British Speedway Crowds

[norbold 7,177]

Now you sound like Boris Johnson!

[shazzybird 10]

Dad said in years gone by it had been known for Canterbury had a record crowd of 5,000 in the later years in went down to 2,000ish. If Lynne is reading this perhaps she could get a more realistic figure from Mum.

[Mylor 0]

...........If Poole are anything to go by, their rent for the stadium apparently increases if they go over a certain crowd number...strange but true.

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Looked at another way, Poole get a discount when crowds are low..........seems like a good deal to me. How many other stadium owners do that?

 

On the attendance front, I first went to speedway at Wolves in 1961. Attendances were reckoned to be about 7000 then. Well, it was open all the way round!

 

Ahhh..........Graham Warren, Tommy Sweetman........later Dave Hemus, James Bond, Airey and Guasco, a visit from Fred Priest (did he ever stay up for 4 laps??), not forgetting visits from Ivor Brown and Harry Bastable and of course the mother-in-law's favourite Jimmy Squibb. God bless ya Ma, tell Jimmy to have one on me!!

[Lejon 5]

On the attendance front, I first went to speedway at Wolves in 1961. Attendances were reckoned to be about 7000 then. Well, it was open all the way round!

 

 

As I know this was a opening season when they returned into leagus speedway.

Did these crowds stay on for long or did they decrease fast?

Do you know the crowd figures of Wolves today?

[tarabanko 5]

On the attendance front, I first went to speedway at Wolves in 1961. Attendances were reckoned to be about 7000 then. Well, it was open all the way round!

 

 

As I know this was a opening season when they returned into leagus speedway.

Did these crowds stay on for long or did they decrease fast?

Do you know the crowd figures of Wolves  today?

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Lejon..

 

The crowds in england arent so biggish no more, sadly. Think Poole got the best attendance overall.

 

As always to raise your crowds you must be seen and be worth looking at.

Go Lejonen for a place in Elitserien 2005.

Edited March 5, 2005 by tarabanko

[SCB 15]

SCB, perhaps you can enlighten me how a club can keep going on gates of 400 a week, because I can't believe that they manage to. What amazes me all the more is that new clubs are opening up or potentially opening, such as Scunthorpe, Middlesborough, Long Eaton & Halifax.

in Newport's case, this is all me guessing BTW, it's something like this.

 

Admission is about £12, £9 and £3 now (I'm not sure of them prices)lets assume 2/5 are adults, 2/5 are kids and 1/5 are concessions, thats £1920 from adults, £720 from concessions and £480 from kids, £3120 all told. Add in say one programme for every 5th person, 80 programs at say a 50p profit is £40, 100 in the car park is £100 (£3260 so far). Stand has about 150 on a day where there are only 400 fans there, so another £200 (£3460). Add in bar profits and food outlets as well (no idea, I'll not even guess) thats £460+ a week for each rider. I don't know what costs Tim Stone has or what other income he has (I guess he has a few sponsors too that bring in some cash).

 

Mind you, it amazes me that a team like Berwick can cope on so few as they only get the cash form the turnstiles. So they're only get the £3120 - rent + progams. Not a lot at all.

[norbold 7,177]

According "Speedway in London" page 43 Fred Mockford explained in the New Cross Progamme that the World Final income of £22,600 got taxated bill of £10,200!!!

If sPeedway had been reconed as a sport the bill would have been at a more modest £3100.

 

I've just been looking at the 1951 World Final gate receipts.

 

The total taken was £24,241 of which 46.5% went in Entertainment Tax, i.e. £11,279.

 

Had it been a soccer, rugby, cricket or ice hockey match or an athletics, lawn tennis, swimming, cycling or boxing meeting the tax taken would have been £3,344 (13.79%).

 

The comment from the Speedway Control Board was, "The comparatively high admission charges made necessary by this heavy tax have undoubtedly contributed to the decline in attendances on many tracks during the year. If justice was done and this heavy and illogical tax was adjusted to the level obtaining for other non-betting sports, promoters would be able to reduce admission charges, giving a stimulus to attendances, badly needed by many tracks if they are to survive."

 

Incientally the attendance at the 1951 World Final was 93,000

Edited March 7, 2005 by norbold

[Ian 24]

I've just been looking at the 1951 World Final gate receipts.

 

The total taken was £24,241 of which 46.5% went in Entertainment Tax, i.e. £11,279.

 

Had it been a soccer, rugby, cricket or ice hockey match or an athletics, lawn tennis, swimming, cycling or boxing meeting the tax taken would have been £3,344 (13.79%).

 

The comment from the Speedway Control Board was, "The comparatively high admission charges made necessary by this heavy tax have undoubtedly contributed to the decline in attendances on many tracks during the year. If justice was done and this heavy and illogical tax was adjusted to the level obtaining for other non-betting sports, promoters would be able to reduce admission charges, giving a stimulus to attendances, badly needed by many tracks if they are to survive."

 

Incientally the attendance at the 1951 World Final was 93,000

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What a fascinating and information-packed post.

 

93,000 people at the Worl Final during a period of decline! I imagine every one of today's promoters would give his eye teeth for that sort of decline nowadays.

 

Thinking with the benefit of hindsight about that tax imposition, you would imagine that the promoters of the day would have found ways to avoid it. Free entry but you have to pay for the programme would be one that would come to mind. If I'm not mistaken I went to a match at Rye House years ago when there was some sort of restriction on Sunday speedway and the "entry by programme" angle was in use.

 

I realise that you'll be well aware of this Norbold, but, for the benefit of anyone who isn't, the government that implemented this killer tax was a Tory one. You know them, the party of low taxes!

 

How about a Forum-wide campaign to write to Michael Howard asking why the Tories tried to kill speedway, and what any future Tory government might do to make amends for this?

 

History records, of course, that during the Wilson government from 1964 onwards speedway was on a roll......

[norbold 7,177]

the government that implemented this killer tax was a Tory one.

 

I think you're on dangerous territory here, Ian! The Entertainments Tax was originally introduced in 1916. It was increased in 1949 and again in 1950....

[Lejon 5]

SCB, perhaps you can enlighten me how a club can keep going on gates of 400 a week, because I can't believe that they manage to. What amazes me all the more is that new clubs are opening up or potentially opening, such as Scunthorpe, Middlesborough, Long Eaton & Halifax.

in Newport's case, this is all me guessing BTW, it's something like this.

 

Admission is about £12, £9 and £3 now (I'm not sure of them prices)lets assume 2/5 are adults, 2/5 are kids and 1/5 are concessions, thats £1920 from adults, £720 from concessions and £480 from kids, £3120 all told. Add in say one programme for every 5th person, 80 programs at say a 50p profit is £40, 100 in the car park is £100 (£3260 so far). Stand has about 150 on a day where there are only 400 fans there, so another £200 (£3460). Add in bar profits and food outlets as well (no idea, I'll not even guess) thats £460+ a week for each rider. I don't know what costs Tim Stone has or what other income he has (I guess he has a few sponsors too that bring in some cash).

 

Mind you, it amazes me that a team like Berwick can cope on so few as they only get the cash form the turnstiles. So they're only get the £3120 - rent + progams. Not a lot at all.

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Your conclusion is quite right and very interesting. My conclusions is that if we rode that many matches and with the admission prices as you do in the U.K to keep teh figures as a promotor our league crowds would drop by 50 to 70%!!

 

Is it possible that is the reason for the crowd drops? And as Ian told us the admission prices has gone up by about 300% since the sixties.

 

Any comments?

 

Norbold - Have you any pre-war crowd figures for New Cross?

 

yours in sport - Lejon

[fireblade 0]

I remember Boston's crowds in the 70's and early 80's being very large and by the mid 80's dropping below 500 for some meetings.

 

To be honest it's amazing they can run conference now. At one meeting I went to last year I did a count of heads and struggled to get to three figures.

 

Mildenhall v Boston is supposedly one of the better crowds at West Row, but I must say the crowd for that fixture was very low in comparison to the days of National League racing when the place used to be packed.

 

The sport has supposedly hit the big time again, but in all honesty I reckon most tracks are not far off having all time low attendances.

 

The only track that I went to regularly and saw the attendance grow was Bradford. Terrible crowds to start with, but the Ham Brothers put their money where their mouths were and the crowds came back.

 

The sport could really do with having the Hams back in the sport as promoters, IMO they were the best.

 

I have nothing but admiration for those running at a loss.

[iris123 21,105]

Bristol also had great crowds,didn't they.Sadly forced to close,nothing to do with attendances

[shazzybird 10]

As always to raise your crowds you must be seen and be worth looking at.

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are you saying the teams in the UK are not worth watching?

[norbold 7,177]

Bristol also had great crowds,didn't they.Sadly forced to close,nothing to do with attendances

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Yes, exactly the same situation with Norwich, who were probably the best supported team in the country at the time of their demise. Their owners sold the land for property development.

[iris123 21,105]

Any idea what the Wembley attendances were like,when they made the brief comeback in the 70's,Norbold? Also what about White City.Was always hard to tell because it was so big.Guess they weren't that good as i remember something about them wanting to change race day to mondays to avoid clashing with football,etc,but Reading objected.In the end it wouldn't have mattered i suppose