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Not enough riders, not enough venues, not enough income to sustain a professional sport. I don't see a future for British speedway as a professional sport, and I don't see any desire to repackage it as an amateur/grassroots/competitor focussed sport. It's an outdated product held at outdated venues, which will not attract a new audience or competitor base. Any talk about standardised engines, scrapping playoffs and wokeness (whatever that means) does nothing to address the core problem.

What worries me about any plan that may be a foot is the people it’s being left to do it, it’s nothing personal, I’m sure they are great people but when it comes to sorting out something so big as the mess that we are in we need someone independent with a background in modern day sports promotion and the corporate world,someone who could sell oil to the Arabs,of the current bspl/scb not singling out anyone but you can’t even get them to return your calls or emails, I know these people care about the sport and have the sport at heart but when it comes to dealing with real big wigs from the corporate world the difference in the room is huge,you may aswel have an English man trying to deal with a china man and neither speak the other’s language, we are at the crossroads, we either find this person’s or we go the amatuer way and try to rebuild the sport from the bottom which is fine to point with me but maybe not with others

I remember several years ago Ole Olsen saying something along the lines of "British Speedway should shut down for a year and have a good long think about its product". Well the perfect opportunity landed in its lap 5 years ago with the Speedway-less year of 2020. A perfect opportunity to look at itself and have a proper reset. Instead, it just sat on its hands and waited for the green light, then picked up where it left off in 2019.

How has speedway been allowed to get into such a state? Riders in this day and age and I'm not talking big names here. Riders in the 2nd division and even the 3rd division turn up with kit that a GP rider would be happy to have. Paid mechanics, Big fancy vans. It's a fantasy world. You say we can't change back. Well if we don't address the elephant in the room. Speedway won't have long left as a professional sport. Promotors have got big decisions to make this close season. Sticking their heads in the sand and thinking " Theres nothing wrong with product," will not wash anymore. We have come to a watershed moment. If nothing changes, then it won't survive. 1) Do they still carry on paying riders wages that far outweigh the amount of people who come through the gate. Clubs will have to cut there cloth accordingly. Meaning riders will have to be paid a realistic wage for what the sport is. If riders want to turn up with all the kit, no one is stopping them, but the clubs cannot afford to fund their fantasy and before anyone has a go. No rose tinted glasses, but pure facts. In the 80s Most riders worked. They got wages according to their standard. The Leagues were a lot bigger. The crowds were a lot bigger. 2) Do they take the sport by the horns, and make it one league. There are 16 clubs, god knows how many next year. but you can't run two divisions with such a small amount of clubs. " yes they have done, but look where it's taken us" 3) The pricing has to reflect the quality of what you're paying for. Riders will have to make drastic changes. If there is to be one league, I would imagine the top riders would disappear. So the one league would be mainly made up of British riders. Clubs have to stop paying bang average foreign riders, flights and mechanics. People who say it will water it down. Well the standard can't get much lower at 2nd division level. This season most 2nd division clubs have filled their 6 and 7s with 3rd division riders. The top league is made up mostly of 2nd division riders. The standard has been getting lower every season for a while now. if that means a couple of more riders from the 3rd division replacing expensive foreign riders, then that will have to be a price the sport will need to pay to survive. More importantly. two home and two away meetings would stop the silly practise of clubs not having home meetings for weeks on end. The sport needs a reset and It has got to far out of hand and only a massive reset will save it. IMO

Tate and Jacob Hook were out promoting the club today with their bikes with a stall at Ullswater country fair in Patterdale. Giving out free tickets and information. Those riders more than do their bit for the club so don’t get your comments there.

Paying Tax should be optional and not mandatory.

When did having your name written on your wheel rim make anybody go faster? It all costs and it's totally absurd!

I have said this before but will repeat what I see as one of the main issues. I started going to speedway in 1967, Wimbledon v Swindon and would travel from Canterbury to Wimbledon and Hackney weekly. When Canterbury started I went to every home match and the majority of away matches. When Canterbury closed I would go to Coventry, Oxford,Eastbourne or Reading at least one meeting a week just to get my speedway fix. When Lakeside moved up a league I went there every week also most of their away matches. (Didn't go before as I did not like a track with no fence) This all finished when Poole started their win at all costs regardless of the harm it caused speedway. Sign GP riders and drop regular riders when they reached the play offs each year. The final straw came when they called off a meeting against Lakeside who they had lost against three weeks earlier because Chris Holder was injured. I had booked a day off work for this meeting upsetting my work mate who also wanted the day off. Then the farce at Belle Vue when they needed to win by six points, this they managed as the meeting was called off the moment they went six in front. I stopped going to Speedway from that moment, not even going to Sittingbourne when they started. Speedway is a brilliant sport when the teams are equal and riders only ride for one team apart from the juniors. I suspect the answer is two leagues. Division one and up and comers league with these riders being able to ride as reserves or replacements in division one. NO guest riders in either league. Pay riders what the promotion can afford and if that means less foreign/GP riders so be it. I would rather see a match with six or seven equal riders rather than one or two top riders winning every race.

All brilliant points. The promoters should read this at the AGM.

My biggest issue is the points scoring, if a rider scores 12 points in the heats, why can't he keep those points? If 5 riders tied on 6 points why does one deserve 4 more points than someone who scored the same as him? Wether they have top 8 semi finals or top 10 LCQ's they could simply make the final scoring 20-18-17-16, everyone else gets the points scored during their 5 heats.

Since the GP riders effed off to Poland when the Sky money ended, this has been the only outcome... However. Steadfastly, season after season, it's been avoided by the promoters... Even COVID saw zero change and it was a free hit to be radical.. Why? No idea, the reality must have stared them in the face, yet they spent the best part of a decade fudging each week and pretending what they delivered had some relevance. (With the collusion of a compliant fanbase)... When Speedway was successful, the top 3 or so in each team were fully professional, with good sponsorship off setting the cost to the clubs.. The other four members of each team usually had jobs but were happy to earn a weeks money worth from their main job, each night, several times a week, by riding Speedway.. Now we have professional NDL riders.... And punters pay for this with ridiculous admission fees given the miniscule size of the sport, year on year.. Utterly effing crackers...

British speedway has attendances in line with seventh or eighth tier football. Those are not professional leagues and the overheads to run football is much less than speedway. If speedway wants to carry on with the notion of being a professional team sport, it is not viable on those attendances and those overheads. Parades and victory laps are irrelevant when it comes to the survival of speedway.

These minority sports got sorted out Through Matchroom, Hearn is also involved in many sports including boxing, snooker, darts, pool, tenpin bowling, golf, table tennis and fishing. Providing the product to mainstream TV means the public watch and follow and be prepared to attend these previously ignored minor sports, selling a poor product via a pay to view stream or a TV franchise which needs subscription will never promote the product successfully as you are only looking at an existing/shrinking fan base .

That's because British Speedway has become so woke and doesn't want anything controversial because "we don't want to see that".

Speedway is just circus now in UK with the same riders putting on a show at different venues and different Clubs during the week.Half of them don’t know who is their Teammate is on the night at any given meeting.

Here’s hoping we’re back on track sooner rather than later. As everyone is aware the promotion and everyone at the club have put so much into Workington Speedway and in my biased opinion is best set up for speedway in the country the track and views are unmatched all this in only a few years.

Typical crowd levels today dictate that a realignment of the sport is almost unavoidable.In my opinion It needs to be semi professional in an effort to reduce costs. More riders will need other forms of employment in addition to riding speedway. I do not necessarily believe it is an outdated product, but certain venues are outdated as is the way the sport is marketed and promoted. For me personally, one league has to be the way forward. This should hopefully create more meaningful fixtures while also encouraging a stronger identification of fans with 'their' riders and vice versa because they won't be riding in both leagues. If riders reckon they can't make one league pay then that is up to them. Rider costs at many clubs are simply not sustainable, more clubs will disappear untill it all comes crashing down. I see situation as that serious.

Links for Rybnik v Częstochowa: https://vk.com/video-220089063_456247083 https://vk.com/video-53550004_456242276

It’s run by the riders

You generally find the only time speedway gets touched by the main stream sports media is when riders square up to each other. To me, there's no issue with it. Nobody gets hurt, a couple of riders full of adrenaline let of a bit of steam, and the sport gets some publicity.

😉

You only had to watch Sedgy stuffing Drew Kemp over the finishing line at Sheffield on Thursday night on BSN (or actually being there, as I was)... instead of Kemp showing Sedgmen his back wheel after the race, and I'm pretty sure most of us were looking for some reaction, all we got was a barely noticeable shake of the head from Kemp as he pulled up back at the pits. Even though I've singled this out, I'm not particularly singling out this incident as Kemp may not be that type of person, but it's symptomatic of the perceived lack of passion of riders riding for teams/clubs. If they don't really give a toss why should we? Again, I stress this is not having a go at either Kemp or Sedgeman. You watch a Football match and players are busting a blood vessel because a throw in hasn't gone their way, Speedway... it's all kisses and cuddles after a race. We perhaps don't want to go down the Football route as that attracts a very different kind of fan but there maybe room for a little more passion in Speedway.

I would say one of the main exceptions being Ben Cook. He was almost crying when he said goodbye to the Poole fans. He will team ride anyone home if they are there with him and will always look for them. Also I don't think he wanted to leave BV either.

Speedway is an amateur individual sport masquerading as a professional team sport. The end is nigh and only a massive reset will save it (also IMO).

Here's the thing though, how can you create professional riders if you don't have amateurs? And wouldn't speedway prefer me to spend the £3000 I put into the motorsport economy each year with them, rather than giving it to other organisations for track days and club races? I take nothing from it, only contribute. I put more financially into motorbike racing than a fan who goes to every round of the British Superbike Championship. Speedway doesn't want me as a customer though, unless I go along to be bored as a spectator every week from March to September. In every single professional sport I can think of, the number of participants paying to play outnumbers those being paid to play by multiples in the hundreds and thousands - this is as true in football and ice hockey as it is in motorsports. The only sport I can think of where the majority of participants are paid (even if most still lose money) is, you've guessed it, speedway! The business model is so utterly unsustainable yet here we are, thinking that changing a points limit and making riders do a victory lap will somehow bring the good times back again!

That’s ok- it’s a shame that it’s not on Discovery + as it would be ideal to see who has quick bikes and also impressive.

Another day mate 😉

So he wouldn’t of needed to file accounts till 2024 and what if that’s under a different name like many tracks are, I don’t know anything about Workington company’s or who holds the accounts or anything, I’m just saying it’s a bit strong to call someone a crook when we don’t know

He was injured in 1967 but represented the Aces in 1968. He won his last race and denied Eric Boocock the title, with Barry Briggs going on to win the run off. The next few seasons a certain Mr Mauger was in his way.

Nothing will beat Jimmy Nilsen guesting for both Wolves and Cradley across two legs of the KO Cup in 1989!

100% agree with everything you have said. Being a Wimbledon fan in my younger days. If Belle Vue were in town you knew Their team PC, Morton etc and that would be the same with all the clubs. Now supporters turn up and 9/10 there will R/R plus a couple of Guest's. We have had in the past Chris Harris Riding for Ipswich in the Semi final of the play offs then riding against them in the final!!!. People outside the sport must think its a proper Micky mouse sport and who can blame them.

Yup Money helps….. but potential crowds of 50000 supporters would also help. Football has little difficulty in rebuilding or building new stadia . UK speedway playing to crowds of several hundred every other week for 6 months a year makes a very difficult business case, especially around London.

The lack of away fans is one of the major issues the sport has.. Without them, the atmosphere is flat... I remember when "local" teams to BV, (Halifax and Sheffield), would bring several hundred and have 10 coaches and more in the car park.. Meaning a proper "tribal" atmosphere... More of that and maybe "the qualifiers" would be worth attending more? So, how to do it? Well, if we are going radical.. Why not make the away team buy 100 tickets for a tenner and either flog them at that price to their fans, or simply give them away.. Who knows, maybe they could even pay for coaches to get their fans there? 100 away fans, mostly stood or sat together, would add hugely to the evening "off track"... And, if demand ever grew, more tickets could be sold.. Also, whilst in radical mode.. Maybe they should run a "SON" type competition? Six teams (if that is the top league), with their top 3 riders.. Each team holds two rounds over the season and, here's the kicker, again, each team buys 100 tickets at a tenner... 500 away fans in total.. The hosting club could even possibly then knock £5 off 1000 tickets for the home fans with the five grand.. The event will have no guests, no out of their depth juniors, and could be made into the flagship team competition..

Standardise engines is more problematic in speedway because unlike other motorsports it has 100% wheel spin where all other sports are 100% direct drive, engines can be made the same but if you have a rider like zagar over 6ft and a rider like Ben cook at around 5 foot they clearly require different engine characteristics to work for them, it is possible to get some form of standardisation but there isn’t the will to do it, a classic example of the ridiculous nature of speedway is the rev limiter, it got mooted that they wanted to limit the revs so they asked the tuners and not wanting to hurt their business set the limit at a higher rev than is actually used during a race, so every rider was made to buy a coil per bike with a limiter which in reality does absolutely nothing during a race, you may here it cut in with some riders on the start line but under load it’s not used but if you had a limiter at say 10,000 revs riders and tuners would have kittens

Something can, what or who is the question

If you want to go and see a speedway meeting again in its purest form, come and watch a meeting with the Kent Eagles at Iwade. If you do, message me on here and I will get you 2 free tickets, you never know, it may rekindle your love for the sport once more.

When I started out in 1991 you went to a training school and the bikes were literally nailed together,1 bike, frames were as bent as Graham Norton and if you had a matching set of mudgaurds you were seen as flash, race suits were hand me downs with holes in the arse cheeks but it all had an innocence about it, go to one today and even riders who can’t get a skid on have new equipment, I have a guy by where I live, can barely skid the bike but has 3 GMs in Jawa chassis, never going to make a rider just does it for fun but has top equipment, remember in motox in the 80s/90s there were kids that we called all the gear no idea well from about 2010 onwards speedway has them now

This is imo the actual problem with British domestic speedway, the team concept only really exists in the name not in the practice and therefor the team fan can’t relate to their team and so has no emotional attachment and so doesn’t feel the need to support it, when riding I always felt different to other riders, I really brought into the team I rode for, when I rode for Berwick I felt like they were my fans and I was their rider, it felt like home and when I left I was genuinely upset and I still have good friends there today, i didnt live there but stayed with the Meldrums quite a lot and was often on the beach or in the town at weekends but I knew other riders didnt feel the same and were there for the money and it was the same at other teams, one conversation I always remember was with Barry Evans, I was at lakeside for a meeting and leaning over the fence before the meeting talking about the GP that week, and he said I don’t know why you watch the GPs or any speedway really on tv it’s boring I only do it cause I get paid to do it and I can remember thinking I wonder how the crowd would feel if they knew that ? Perhaps subconsciously they did feel it,As a fan I felt like the emotional attachment to teams ended around the mid 90s, there was always a surge of emotion around the play offs but in general it’s not like it used to be or should be for a team event, how do we get it back or can we get it back ? That’s the question

Sadly its a proper mess the promoters take flak and as Mike BV has said before they are well meaning amateurs, look at poor old Tolley he's made some proper howlers but equally the poor old boy has probably poured somewhere between 500k to a mil down the toilet such is his commitment. Most of the promoters have other business's where I guess they operate successfully, I truly think the last role of the dice might be 8 five man teams operating at current championship standard the rest need to be national league standard but maybe let a couple of foreign youngsters in at that level but only if they commit to the entire season in the UK. Accept we are a training ground for Poland run on the best night to get fans in not what the riders want to work best for them, I love seeing the top lads but my guess is for what they are costings per meeting to extra fans through the gate its probably not enough to cover half their weekly guarantee. Look when Brum got Lindgren crowd figures barely went up, Lambert comes back to Lynn for a few weeks that doesn't mean another 1k through the gate. Also as Mike has mentioned before you have seven teams in top league, two woefully understrength , you see the same riders all the time, with 2/3 home and away, guest fests so you can see why most don't bother until you get to the semi's and the final. I remember in the 80's when Gunderson or Nielson turned up you went as that was probably the only one time you would see them all year. I wish I knew the answers but the doubling up, running on unattractive days of the week, guests galore, Brexit/Visa's, riders signing for a couple of months known up front after people have bought season tickets, Netflix, Sky , Play stations, bowling alleys, multi plex cinema's, hundreds of eateries open on a Sat night massive competition for a quid now. You would though have thought that promoters would have tried to get those who no longer attend to fill in a questionnaire as to why they fell out of love if its not for the reasons already listed.

To many clubs have a Champagne lifestyle on a Irn Bru budget

Good points in that reply. I remember when Workington first came back to the sport and it was only the top heat leaders that had two bikes and even half of them never used the 2nd bike it was just there. 2nd string riders and definitely reserves had one bike each. Most riders had another full time job. Fast forward to now and every rider has 2 bikes and not many work during the season which then makes there income from speedway there sole income so needs to be at a level to pay for tuning cover spares and a van. I'm not knocking any rider for getting out of the sport what they can financial wise. What I am saying is it's clear the sport as a whole is not viable going forward at this level. There is not enough money coming into the sport through sponsorship and gate money to cover the costs of the stadiums and riders. Meaning in the not to distant future the sport at this level and costs will simply not be there, no clubs for riders to ride for. Speedway jumped ahead of motocross and most other motorcycle sports in the pay structure for riders but it's going to bankrupt itself as a sport because promoters have pushed rules to help there own ambitions not the sport as a whole to the point we have a handful of clubs who are sort of financially viable the rest loose money every year.

I raise you... 😜😜

I hope you're right.

Well as long as you’re there cheering them on I’m sure they will be giving there all to prove you wrong

Rybnik on the wrong end of another bad defeat by the looks of it. Juniors not up to it. Pludra not good enough and neither Holder/Pedersen performing. 3 riders can't win a match.

cheers only 8 years old in 68, my memory more from 70s. loved watching him round Hyde rd.

cracking meeting.

All moto2 engines made,sealed and serviced by triumph,moto3 Honda or ktm sealed engines,but of course wouldn't work in speedway!! why can't a sport run by amateurs learn from the professionals

I think the point is there is not really anybody of the Ian Thomas type in the current era knowing what makes the 20 to 30 something tick Wasn't this the idea of buying all of those GTR engines? Instead of saying if you want to ride BL you ride a GTR the powers that be just caved to the riders who wanted there own personalised engine heads on their super tuned GM motors. I think it's to allow riders to fly out to Poland and earn a fortune on a Sunday afternoon.

Dont think promotions screw the fans riders deserve every penny they can get but their has to be a cut off point,standard engines no big payouts to engine tuners do they really 4 helmets might be little things but costs need to match imcome !