All Activity

I do that journey on a Monday to watch the Brummies and it takes 25 mins, even quicker getting home, I could do it in less than an hour on my pushbike

with apologies to Brummies supporters everywhere - i think most of us knew this already!!!

Very good post. I wonder of Belle Vie will replace Zischke this year, they've been patient with him, but really need a stronger reserve to challenge for the title imo. For Brennan, has he stalled in Britain this year because he's in such a good team he doesn't have to go well to win, compared to last year, when he needed to be amazing to avoid heavy defeats. Maybe a lack of pressure isn't working for him? For the last paragraph, that's the problem with the play-offs, Ipswich & Belle Vue clashing, doesn't excite me, it's what happens in the play-offs that matters. For that reason I found Birmingham vs King's Lynn the match with more riding on it.

Thank you. As a Brummie I will always have a soft spot for the Brummies (plus I was track staff for 5 seasons also when it reopened) but my team will always be Wolves as you know! im hoping to make a meeting before the season is out to see friends as well. The very fact that Birmingham is the 2nd biggest city it does have a huge advantage over other rural clubs. There are plenty of youngsters as you pointed out that could have been targeted which is really aimed at the sport as a whole and I think what the Masons did in encouraging kids was to be commended. Speedway has never invested in itself and that’s the situation we now find ourselves in as a consequence. Birmingham people just haven’t seemed interested in the sport. Perhaps if it was more successful as a team you might find some glory hunters becoming fans similar to how Villa attract more fans. For Birmingham it’s now too late for help.

The price point is a major issue for the sport, and dissuades visits... Utopia is GP stars at £15 a pop, but that won't happen... However, it should given the TV money should have been used to subsidise the entrance fee... Ironically the top lads will bring a few extra in and maybe could be "cost neutral", or thereabouts, but it is the fully pro rest of the team that are not "cost neutral" as they bring hardly anyone extra in... You even have NDL lads with personalised sign written vans!!!??? If BZ turned up this weekend with £5k of gold handlebars, you can bet several riders would also want them, as with them, they could ride like him couldn't they? 🤪... Maybe Speedway should do something similar to what Rugby League and Non League Football do when the International matches are on, and do a "magic week" or maybe a fortnight so every track has a home meeting.. Well publicised, well planned, and every adult in for a tenner, with all 18 and under kids still in education in for free.. Get as many emails and mobile numbers as is possible to keep communicating with those who turn up and keep sending them offers out if they haven't attended again over the next week or two.. A bit of a reset, with the aim to impress the punters off and on the track..

All very good points, would be happy with that. Far far better than the current system.

Agree.Let the riders who can’t make the sport pay in Uk earn their fortune elsewhere.

The reason Belle Vue are successful at home is because of home advantage, every team has home Advantage it is not something that needs defending.

I'm not sure they're trying to win something with very little kudos, I think it's more like they're trying to win races to get noticed by Polish clubs. If it were down to me, it'd be ultimatum time, riders commit to this country in something like a 40 match calendar or clear off and earn their bacon elsewhere. Our clubs need to be riding on the nights that suit them... not the riders.

Option A - £20+ a Meeting with big hitters. Two leagues with Poland flexing their muscles leading to British clubs putting out weakend teams on track something that Phil Morris and Fixed raced nights was supposed to stop. Promoters lose because attendances will be down, Fans lose because they're still having to pay the full amount when some big hitters aren't at the meeting. Option B - Say roughly £12-15 Option One big league that see's 5 Man Teams with riders like Lawson, Wright, Masters etc. riding as No.1's that see's full line-ups take to track on a weekly basis barring injury.

I think also that what people don't get is midlands traffic can be horrendous, you can't just pop down the road. from say Wolves to Perry Barr, its going to be at least an hour in Monday rush hour traffic even though it s less than 20 miles!! - There are two cities in the UK I hate driving in they both begin with B - one is Bristol and the other is Birmingham! I live in Sheffield and don't go that often if Sheffield closed I could get the either BV or Scunny but the prospect of a 1 hr journey each time would mean it would be an occasional visit at the most! That doesn't mean I still don't enjoy streams and watching on the TV, or having an opinion on what happens. In 2022 or maybe 2023 (Wolves last season) I saw a guy who was clearly a Wolves supporter at the tram stop at Hillsborough corner - clearly on his way back to Sheffield station for a train back to Wolverhamnpton area - I recall thinkling fair play - you won't be home until Midnight! Whilst this is true what is the issue? - perhaps part of it is the Brummies closing in the mid 80s and not re-opening until the mid 2000's. That 20 year gap may have lost a lot of following. I'd say BIrmingham has the larger potential audience than Sheffield (500K) and the crowds at Owlerton are decent prob 2k or so - more when Belle Vue or Leicester are in town. Similar to the Netball - Basketball in the UK - I used to take my lad and a couple of his mates to Sharks (Sheffield) games the sport was I suspect semi pro / part time but attracted a good loyal regular following prob about 700-1k per match. I haven't been for a few years so no idea what the crowds are like now.

Villads rode for us against Plymouth, scored 3+1

I can see the Stars maybe doing R/R for Jan, getting Zach Cook in to guest for his brother and maybe getting Dan Thompson to guest at reserve for Nicolai 🤷🏻‍♂️ that will be our best chance away at Leicester… our best chance of stopping them scoring 60+ anyway I mean, we need to try and keep it as respectable as possible 👍🏻

I find the NSS like a faster Scuntthorpe - nearly always decent passing opportunities and they allow the racer to go flat out which is what i prefer - if only all tracks were like this! Sheffield used to be like this but is now too narrow IMHO.

I see Glasgow had a top temperature of 18c today! Need to swap weather. 11c lower then here 🫠🫠🫠. Wonder how the track is going to be after a few days of 27-29c.

They seem to forget that Kvech wiped out Jason Edwards in the away match in the second heat leaving us with 5 riders and r/r. Cost is in that match and we probably would have won this match by a bigger margin.

He has rode his first meeting v Plymouth at Glasgow on 20/6/25, scored 3+ 1 had a few mechanical gremlins and flipped at the start line on his last ride

I'd be interested to know what makes up a "huge target audience"? Birmingham is now a "minority majority" city. White people, who are the traditional audience for motorsports are now only 49% of the population. The other 51% have never considered speedway as "in their culture". So you can divide "huge" by half. Demographically, Birmingham is one of the youngest cities around. Speedway's typical fans are now pensioners or approaching pension age. And there aren't that many of them in Birmingham's population any more. Speedway has consistently pandered to the existing (& dying out) older fan base and never really adapted to the younger reality. And that will be its epitaph. Whilst channel hopping on TV, I stumbled on a sport that seems to be reinventing itself. From totally amatur(ish) beginnings, it now has a premier league, a national team, international fixtures, and apparently it attracts (subject to venue size) and average of 1,500 fans per match, which it bemoans as "under-performing" but which speedway teams would die for. Have you guessed what it is yet? Yeah, women's netball! https://www.skysports.com/netball/news/30100/12058326/tamsin-greenway-netball-must-understand-its-audience-and-deliver-targeted-engagement So please don't make any more excuses about how a sport can't turn itself around, It can. Cricket has, Darts has, Snooker has, now Netball has. Speedway CAN, it just WON'T.

Mitchell McDiarmid scored 6 on his debut with even less 500cc experience than Cairns just a year ago, and I'd expect Cairns to beat the likes of Chatlas, Szlegiel and Krok.

Thanks didn’t realise he had

He has ridden for them.!

Weather forecast for Målilla: https://www.smhi.se/vader/prognoser-och-varningar/vaderprognos/q/Hultsfred/Målilla/2693049 https://www.yr.no/nb/værvarsel/daglig-tabell/2-2693049/Sverige/Kalmar län/Hultsfred Municipality/Målilla

Shouldn’t Glasgow be only allowed a NDL rider to guest for Nagals seen as he hasn’t rode a meeting for them yet?

Lambert £100 more.

Half the Gorzow under 24 team rides in Ekstraliga so it’s not as big shock as you’d think scoring 0.