Birmingham v Edinburgh 08/06/22

[Gerbat1875 78]

7 hours ago, OGT said:

Ha ha, brilliant. I officially apologise on Villa's behalf for only being to fit 41,000 fans in for a home game with 20,000 fans on the season ticket waiting list.

 

Villas average attendance last year 37000 Birmingham 18000, this year will be lower between both as St Andrews was half closed, 20000 on a waiting list is total rubbish, Villa, Birmingham, West Brom, Wolves all have gaps in the stadium, not one of them ever get a complete sell out, even the young kids in Brum don't support the local football teams, they have all been brought up on the sky big 6 phenomenon, speedway in Brum is never going to attract, it would have happened in the elite league days when we topped the standings if it was ever going to happen 

Edited June 10, 2022 by Gerbat1875

[Dekker 239]

17 hours ago, ruckerroo said:

It's a vicious circle, poor side gets poor results gets moderate crowds gets no money to strengthen .   I hope my prediction of brum folding is wrong, to an outsider is there enough support for a side in the city ?

Promotion is an expensive business especially in your first 2 or 3 years as you build up your assets, hopefully the brummies promotion was wise enough to budget for that and can survive their first season.

Re the support in Birmingham, yes i think there is but the Brummies problem is the stadium. it's a very expensive place to promote and an expensive place to watch with speedway always treated like a 2nd class citizen. The first promotion was bankrolled by the ex-Worky promoter Tony Mole who had very deep pockets.

Edited June 10, 2022 by Dekker

[marko 956]

Birmingham has often been referred to the Mecca of the Midlands, a large percentage but not a majority of it is Asian, I have never seen anyone at a speedway track who isn’t white. Unless you count Antonio Lindback.

So nearly half the population of Birmingham you can rule out for a start, it’s a big City with lots to do probably? So competing with other events and business is going to be extremely hard, and that’s assuming it’s even on the radar in the first place which it probably isn’t.

[Gerbat1875 78]

8 minutes ago, marko said:

Birmingham has often been referred to the Mecca of the Midlands, a large percentage but not a majority of it is Asian, I have never seen anyone at a speedway track who isn’t white. Unless you count Antonio Lindback.

So nearly half the population of Birmingham you can rule out for a start, it’s a big City with lots to do probably? So competing with other events and business is going to be extremely hard, and that’s assuming it’s even on the radar in the first place which it probably isn’t.

Maybe with Birmingham, there are lots of sports venues to attend, some areas only have a speedway track nearby which gives the kids something to do, but Brum has football, cricket, tennis courts, rugby etc so it's hard for speedway to compete, I agree about the stadium prices though, bloody daylight robbery in my opinion 

[OGT 612]

5 hours ago, Gerbat1875 said:

Villas average attendance last year 37000 Birmingham 18000, this year will be lower between both as St Andrews was half closed, 20000 on a waiting list is total rubbish, Villa, Birmingham, West Brom, Wolves all have gaps in the stadium, not one of them ever get a complete sell out, even the young kids in Brum don't support the local football teams, they have all been brought up on the sky big 6 phenomenon, speedway in Brum is never going to attract, it would have happened in the elite league days when we topped the standings if it was ever going to happen 

And there was me thinking Blose fans knew everything about the Vile. Oh well

https://www.avfc.co.uk/news/2022/may/03/season-tickets-for-2022-23-coming-soon/

https://www.worldfootball.net/attendance/eng-premier-league-2021-2022/1/

[Deano 1,318]

6 hours ago, cinderfella said:

I'll get abuse for this but it begs the question that really needs asking: " Do we need a couple of teams to fold and perhaps go to one league (and the NDL) to have enough riders?" or do we cut teams to say 6 with 2 H/Ls, 2 S/Ss and 2 reserves one of whom must be from the NDL.

Whatever the solution is action needs taken now or the sport as we know it will die within the next decade.

 

Any company at risk of not being able to fill it's skills gaps through retirement or labour attrition generally takes a look at itself and trains people up and retains them. Speedway should be doing the same thing, but lots of BSPL new rules you read about such as no nomad teams etc goes against that very philosophy. So to be honest, the only way, is to let clubs fold to release riders, then we end up with no speedway. So perhaps that is the ultimate goal.

[bruno 1,790]

Just watched this meeting and not great racing however I thought Paul did ok with Ian in the commentary with it being his first time. Admittedly I fast forwarded to the races

[uk_martin 1,606]

23 hours ago, GiveusaB said:

Not sure what experience or knowledge the new consortium have/

What would you expect from a commentator, a fan and a couple of sponsors? Theirs is the money, Laurence Rogers' is the experience,  knowledge and expertise that they rely on. What could possibly go wrong?

[iainb 4,999]

23 hours ago, Dekker said:

Promotion is an expensive business especially in your first 2 or 3 years as you build up your assets, hopefully the brummies promotion was wise enough to budget for that and can survive their first season.

Re the support in Birmingham, yes i think there is but the Brummies problem is the stadium. it's a very expensive place to promote and an expensive place to watch with speedway always treated like a 2nd class citizen. The first promotion was bankrolled by the ex-Worky promoter Tony Mole who had very deep pockets.

I don't know there are any such things as assets in speedway these days unless you're referring to the tractor equipment and air fence

23 hours ago, marko said:

Birmingham has often been referred to the Mecca of the Midlands, a large percentage but not a majority of it is Asian, I have never seen anyone at a speedway track who isn’t white. Unless you count Antonio Lindback.

So nearly half the population of Birmingham you can rule out for a start, it’s a big City with lots to do probably? So competing with other events and business is going to be extremely hard, and that’s assuming it’s even on the radar in the first place which it probably isn’t.

There were a group of asian muslims at the Brumb vs Leicester match, which was refreshing to see. If Birmingham and Leicester could tap into the Asian populations in their cities all their problems would be over. 

Imagine if their was an Asian rider for them to follow! I've seen a couple of Asian lads at Leicester but considering the ethnic population is the majority that's a pretty poor turnout. 

Birmingham's promotional activities seem to be aimed at kids or fans of Cradley or Coventry. 

I'm not sure what Leicester's promotional activities are... as far as I've seen it's nothing!

Edited June 11, 2022 by iainb

[heathen52 384]

On 6/10/2022 at 1:55 PM, Gerbat1875 said:

Villas average attendance last year 37000 Birmingham 18000, this year will be lower between both as St Andrews was half closed, 20000 on a waiting list is total rubbish, Villa, Birmingham, West Brom, Wolves all have gaps in the stadium, not one of them ever get a complete sell out, even the young kids in Brum don't support the local football teams, they have all been brought up on the sky big 6 phenomenon, speedway in Brum is never going to attract, it would have happened in the elite league days when we topped the standings if it was ever going to happen 

As a Wolves football supporter I can tell you that you are way off the mark when you say that they have gaps in the stadium for home games, the only gaps you will see are the gaps between the 4 stands or a few gaps separating home and away fans, I think maybe a 2/3 home games didnt sell out last season, but back to Speedway the Sport itself has a problem in attracting any new blood at all, and its having big problems retaining what little support it still has and having a poor team doesnt help, the Brummies are falling down on all three counts, its a chicken and egg situation for them with regards Team strength invest in the team costs money dont invest support dwindles, I will say again Birmingham has a history of not supporting poor teams.. which brings us back to the Chicken and Egg.

[Gerbat1875 78]

6 hours ago, heathen52 said:

As a Wolves football supporter I can tell you that you are way off the mark when you say that they have gaps in the stadium for home games, the only gaps you will see are the gaps between the 4 stands or a few gaps separating home and away fans, I think maybe a 2/3 home games didnt sell out last season, but back to Speedway the Sport itself has a problem in attracting any new blood at all, and its having big problems retaining what little support it still has and having a poor team doesnt help, the Brummies are falling down on all three counts, its a chicken and egg situation for them with regards Team strength invest in the team costs money dont invest support dwindles, I will say again Birmingham has a history of not supporting poor teams.. which brings us back to the Chicken and Egg.

To be fair and most people won't admit it, but speedway in Brum will never return not if but when we close down, I was in Perry Barr today and asked a fair few youngsters about Birmingham Speedway and I would say 95% of them had not even got a clue about speedway, when I pointed out the stadium was just 200 yards up the road, they were correct in saying it was a dog track but did not know of any motor sport taking place there, shopkeepers I spoke too are also a bit oblivious about speedway, most of them are wishing we never got the commonwealth games too, apart from the odd banner here and there unless you are a speedway fan most people do not know they greyhound stadium also runs speedway. Going back to cricket etc when Birmingham Bears have a T20 match in most of South Brum you will know about it a few days before either by a fly poster or word of mouth, don't see this happening with the speedway 

[GiveusaB 1,136]

Just noticed on B'ham's website that yesterday they posted news about the next home meeting (Weds v Plymouth) every detail (apart from teams)

So, I assume this 'news' is aimed at any newcomer ? as regulars already know what to expect and the only 'news' we will be interested in is about line-ups?

Its all good and well posting this news to prospective newbies, but they need to know about the website first?

Not sure how they go about getting the 'message' out there ?

(apologies...just noticed that this news was also done the week before v Edinburgh)

Still can't get my head around the fact that Cov/Cradley/Wolves fans can get in for almost half the price that a loyal B'ham fan who's been attending for 51 years....

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by GiveusaB

[arnieg 3,637]

35 minutes ago, GiveusaB said:

Just noticed on B'ham's website that yesterday they posted news about the next home meeting (Weds v Plymouth) every detail (apart from teams)

So, I assume this 'news' is aimed at any newcomer ? as regulars already know what to expect and the only 'news' we will be interested in is about line-ups?

Its all good and well posting this news to prospective newbies, but they need to know about the website first?

Not sure how they go about getting the 'message' out there ?

Still can't get my head around the fact that Cov/Cradley/Wolves fans can get in for almost half the price that a loyal B'ham fan who's been attending for 51 years....

 

Given the tendency these days to cancel meetings because rider A is having a pedicure or the Clerk of the Course is having his wisdom teeth out, the fact there is definitely a fixture on Wednesday probably does constitute substantive news!

[brianbuck 928]

When we first knew the make up of our 2022 team, I thought that we would have a reasonably successful season, but quite obviously, it has not turned out this way, and the Brummies campaign has been blighted by a succession of wet or cold Wednesday nights, plus the undeniable fact that there have been collectively, some consistently poor performances from several of the riders. The consortium has worked extremely hard to get things on an upward motion and in my opinion, have not deserved much of the criticism or blame which has been forthcoming.

As far as the Adam Ellis situation is concerned, I have no more inside knowledge than anyone else, but my thinking is that his signing on the eve of the season was something of a "fingers crossed" operation for both club and rider, and most likely seen as a kind of insurance for Adam as an alternative should his Continental bookings dried up. When they didn't, his best option seemed to be to move on. The club would obviously have hoped that this wouldn't happen, but it did and there was little that they could do about it.

This is just my own theory and is not intended as a criticism of Adam or the club. He is as entitled as any of us to look after his own interests and his own income.

Of course I am disappointed by the way that the season has panned out so far, and fully realise that things are not looking too rosy for the Brummies just now, but ever the optimist, and am hoping for the best for the club which I have supported for the past 69 years, and hope that the hard core of our support will stick with it through admittedly difficult times.

[szkocjasid 3,020]

Finally getting round to watching this on BSN

Impressed with the camera angles so far

Edited June 25, 2023 by szkocjasid