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Eastbourne 2020

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Surely there has to come a time when Promoters take a step back, put their own egos away, and realise that what they are doing simply doesnt work?

Its clear that "Championship Lite/NDL Plus" is the (maximum) level for so many..

Not "Premiership Lite"..

If your crowd is less than 1000 why would you be paying Premiership Heat Leaders? 

Premiership Heat Leaders dont forget whose very presence has delivered that less than 1000 crowd!!

The sport is now down to the die hards, with the vast majority of whom willing to watch anything served up and packaged as "Team Speedway" (as is proved by their regular attendance even after well over a decade of contrived output), therefore why spend hundreds of thousands in delivering it?.

For me, the sport (all sports), need a standard bearer to aspire to, so maybe you could get 8 teams to be the pinnacle with 5 man teams. Meaning the best 40 riders ride in that league.. 

The rest then race in an 11 team "Championship Lite/NDL Plus" level, with the best riders providing injury cover to the top league by being affiliated to the teams there..

Meaning no guests in the top league!!

Grade the top 40 riders, A to E and set a mean average based on their total points divided by 40. This will then ensure no team with money can get the best rider from every grade..

Put simply, your crowd level should deliver the level you race at, not the ego of the Promoter..

Edited by mikebv
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17 minutes ago, orion said:

And even more extraordinary nearly closed the club the next year 

Was never going to happen..

The council were not going to close down a multi million pound tax payer funded facility that they had just opened.. 

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8 minutes ago, mikebv said:

Surely there has to come a time when Promoters take a step back, put their own egos away, and realise that what they are doing simply doesnt work?

That should have happened a decade or so ago, will that really happen now? Perhaps there's a number of clubs they have to get down to first, maybe single figures before it happens?

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14 minutes ago, mikebv said:

Surely there has to come a time when Promoters take a step back, put their own egos away, and realise that what they are doing simply doesnt work?

Its clear that "Championship Lite/NDL Plus" is the (maximum) level for so many..

Not "Premiership Lite"..

If your crowd is less than 1000 why would you be paying Premiership Heat Leaders? 

Premiership Heat Leaders dont forget whose very presence has delivered that less than 1000 crowd!!

The sport is now down to the die hards, with the vast majority of whom willing to watch anything served up and packaged as "Team Speedway" (as is proved by their regular attendance even after well over a decade of contrived output), therefore why spend hundreds of thousands in delivering it?.

For me, the sport (all sports), need a standard bearer to aspire to, so maybe you could get 8 teams to be the pinnacle with 5 man teams. Meaning the best 40 riders ride in that league.. 

The rest then race in an 11 team "Championship Lite/NDL Plus" level, with the best riders providing injury cover to the top league by being affiliated to the teams there..

Meaning no guests in the top league!!

Grade the top 40 riders, A to E and set a mean average based on their total points divided by 40. This will then ensure no team with money can get the best rider from every grade..

Put simply, your crowd level should deliver the level you race at, not the ego of the Promoter..

But the premiership heat leaders aren't really premiership heat leaders. Guys like Lawson, masters, Ellis would be 5/6 point riders maybe if was to standard of 20 years ago. James Grieves a consistent 9 point average second division rider barely got above 4 in his Wolverhampton days. 

The premiership is just a slightly harder championship as apposed to the old days when it was a huge jump.

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7 minutes ago, Jaizer said:

But the premiership heat leaders aren't really premiership heat leaders. Guys like Lawson, masters, Ellis would be 5/6 point riders maybe if was to standard of 20 years ago. James Grieves a consistent 9 point average second division rider barely got above 4 in his Wolverhampton days. 

The premiership is just a slightly harder championship as apposed to the old days when it was a huge jump.

Agree 100%..

But I bet their remuneration package doesnt reflect their level against riders 20 years ago..

It will only reflect their position now against all those below them..

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1 minute ago, mikebv said:

Agree 100%..

But I bet their remuneration package doesnt reflect their level against riders 20 years ago..

It will only reflect their position now against all those below them..

No doubt

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3 hours ago, Jaizer said:

Isle of Wight

Somerset

Trelawny

 

 

Long Eaton & Bradford 3 years before that

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Been thinking about the Eastbourne closure... why was it different to what's happened at Birmingham & Newcastle? Both of those were given opportunities to continue, fixtures rearranged to bring forward attractive opposition and go fund me pages setup. Eastboune, fixtures cancelled, press blackout and then closure!

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1 minute ago, iainb said:

Been thinking about the Eastbourne closure... why was it different to what's happened at Birmingham & Newcastle? Both of those were given opportunities to continue, fixtures rearranged to bring forward attractive opposition and go fund me pages setup. Eastboune, fixtures cancelled, press blackout and then closure!

Yes I’m surprised there wasn’t a call to arms, for example a crowdfunding type page set up for donations to try and get the team to the end of the season. Unless the debts were so high that they knew that wouldn’t scratch the surface, I mean after all we’re now hearing that the riders are owed SEVERAL meetings. 

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2 hours ago, Jaizer said:

But the premiership heat leaders aren't really premiership heat leaders. Guys like Lawson, masters, Ellis would be 5/6 point riders maybe if was to standard of 20 years ago. James Grieves a consistent 9 point average second division rider barely got above 4 in his Wolverhampton days. 

The premiership is just a slightly harder championship as apposed to the old days when it was a huge jump.

Yeah, but its the taking part that's counts,,, equality and diversity,(not the pop group), is the way now,,, so it doesn't matter if the jobs crap, it happens all the time so don't worry about it. :t:

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8 minutes ago, iainb said:

Been thinking about the Eastbourne closure... why was it different to what's happened at Birmingham & Newcastle? Both of those were given opportunities to continue, fixtures rearranged to bring forward attractive opposition and go fund me pages setup. Eastboune, fixtures cancelled, press blackout and then closure!

We don’t know the facts though,perhaps the Stadium owners wanted what they were owed (if anything) before they were allowed to use the Stadium .We will never know.

 

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1 minute ago, Marky_Mark said:

Yes I’m surprised there wasn’t a call to arms, for example a crowdfunding type page set up for donations to try and get the team to the end of the season. Unless the debts were so high that they knew that wouldn’t scratch the surface, I mean after all we’re now hearing that the riders are owed SEVERAL meetings. 

In fact the more I think about it, I would have several questions of the Eastbourne management team if they were prepared to answer;

- Why was the break even figure set at such a high attendance coming out of lockdown, what outgoings were so high, overpaying riders, staff or unaffordable rent?

- Why were fans not informed sooner that there were problems, speedway fans are a big community and don’t like to see any track close. It could have led to donations, offers of support and larger attendances?

- Why did they enter and then continue with a National league side, as sad as it would have been to see them pull out, it may have been a sacrifice worth making to save one of the teams.

- Why were the 2 owners/directors not licensed promoters and therefore having to employ 2 promoters. I could be wrong but does this somehow imply that the BSPL already had concerns and didn’t want to give them a promoters license?

- They state that the company will continue to trade for 5-6 weeks and pay off everything they owe, does that include all outstanding rent and riders pay?

- Why did they start a crowdfunding page for an air fence for next season knowing that they had financial problems and therefore were unlikely to even get to next season? Surely would have been more valuable to ask for funding to get through the problems first?

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1 minute ago, Marky_Mark said:

Yes I’m surprised there wasn’t a call to arms, for example a crowdfunding type page set up for donations to try and get the team to the end of the season. Unless the debts were so high that they knew that wouldn’t scratch the surface, I mean after all we’re now hearing that the riders are owed SEVERAL meetings. 

I'm wondering if Birmingham and Newcastle were given a bail out by the BSPL, Eastbourne asked but the pot was empty?? Or maybe because Eastbourne has a much more attractive 'asset' base than those two.  Couldn't they just sell Tom Brennan to the mega rich to raise some cash....   ...or do they just now 'own' him by default.

This won't be popular but I have to say weren't Eastbourne one of the teams that insisted on retaining their 2020 line up in 2021 even though there was no precedent or legal requirement to do so.  When it was obvious that was going to mean there wasn;t going to be enough riders to make all of the teams competitive. A team they then appear to have been unable to afford. Madness. 

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