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Lineups declared KING’S LYNN: Jan Kvech, Niels-Kristian Iversen, Chris Harris, Richard Lawson, Nicolai Klindt, Ben Cook, Luke Harrison. BELLE VUE: Brady Kurtz, Norick Blodorn, Jaimon Lidsey, Zach Cook, Dan Bewley, Tate Zischke, Jake Mulford. I think the Stars will win this one (minus any mechanical gremlins) and collect the bonus point. 49(91) - 41(89)

Shame Bimingham have closed at Perry Barr & I feel for Brummies fans who had their last 'farewell' Monday nite, but it could be worse. At Hull we had no such 'farewell' as the track(s) closed without any warning - twice. At the Boulevard there were rumours the speedway promoters weren't on the greatest terms with landlords Hull FC (who were on the up at that time) but there was no indication that speedway would end at the venue. Fans only discovered this news in the Hull Daily Mail - on the Thursday nite after the final meeting in October 1981. Similar at Craven Park, though there probably were clues, again the rugby landlords, this time Hull KR, were on the up, wanted to increase he size of the pitch & there was much talk of enlarging the speedway track to Workington, Derwent Park size. Sadly again, the speedway club closed & were evicted with no warining with 2 home fixtures outstanding, as coincedentally occured at Workington in later years, the previous treble winning season of 2004 with a huge wage bill due to slamming teams home & away all season impacted hugely. This time finances were the main factor & so the speedway club closed. In fact I shared a few conversations with Comets team manager Tony Jackson about speedway requiring a 'wage cap' of some kind, but there would be the situation of telling your no.1 who maybe scored a full maximum, he is needed once again in heat 15, or perhaps again in a 'super heat'. Anyhoo, hopefully speedway could return to Hull (came very, very close on a couple of occasions in recent years I'm not allowed to discuss), in Exeter, Newcastle, etc & now Birmingham. The sport in the UK can't affod to lose any more tracks: in 1981 there were 2 divisions each of 18-ish teams, so 36 in total In 2025 there are approx 16 in the entire country, not including the non-league venues such as Duns & Lydd. I still watch speedway on TV & live at Scunny when I can make it, but it isn't the same as having a team of your own, and as the song goes "you don't know wat you've got, til it's gone". Sigh....

Because all the forum experts, who speak in code to each other, are alledgedly in the know through conversations with riders,mechanics,promoters and team managers. IE speculating and guessing.

Betard Sparta Wrocław speedway riders Maciej Janowski and Artiom Łaguta will not be competing in Wednesday's Danish league match. Varde Elitesport reported that Sparta has blocked the riders from competing, although the Polish club has a slightly different opinion. The team from Lower Silesia suffered a heavy defeat in the first semifinal match of the PGE Ekstraliga on Sunday against PRES Grupa Deweloperska Toruń (38:52). Three days after this defeat, the Wrocław-based team was scheduled to ride in the Danish league – in a match between Region Varde Elitesport ( Łaguta ) and Fjelsted Speedway Klub ( Janowski ). Ultimately, both starts will not take place, as Region Varde announced on social media: " It has just been confirmed that Artiom Łaguta's Polish club will not release its riders to play in other teams. This decision applies to both Region Varde Elitesport and Fjelsted Speedway Club in this round. Fjelsted had an agreement with Maciej Janowski, who, like Artiom Łaguta, rides in the Polish league for Wrocław. Region Varde Elitesport is now working intensively to find a replacement for Artiom Łaguta," the statement reads. We asked the Wrocław club about the reasons for this ban. They responded that the riders had not been banned. The club had made them aware of their current season status and that additional commitments were unreasonable. After reviewing the club's arguments, Artem Łaguta and Maciej Janowski reportedly found them justified. The rematch between Betard Sparta and PRES Grupa Deweloperska will take place on Sunday, September 7th. The Wrocław team won the regular season match 56-34 at home and will certainly do everything they can to achieve a similar result. (copied and translated from sportowefakty.pl)

Yeah suppose....but the shale is automatically thrown away from any pitch i.e. left to right.....then of course fans get hit, so programme boards at the ready....why is speedway so difficult to maintain.

Something for Thurrock area fans to look forward to on 9 September.

I thought you maybe there and kept a look out but I didn't see you. Fairly dismal dusty affair, no sign of a water bowser perhaps it has been flogged along with photos at the top of stairs and the screens in the bar which were absent on Monday. Two passes I can think of. Zagar in heat 4 blasting around the outside of a Lions reserve and Hagon yielding first place meekly to Becker in heat 8 after he'd done well to hold his ground entering the first turn being the meat in a sandwich and shoving Becker wide. In fairness to Musielak he tried absolutely everything to get past Howarth in heat 9/10 inside, outside, cut back but the track was so dry & dusty he just couldn't find a way past. I'll not shed any tears over the loss of Perry Barr, any affection I had for it was 20ish years ago in the time of Lyons & Mole. The track hasn't been the same in the past 6 years, almost always dusty without much passing, the terracing is not steep enough so the view is limited and that 'Bus Stop' that has been erected next to the gate makes viewing even more difficult. But the fact that Cradley, Coventry, Wolves & Brummies are no longer operating means my nearest track is Leicester which is an hours drive away only if traffic obliges. Sheffield & Belle Vue and to a lesser extent Oxford are do-able there and back in a day but that's all. Sad times for the West Midlands.

As said by others on this thread, the decline started earlier, but without a doubt, Matt Ford caused the sport more problems than the contributors on this forum care to admit

Think the FA would stop it

Had the dog at the vets.... But not interested in replying anyway.....

Okay 1 down....400+ to go.

Because times have changes to such a degree that my Tier 9 local football club have just spent £1,000,000 on a new pitch. They are not going to want to contaminate it with shale when they have specific rules on what type of studs can be used.

Sadly speedway keeps losing tracks and it's possibly the final countdown for the great sport. What occurs to me, rightly or otherwise, is that speedway is short of top promoters - guys with funds and ideas to introduce new parties to the ranks. I see there are over 400 non league soccer grounds in existence. Plus more rugby stadiums. So can't a wealthy promoter (if they exist of course) find at least 5/6 stadiums capable of joining the speedway world? Ok it would need soccer's permission to build a track around a pitch but why not? I mean for approx 30 years I enjoyed seeing the Comets race 398 yards around Derwent Park's rugby pitch with minimal problems and great speedway. Surely down South or in the Midlands some stadia exist awaiting a promoters call?

Very likely you were asking questions that were much too difficult for whoever saw them at " Rugby Towers".😀

Annoyingly i am not in town for this, expect a home win - but maybe the Witches to sneak the BP at Foxhall a week later - which again annoyingly I will miss as i am back in Sheffield that week!

You have to wonder if he has come back too early - so yes time to rest up for 2025 and come back in 2026 fit and raring to go.

Appreciate the response IainB! Clearly MikeBV didn't want to stand on any of his initial comments and reply glad someone did!

And it has done zero to to deliver an extra discernable level of punters in.. Like in the Sky years, the money pays for the top riders rather than help subsidise lower admission costs... Brum were quoted as having to fork out £15k from a home meeting to pay for BZ, which they clearly were not going to do/afford, however, if they did then that would have just brought more inflation to the overall costs of the rest, as the second and third HL's would have demanded more, with the SS's then also knocking on the door... TV has delivered very little as Promoters havent used that two hour free advert to paint a positive picture of their business... Instead we have cameras panning around "one man and his dog" crowd levels which does nothing to build a positive brand, and nothing to bring some FOMO to those watching at home.. Ironically, no TV would bring in bigger crowds given so many currently give TV matches a miss when they are meaningless play off matches, or when the weather is a bit dodgy....

I know that this reply wasn't for me but you ask some valid questions, so I'll chip in my two penneth anyway 😂 2) The PCMT gets a big crowd at the beginning of the season, partly due to the line up but also partly because the Speedway public has been starved of Speedway for the previous 5 months and the appetite is high, whether it would attract such a large crowd on a Monday night in the summer is questionable. 3) If a family has an "entertainment" budget to use for a weekly outing do you choose a Monday night when the kids have school the next day or save it for a weekend activity when they don't? If it's the latter, that budget has gone and Speedway has lost out. There is no competition there and the weekend attraction generally wins. 4) The lack of promotion and relegation in British Speedway means many more meaningless matches, you're always going to get them, but they need to be minimised. Imagine this dreadful season with promotion and relegation the top 4 jostling for pay off spots and the bottom 3 against relegation. Now the 2 leagues run under one banner there should be no excuse for not having promotion and relegation. 6) The 15 minute argument is valid(ish), comparing it to Football, the "stars" are in full view of the public for 90 minutes, so it doesn't really matter if they're stood there picking their nose, that's what you've paid to go and watch. Speedway you'll see them for 15 minutes of racing, maybe a minute before a race gardening (picking their nose) and if you're really really lucky one of them may come round and acknowledge the crowd after winning a race. At Leicester they're marched out after the match for a quick interview in front of the crowd on the main straight, it's been a bit hit and miss this season but is well worth hanging around for after the match and I don't know why all clubs don't do this as part of the match day experience. As the riders spend the majority of their time during a meeting in the pits I've always advocated that the pits should be on the infield in full view of the paying public.

So now we are suggesting we water our league down only to lose every match against Denmark and Sweden teams because they will have GP riders and we wont? Come on guys someone needs to have concrete answers or this is more farcical by the day.

I think the answer is to create an Anglo Saxon league. 5 teams for the UK 5 from Denmark 5 from Sweden No Poland. Meet every team one, that's 14 matches. Could add the KO Cup for local teams and maybe even a test match series.

Nonsense.

I thought Adam's dad said he was due to ride in Poland but the meeting was called off. Obviously in Poland they dont care if you are not fully fit.

Major comment there bellevueace. It's most certainly a factor that alienates the non speedway fraternity. And despite my best efforts to persuade some folk to attend speedway it makes it so difficult to sell the sport. In the 1970's, my early start to speedway fixes, you wouldn't see any riders plying their trade with two teams (go on prove me wrong) in fact guests were minimal with R/R the injury option, mostly. I know riders need to make a living but sadly it has cost speedway big style and the future is grimmer than ever.

2026 one league will (high potentially) remove the following riders from British Speedway: Doyle Emil Brennan Magic Tungate Bewley Kurtz Lidsey Fricke J. Holder Kvech B. Cook C.Holder - Potential K. Rew - Potential T. Musielak- Potential People in favour of one league need to start writing how to make this product work instead of naming problems of the current structure, everyone can moan about things but it takes a different type of person to come up with solutions instead of problems. One league - What nights are ridden for teams? How many riders in teams? Are teams still allowed to guest? How many teams make up the play offs? What is the play off format? Is the league split between regions? How much is a ticket? How do you promote a watered down league and keep the fans who only come to watch the best?