Longest Meeting

[orion 7,615]

Newport v Swindon in a pl match some years ago when Rosco was at reserve for Swindon ...at least 20 re runs 5 track grades and around 4 and a half hours ...I think there might have been a junior match after as well .

[Mike.Butler 601]

17th September 1978 at Arlington. NL Great Britain v Denmark (minus Olsen)

 

Arrived in good time for the normal 3.30 programmed start to be told that due to a delay in the ferry transporting the majority of the Danish riders following a meeting over there the previous evening we'd have to wait for them to arrive. So we all hang around for 2.5 hours until at 6.00 they run some 2nd half heats with the 'international' finally starting at 6.30.

No recollection of what time we got away but it must have been c. 9 p.m. I was therefore on-site for at least 6 hours to watch a total of 21 heats.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Mike.Butler

[jenga 2,998]

i once attended a meeting for undecided people . took forever..

[*JJ 512]

In amateur racing, they complete about 90 heats in 4 - 5 hours!

[topsoil 2,498]

The Welsh Open at Newport in about 2009. It took 50 minutes to run one race because Kevin Doolan kept knocking others off and being put back in the re-run! Was a boiling hot day after the GP and it took about 5 hours to run a single meeting with 21 heats.

 

It felt like an eternity too due to track work and the heat - plus the hang over form the day before.

Brains beer, dehydration and 34 degrees Celsius don't mix well. Twocandan, Penchev, the memories :-)

[ch958 2,395]

managed to get through last night in less than 80 mins

[Woz01 3,589]

What a jolly good idea.

 

They do this in Cricket for a slow Over Rate - so why can they not do something similar in Speedway. Something like that would cut out this constant returning to the Pits following a false Start. It would also punish Promoters who deliberately over run Meetings to increase their take at the Bar. It would encourage Promoters to get the Meetings started ON TIME.

 

Obviously time would have to be added on if someone is injured - that should go without saying - but the length of the Stoppage could be timed and added on at the end so that no Fines are issued because of injury. I would add that, time for attending to injuries MUST NOT put Paramedics or Medical Staff under any pressure to clear the Track. The injured Rider MUST come first - no matter how long it takes.

Isn't the flow of the meeting dependent on the referee? Too many of them take far too long to stick the 2 minutes on.

managed to get through last night in less than 80 mins

With a 10 minute break.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

Kent v Mildenhall on Bank Holiday Monday. 3 hours to run one 15 heat meeting.

You are being extremely tedious over this. How about changing the record?

There have most certainly been longer meetings at Mildenhall and at many other venues too, yet for some reason you (and some other Fen Tigers' posters on here) bang on and on and on about this year's May Day Bank Holiday meeting.

For your info. as we run meetings to an 8.30pm curfew every week, I doubt there's ANY club which consistently runs meetings more efficiently and quicker than at Central Park.

On a Bank Holiday there's less need for such rigid discipline and I've only known - for some reason - Mildenhall fans complaining about this.

With several more local sides available for 'derby' clashes on holiday Mondays in 2015, I think we can be confident that Mildenhall won't be filling a Bank Holiday afternoon slot then - so that should, I imagine, make you happy.

[Lioness 1,455]

think you hit a nerve there HT

[Halifaxtiger 5,318]

think you hit a nerve there HT

 

 

I wonder why ?

 

You are being extremely tedious over this. How about changing the record?

There have most certainly been longer meetings at Mildenhall and at many other venues too, yet for some reason you (and some other Fen Tigers' posters on here) bang on and on and on about this year's May Day Bank Holiday meeting.

For your info. as we run meetings to an 8.30pm curfew every week, I doubt there's ANY club which consistently runs meetings more efficiently and quicker than at Central Park.

On a Bank Holiday there's less need for such rigid discipline and I've only known - for some reason - Mildenhall fans complaining about this.

With several more local sides available for 'derby' clashes on holiday Mondays in 2015, I think we can be confident that Mildenhall won't be filling a Bank Holiday afternoon slot then - so that should, I imagine, make you happy.

 

First things first. I am not Mildenhall fan, I'm a neutral (as anyone who knows me would confirm). I am also pleased to say that I am entirely objective in my comments and therefore completely unbiased. Unlike you, that is.

 

I think that I have mentioned the meeting three times. That day, and when threads about 'longest meetings' and 'everything that is wrong with speedway' came up recently it seemed most appropriate to do so again.

 

I have seen 79 matches this season and been to every track bar 4. No 15 heat match I have been to took anywhere near as long to run as that one.

 

I know Kent are good at hitting curfews. If you'd been there you would have noted how fast the last few heats were run so they could hit it.

 

Are you seriously suggesting that Kent fans or other neutrals were perfectly happy with that meeting ? That's positively

 

As you are fully aware, the delays that day were just one part of a truly awful meeting run on a dreadful racing surface and with the simply appalling sight of an injured rider being forced to walk the length of a straight because the ambulance could not be brought on to the track. That, too, is unique in my experience and I doubt if there are many who do not realise the implications of an inability to be able to bring an ambulance trackside.

 

That's why mentioning that meeting in the 'everything that is wrong with speedway' thread seemed most appropriate.

 

I daresay your promise that Mildenhall will not be there on bank holiday Monday will make their fans very happy indeed. Based upon last years experience, I suspect there will be one clubs fans who will not be so happy. It won't make any difference to me as Kent are joining two other teams that I boycott until they do something about the track..

 

As for changing the record, that is for you to do, not I. You should be publicly apologising to all present for what happened that day, yet I have seen nothing of the kind - just an arrogant refusal to do so. I have said elsewhere that when fans make genuine and fully justifiable complaint all they receive is appalling responses from official mouth pieces and what you have said above is both typical and very aptly proves my point.

Edited October 18, 2014 by Halifaxtiger

[orion 7,615]

You are being extremely tedious over this. How about changing the record?

There have most certainly been longer meetings at Mildenhall and at many other venues too, yet for some reason you (and some other Fen Tigers' posters on here) bang on and on and on about this year's May Day Bank Holiday meeting.

For your info. as we run meetings to an 8.30pm curfew every week, I doubt there's ANY club which consistently runs meetings more efficiently and quicker than at Central Park.

On a Bank Holiday there's less need for such rigid discipline and I've only known - for some reason - Mildenhall fans complaining about this.

With several more local sides available for 'derby' clashes on holiday Mondays in 2015, I think we can be confident that Mildenhall won't be filling a Bank Holiday afternoon slot then - so that should, I imagine, make you happy.

Did it take 3 hours or not ?

[Blackbird 54]

Well I WAS at that meeting and I guess it did last about three hours ( wasn't actually checking my watch) - but there were many crashes and injury-related delays. Similar in fact to a meeting I went to at Glasgow earlier this season. If people think three hours when there are injury delays is so exceptional as to appear on a thread entitled 'longest meeting' then I'd suggest they don't get out to many Speedway meetings at all.

 

Some of the double headers at the previous league side called Sittingbourne were the longest I can remember. Starting at midday and often struggling to meet the curfew of 5pm!

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

I have said elsewhere that when fans make genuine and fully justifiable complaint all they receive is appalling responses from official mouth pieces and what you have said above is both typical and very aptly proves my point.

Everyone who emailed the club about this or any other meeting this season with any concern or complaint received a comprehensive personal response by return email dealing with the issues. This included a couple of customers who did the correct thing and emailed the club to enquire about the incorrect accusation made about the ambulance.

That is the correct channel of communication, not on here. Those customers were all pleased and reassured to get the responses they did.

The only reason I posted before on this thread is that your continual harping on about this (and I wasn't even aware of you mentioning this on your 'all that's wrong' thread) smacks of a vendetta and I think it's only right to point that out.

'All that's wrong with the sport..'? You cite Kent in that category..? I'd respectfully suggest that all the hundreds of fans who attend Central Park every week (including to a end of season challenge match in celebration of a great season: don't see too many other clubs doing that for their fans?) would disagree.

[R87 476]

What a jolly good idea.

 

They do this in Cricket for a slow Over Rate - so why can they not do something similar in Speedway. Something like that would cut out this constant returning to the Pits following a false Start. It would also punish Promoters who deliberately over run Meetings to increase their take at the Bar. It would encourage Promoters to get the Meetings started ON TIME.

 

Obviously time would have to be added on if someone is injured - that should go without saying - but the length of the Stoppage could be timed and added on at the end so that no Fines are issued because of injury. I would add that, time for attending to injuries MUST NOT put Paramedics or Medical Staff under any pressure to clear the Track. The injured Rider MUST come first - no matter how long it takes.

In fairness, the promoters don't tend to receive bar takings as they are not the landlords.

 

Referees need to take some responsibility on this though. Frank Eldon - for all his faults - at least knew hoe to keep a meeting moving.

 

Some if the meeting I go to are more of an ordeal with how they drag on. Tony Steele is one of the worst culprits for it.

Edited October 19, 2014 by mb1990

[P T Preece 262]

Intercontinental final, vojens denmark 1981, first trip abroad. Started the usual time of 7.30 and then had some rain about half way through and stopped the meeting for a while and re-started it again after some track work and we left the meeting just after mid-night. We always joke it was our first two day meeting.

Does anybody remember the grand slam meeting at Peterborough in the 80s I think, started in the morning and went on forever, I love my speedway but I was sick of sitting there by the end and couldent wait for it to end.

Happy days.