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Unfortunately this sort of thing paints speedway in a bad light. It's bad enough for the regulars, but the chances of new/casual fans returning is very low. Surely the cost of a private ambulance would be worth it for avoiding abandonments and reputational damage. It kind of demonstrates that the sport is at its core amateur.

Totally shocking if you ask me. Would have thought you would get £13 or £14 off the next meeting at least (saying it's roughly a pound a heat). The meeting didn't continue due to something Birmingham could control (medical cover) and not something Birmingham couldn't control (weather).

Blimey give the lad a chance,he has only been in the top league for a season.

Oxford put a good team on track, just beaten by a better team.

Totally agree re Alfie - and good to see as he is a lovely guy. Is there any truth in the rumours that Trigger has had the same bike for 20 years...17 new frames and 14 new engines....but the same bike. I’ll get my coat....

He has gone from "Pirateship" to "Oink" & now "Turnip". He, also, thinks he is a comedian.

Many clubs have, under these circumstances, ignored the published terms and conditions and given free admission to ticket holders. The policy wasn’t designed for an event that only runs two heats as that is clearly unfair on supporters - £10 for two heats is outrageous. Stop hiding behind the rules, Birmingham, and do the decent thing. On the ambulance question, I think the SCB rule is that a second ambulance can’t just be any old vehicle with the word “ambulance” painted on it. It has to ge registered with DVLA as an ambulance and have both a driver and an attendant. My guess is a second ambulance would cost somewhere between £250 and £400 per meeting. Other than for tv meetings, I doubt there are many tracks that have two ambulances, but, given the current strain on the NHS, maybe more should consider it? A final point is to express my disappointment - that’s me using a gentle word - at how very limited the sympathy and support for Josh Auty has been. In the press release, Laurence Rogers referred to the abandonment of the meeting as being a “huge blow” for the promotion and that he felt sorry for the supporters. Not a word about feeling sorry for Josh or any update on his injuries which appear to have been serious enough to require him getting morphine. Birmingham supporters and Birmingham riders deserve better.

Blimey , didn't realise Boris took a break from Partygate and helping out the Ukraine to put the boot into speedway . Those Tories really are the nasty party .

Some constructive criticism. Just got back and first thing to do was jump into shower to get the dust off. Terrible. Billowing clouds of dust covering everyone on the 3rd and 4th bends is not good. Track might have been watered all afternoon but far too dry and the water bowser thingy needed to be double the capacity size to flood the track. Arrived at the Unipart car park and it was just a 5 minute stroll to the stadium. All very easy. Crowd was good, at limited capacity. Plenty of room for a 1000 more on the bends. Lots of space. The track seems a decent shape but outside line really not working at all. A massive advantage off gates 1 and 3 with four a dead duck. Speaker system far too loud. Had to shout for the person next to me to hear. Ears are ringing. Also, hearing the same awful techno/synth Kraftwork type music before every heat was grating. Please vary it. The promotion also gad the opportunity to bring in a modern, younger centre green announcer. But they got Peter York. Who announced Nicholls and Batchelor as Coventry riders. And he really didn’t work to get the crowd going. Heat results were given out as the next heat were at the tapes, and they missed Stonemans ride in heat 11, when he was brought in as reserve swap for Ruml. This led to a delay and issue in heat 14 when the ref thought Stoneman had only taken 2 rides and needed to be on track instead of reserve switch Ruml. Sound like a big old moan? No not at all. There are bound to be teething problems and certainly things need to be improved upon. As for the meeting, Pirates dug very deep when it looked like Oxford could it, having 1 and 3 in heats 13 and 15. Some good hard riding from our heat leaders and much better performances from the Cooks, helped bring home the victory. Kemp fell in two of his rides but did the business in heat 14 to secure the victory. Ablitt also got into the points beating his counterpart Stoneman. Good luck to Oxford for the rest of the season. Think they will be a force at home once they have got the track right. Not many will come away with points.

If somebody who was not a fan takes the trouble to acknowledge how much Nigel did for the sport, how much he'll be missed and what a great tragedy his passing is, then that is a tribute made all that more sincere by indicating where it is coming from.

And when he was alive he had the right of reply. When someone's died people should just pay their respects or say nothing at all, the only people who might be reading negative comments are his family who are left behind and I just hope if they are reading this forum they ignore the ignorant posts and focus on the overwhelming ones from people who realise he will be missed and also a great loss to Speedway.

I don't very often come to the aid of any promoter but you need to bear in mind the costs incurred by them even though the meeting was abandoned. I don't know what they will be but I think they could well include hire of stadium, hire of medical staff, referees fees, payments to track staff and travelling fees for riders. There might be other costs incurred as well. All of the above will also be incurred when the meeting is re-run.

Nice to hear that not everybody is ready to lace up their size 10's & stick the boot in.

Hollow victory.

Not Bad Luck,New Promotion but not new to Speedway,should have been able to get the basics right whatever the cost.Should be full refund fans are being taken for mugs again.Basics weren’t in place for meeting to start why should fans pay for it.!!!

I'm old school....it used to be 'free' entrance to another meeting if the match was abandoned before HEAT 6 Great win for Poole last night btw..... P.s and it would have been James Shanes that stopped 'Bomber' from getting a 'max' last night who'd have thought that.....Bomber was so slow from the gate in Heat 1! (slower than usual )

All systems go for tomorrow, we have a fleet of ambulances and the casts of Casualty and Holby City on hand just in case , to make sure we get to heat 15 . But obviously we hope they won't be needed and Tigers riders ,and 30 yards back Berwick riders , arrive in the bar unscathed .

The poor chap has died before his time , sod his type of commentary, let your hearts go out to wife and family. Everything other is obseen

Well we dug out a win there.Strength in depth pulled us through there,even with a few riders not at their best.But the last 5 races really bought the meeting alive.Ht 15 was awesome.When Ostergaard gated and Harris was at the back i thought it was game over for the Stars.Then Harris got into 3rd you thought a 1-5 was on the cards,but Pickering's absolutely astonishing ride got the crowd to their feet(i know most of them are anyway)and then NKI followed through for a 5-1.It was crazy i lost Pickering he went that wide and low i couldn't see him on bend 2.As an old friend said he hasn't seen that since the Henka days. My thanks goes to Sheffield for releasing Pickering because the numbers didn't fit.I know speedway is a numbers game,but it is also an entertainment game and boy does Pickering fit the entertainment game side.I would take him every day of the week with his entertainment,enthusiasm and his willingness to team ride over the number side of the sport.

Josh Pickering take a bow son.

What's wrong with saying you should get £13 off a readmission ticket when you see 2 out of 15 heats? I think that is fair. All I know is that out of the last 4 meetings I have attended at Birmingham while on holiday I have only seen 1 meeting reach its conclusion (Coventry). I have seen Mildenhall, Edinburgh, and Leicester be abandoned. Think people remember the Redcar meeting at the start of last year also. Wish Josh a speedy recovery.

Basso looks the real deal.

Lions…..lol

Be humble in victory though.

But that would mean working as a collective for the greater good of the sport... That would never work...

A good chunk of this will be offset by the tenner a head (£18 in the case of those who don't return) they've taken from the fans with only 2 races of wages to pay for. A short term fix but it will only come back to bite them with smaller future crowds when fans walk away from the sport feeling they've been ripped off again, which they have. Anything other than free admission to a future meeting will be a PR disaster for them. I'm sure this is what the better run teams with forward thinking promoters would be doing.

Not arrogant at all thank you! Edinburgh have a fantastic fan group that has helped support the club with thousands of pounds… Berwick have the Supporters Club and in teaming with the promotion got the 5-1 draw in motion.. £10 a month from fans to join but they’ve got the chance to win each month so it’s a win win for both promotion and fans… so far that has given over 25k into the club… Newcastle eventually twigged on and got the same sort of thing going… it can be done even in the current climate this country is in

I wasn't going to go tonight,but i got the buzz back after Monday.With the highs,lows,controversy and then elation at the end of the meeting it gave me a buzz coming from the stadium with my mates.It does obviously help if you win.The only thing missing was a little dust up between a couple of riders.Managed to get someone to cover my shift at late notice,although i am going in Friday night to re-coup my wage.Friday night ffs.Hope the meeting more than makes up for that

I'm up for that

I bet they wish they'd lumped out for an extra ambulance then... could of saved them a packet!

Add to that the cost of a second paramedic/doctor as there’s no point having an ambulance without.

Absolutely but they have not declared him in their 1-7 at the start of the season - all they have done is announced Jake on a short-term deal So if they are allowed to bring in Zagar for the start of the league season, then other teams should be allowed to make team changes before the start of the league campaign If not, then Belle Vue should be completing the first 25% of fixtures with the current lineup and only bring in Zagar after 5 league meetings have been raced.

So ten quid for two races and probably got to buy a new proggy for the rerun of the meeting? It starts to make politicians look honest!

Incredibly arrogant comment... if it was that easy to wave a magic wand and "raise money" every club would have done it already

Good points made... I also got the impression from the Press Release on main website that LR tried to justify the £10 entrance fee, by saying that the 2 Heats that were completed, were both great races with passing in both..... JOKE! Like you say....B'ham should do the decent thing to all that attended and offer 'FREE' entrance to any future meeting and unless they do this, I wont be parting with any of my hard earned cash at PB again! May be I'm over reacting, may be I'm still feeling hard done by, surely it could have been avoided by the club.... I would put any money on things being different at the next meeting......

It was a new track for us too, I am sure they have practiced on it more than we had. Any away win is a great result.

Nothing new there then.

Birmingham are toast now. £8 off a future match is a terrible decision that reeks of desperation from the amateur chancer Rodgers and his consortium. Effectively saying 'We can't afford to give our punters a full refund'

No dust at Poole these days matey.

Not good enough IMO! Berwick fans should definitely be totally refunded and compensated for travel costs. What about Season ticket holders? I'm guessing they don't have to pay an extra £10....which is the difference between entrance fee and £8 discount off future match?

We do it's called tax.

Having a regulation that's limits team changes and introduces a window for those transfers doesn't fit with allowing 28 day signings whatever the reasons It gives a potential advantage to the team/s that have been granted the 28 day facility There is the example of riders now potentially becoming available should a team fail in Sweden but no other team could take advantage due to the transfer restriction except those incompetent enough to fail to put together a full team despite having 6 months to do so......

Vsst majority if tracks have had private ambulance and paramedic for years. Some tracks have 2 ambulances, some have 2 paramedics. 2 ambulances and 1 paramedic can be a problem if paramedic has to go with the ambulance to hospital. 2 paramedics and 1 ambulance is problem if ambulance has to leave stadium. Some NHS Trusts will only prioritise County NHS ambulance. It's easy to blame Promoters. I blame a Government that has destroyed the NHS and mugged taxpayers off 37 billion to Dido Harding and Michelle Mone for PPE that didn't exist and companies created by MPs to mug us off In Britain's second city a wait for a 999 ambulance at 6 hours is the norm Thats down to Boris Johnson NOT Nigel Tolley and Laurence Rogers

Neither of them would solve Newcastle’s Team problem IMO.

Fancy not being able to write something about such a tragic event without prefixing it by "I wasn't a fan..etc" Nobody cares either pay your respects or just scroll past

For those of us in a country where there’s no television broadcaster, does anyone know if it will still be available to watch on YouTube ?

Palin last year always seemed to mange one exceptional ride in each meeting, showed some good form in Ben Fund. Sure he will make m ore progress this year.

And given how many football matches seem to get stopped these days for crowd illnesses, which result in hospital visits, surely two ambulances are a necessity and not a "nice to have"?.. Just another in a long list of "own goals" that this sport (in the UK), like to score...

What the hell is hypocritical about not particularly liking his style of commentary whilst he was alive, and also being shocked, saddened and sending genuine condolences about the poor man’s death? So if at any time in the past, you’ve commented on here that you’re not a fan of his commentary, you shouldn’t then come on here and send your condolences for the man’s sudden passing because it’s “hypocritical”, or as Diamondboy was implying, some are shedding crocodile tears because obviously they don’t care the man is dead because they’ve been on here criticising his style of commentating in the past? What a pathetic and pretty crass point of view.