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This is where people who know nothing about the situation simply do not add further rubbish into the conversation. This is a hard working man trying his damndest to hold speedway in the town against the current speedway dilemma in the UK. The level of speculation/abuse on here is insane and needs toned down. The press release told fans as much as they need to know at that moment. Once further news is known im sure this will be done via the relevant channels!

I’d say Andrew and the rest of the promotion are entitled to alot more respect than the label of a “Crook” Im sure you’ve witnessed the amount for efforts and money that has been put into Workington Speedway at Northside , regardless of what people speculate this promotion have done everyone proud in the work they’ve done.

Anyway enough cackling about what we don’t know let’s just get Workington back to the tapes and wish them well in this current hiccup

Cash only is due to the unreliable signal/lack of phone line to the arena. Say what you will about this but as a business owner myself, I know how much each transactions costs to take a card payment. If the management team are spending time counting cash rather than paying transaction fees on card payments. then I don't think that is unfair or illegal. It just means they are getting every penny that comes through the gate. And most teams will certainly need that right now. To call the team running the club crooks is completely unfair. They have achieved something spectacular at Workington and they deserve every success and good luck.

Club Speedway is not dead,it just needs to get back to being “Club Speedway” not every rider riding for any Club during season.Fans want to see “their” riders every week.Take a leaf out of Polands book no guests they promote juniors.At least the fans are seeing their riders .Dont think it spoils the entertainment and produces new talent. NDL riders deserve a chance. 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!

Despite the comments made on here by others I am willing to give you an overview of the improbables of answering your questions from an ex promoters point of view. In 2018 my heat leaders in my championship team were earning less a than a certain rival clubs number seven. I had two riders on a ‘minimum guarantee’, i.e. if they crashed in heat 1 and didnt ride again then they got a minimum wage. One of these was to satisfy a work visa criteria. Some got a bonus if they scored over a previously agreed points score. Heat leaders got more than second strings and they got more than reserves. Travel was paid to all at the going rate of certain pence per mile. Now all clubs pay different rates depending on their income which includes turnstyles takings and sponsorship. Some clubs did not pay their riders weekly, I did and I never not paid on the agreed pay day, some clubs paid when they had the cash to do so, some didnt pay for weeks. The whole of speedways finances are a secret and a mess. No two clubs have the same income or outgoings because of stadium rents, riders wages, staff wages , maintenance costs etc and everything is dependant on regular home fixtures as you pay your own riders home and away so if you have one home fixture and two away, then you have three wage packets to pay but only one income fixture. So the basic answer to your question is….. depends on the club, the riders, the scores, the attendance, the sponsorship , the bills etc etc etc. That is why Im an ex promoter !.

Apologies mate,I got the wrong end of the stick. Even me wouldn't want Plymouth to strengthen up at the expense of losing another track,don't think it will come to that and Workington can resume there season

Two years and because the stress of running a business at a loss ( I had reduced the losses by half on previous years ) , combined with the sports some times ludicrous internal politics meant it was one rule for one and different for others. Best decision I ever made was to stop being a promoter but I left the club in a far better position than my predecessor and happily the promoters since then have continued to improve the club.

BRILLIANT from Brady wow. Best top 2 in the league by a mile.

Belle Vue not missed Blodorn at all Last time zero R/R tonight 6 Lidsey as expected doubled his score and so will Cook Belle Vue fans full of double standards…… how dare any supporters of other teams say Kurtz wasn’t injured … all the Belle Vue mob are up in arms about that stating he was injured ….. then all of a sudden how dare Ipswich say they have riders carrying injuries that can’t be used as any sort of excuse …. Strange people

... or Brady Kurtz powers of recovery 😁

I don’t think the league structure will allow the likes Kurtz, Bewley, Doyle & Emil to all ride over here next year. I do agree this is our best chance in years.

We aren’t as dominant as we were encouraged to think at the start of the season. Injuries have played a part but guess what… they are injured and we have to deal with it. I can see us losing more on the road and to Sheffield and Belle Vue at Foxhall if we aren’t careful. In my opinion if we don’t win the league this year then it’s a long time until we do. Doyle and Emil are what 41/37 next year and Kurtz and Bewley 10+ yrs younger and Kurtz is flying, if he can sort out his dominance away from home with consistency then Belle Vue have a chance to dominate the league for a while with the right team building around the power pack.

Not true, more the way the sport was being run . As it wasn't my club , I ran it for the owners, it wasn’t my money I was losing , and by the way , the owners were very happy the way I was running it.

Wow look at my post from the other day I think I got everything spot on Heat leaders …. Correct Second strings …. Correct Reserves injured may hamper scoring … correct Doyle injured…. Correct Kurtz maximum …. Correct See when you know your own club it’s not hard to predict how matches go …. Belle Vue fans not taking on board any thing Ipswich fans say … yet nobody could mention Kurtz the other week Belle Vue heat leaders drop 2 points tonight …. Doyle gets 3 and Dan T only 2 We only lose by 14 …. Even 7 from Doyle and 5 from Dan makes it a draw If and it’s a big if we have a fit 1-7 we draw that match tonight …..over 2 legs and 2 teams with a fit 1-7 we don’t have anything to fear from Belle Vue

Sack the Ipswich team manager he’s useless 😁

Yes they are the best top 2 they are 2 and 4 in the world …. Shame none of the others ride that well away from home means that over 2 legs you will come up short most of the time

Majestic ride from Kurtz there, nothing Emil could do, sublime pass.

Too easy to predict what would happen Belle Vue heat leaders too good at home Doyle and Jenkins so far away from full fitness and so is Dan T I did say we would do well to keep this to 10 points …. Seems I know I more about speedway then Belle Vue fans who for some reason thought they would get beat easily …. Needs to brush up on their knowledge I think Last time Blodorn got 0 and r/r has 1 Lidsey got 5 and already on 6 Not hard to see that against a weakened Ipswich that Belle Vue should win

Best track in the world this one apparently 😉 gate n go from what I’m watching.

Match going as predicted by those who know about speedway We need to stop Cook and the reserves now otherwise Belle Vue could pull away

Common sense, I don't believe it

But looking at Klima's 2024 Polish u24 record it appears that Cluff is the BETTER rider. I think the word 'sensation' is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the Plymouth press release

Riders will be self employed and few if any would have set up limited companies. Most speedway accounts are described as "unaudited and filleted" in accordance with the appropriate company regulations. As such they are a simple balance sheet from which liquidity and profitability can be deduced, though the extent of sponsorship isn't revealed.

If your referring to me as someone in the know I’m not, I have no association with the bspl or scb and have been in the past a thorn in their side and haven't they let me know, what I have is friends that I’ve built up over the years through the sport on both sides of the fence and that includes fans and we have a mutual trust of what we would pass on,imagine if I or they were to break that trust and tell the forum what they earn or what I earn (just for the record I haven’t got a pot to piss in ) others may feel it’s ok and that’s fine but I just feel riders income is a private thing unless they don’t mind telling it

Would you like to tell us all on here how much your income is please because we would all like to know and all your outgoings, how much your pension plan is and any relevant financial dealings you have because we are nosey and feel it is our right to such information

All relevant questions. To most supporters those figures are a mystery and so you have no idea of the likely break even figure for a club. I presume any prospective promoter would be provided with an outline estimate of the likely costs of both set up and ongoing costs. I believe the clubs pay their own riders for both home and away matches, and so have to cover the away matches from income generated by home matches. It's one of the reasons clubs can have a cash flow problem- if they have too many away matches without sufficient home matches.

Do you want to know the colour of his underpants too ? Not being rude but those first 3 questions have nothing to do with you, it’s someone’s private financial agreement

He gave an interview on the centre green explaining his reasons yesterday -- and to be honest I'm none the wiser

I would advocate that, but the problem is alot of fans are fickle and would see a weakened team as one with no chance of winning, and wouldn't bother going. Which I think would be less of a case with Polish fans.

I agree we're not very far apart at all and there is no magic bullet that is going to cure all of Speedway's current ills, at the moment it's a death by a thousand cuts. I do take onboard what you're saying about participation, but there are avenues into the sport but that's not to say that more couldn't be done, you can always do more with everything and things should always be under constant evaluation. One thing I will say about Speedway is that it's niche, especially as a participation sport, always has been always will be. You can't just go into a Sports Direct and by a set of Darts, a Cricket Bat, Tennis/Squash/Badminton Racket, Golf Club, Hockey Stick, Football, Fishing Rod, Tiddlywinks etc. You have to go to a specialised supplier and buy highly specialised kit and I dare say you'd have done your £3k before you got anywhere near a Speedway track. In this respect it is also similar to F1 or more specifically Single Seater racing. Even the motorcycling fraternity don't really buy into Speedway like they do with MotoGP & Superbikes, I've heard it said that it's because they can go and buy the equivalent bike and ride it on the road and/or track. Can't argue with most of your last paragraph, I do think there will still be team Speedway in the UK in 5 years time though, even if it's only at an NDL level. All the best Iain

I hope you're right.

This is now time when the sport in this country is in such a dire state where the fans have to have their say in the future rebuild of this sport as there are so few club who can post a set of books in the 'black'. All rules and regulations are outdated and are in place to add further detriment to this amazing sport. The sport will only survive if the powers that be listen to the fans and drawback all the financial instability that is causing 90% of clubs to lose money each season to change the landscape of British Speedway before it becomes too late. Back in 1999 when the club reformed the majority of riders worked as the money to be made wasnt the same as it is today. There has been far too many negative impacts on the sport in that time namingly so 'Doubling Up', thus overtime losing riders because they are no longer needed. I am not an advocate of streaming in any way as that is simply another way of keeping fans from the tracks and missing the secondary spend i.e programmes, food, drink etc. even if the clubs get money from it after each meeting/season it simply wont put back the amount of revenue the clubs lose. The competitions all require an upgrade where each competition has different rules to attract fans as there is no fun going to Poole in a Knockout fixture and being 19-5 after 4 heats with no tactical changes allowed. What has happened to fans being entertained and the whole 'Heat 8' protected race is a load of garbage, why not re-introduce Golden Doubles which gives both sets of fans a chance of entertainment even if the meeting has been a damp squib. General pricing is reasonable if the clubs didnt have to pay out such astronomical fees to not only riders but running costs to get the meetings on, hense how one league is the only way forward and that means paying out a miximum of £100 a point then riders leave the league so be it, this helps rebuild the bottom end of the sport but also regionalise the leagues North/South to reduce fuel bills then have play offs to work out the winners. I am truly concerned that in 5 years there will be no speedway in this country and it wont be down to the promoters (in their own clubs) but the ones selected as management to the sport as they cannot let this go un-noticed any longer. British Speedway HAS to be rubbed out and drawn again to give it a chance to survive before we lose a sport we all love. Looking forward to being back on track following this side around the tracks whilst thriving in my weekly fix of racing! 🔵⚪️

😉

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.

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

It was a measure of his excellence at his trade and his wonderfully crafted image that he was as much a star and as much an attraction as the great riders of the great era (mid 70's to mid 80's when Speedway WAS one of the top 3-4 Sports in terms of attendence and Main Stream Media profile). If you went to a Meeting, often with packed terraces at the old Perry Barr, Dudley Wood , Monmore green, Brandon etc , the minute MP appeared on the Track there would be an audible buzz "Mike Patrick's here"...he was that well known and recognisable and it added a sort of weird kudos to the Meeting, especially if it was a standard League Fixture. One of if not the best at what he did. It is frankly I am disappointed to say that his passing has not been reflected and commented on by more. RIP Mike

That's the spirit

Ian Thomas used to tell the local media(Workington) that crowds were holding on at 1200 - and that "the honeymoon isn't over yet". Top promoter was Ian.

I worked in Local Government where everyone was on fixed pay scales based on grading, so everyone knew what my salary was. I don't think the original question was about individual rider’s payments, but about averages. Not an unreasonable interest. I also think it would be of interest to know, roughly, what the costs of staging a meeting and running a club are. When Wimbledon was a PLC it published it's accounts - not at a level which allowed you to know how much individual riders earned, but it did show as far as I recall what the rider costs were for example. The published accounts for any club that is a limited company are available, but generally only the balance sheet not the income and expenditure account.

But you are not taking into consideration the huge injury problems Ipswich have......

1 bad match recently at home before that was 7.8,7,7

Speedway is in comparison to thinks like motox relatively cheap at low to mid level and because of the low numbers of competitors is pretty easy these days to get into a team and if you want to just do for fun then there is tracks you can go almost every week, the downside is you will need to travel, as it is now it is unsustainable to carry on taking out more than is coming in but that doesn’t mean the team thing can’t work, it can and will but it needs leadership into the corporate world of which it doesn’t have, I agree the world is going to some dark places but that’s not speedway problem and neither should it be, I get you want to ride your bike for fun and you can nobody is stopping you, I do it myself a couple of times a year but the sport of speedway isn’t really aimed at the guys and girls like us, we have had our day,,we should know better by now and where we differ is I now want to watch league racing as I’ve always wanted to and there are 1000s who do but for whatever reasons as discussed above are choosing not too attend, speedway differs from other motorcycle sports because they are participant sports and speedway is primarily a fan sport, it is a team sport on bikes rather than a motorcycle sport

Last one from me. I think we're not so far apart here. But speedway should be such an inexpensive and accessible participation sport, but it is not. It is not particularly accessible, despite what you say, and the number of people taking out of it cannot be justified by the amount of money in it. Every other sport I can think of has a clear delineation between the amateur and professional ranks. In amateur, the participant pays, whether that's car racing, tennis or fishing, and this is an industry in itself, one which is bigger than the professional side. Speedway does not have this, the number of amateurs should outrank 'professionals' by at least 50 to 1. It is an amateur sport, with amateur sport levels of spectators, run (largely) at amateur level venues with presentation and promotion from enthusiastic but ultimately underwhelming individuals. The insistence that it continues to be this contrived team sport will be the death of it. The world is going to some dark places just now and the idea that league speedway exists in the UK in five years time seems impossible to me, sadly.

Nopeeee

2 questions will decide this match.1 will musielak actually beat an opponent in heat 1? and will barker beat Kvech in heat 2 ? If neither of these happen it’s another defeat I think

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.

One of the main problems in this country is you do have enough money coming into the sport in sponsorship etc. to make it a viable proposition for the number of clubs and with riders wanting to be full time employees using kit which is far too expensive it is impossible to square the financial circle. Stadia want the rent, riders demand top dollar to earn a living and maintain equipment and pay mechanics etc and fewer pundits have disposal income to take a family of four week in week out. As Dean has already said, the bikes are not a lot faster than years back but a good deal more expensive to run and maintain. Do spectators really care if the race is a few seconds slower. As long as you are being entertained I do not see race times an issue. The British public are simply not in love with speedway like they use to be and it is a brave person who would invest in the current business model in the UK.

Rather wet, in the west tropical. Joking before the usuals have a fit. Wet in both locations.