ch958 2,395 Posted June 2, 2014 does anyone know has this ever been considered as a venue - it seems perfect - good location, grandstand, big city, Long Eaton fans,etc Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hans fan 1,001 Posted June 2, 2014 does anyone know has this ever been considered as a venue - it seems perfect - good location, grandstand, big city, Long Eaton fans,etc Has to be the worst greyhound track in the country for viewing Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ch958 2,395 Posted June 2, 2014 Has to be the worst greyhound track in the country for viewing yes i know greyhound stadiums aren't always the best for viewing - Belle Vue for example doesn't stop them being used though Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
arthur cross 492 Posted June 2, 2014 On the good side, Nottingham's one of the longer-length dog tracks so fitting in a speedway track of about 300-to-320 metres would be theoretically possible and you'd probably end up with something in between Birmingham's Perry Barr and Stoke's Loomer Road for the speed/size of the track. But ... there's currently quite a sizeable and rather scruffy pond where the 4th bend of the speedway track would be so I don't know whether that's part of the dog track's drainage set-up which would need sorting out as part of any plan to introduce speedway. As "hans fan" has already mentioned, it's a lousy venue for outdoor viewing of the dog racing because the spectator facilities are even more heavily set-up than usual for that sport to suit the indoor bars/restaurant needs of a greyhound crowd ... even the stadium bookmakers are housed in an indoor shelter rather than the normal row of trackside betting boards. Most awkwardly, there are loads of long-established houses in the district of Sneinton only about half-a-mile to the west of the site so good luck getting entirely new noise-permission for a speedway track given that amount of likely residential opposition. For those who don't know the horse/dog racing layout of Nottingham, put "Colwick Park" into a google-map search and you'll see the dog track halfway along the outside of the horse racing home straight ... they're both part of one of the most closely-situated clusters of sports venues anywhere in the country with all of Notts County's Meadow Lane (also now Nottingham rugby union), Nottingham Forest's City Ground and Nottinghamshire cricket's Trent Bridge just over a mile to the south-west and rowing's Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre only a mile away to the south-east. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marmite 84 Posted June 3, 2014 (edited) does anyone know has this ever been considered as a venue - it seems perfect - good location, grandstand, big city, Long Eaton fans,etc I think it was looked at as a possible alternative to Long Eaton years ago, not sure why it was discarded though. Location wise, I am not sure many of the causal Long Eaton fans would have gone anyway due to the location. So it would be like starting again with a new fanbase. That said, calling the new team Nottingham would give you a large potential new fanbase to work with, all you need now is a promoter willing to invest time and money Edited June 3, 2014 by Marmite Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
greyhoundp 990 Posted June 4, 2014 The Promoters are not interested in having Speedway. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
25yearfan 476 Posted June 7, 2014 Tony Mole looked into introducing speedway to Nottingham Greyhound stadium after Long Eaton finished after the 1997 season. Like greyhound says I think the owners aren't interested in speedway. I personally think the stadium would be ideal cause the facilities are decent, theres plenty of room inside the dog track for a decent sized speedway track and the Nottingham/Derby area is a big population area with Long Eaton slap bang in the middle, an area that sufficiently supported the Invaders at Station Road for many years. I'd say the chances of getting a site in Long Eaton would be minimal. People have said the facilities aren't supporter friendly for viewing but many dog tracks (and indeed other stadiums) before speedway tracks are built don't look suitable for speedway. If you went to Perry Bar before the Brummies returned there in 2007 it wouldn't of looked that suitable for speedway with the viewing areas but the stands installed on the 1st bend alleviated a lot of these problems. Perry Bar was looked at as a possible venue for Cradley after Dudley Wood was lost in 1995 but many said that the underground services in the middle would have rendered this a no goer for speedway! Kirky Lane Belle Vue in the 1980s was another one that until speedway actually went in and a few alterations were made, didn't look suitable for speedway! I well remember a speedway star interview with Workington and Glasgow legend Steve Lawson in the mid 1990's who stated he didn't think it was possible for speedway to return to Workingtons Derwent Park cause the stadium and rugby pitch had altered!! If speedway came to Nottingham Greyhound track then I don't think it would be right to use the Long Eaton Invaders name. Nottingham Outlaws was a name Long Eaton went under in the late 1970's and early 1980's and would be ideal for a Nottingham speedway team in the future. I think a properly run Nottingham speedway with a decent track built could sustain Premier League speedway at least, especially if they ran on Long Eatons former racenight of Wednesdays! Hopefully one day Nottingham Greyhound stadium will be owned by people who realise that the rental and bar/refreshment takings from one week of speedway would make the venue more profitable for them! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hans fan 1,001 Posted June 7, 2014 Notts greyhound kennels are on the 1st and nearly go to the 2nd bend so you'd have little hope of getting spectators there , no space for anything apart from what they've already got , a big galloping greyhound track with poor viewing Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
arthur cross 492 Posted June 7, 2014 Hopefully one day Nottingham Greyhound stadium will be owned by people who realise that the rental and bar/refreshment takings from one week of speedway would make the venue more profitable for them! Nottingham's all-year-round betting-shop weekly greyhound schedule of Monday-evenings, Tuesday-lunchtimes and Friday-evenings brings in about £1-million a year on its own for the tv-rights, never mind any profits from the trackside crowd. Speedway's track rent and catering profits would do well to bring in £100,000 a year based on the rent for 20 home meetings plus the food-&-drink demands of an average 1,000 crowd. Providing someone else is paying to install a speedway track into a greyhound stadium (or a new greyhound promoter inherits an existing speedway track when buying the stadium), then yes it's bonus profit for the greyhound promoter but only really in pocket-money terms rather than business-changing terms. But if the current greyhound promoter doesn't want the cost or the upheaval of introducing speedway, that's no surprise either. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
greyhoundp 990 Posted June 8, 2014 Rachel Corden is the person who needs persuading to see Speedway at Colwell Park. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TheReturn 1,724 Posted June 28, 2014 (edited) I think a properly run Nottingham speedway with a decent track built could sustain Premier League speedway at least, especially if they ran on Long Eatons former racenight of Wednesdays! I'd be tempted to agree, provided Forest or County are not playing on Wednesday's on a regular basis (hypothetical of course at the point). Edited June 28, 2014 by TheReturn Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
25yearfan 476 Posted June 28, 2014 Most professional football teams play their midweek games on a Tuesday nowadays. It used to be Wednesdays in the past but they are few and far between! Anyway footy teams don't play home games every midweek anyway! I'm sure that if someone could persuade the owners of Nottingham greyhound to let speedway be staged there then the prospective speedway promoter's would be the ones paying for all the alterations required for the speedway! Like I said before, I think a well run speedway set up at Nottingham Greyhound stadium would work with Nottingham being a huge City, Derby no far away together with Long Eaton which got sustainable crowds! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
arthur cross 492 Posted June 28, 2014 I'm sure that if someone could persuade the owners of Nottingham greyhound to let speedway be staged there then the prospective speedway promoter's would be the ones paying for all the alterations required for the speedway! And, even if the Corden family could be persuaded to change their mind, where exactly are you going to find any "prospective speedway promoter" prepared to stump up at least £150,000 just to alter Nottingham's centre-green into a speedway track, never mind also having enough finance in place to get a team up and running in a city that's gone 20 years without any team within 10 miles of it and, therefore, has no great speedway heritage whatsoever ? !! In case you haven't noticed, two other Midlands cities that did at least have a speedway heritage have had their clubs revived in the past few years ... one of them (Birmingham) is now on its financial knees and the other (Leicester) isn't bringing in anything like the anticipated long-term gate receipts from either its design-stage or its earliest attendances. So all you've got to overcome to make your fortune out of Nottingham Speedway is the landlord's indifference, the city's lack of speedway heritage and the region's difficulty in sustaining new speedway ventures. Still interested in risking those £150,000 building costs plus the team's start-up costs despite all those obstacles I've just mentioned !! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
25yearfan 476 Posted June 29, 2014 (edited) Yes its a long shot anyone would be interested in spending a fortune on introducing speedway to Nottingham Greyhound stadium! And that would be after a similar long shot of persuading the owners to let them do it! For the record I know for a fact Tony Mole enquired about staging speedway at Nottingham Greyhound stadium soon after Long Eaton finished in 1997 but the owners weren't interested! In these times of speedway struggling in our land, its amazing that anyone would want to risk their financial well being by putting 6 figure sums into speedway, so thank god for the likes of Tony Mole, Bob Dugard, Alan Phillips and quite a few others! Leicester are getting some of the biggest crowds in British speedway so they are doing better than what you make out! I still maintain that out of all the areas/Cities not currently staging speedway, the East Midlands area of which Nottingham is the principal City is an area that would have a better chance of supporting a top 2 tier speedway team then most others because it did at the sadly defunct Station Road Long Eaton even when the team were more often than not at the wrong end of the Leagues they competed in! Edited June 29, 2014 by 25yearfan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
arthur cross 492 Posted June 30, 2014 Leicester are getting some of the biggest crowds in British speedway so they are doing better than what you make out! I still maintain that out of all the areas/Cities not currently staging speedway, the East Midlands area of which Nottingham is the principal City is an area that would have a better chance of supporting a top 2 tier speedway team then most others because it did at the sadly defunct Station Road Long Eaton even when the team were more often than not at the wrong end of the Leagues they competed in! Yes, Leicester's among the best-attended tracks in the country but their whole business plan was based on significantly higher attendances that they've now settled into so that the gate-receipts didn't just cover the week-to-week costs of the Lions but also made good progress paying off the lump-sun costs of building the stadium in the first place. If you go to, for example Poole or Wolves, a small part of your admission money's going towards the rent of a stadium whose building costs were paid off many years ago ... but at Leicester, a bigger chunk of your admission money's still going towards the materials and other costs of building the venue you're standing in and that's why an above-average crowd for them isn't automatically making them "doing better" as you've suggested. And if you think Derby's proximity to Nottingham will significantly help the prospects of a Nottingham speedway team attracting a worthwhile crowd, dream on given those two cities' football rivalry !! One of Long Eaton's biggest advantages was its location midway between Derby and Nottingham without fully being either one of them so that whatever your football or other sports loyalties, there wasn't any need to feel awkward by saying you also supported the speedway at Long Eaton. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
