Newcastle now closed !!!

[Diamond_Delight 0]

I don’t suppose anyone has had any contact from the club regarding season ticket refunds ?

[ruffdiamond 6,115]

33 minutes ago, bringbackHalifax said:

Not strictly true. He had the option to move it on and get out last yr but he panicked that someone else thought they could make it pay and in his naivety he thought he could do it. The night after he was approached he announced he was carrying on and never even went back to let the frontman of the people who wanted to take on the club know before the announcement. Now the club is in such a sorry state, no one will do it now.

Could/would anyone else be the 'frontman'?

[scampispeedway 67]

bringbackhalifax, what I wrote was very true as he and he alone decided to run another season and paid the

price for that decision, I would not have blamed him one bit if Newcastle closed at the end of last year.

[Justgotmecpc 1,059]

1 hour ago, scampispeedway said:

bringbackhalifax, what I wrote was very true as he and he alone decided to run another season and paid the

price for that decision, I would not have blamed him one bit if Newcastle closed at the end of last year.

Instead of panicking ( allegedly) he should have closed it last season & accepted the help which was on offer & moved on to a newer venue & reopened in 2023 with much better team etc & all money took from the turnstiles would have been the club's & not a mega payout for the stadium rent 

[StevePark 2,783]

15 minutes ago, Justgotmecpc said:

Instead of panicking ( allegedly) he should have closed it last season & accepted the help which was on offer & moved on to a newer venue & reopened in 2023 with much better team etc & all money took from the turnstiles would have been the club's & not a mega payout for the stadium rent 

Genuine question (as I don't know), would the money have been there to do all that?  Unless there was a massive intake of cash, I just couldn't see that happening.

[TotallyHonestJohn 3,078]

32 minutes ago, StevePark said:

Genuine question (as I don't know), would the money have been there to do all that?  Unless there was a massive intake of cash, I just couldn't see that happening.

Knowing what I do now Steve you are probably correct... it's a massive undertaking to set up a new venue and it needs a person or persons to dedicate hours of time to the undertaking... 

Things would have had to rumble on at Brough which isn't ideal and the commitment needed to move to a new track in either time or money is unbelievable... if you commit full time to the project you can save cash but will struggle to run a business or hold down a job... or you can go the other way and throw cash at it which will save you the time element but you are paying for the service provision...

It's one hell of a juggling act to get the balance right... so one or more of three types of people required... someone who has a business making money and they can park that and have someone else run it to put 80 hours a week into building a new track and running a Speedway venture for little or no return... someone with mega bucks who is a fan of the sport who is prepared to put something like 500k in up front and happy to lose around 100k a year thereafter... or something like the Worky effort with one man's vision spending some cash putting in all the spare hours and relying on some good will and support from a network of friends...

Because the returns from the sport are limited unless things change it's going to be a big ask and risk to get someone to come in for the club now... IMHO...

Regards 

THJ

[Justgotmecpc 1,059]

2 hours ago, StevePark said:

Genuine question (as I don't know), would the money have been there to do all that?  Unless there was a massive intake of cash, I just couldn't see that happening.

Like I said Steve ( the offer of help was there in more ways than one) but it was declined & now look how it's turned out !! Maybe he could have missed the 22/23 seasons out & came back in 24 but that's running a big risk on getting fans back unless it's promoted massively on local TV & RADIO aswell as social media & as THJ said a lot of good will from volunteers helping out goes a long way 

[Biffa 84]

It’s surprising where the crowds do come back from though. Middlesbrough/Redcar had 10 years missing and the crowds came back, went again, came back again etc. Fans will still be there if the product is right. Oxford another one, 15 years? And seem to be doing ok. Workington will probably be the next northern barometer to go by. 

[scampispeedway 67]

Biffa, if you look at the history of Newcastle Speedway we have to be closed for at least 5 years

before someone new needs try to resurrect a new team and hope to get the crowds back in

sufficient numbers to make it a viable proposition..

 

[Winditon 233]

9 minutes ago, scampispeedway said:

Biffa, if you look at the history of Newcastle Speedway we have to be closed for at least 5 years

before someone new needs try to resurrect a new team and hope to get the crowds back in

sufficient numbers to make it a viable proposition..

 

It's still a big gamble for someone to finance a new track somewhere and gamble that the crowd would support it. I think speedway in general is dying off for all sorts of reasons. I watched the Bellevue match last night and was expecting a bigger crowd in the main stand. Not sure how many was there. Maybe that's their normal crowd or maybe being live on tv affected it. There did seem to be alot of kids there though which i suppose is a good sign

 

[scampispeedway 67]

Winditon, like you I watched a home Premier League match at Ipswich on BT Sport the other week

and what was noticable was the lack of crowds, how can these top flight tracks survive if they are

not pulling in the crowds.

I suspect that they must be getting by on the Television money but that doesn't go on forever and

then what will happen to these clubs when there is no money coming in from that source.

[Winditon 233]

3 hours ago, scampispeedway said:

Winditon, like you I watched a home Premier League match at Ipswich on BT Sport the other week

and what was noticable was the lack of crowds, how can these top flight tracks survive if they are

not pulling in the crowds.

I suspect that they must be getting by on the Television money but that doesn't go on forever and

then what will happen to these clubs when there is no money coming in from that source.

Agree

[Winditon 233]

On 6/21/2022 at 11:16 AM, Diamond geezer said:

CLUB OWNER ROB GRANT CLOSES THE DIAMONDS DOWN - IMMEDIATE EFFECT

The Newcastle Advance Fire and Security Diamonds (in association with SecuriCorp) season has come to an immediate end with 11 SGB Championship league matches outstanding as the sole owner of the Diamonds, Rob Grant made the unilateral decision late last night that enough is enough, and the club is now closed for business.

"I've had no option but to close the Diamonds down now," Grant said this morning, "I have to point out this is my decision only, as my fellow co-promoters and anyone else who had a keen interest in keeping Newcastle Speedway going, wanted to help things run until the end of the season, but there really is no other option, and in the longer term, it is for the good of Newcastle Speedway.

"The situation has taken a massive toll on the finances of the club, a massive hit on my own mental health and also a substantial toll on my other businesses and I cannot allow this to take me down. Crowds have, naturally, dwindled to an unworkable level, and with results like our matches at home against Redcar and Leicester, and trying to encourage folk back into the stadium was never going to work, but again that's all down to me making poor decisions. 

"The team needed changes, yes, but the fact was clear, as many other promoters will tell you, there simply are no top guys available to come in at the moment and that crippled our efforts to bring in top-end new blood despite massive efforts to do so.

"The situation was critical, and it had to be shut down now before it became too late for prospective new people to look at taking the club into 2023. Had we continued like we were, I'd have ended up running Newcastle Speedway so deep into the ground that it would have been impossible to bring back to life or clear its financial commitments successfully, all of which will be in due course, but now at least there is an option for someone to get in touch and see if new blood can fully take over the club for the future.

"Closing now, before that terminal point in time, means the company will continue until we get all the finances in order. A future release will detail how we will compensate and part-refund our season ticket holders, so they won't be paying for matches they won't be seeing. The tickets sold online for the Poole match scheduled for this weekend have already been set for refunding and people who bought them will receive their money back in full over the next few days. 

"I want to apologise to our fans for how things have ended up. I want to thank my staff and sponsors for striving on through a dark season and wish the club and everyone connected with it the very best moving forward. Sadly, the club has run out of steam, the finances have run out of steam and I'm running on fumes. It's a sad day, but it's a day which had to happen now.

"If anyone wants to talk about taking the club forward, please contact via our website on the info@newcastle-speedway.co.uk so we can start talks."

How long is this future release going to take about the part refund to season ticket holders ???

[Normski 1,316]

On 7/12/2022 at 12:58 PM, scampispeedway said:

Biffa, if you look at the history of Newcastle Speedway we have to be closed for at least 5 years

before someone new needs try to resurrect a new team and hope to get the crowds back in

sufficient numbers to make it a viable proposition..

 

Reading todays Speedway Star 3 meetings in Sweden with attendance of 20, 53, & 59

[ch958 2,395]

50 minutes ago, Normski said:

Reading todays Speedway Star 3 meetings in Sweden with attendance of 20, 53, & 59

i think its quite common in the lower leagues over there but their elite league is suffering too and they have plenty of 'big names'. Don't they have clubs rather than. promoters?