those slots have been in the prime territory of lunchtimes or mid-afternoons. Instead, all Poole's had are Sunday nights and Tuesday nights all year round plus mid-winter Saturday tea-times as a means of filling the gap left by UK & Irish jumps horse racing finishing well before 4pm darkness at that time of year. That's why Poole's greyhound management reckon the scraps of closed-doors greyhound action they'd be likely to get when that sport resumes (probably but not yet absolutely guaranteed next Monday on 1st June) won't be enough to justify re-opening for that sport until they can welcome their crowd back (not just on those Sunday & Tuesday nights but also their Saturday night each week for a meeting that's only for the local crowd rather than the betting shops) - hence, just a couple of days ago, they've directed their greyhound trainers towards helping to fill the racecards at sister-track Swindon (who do have a wealthier lineup of betting shop meetings). Where this has already caused great controversy and scepticism among greyhound folk is the dismal past record of Poole's parent company for falsely promising new stadiums given the closures of Milton Keynes and Reading (plus the many years of Swindon's redevelopment very lengthily discussed elsewhere on this forum !!) - until trackside crowds are welcomed back and then Poole's greyhound management resume their action, most greyhound folk (Poole or further afield) will inevitably reckon last Saturday's announcement effectively marked the end of Poole greyhounds - already some of Poole's trainers have begun looking to sell at least some of their dogs, suggesting an initial shortage of available greyhounds even if the Poole management surprisingly do seek a greyhound resumption in due course Goodness knows where this leaves the Pirates for any speedway in either late-2020 or 2021-&-beyond - I note their website has yet to make any announcement or comment about the greyhounds'' decision and its potential knock-on effects. = = = = = = = = = = = As for greyhound racing's resumption in general, like horse racing it's set itself up to resume next Monday as that was the target date set by the government just over a fortnight ago for closed-doors professional sports with broadcast audiences to resume - however, it was just that general category of sport that was mentioned by the government rather than specific sports and, yesterday, the British Horseracing Authority admitted that while it's still very confident next Monday will be resumption day, it reckons there will still need to be a positive review of the current 3-week lockdown spell by the government this midweek followed by specific sports being told that the 1st June target date can then be activated. Of the other 6 dual-usage greyhound and speedway tracks, all of them have been staging fitness trials for their dogs in the past week and will carry on with that this week, ready to resume racing next week. Four of them are on one side of greyhounds' media rights schism (The Racing Partnership quartet of Birmingham, Newcastle, Sheffield & Swindon) and that side has already published its full day-by-day resumption schedule pending any government go-ahead - however the others (the SIS pair of Kent & Wolves) are still awaiting a similar day-by-day schedule being published by SIS.

That'll be the "ridiculous" Polish contracts that are still paying the riders you've mentioned plenty more money than they'd be on with their normal UK contracts despite a hefty Polish pay cut to reflect TV-money only rather than gate-receipts as well. All this at a time when the Poles are on the verge of racing while there is absolutely no chance of any UK action before August given the latest government hints and the plans already published of other UK sports. Which of these statistics is the more "ridiculous" ? - Polish coronavirus deaths so far, 21 per million-population - UK , 460 per million-population !! "Ridiculous Polish contracts" or ridiculous for riders and their machinery not to go and earn some good money with no alternatives elsewhere for at least the next 3 months that's only risking missing out on a few weeks of ordinary money in the UK that might never take place anyway. ? !! One other thing, looking ahead to 2021 - if you don't make the effort to ride in Poland this year, good luck getting the deal you want there next year when hopefully all of speedway is returning much closer to pre-coronavirus days. It's only your UK-blinkered view that's hopelessly naive and "ridiculous", not the Polish contracts given the current coronavirus circumstances.

The 31st October has been the final day of the speedway season for many years for various important reasons, most notably as the final day for at least some of the sport's insurance policies and as the marker for Australian & New Zealander riders arranging long-haul flights home for their summer Down Under. In this coronavirus-wrecked season, it ought to be possible (definitely worth checking) before any fixtures are revised to see if the final insurance day can be reset (for this year only) to a later date to permit more fixture flexibility - meanwhile, the Australian & New Zealander riders who headed home in a hurry mid-March to beat any coronavirus travel shutdown need to know first when they should try travelling back into the UK, never mind sorting out what marker date this autumn to use for arranging their next UK-to-Down-Under flight home !! Answering your question about the availability of Newcastle's stadium into November, it hasn't needed to become an issue previously simply because of speedway's general 31st October deadline rather than any specific rule about whether Newcastle's track could be used so late in the year - therefore, in the current circumstances, checking with the greyhound landlords whether it could be used in November pretty much sits alongside the re-setting of any insurance dates. But ... and it's a big but ... any attempt to extend UK speedway into November greatly increases the risk (especially for the Anglo-Scottish group of tracks from Redcar northwards) of the tracks becoming too permanently sludgy heading into the winter to have any realistic hope of staging fixtures even if they've been scheduled with the best of intentions to catch-up a little of the missing coronavirus months - once even the highest daytime temperatures aren't even reaching about 12-Celsius, you're into proper sludge territory with only any wind rather than any warmth helping to dry out the track surface. Looking at this year's calendar & Newcastle's home day on a Sunday, there's an obvious case for having November 1st available if possible given all the other tracks will have just had their final October home date anyway and it would be harsh for just Newcastle to miss out on that week of fixtures as an option. But sludgy weather-wise, even November 8th would be pushing it, the 15th certainly worse than a 50-50 chance of going ahead regardless of dry weather that day and anything after that would be totally risking a lot of pre-meeting effort for little chance of seeing any action - it's very easy to remember just the odd freakish warm spells in November and December while forgetting what the weather's like for the majority of those months. Don't forget, one of Workington's late October meetings not too many seasons ago was abandoned when it became clear any water being put on the track was actually freezing the surface rather than helping to moisten it !! At the moment at Newcastle's stadium, the greyhounds are awaiting their whole sport getting any go-ahead to resume closed-doors racing (something they did successfully at Newcastle in the week of Wed-18 to the afternoon of Sat-21-March when they still raced all 4 of their meetings shown via online betting/streaming and just scrapped the Saturday night card that's for the stadium crowd only) - rather like the SCB & BSPA awaiting any general motorcycling news from the Auto Cycle Union before deciding how the sport of speedway should pick up, the dogs are reliant on decision making by the Greyhound Board of Great Britain who answer to 2 different government departments, DEFRA (for greyhound welfare) and DCMS (for the betting side of that sport). Once the ACU and the GBGB update their respective stances for their whole sports, we'll have a much better idea what's going on at Newcastle's track whether it's on 2-wheels or 4-legs.

The greyhounds were still running, albeit behind closed doors purely for the online gambling market, while Boris Johnson was announcing the UK lockdown on the evening of Monday 23rd March - indeed, Nottingham & Yarmouth were allowed to complete the last few races of their respective schedules that night rather than calling a halt as he spoke so they were both still racing around half-an-hour into the lockdown. Whenever there is any easing of the lockdown, the dogs will be among the earliest sports to resume - their medical cover (the vet) isn't a drain on scarce medical resources for humans (unlike any human-tackling, motor or equestrian sports) which is why they could continue all the way until the lockdown started - meanwhile, their long-standing network of picture-feeds and media-rights that brings in online gambling revenue means they can fund a hefty chunk of their usual action without a single spectator being needed via the turnstiles. There might not be as much greyhound racing post-coronavirus as there was before it - however, there'll be plenty of it for a good few weeks (probably months) before any spectator-reliant sports like speedway or non-league football welcome their vital funding back onto the terraces. By the way, once they can resume, each of Monmore and Perry Barr will earn more in greyhound media-rights for closed-door meetings in a fortnight than they earn in speedway stadium rent in a year - don't forget as well, the dogs (bar very occasional wintry weather) run all 12 months of the year, not just a much more weather-dependent schedule from March until October. You're welcome to your view that the greyhounds must have a darker future than speedway - you're also welcome to wallow in such ignorance.

Suppose you're the marketing manager at somewhere like Jaguar or the Daily Telegraph (by the way, after the relatively huge investment by media standards - both financially and page-wise - that the Daily Telegraph's made into women's sport in the past 18 months, I'm sure its marketing manager will be crestfallen the moment you approach stereotyping that newspaper among the over 50's but that's another story). Such a marketing manager, blessed with a multi-million-pound budget (even post-coronavirus) and various options of where to spend that budget will ask you how many folk their company's going to reach by tapping into British speedway. However well you gloss up this potential reach, any marketing manager at that level of corporate-UK will look at that reach you've just quoted them and then thank you for utterly wasting their time by wanting them to consider a project whose reach is way beneath anything they'd normally consider. There's plenty of cross-credibility for speedway in getting itself linked to Jaguar or the Daily Telegraph - there's a miniscule amount of cross-credibility going the other way !! If hooking up with big brands is so easy, how come even rugby league's Super League has to dredge as low as tins of mushy peas (Batchelor's in case you're wondering) to fill its post-match interview background on Sky - and that's for a sport with at least 3 clubs (Wigan, St Helens & Leeds) attracting average crowds of 10,000 and several more at least attracting over 5,000, the type of crowds British weekly domestic speedway hasn't seen this century !!

To clear up any confusion over the different dates. The SCB/BSPA regard 15th April as the earliest date on which they'll make a full review of where we've reached in the coronavirus saga, ready to either set another review date or announce a resumption date. The ACU's use of 30th April does refer to the actual racing of any sort of motorbikes being halted until that date. Hence in a perfect world, the SCB/BSPA could join the ACU in announcing on 15th April that the action resumes on 1st May and they would then both honour the meaning of the dates they've issued so far. Much more realistically, both the dates they've issued so far simply buy time to process more discussions and information on when any action might eventually take place much further into the year.

On one hand, relating to date deadlines for things like collective insurance policies, the usual ending on 31st October (a Saturday this year) could be extended at just a few days of administrative notice towards a date in November or December. But on the other hand, unless we have a very dry autumn, too many tracks will just be permanent sludge by mid-November (if not earlier) as the shorter amount of daylight hours (and less warm sunshine even if it occurs at all) means you're relying only on the wind rather than the sun as well to dry out the most recent rainfall - I've always reckoned (and posted on other threads on this forum several times before) that 12-Celsius appears to be the borderline for the temperature as well as the wind having a proper drying effect - you don't get many 12+ days by November and far more in single figures. Infamously a few years ago at Workington as they tried to clear a backlog, a late-October meeting was abandoned once it became clear the moisture on the track was actually turning into ice. Clearly these exceptional coronavirus circumstances could justify an exceptional gamble with hoping the weather behaves itself to allow a little fixture scheduling in November but realistically, the weekend of Sat-7 & Sun-8-Nov will be stretching it to the weather limit for the Anglo-Scottish tracks (Redcar, Newcastle, Berwick, Edinburgh & Glasgow) with only a week or two's more flexibility further south. At this stage, my target would be to make a revised fixture-list that schedules meetings up to the Halloween weekend but also permits rain-off catch-ups until the weekend of Sat-14 & Sun-15-Nov

And I take your point on board about speedway's use of private ambulances. However, when the government is really scrambling around soon for any medical resources, do you really think any private ambulance company wants the PR-disaster of insisting it still needs to honour its contract with a speedway club rather than adding that ambulance to the general cause (especially when the government probably offers a good bit more money for such a cross-over compared to whatever the speedway club was due to pay in the first place) ? !! Today's steering of emergency services away from mass gatherings is one step for now. In due course, it will almost certainly be at least a short-term government enforcement that merges NHS and private medical resources into one overall medical resource for the national good - remember, any private ambulance still needs to operate under government standards while not being under the NHS banner so bringing it into one overall stock won't be difficult if the government insists upon it.

One aspect of Boris Johnson's update a few minutes ago cuts across speedway more than anything else, namely his insistence that the emergency services should be concentrated towards where they're urgently and unusually needed rather than providing support to things like sporting events and other mass gatherings. You can argue on here all you like about what size crowd is too big or too small with regard to that sort of guideline. Very bluntly (and probably reflecting the general public's attitude rather than just speedway folk), the government won't allow an ambulance to be parked beside a speedway track for a couple of hours, often (and thankfully) not being required for any use, when it's highly likely to be needed in the general battle against coronavirus - similarly, accident & emergency staff need to be left to get on with general coronavirus admissions without having a speedway rider's broken bones added to their workload. British horse racing (another sport totally reliant on ambulance cover for its go-ahead) announced earlier today it would go completely behind closed doors from tomorrow onwards but now only its tax generation via betting might enable it to keep its ambulance cover as a special exemption within these emergency services guidelines for mass gatherings. However, given greyhound racing obviously requires a vet rather than an ambulance to be in attendance for its go-ahead, the dogs might be able to run round their tracks while the horses can't.