'bumper Crowds'

[Guest]

Crowds at Foxhall certainly seem to be bigger over the last month or so. The question is whether they will remain when the kids summer holiday promotion stops....

 

Perhaps it's because of the stadium improvements made by Spedeworth?

[New Science 1,059]

Coventry have had some great attendances (close to 3000) against Poole. Packed against Birmingham and recently against wolves

It will be good to see teams report significant profits this year rather than the considerable losses that have been reported over the last couple of seasons Edited August 19, 2013 by New Science

[arthur cross 492]

I was under the impression that all Football attendances (all 4 divisions) were much improved on what they were in the 1980's.

Football crowds recovered from that recession, but Speedway crowds never did.

It's interesting to see that the record attendances for 80% of League Football Clubs took place for FA Cup matches. Now the lowest gates are for Cup matches All those records gates are for a long time ago. 50 years ago it was not unusual for the old 3rd and 4th division clubs to have gates of 30.000 plus. Now they only get 10% of that. My local non league club used to get 1,000 to 1.200 spectators and for their local derby 1.800 to 2,000 and once the got to the 1st round of the FA Cup with 3,700 watching. Todays gates 70 to 100. and there in no local Derby anymore as the other team has gone. So far less people watch football today than they did in the 1950,s

 

Top-division football crowds have increased where spectator facilities have been greatly improved but a knock-on effect has been that lower-level clubs who find it much harder to invest in ground improvements have lost some of their fans whether it's directly to those better venues or simply just the home comforts of watching so many more games on TV.

 

How many speedway clubs have greatly improved their facilities in the last 30 years ? !! ... how many speedway fans now prefer home comforts ? !!

 

My introduction to watching football was only 10 minutes' walk away when my dad took me as a 7-year-old in the 1970's to what would now be the 3rd-level of non-league ... at today's prices, it would've cost less than £10 between us and we had the perfect mixture of live action plus the buzz of following all the scores because one of the supporters was updating a couple of clipboards ... now on a Saturday, we'd get our live action from the 12.45 & 5.30 kick-offs on TV while Jeff Stelling's mob are a bit more hi-tech and entertaining than a bloke with a radio and a pen !!

 

The top two divisions had no choice about ground improvements after the investigations into Bradford/1985 and Hillsborough/1989 but what could have been a financial nightmare for them was rescued by Sky's willingness to chuck mega-millions at football which created the Premier League in 1992 ... in turn, the shiny new world of the Premier League generated much more media coverage and so the top clubs found it was worthwhile expanding their capacities or building new grounds.

 

Take a few examples ...

 

Arsenal's Highbury could squeeze in 55,000 when both ends were still terracing but that capacity shrank to 38,000 as an all-seater, hence their move half-a-mile away to the Emirates Stadium with room for 60,000 seats ...

 

Man United have hugely expanded 3 sides of Old Trafford to go beyond 75,000 seats (well above their capacity in the latter days of the terraces) and want to do the tv-camera side as well to make it 85,000 but there's the snag of a local railway line that runs only a few yards behind that one remaining old stand.

 

Man City suffered one of the biggest cutbacks in capacity at Maine Road because they were the last really big club with an entire side (the Kippax) still terraced as well as both ends so they shrank from over 50,000 to just 34,000 all-seater, making their link-up with the 2002 Commonwealth Games stadium for 45,000 seats a no-brainer (especially seeing how well the 1996 Atlanta Olympic stadium was adapted into the new home for baseball's Atlanta Braves).

 

It's no surprise that all of Swansea, Stoke, Hull and Reading are currently either in the Premier League or have had spells at that level in recent years on the back of building new grounds to end long spells in the doldrums ... further down the order, Brighton and Doncaster are great examples of clubs who've attracted bigger crowds by building new grounds with realistic capacities ... on the other hand, Portsmouth remain trapped inside crumbling Fratton Park's 20,000 capacity and have sunk to the 4th-level after financial chaos that wouldn't have been so terrible if they'd been able to house 30,000 in their Premier League days.

 

There aren't many examples of new stadiums proving disastrous ... just Coventry (horrible miscalculations about a fair rent, followed by wretched stubbornness when those calculations proved wrong) and Darlington (25,000 capacity for a team never likely to attract above 10,000 with Middlesbrough, Sunderland & Newcastle all less than an hour away) ... there's also Sheffield's Don Valley Stadium built for the 1991 World Student Games but about to go derelict now that Rotherham United have built their new home to end a temporary tenancy and it's been proved rugby league's Sheffield Eagles aren't lucrative-enough permanent tenants.

 

I'm sure it frustrates domestic speedway fans who don't follow football or Grand Prix speedway but clubs have had to face up to those events' economic forces ... I'm sure any of our Saturday tracks can tell if it's a Grand Prix night or not, especially if their local weather's iffy because most Grand Prix meetings start just as the local fans are deciding whether it's worth going along to their track ... meanwhile, the Newcastle Diamonds' usual 6.30 start on a Sunday has been routinely amended to 7.00 whenever Newcastle United are in the 4.00 game on Sky and that's done even if the football team are playing away because of the time it takes to get from the armchair or pub to the track rather than just from St James' Park.

 

One final thought ... plenty of football clubs (or indeed other sports clubs) have benefitted from people aged in their 30's & 40's becoming heavily involved which greatly increases the chances of being able to engage with their clubs' younger generations of fans ... now look at speedway where there's a noticeably smaller proportion of 30's-&-40's in prominent roles and that's going to make it even harder for speedway to update itself.

 

Speedway's struggling to find enough fans at the moment ... I'd argue it's struggling even more to find its next generation of promoters and administrators because very few of its younger fans seem remotely interested in taking up those roles in the future.

Edited August 19, 2013 by arthur cross

[Tsunami 10,219]

Oh, the irony !!!

I must admit Kev that by and large I don't respond to him now. Most folk on here see him for the fool he is and he is simply not worth wasting a second of my time on anymore.

 

He does on occasions though make me smile with (as you point out) the complete irony of his posts. Unfortunately though he is so far up his own arse he cant see it

 

Funny that both these posters have stalked me on here, or the WWOS, and both called me a 'failed' promoter at times.

Having brought Speedway back to Newcastle in 1997, winning the PL with Newcastle in 2001, and having signed Nicki, Bjarne and KB for Newcastle, I would say that doesn't suggest failure to me or anybody else except these two failed posters. What have either done of note in British Speedway that is worthy of mention.

 

Now that's what I would call irony. .

[manchesterpaul 447]

I'm always shocked to the core when i see the minsicule numbers that qualify as 'bumper' attendances for speedway these days. But in defence of the sport and those who quote the high five figure 'football type' attendances form the olden days, they are not comparable. There were few alternatives for entertainment in those days, certainly within the home. Nowadays most live sports attract less spectators than they used to the world over.

 

Aside from the Premier League, football attendances are pitiful for those in the leagues below compared to the past, and that's a sport that is ingrained upon our consciousness from the day we are born with extreme media coverage night and day.

 

I was under the impression that all Football attendances (all 4 divisions) were much improved on what they were in the 1980's.

Football crowds recovered from that recession, but Speedway crowds never did.

 

It's interesting to see that the record attendances for 80% of League Football Clubs took place for FA Cup matches. Now the lowest gates are for Cup matches All those records gates are for a long time ago. 50 years ago it was not unusual for the old 3rd and 4th division clubs to have gates of 30.000 plus. Now they only get 10% of that. My local non league club used to get 1,000 to 1.200 spectators and for their local derby 1.800 to 2,000 and once the got to the 1st round of the FA Cup with 3,700 watching. Todays gates 70 to 100. and there in no local Derby anymore as the other team has gone. So far less people watch football today than they did in the 1950,s

 

That's the period i was more or less referring to as people on here will often quote speedway attendances from the 50's and 30's or whichever decades in which they used to get football type attendances.

Edited August 19, 2013 by manchesterpaul

[marko 955]

Would like to make a comment on the point Arthur Cross made about where the next generation of promoters will come from.

I immediately thought of the late great John Berry when he said that and about how back in the day someone young with vision was looked upon in a not too nice way by the powers that be!

The bspa has always been a closed shop and it probably always will be, which is why you will never see an independant body in charge of the sport.

 

But this is what the sport needs, younger minds with visions and the ability to think outside the bubble that the bspa have long been trapped in.

[The White Knight 9,039]

Would like to make a comment on the point Arthur Cross made about where the next generation of promoters will come from.

I immediately thought of the late great John Berry when he said that and about how back in the day someone young with vision was looked upon in a not too nice way by the powers that be!

The bspa has always been a closed shop and it probably always will be, which is why you will never see an independant body in charge of the sport.

 

But this is what the sport needs, younger minds with visions and the ability to think outside the bubble that the bspa have long been trapped in.

 

You are right but - I think that bubble has burst.

[Mike.Butler 601]

anyone know if the One Direction lads have ever shown any interest? heard on news today their music is pretty irrelevant..it's their mere presence that pulls in the crowd...get them to sign programmes only....better make sure there's an extra print run though..

 

 

 

 

alternatively can Adam Ellis sing?

Edited August 19, 2013 by Mike.Butler

[New Science 1,059]

In a word, no.

 

There are bumper for this season. For example, Swindon's crowd at home to Wolves was bumper (over 1,500), compared to the crowds at the start of the season (less than 1,000), but still well down on crowds from just three or four seasons ago (regularly over 2,000).

On the flip side the crowd at Peterborough tonight is one of the lowest I've ever seen for an Elite league fixture.It seems a live Sky match and the speedway paying public still have an uneasy relationship ! Couldn't really blame Sky if they pulled the plug.

[orion 7,610]

On the flip side the crowd at Peterborough tonight is one of the lowest I've ever seen for an Elite league fixture.It seems a live Sky match and the speedway paying public still have an uneasy relationship ! Couldn't really blame Sky if they pulled the plug.

Yet again it's not so much sky being there but the off race night .

[BWitcher 12,453]

 

 

That's your opinion of Tsunami but your contribution to the topic under discussion the thread is..........?

 

To be fair, he was simply responding to a personal attack from Tsunami.

[E I Addio 15,841]

On the flip side the crowd at Peterborough tonight is one of the lowest I've ever seen for an Elite league fixture.It seems a live Sky match and the speedway paying public still have an uneasy relationship ! Couldn't really blame Sky if they pulled the plug.

Why would Sky want a big crowd ? If people are watching at home they are helping the viewing figures and watching the adverts that pay for the meeting. For every person in the crowd that's another person the companies paying for the adverts are not reaching.

[Tsunami 10,219]

I dont know where all the fans have gone from Worky, wehn the track re opened in 1999-to about 2003 the crowds were between 1500 and 2000....now a good crowd is 1000 but usually about 5-600.

 

Your first gate against us on opening night was about 4300.

[BWitcher 12,453]

 

Yet again it's not so much sky being there but the off race night .

 

And of course the total lack of imagination when it comes to promoting the meeting.

 

 

Why would Sky want a big crowd ? If people are watching at home they are helping the viewing figures and watching the adverts that pay for the meeting. For every person in the crowd that's another person the companies paying for the adverts are not reaching.

 

For the same reason that speedway should want a big crowd.

 

A large vibrant crowd will attract more viewers than one man and his dog watching.

[E I Addio 15,841]

Would like to make a comment on the point Arthur Cross made about where the next generation of promoters will come from.

I immediately thought of the late great John Berry when he said that and about how back in the day someone young with vision was looked upon in a not too nice way by the powers that be!

The bspa has always been a closed shop and it probably always will be, which is why you will never see an independant body in charge of the sport.

 

 

 

The BSPA was created in the first place because the independent body previously running the sport had made such a muck up more than half the riders in the country were riding in a pirate league.