Charlieboy 412 Posted May 31, 2018 June 1st tomorrow and we've had 2 league fixtures at home at Sheffield.The total imbalance of fixtures is a joke.Teams who have rode the most fixtures are able to use the new averages to their advantage to swap riders.( good luck to them) The premier league fixtures have been more even .The one home one away has killed my interest this season through lack of continuity along with many other supporters.Speedway fans are creatures of habit and this new idea could be another nail in the speedway coffin.I think the championship has been sacrificed to save the premier league.Does anyone else feel the same ? 6 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
StevePark 2,780 Posted May 31, 2018 If you start the season in April, what do think is going to happen? There has to be blank weeks, before the Play-offs kick in! Newcastle have 2 home and 1 away match in July, but have 4 home and 5 away in August!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
IronScorpion 1,407 Posted May 31, 2018 As soon as they made the Championship only 20 meetings(10 home & away) plus Shield & KOC, they knew there would be a minimum of 14 matches for some teams. Due to the nature of the weather, and not just this year, they should have condensed the fixtures to have run between May & September. that is still about 22 weeks allowing for similar race nights, the notorious few meetings in July but riding in, hopefully, better weather. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Badge 5,119 Posted May 31, 2018 22 minutes ago, Charlieboy said: June 1st tomorrow and we've had 2 league fixtures at home at Sheffield.The total imbalance of fixtures is a joke.Teams who have rode the most fixtures are able to use the new averages to their advantage to swap riders.( good luck to them) The premier league fixtures have been more even .The one home one away has killed my interest this season through lack of continuity along with many other supporters.Speedway fans are creatures of habit and this new idea could be another nail in the speedway coffin.I think the championship has been sacrificed to save the premier league.Does anyone else feel the same ? I'm not too sure the cl has been sacrificed for the pl. I was under the impression we could only do 1 home and away, due to a few cl teams losing so much money, they couldn't afford to run more often. I might be wrong of course. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Charlieboy 412 Posted May 31, 2018 29 minutes ago, StevePark said: If you start the season in April, what do think is going to happen? There has to be blank weeks, before the Play-offs kick in! Newcastle have 2 home and 1 away match in July, but have 4 home and 5 away in August!! We can get enough blank weeks with rain offs.Weve had some dry Thursday's with no fixtures as was expected.If the meetings don't get rained off till late in season we are still going to get a mass scramble to get them in.Thats speedway.I would rather have double the fixtures and risk some rain offs but that's just my opinion.The more meetings the better rather than the lack of fixtures we have now.June and July we have 2 home league matches in each. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RobMcCaffery 2,752 Posted May 31, 2018 34 minutes ago, StevePark said: If you start the season in April, what do think is going to happen? There has to be blank weeks, before the Play-offs kick in! Newcastle have 2 home and 1 away match in July, but have 4 home and 5 away in August!! Ridiculous! We have started the season in BL2/NL/PL/Championship in April since 1969 (1968 was a late start due to the lack of teams in the initial year). I don't remember the second tier having gaps like this. Perhaps the problem lies in having the shortest league schedule since 1968? 10 home league matches is a disgraceful offer to the public, even allowing for the limited additional Championship Shield meetings that in the south add a paltry two extra fixtures making a grand total of 12! So, just what ARE we supposed to do? Start the season in June then move on to the play-offs in September? Trying to defend this year's schedule is ridiculous. The second tier has foolishly followed the top tier into a fragmented season and will pay the same price if it's not careful. Perhaps the promoters can only afford top stage a dozen meetings? If so the least they could do is be honest and inform their remaining fans. 7 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
psycho3a 101 Posted May 31, 2018 Not just the lack of fixtures but also for me a few teams that will not be competitive.. I make a 80 mile round trip to Sheffield and I'm not making the effort to watch redcar and Berwick, already avoided Newcastle and redcar already.. I also miss 3 meetings in August due to holidays so pretty fed up this year already as I've been to 3 league meetings and steadys testimonial.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cityrebel 2,960 Posted May 31, 2018 The clock is ticking to save the the sport in this country. The problem is, no one has the balls to stop it. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lord Lucan 375 Posted May 31, 2018 3 hours ago, Charlieboy said: June 1st tomorrow and we've had 2 league fixtures at home at Sheffield.The total imbalance of fixtures is a joke.Teams who have rode the most fixtures are able to use the new averages to their advantage to swap riders.( good luck to them) The premier league fixtures have been more even .The one home one away has killed my interest this season through lack of continuity along with many other supporters.Speedway fans are creatures of habit and this new idea could be another nail in the speedway coffin.I think the championship has been sacrificed to save the premier league.Does anyone else feel the same ? Under the current schedule CB our first home "league" match will now be June 23rd v Glasgow, not bad considering we started the season in March?? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
The White Knight 9,039 Posted May 31, 2018 2 minutes ago, Lord Lucan said: Under the current schedule CB our first home "league" match will now be June 23rd v Glasgow, not bad considering we started the season in March?? Speedway Meetings are a bit like you Lord Lucan - difficult to find. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
topsoil 2,498 Posted May 31, 2018 Funny how everybody lauds the Polish leagues, we should be following their example, blah blah blah. They only have seven home fixtures each over there. Is it killing the sport over there, the lack of continuity, only one home fixture every two weeks at the best? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robinh88 571 Posted May 31, 2018 (edited) In a word no Average top tier crowd across the top tier was about 10,000 Poland run meetings through the week we can't forget, such as individual and pairs matches for young and old or these now common place test matches Poland do. Poland also for it's flaws do allow non domestic meetings to be shared all around the country from say Krosno back to Torun and probably for half the price and double the quality of uk speedway. Edited May 31, 2018 by Robinh88 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sparks123 147 Posted May 31, 2018 4 hours ago, psycho3a said: Not just the lack of fixtures but also for me a few teams that will not be competitive.. I make a 80 mile round trip to Sheffield and I'm not making the effort to watch redcar and Berwick, already avoided Newcastle and redcar already.. I also miss 3 meetings in August due to holidays so pretty fed up this year already as I've been to 3 league meetings and steadys testimonial.. Did you go to Newcastle and Berwick to see the easy Sheffield victories since the teams are not competitive? I was at both and cannot remember what the scores were. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Hel'n'Back 146 Posted May 31, 2018 Speedway needs to be run every week at home during the season or people tend to find alternative things to do. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
4thbender 382 Posted May 31, 2018 The way things are shaping up, our season will be over on 23 August (and STILL four blank Thursdays between now and then). I feel that the season has only just got underway, but actually (based on the number of fixtures) we're past the halfway point. This arrangement is a shambles and I hope the promoters are listening. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites