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singy13

Derwent Park

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21 hours ago, SteelShoe said:

The Comets are currently stretched beyond there means . Everyone wants an attractive winning side but the  gate receipts plus additional income from sponsorship etc ain't balancing the books. So what is the answer to the problem then THJ . 

Win the lottery and run it as a hobby then who gives a monkey's you can be the only one in the stand.(oh and let your pals in for free) (might have to be the Euro for that to happen like eh)

Chatting to one or two promoters the feed back and feel I am getting is if you do not have secondary channels of funding, bar, food, training track to rent, other facilities to let, stock cars etc to market, it becomes very difficult to run a competitive team at even championship level. Read the release from Rosco on the Robins web site he puts it in open and honest terms about an up and coming meeting (and previous ones) that have the potential to hurt their club financially and it seems indicative of the sport.

Buster and Rob get stick from most quarters on here but believe me when I say they do have the best interests of the sport at heart and they are actively looking to improve (or save) where they can, but they are meeting opposition and resistance in every corner, its not my place to state what is going on but I honestly feel for these guys.

Look at the post above by Tsunami, if Worky could attract (and retain) half those 2200 fans back to DP it wouldn't be a problem, so my question to you would be what has changed from then to now, what has made these people attend then and not now, what has changed so dramatically that these fans have deserted the sport in there droves (they couldn't all have died) what has changed so much to stop these fans from coming back (as I wasn't around in those days) as it is still 4 guys racing round a track.

That's your answer for the Worky predicament "people through the doors" as the Worky promotion have very little scope for additional revenue schemes.

Or a generous benefactor or sponsor would do it

Regards
THJ

Edited by TotallyHonestJohn
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8 hours ago, Tsunami said:

Your opening gate at Derwent Park in 1999 was 4,400 when my team opened you up at the invitation of Thomas. After the early euphoria, the gates settled down to about 2200 and you had the biggest number of travelling fans, except for the early days with Newport being top dogs till they hit a slump under Tim Stone. Most Championship clubs have never seen those sort of numbers, so Workington's slump to present day is greater  by comparison.  

Workington and Newport by far had the best travelling support and probably home support in the 99-2000 era. Newport would take 500 fans up the road to Reading and Swindon, and a few hundred to Exeter.

Workington I went in 99 and 2000 and the place was packed , and they always brought healthy numbers down to Newport. Think they done Stoke Saturday, Newport Sunday and Exeter Monday. Remember Stonehewer saying in the bar one afternoon at Newport that he had to ride three of his worst tracks in three days in a row! 

Its a crying shame how numbers have fallen hugely all over the UK, the old PL probably used to have an average of about 1100.

Seeing Newport attract crowds as low as 250 in their last years was upsetting, the place could of been a hot bed for speedway. 

Tim Stone worked wonders getting the place going and had the world at his feet during the first three years, and I still believe the year he paid huge wages to the side with Cunningham and Masters in it was the beginning of the end for speedway in Newport, even if it did still run for ten years after. I know for a fact Stoney paid huge money before a wheel had started on that side, and they finished bottom. Cunningham alone lost the club many fans who refused to go and support the club whilst he was there with his anti Welsh comments, despite being half Welsh himself.

Stoney got Wato and Smart back the following year but built the rest of the side all wrong, and never got the same sized crowds back in. After that he was content in paying whatever Wato wanted to resign him, and didnt really care about the rest of the side hence so many wooden spoons. That coupled with his attitude to the fans, driving many people away, meant he slowly run the club into the ground.

Along came the Malletts with a load of money, had the clubs interests at heart but made a lot of mistakes and couldnt get decent crowds back in. 

I do believe had Stoney still been alive the club would still be running in the third tier with probably a tiny fan base.

i wasnt a fan of his, far from it. But there is no doubt that Newport Speedway had enormous potential, their early crowds were huge and passionate, and the type of crowd who wouldnt want the party to end until the product was no longer value for money. And thats what happened.

Workington Speedway has also never really hit it off since Mole left. A few different promoters who have all struggled to get the original fans back and probably never will.

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12 hours ago, TotallyHonestJohn said:

Win the lottery and run it as a hobby then who gives a monkey's you can be the only one in the stand.(oh and let your pals in for free) (might have to be the Euro for that to happen like eh)

Chatting to one or two promoters the feed back and feel I am getting is if you do not have secondary channels of funding, bar, food, training track to rent, other facilities to let, stock cars etc to market, it becomes very difficult to run a competitive team at even championship level. Read the release from Rosco on the Robins web site he puts it in open and honest terms about an up and coming meeting (and previous ones) that have the potential to hurt their club financially and it seems indicative of the sport.

Buster and Rob get stick from most quarters on here but believe me when I say they do have the best interests of the sport at heart and they are actively looking to improve (or save) where they can, but they are meeting opposition and resistance in every corner, its not my place to state what is going on but I honestly feel for these guys.

Look at the post above by Tsunami, if Worky could attract (and retain) half those 2200 fans back to DP it wouldn't be a problem, so my question to you would be what has changed from then to now, what has made these people attend then and not now, what has changed so dramatically that these fans have deserted the sport in there droves (they couldn't all have died) what has changed so much to stop these fans from coming back (as I wasn't around in those days) as it is still 4 guys racing round a track.

That's your answer for the Worky predicament "people through the doors" as the Worky promotion have very little scope for additional revenue schemes.

Or a generous benefactor or sponsor would do it

Regards
THJ

What has changed so dramatically THJ?

Disposable income...

Nowadays we have mobile bills not just for ourselves but our children, nowadays we pay out big money for cable/satellite TV,  nowadays we pay out more big money for access to the Internet, and nowadays we pay fortunes on utility bills, public transport costs and fuel for private travel, insurance on housing and vehicles, higher rental charges, and obviously ever increasing mortgage values on ever increasing house prices...

All the while that has been taking place, Speedway has obviously seen some of the same costs rising, so it's answer was to reduce the quality of the product on offer but brought in umpteen inflation busting price rises on the back of it..

Team Speedway (in the UK),  has no way back from here I would suggest...

 

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The problem I feel is that the word trendy has a major part to play. A nation that is social media driven has to be keeping up apparences. Pictures are fabricated on social media to gain approval when most of the time events or activities look to be fantastic but are they really? . Also. Darts, boxing and horse racing are all popular sporting events at the present moment and they have two major factors in common alcohol and gambling!

 

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1 hour ago, John7 said:

The problem I feel is that the word trendy has a major part to play. A nation that is social media driven has to be keeping up apparences. Pictures are fabricated on social media to gain approval when most of the time events or activities look to be fantastic but are they really? . Also. Darts, boxing and horse racing are all popular sporting events at the present moment and they have two major factors in common alcohol and gambling!

 

The first meeting of a speedway era has many 'newbies' attend to see what goes on in this sport...it's a novelty factor that sees a good crowd then dwindle to those who remain addicted.

It's happened twice at Workington in my time.

My earliest personal fix came in 1970.......5,000+ to see Comets v Bandits....that season crowds were about 3,000 and the Comets hero was Bob Valentine...when he didn't reappear for 1971 many followers were lost too....Lou Sansom was a star too...but sadly the crowds dwindled, many promoters tried revivals...but no one recaptured the publics attention enough to continue, so by 1981 it was a lost cause.. then came 1999 and the wonderful Stoney....he was just great and the fans came in good numbers again......now I have been optimistic of such a revival happening at DP again..lots of keyboard Comets seem to disagree tho.......but will remain hopeful that the 'star' can yet again shine for Comets and bring the floaters out there back????

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30 minutes ago, singy13 said:

The first meeting of a speedway era has many 'newbies' attend to see what goes on in this sport...it's a novelty factor that sees a good crowd then dwindle to those who remain addicted.

It's happened twice at Workington in my time.

My earliest personal fix came in 1970.......5,000+ to see Comets v Bandits....that season crowds were about 3,000 and the Comets hero was Bob Valentine...when he didn't reappear for 1971 many followers were lost too....Lou Sansom was a star too...but sadly the crowds dwindled, many promoters tried revivals...but no one recaptured the publics attention enough to continue, so by 1981 it was a lost cause.. then came 1999 and the wonderful Stoney....he was just great and the fans came in good numbers again......now I have been optimistic of such a revival happening at DP again..lots of keyboard Comets seem to disagree tho.......but will remain hopeful that the 'star' can yet again shine for Comets and bring the floaters out there back????

sometimes for this to happen people need to loose it first to make them realise how much they miss it 

sadly if we loose speedway again this year or in the next couple of years I cant see it ever coming back 

not the mess british speedway is in

 

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9 minutes ago, scaramanga said:

sometimes for this to happen people need to loose it first to make them realise how much they miss it 

sadly if we loose speedway again this year or in the next couple of years I cant see it ever coming back 

not the mess british speedway is in

 

Sad to say it but you are right......the speedway product isn't as attractive in the UK as it was in those early times, both in 1970 and 1999....and I also think that the Grand Prix formula has had a bad effect on British speedway.....but that's going off the Derwent Park craic I guess, sorry.

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2 hours ago, John7 said:

The problem I feel is that the word trendy has a major part to play. A nation that is social media driven has to be keeping up apparences. Pictures are fabricated on social media to gain approval when most of the time events or activities look to be fantastic but are they really? . Also. Darts, boxing and horse racing are all popular sporting events at the present moment and they have two major factors in common alcohol and gambling!

 

I once took the  big red bus to ladies day at ascot as u say nothing but a load of piss heads never say a horse race all day just drank thats what we up against ,left 4 of them behind laughed all the way home .

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3 hours ago, geoff100 said:

I once took the  big red bus to ladies day at ascot as u say nothing but a load of piss heads never say a horse race all day just drank thats what we up against ,left 4 of them behind laughed all the way home .

in the words of sugar, Alan that is ....................................... YOURE FIRED    :nono:

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1 hour ago, jenga said:

in the words of sugar, Alan that is ....................................... YOURE FIRED    :nono:

I wish  just lost 40 p out the tip bag lol

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On 9/28/2018 at 6:45 AM, mikebv said:

What has changed so dramatically THJ?

Disposable income...

Nowadays we have mobile bills not just for ourselves but our children, nowadays we pay out big money for cable/satellite TV,  nowadays we pay out more big money for access to the Internet, and nowadays we pay fortunes on utility bills, public transport costs and fuel for private travel, insurance on housing and vehicles, higher rental charges, and obviously ever increasing mortgage values on ever increasing house prices...

All the while that has been taking place, Speedway has obviously seen some of the same costs rising, so it's answer was to reduce the quality of the product on offer but brought in umpteen inflation busting price rises on the back of it..

Team Speedway (in the UK),  has no way back from here I would suggest...

 

Cant disagree with any of this

Plus I feel a great deal of the General Public prefer to watch sports on their TV, X-box, Play Station, other hand held device even their mobile phone and if your product isn't on these media streams it gets overlooked. TV gets the sport out into the public domain then the interest to watch it live is generated from that. Pity you couldn't gamble on races to get the bookies interested as that would get the sport out there. Here,s a mad idea three team meetings giving 6 riders per race (like a dog race) 15 heats gambling on each race the bookies could possibly be in on that, fully televised every meeting streamed into betting shops? Unfortunately the investment to widen tracks and set things up would be colossal but it needs some radical thinking to turn things round.

Regards
THJ

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People would just bet from their phones or betting shops and wander back to the pub.

The lost art of attending live sport.

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16 hours ago, topaz325 said:

People would just bet from their phones or betting shops and wander back to the pub.

The lost art of attending live sport.

That's exactly what happens with Brough Park dogs and the crowds used to be in the high hundreds but now they are lucky if they  hit a couple of hundred, however as their races are televised live into every bookies in the country and on line, the stadium owners don't care who comes through the turn-styles as they get 10% of all world wide gambling so if someone in Australia gambles $100 dollars on a dog race at Brough the company gets 10% so they don't care if only a hundred or so "live dog racing fans" come through the door as the returns must be colossal and I doubt they would let anyone in if they didn't have to do so for their licence. They also get a fee for very televised meeting they run which is streamed into the bookies nationally , its a licence to print money.

It's like someone said on here recently about Polish speedway, the crowds are totally immaterial as the whole thing is sponsored and supported through national sponsorship deals with high profile television support, it's just that over their there is still a lot of speedway fans (bike riders whose first node of transport is a bike rather than a car) which I feel also helps.

I doubt it would ever happen but this is the type of "soft revenue stream" clubs need. If clubs got money through the door  from something like this; i,e, gambling; which then made it moot how big the crowd was; you would be challenging Poland for the top riders rather than them having sway on all and sundry. It is only an opinion but I doubt the people who run the sport would have the wherewithal to set up a deal of this nature anyway

Regards
THJ 

Edited by TotallyHonestJohn
Spelling, Spell Check and Eyesight

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