Leaderboard

If the Colts at the NSS were the "only ticket in town" for Speedway they would get very decent attendances... When they started at the NSS they got 800 and sometimes more at a tenner a time... And that was with the Aces getting around 1700 on average.. The sport is down very much to its "die hards" who will attend "any" Speedway locally... Oxford have shown by choosing to run in the 2nd tier, rather than the first, that the cost v return of the top riders doesnt make for a great business decision... And Plymouth have shown that running on a Saturday, with all the same riders in attendance, can circa double their attendances from a Tuesday night... Workington also changed their starting times on Saturdays and saw a significant increase. Same riders, just a more convenient time for fans to attend. I notice they didn't try and run Monday or Thursday afternoons... The Peterborough team involved in any possible comeback have said crowds were similar for them whether they were in Div 1 or Div 2... The unpalatable truth for some is that paying £20k out for two heat leaders for two meetings from your home meeting, (regardless of whether sponsors pay it or not), is simply ridiculous for a sport that, even in the top tier, can often deliver crowds of less than 1000, (and that alone shows their presence isn't pulling too many in)... It also massively reduces jeopardy in the league as those "few" who can pay that kind of money will always be in the play offs... (And that level of sponsors money would be better used marketing the club, and nationally, the sport)... Poole are the perfect example of a team that simply haven't missed the "top stars" and run on the night they need to, to deliver their best crowd level.. Speedway is a tiny, tiny sport, with my lad playing amateur/semi pro football in front of bigger crowds than many Speedway teams get.. You can see by the fact no one is willing to move up that the top tier operating and business model is not fit for purpose... To keep flogging a dead horse is madness...

Whilst many advocate keeping today’s top riders gainfully employed in the UK at a cost that no club can afford without generous sponsorship, that is a questionable position hold in the overall scheme of things. All who dismiss the lesser known riders and those coming through the ranks at NDL level as not being worthy, please explain where tomorrow’s top star riders are going to come from. Doyle, Lambert, Bewley etc. will not go on forever so where are the stars of the future coming from in the UK. The sport in this country does not have the facilities that the likes of Poland have who are able to have a conveyor belt of talent. Something has to give as the sport means diddly squat to all but a few thousand punters, it does not make good live TV and from an investment aspect you have to be a raving lunatic to put money into a business model where the terms of running are dictated by people and factors over which you as the club owner rarely have control. The sport can survive and rebuild itself but it will never attract a mass audience in the UK to warrant big pay days for the top riders in the world so it needs to cut its cloth accordingly and all the banging on about the need to keep the top tier and top riders and TV deals are just topics that can be debated to death but the reality is that outside the loyal followers no one is interested or listening and while many ideas put forward on here have some merit it is it is not going to influence the way the sport is run now or in the future.

And both will be as well known as each other to the vast majority of the local population... Watching Dan Bewley fly around the fence at the NSS is great, however, watching him cross the finishing line as two rising stars are still getting around bends three and four doesn't make for much of a spectacle... Even four "Superstars" in a race, most times, ends up with the winner being half a straight ahead of fourth... At the NSS. You can basically pay £25 to watch the "Superstars" on a Monday or Thursday, deliver similar racing to what you can see the NDL lads do, for £15, at the weekend... With the vast majority of the local population not knowing their "Dan Bewley's" from their "Will Cairns'".. Or even who Belle Vue are, or what Speedway is... With any title victory for the Aces or the Colts meeting a similar level of recognition locally from the vast majority of the 2.75M who live within 45 mins of the track.. In any business, if you can find a way to deliver a similar standard of product, but for less cost, and then pass that saving onto your customers in a lower price point, then surely that has to be good for your business...? Or even use some of the cost savings to invest in marketing, to get what you sell out into the consciousness of those living within your catchment area...?

Britain competing PL on a Mon/Thu is a relatively new thing and has just about killed off the sport, and the PL in particular, in this country. I take it you're a relative newcomer to Speedway and Ipswich? Personally I think new punters are more likely to want to come and see young Johnny Local making his way to better things in the sport rather than Johan Foreigner who flies in for his pension fund top up.

You said that Tigers will not win any silverware with Cami Brown as Team Manager, I pointed out that they won with the Playoffs with him as Team Manager in 2023. They topped the league this season with him as Team Manager. And almost won the Playoffs this year with him as Team Manager. Basically, my point is that you're talking mince.

I think thats a big assumption that everyone arguing for one league is not a fan of the prem. I am, but logic and history dictates its not working and not affordable in the current climate, if and when it gets to a point that it is then more the merrier, i would like nothing more than two full leagues of teams but it just isnt managable.

Bottom line is that British Speedway at senior level is equivalent of a big boat in the middle of a lake. On one side you have Premiership promoters rowing one way, with the championship promoters sat on the other side rowing the other way. Then you have Rob Godfrey and Phil Morris sat at the tiller scratching their heads wondering why the boats going round in circles.

I really don't understand why some teams should "move up" for the "good of the sport"... Which basically translates into "so my team can ride on Monday or Thursday meaning I can watch some GP riders".... Why don't the Prem teams "drop down for the good of the sport"? Not enough riders? Then run in a reduced level top tier, with five rider teams, at Championship level, "for the good of the sport"? They can still do it on Mondays and Thursdays if certain teams want to.. With GP riders too, using a Championship level team average...

Unfortunately this situation has been predicted over the last 10-15 years and it has arrived.!Who knows what the powers at be will come up with. Many suggestions but who knows what the outcome will.Cant really see it being positive though unfortunately. Back to basics is my solution .The BSPA is secret society full of self interest .The sport has no credibility as a professional Sport which is a major problem in attracting new Fans (and keeping them)

As far as I am aware, the BSPL consists of a number of individual business's. If this is so, they cannot "force" Poole to abandon the Championship for a very uncertain future in the Premier League. Try to force that and I would guess that the Lawyers would be called in and Poole would take it to Court. I would if I was them, I would and I believe they would win. Oh well, that's all right then!!! You are 'all right Jack'!!! There is far too many of your Premier League people trying to close Championship Tracks for my liking. Wanting to sacrifice them on the altar of the Premier League. Not on I'm afraid. I am not being nasty, but your attitude is, prop up the Premier League at all costs and stuff the other Championship Clubs in this Country. Your League has caused all of the problems, and you expect to be bailed out as a right. That is a terrible attitude. I lost my Track fifty two years ago, so I know how it feels. I think you should wait and see what happens at the (rather late) AGM. On this particular matter you have got to me, I feel you are being very selfish and and entitled. Your position on this is dead wrong.

Sadly shows the state of play, the very best wishes to Mick and Co in their battle to get the panthers back but the fact the prem league is hammering on their door when they don't even have a track yet shows the level of desperation to find the sixth team.

The signs were there when I went in the mid 80's after Penhall quit, the time Penhall was at his peak 80-85 was probably the peak time for speedway and Mike Lee who was another huge name started having his problems and declined massively mid 80's onwards. I had stopped going by the time Sky got involved and that slowed down the decline of the sport , the grand prix in my opinion hasn't helped and Poland taking advantage of the UK's long term poor planning and being asleep at the wheel for years didn't help either. You also have so much more to do these day than back in the 80's multi plex cinema's didn't exist outside huge cities, online gaming and dating wasn't a thing, Sky tv wasn't an issue, nor streaming services, youngsters live more indoors these days looking at screens for most of their leisure time. There have undoutably been some dreadful decisions over the years but given the changes in society I'm beginning to think the decline was probably inevitable the british pub industry is collapsing , nightclubs are virtually gone as a lot of the younger generation have no interest in face to face interaction.

Lets face it, Cami Brown will continue as Tigers TM,as long as the Facennas receive money from Browns business interests. He's as good as being the longest TM in tigers history.I am not a fan of his ,never have been, he hasnt good the balls to criticise or give a kick up the backside of riders when need be. He got the job because the Promotion and Stuart Dickson had difference of opinions. Dickson is not a YES man.

Jason Pipe in last weeks Speedway Star says that since 2021, 53 British riders have stopped racing... 20 more stopped in 2019, and 23 stopped in 2018... Seven seasons, 96 riders . Many of whom will have stopped through a lack of a clear development plan and opportunity, and an insistence from NDL promoters that they have two bikes of a standard, and maintain them to that level, that wouldn't leave much change from £10k... And all to try and win a competition that even close followers of the sport would struggle to name the winners of... Hardly anyone outside of Speedway followers could even name who won the top two league competitions, never mind the 3rd one... The whole operating model is inherently flawed and needs a complete overhaul... They could start with every track running a 2nd half of say two groups of four riders, all getting four rides minimum each (from every starting gate), and then the top two from each group have a final... No teams, just individuals in "glorified practice" but with a competitive edge to it.. Hell. There could even be expenses paid to the eight riders and a modicum prize for the winner... Maybe even a national trophy award running through the season with a full final for the top 16 scorers? There has to be a line drawn in the sand now.. And everything then reset from there...

What you're not taking into account are the number of riders that have given the sport up over the last few years, many of them youngsters. If the costs could be kept under control there are still people out there that want to take the sport up. You're looking at a snapshot, you're also looking at the business as usual model 7 rider teams, what the sport needs imo is an amalgamation of all 3 leagues into 1 league with a race format meaning that Jack Smith (a capable Speedway rider at his level) isn't racing against the likes of Chris Harris/Richard Lawson all the time, it's maybe even time to introduce handicap racing which used to be the norm in the US, not sure if it still is. There was a big watering down of the CL a couple or 3 years back and nobody liked it, nobody even talks and probably remembers that now. I know from my own club that crowds are visibly lower in the PL on a Monday/Thursday than they were in the CL on a Saturday night... and that's a FACT 😁 Would you have been so vocal about the survival of the top flight when Ipswich were running in the 2nd tier from 2011 to 2018, would you have been so insistent that your club should be forced to have moved up to save the top tier? I'd also be intrigued to know why you think the BAU model will work when it's been proven not to work over the last 20 years... and that was WITH a tv contract?

And why not? By the law of averages... One day it must work!!!!! As that saying goes.. Give an infinite number of monkeys a typewriter each and let them bang away on the keys, and one day, one of them, will eventually, type out a whole page of Shakespeare..

I genuinely hope we never get to find out which of our opinions is right

Why should a Championship take the risk though,all it is achieving is propping up an unsustainable Premiership for another season. There is no miracle recovery in sight for Top League.Top riders in the sport have no interest in riding in GB in the near future.

They pretty much were in effect! Louis was unsure it was viable so to help save the top flight, agreed to sell the club to Chapman but stay on as promoter. He could have easily taken the easy option and ran Ipswich comfortably in the second tier, but done what he thought was right to help the top flight and British Speedway as a whole. Chapman then backed out of that deal a mere weeks later (thank god) but by that time rules and structures were in place and Louis had no choice but to go through with it. It’s almost as if he’d been conned in to taking Ipswich up isn’t it?… But he got his head down, hired people to canvass around all the local businesses around the town and surrounding areas to bring in as many sponsors as he possibly could. He worked his @rse off to build the club up to make it financially viable to run a Premiership team to the point where we are today. He must have had his doubts like others probably do currently, but he’s proven to all the Championship promoters that with hard work, dedication and commitment you CAN make it work. Let’s not forget your club Leicester and Sheffield were also Championship clubs not too long ago, and both have made a good fist of running in the Premiership. Sadly, SOME in the Championship simply don’t want to bother even trying to make the same effort (I’m talking about a small minority that have the set up already in place to make a good fist of it), or in probably the majority of cases, just don’t want to take the risk and are happily plodding along where they are under their safety blanket. Is it THAT too much to ask for one, or two Championship clubs to give it a go for a solitary season to help the top flight be viable in the very short term, with the agreement that if their fears are realised and it doesn’t work, they can move back to the Championship in 2027? Just one season to help keep things moving in both divisions whilst a longer term plan for the sport on the whole can be put in place.

This situation has not happened over night though. There should be a rolling plan year on year with minor tweaks so promotors and fans then know what to expect, ok there has been a curve ball with club closures this past year but season on season its a farce. Why not state by 2027 it will be one league and plans in place now for those who wish to participate. You don't see other sports changing rules yearly. My guess will be sticky plaster plans for 2026 same old and all moaning same old issues. It needs a complete re write that will clearly upset many but it needs to happen that will either push the sport on or kill it to death.

After his guest appearance this season I’m almost certain Thomsen will be nowhere near a Glasgow race suit next year.

To use the Tiger's academy meeting as an example is not really fair, it was very much after the Lord Mayors show on a dark October evening asking fans to turn out to watch a bunch of riders they have zero affinity with. And I did say new Speedway fans. NDL is pitifully attended, that's because it shouldn't be being sold as a product and should be being included as part of the senior teams race night package imo. All clubs crowds are pitifully attended in the terms of other "professional" sports with maybe only County Championship cricket being the exception, but they certainly make up for that with the other formats of their sport, in fact you could possibly compare the County Championship to our NDL. @mikebv has pretty much covered the rest 👍

Track prep looks like nothing much has changed

Agree , that’s a strong team

I don't think it's a question of what team or teams will go up,more likely how many teams are going to go down to the championship!

Round 1 3rd January Albury round 2 4th Jan Albury round 3 7th Jan Mildura round 4 9th Jan Gillman BSN are streaming PPV all 4 meetings plus the following 2 matches for £44.99 27th December 2025 Phil Crump meeting Mildura 11th Jan FIM Oceania championship Gillman

A shame to lose all that encyclopedic knowledge.... A huge blow to the sport.... Maybe he could still go on Celebrity Mastermind? Specialist subject? "Speedway from the 60's to the present day"...

I’m back on the 360 podcast tomorrow night with Simon lambert, Stuart Robson and Andrew Bain, I will be giving my pennies worth about what I think about the dire situation we are currently in

all you are saying is lets do what we did last year. crowds are going down even with the top lads, as it will next year no different,

Pretty much and barely anyone is going to turn up to watch it. The League won't even be to the same standard as the current CHAMPIONSHIP let alone PREMIERSHIP. As I've told Fans on here from Day 1, If the PREM Collapses then the CHAMP Collapses with it.

Results wise maybe but Sheffield is currently up for sale because the owner's business can't cover the losses the club makes and if rumours are to be believed the Leicester owner also wants out and who can blame him as that same Sheffield owner took us up, moved us to Thursday nights, saw the crowds drop and sold up.

We have fixture chaos and dozens of guests now, so how will we spot the difference? A top league of eight teans will need forty riders with five to a team.. And, if all run on every night apart from Tuesday and Sunday all will be available for their HOME meeting and some/most aways... If there is common sense, then anyone 8 points and over from last seasons Prem should get their average capped at 12, so that team can keep a "top rider" if they so wish, and still build a decent five rider team... A couple of my mates retired before me and got bored... So now they do Amazon drops... 7am to 3pm, earning around £120 a day.. Meaning if they did five days they get £600.. Circa £30k a year. A Championship No1 will be on around £2k a night if the Championship was the top tier... Eight teams in a league home and away twice as a minimum is £56k... Add in an Amazon job, with decent hours to still do Speedway ,and that is circa £86k a year. (Other jobs are available).... Comfortably in the top 10% of UK earners.... Or they double up for around £1k a night in second tier at Champ/NDL level... Or ride in Sweden, Poland and Denmark. (For one season at least)... This obsession with high earning GP riders who restrict teams to Mondays and Thursdays baffle me... Especially as they don't generate crowds which justify their expense... They have, sadly, outgrown the UK version of the sport...

An eight team "top league" racing on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday depending on what is their best night to deliver the biggest crowds... The level being very much Championship standard, but if a team wants to run on Monday and Thursday so they can use a GP rider with a "high average" then they do so and just build the rest of the team around them... Five riders per team, no rising stars, use the Danish model so plenty of rides per meeting for each rider... Anyone riding in Poland or Denmark may miss away meetings from time to time so just use a guest. Like happens ad nauseum now... As long as they ride at home then, "where the money is made", is protected... Second tier, six teams, seven riders per team ran at a hybrid Championship/NDL level, (the current stand alone clubs and the NORA ones may also be interested)... Riders can double up with, again, a high average for the better ones, with the rest of the team built around them.. Two, two point reserves in every 2nd tier team, a) to give those starting out track time, and b) to help offset the costs of a DU'ing No1... Each club to run at least a 9 heat second half of those needing development....

Two decades too late. But 100% the only way forward...

I apologise to anyone who finds this disrespectful. NDL attendances are abysmal and that's because the vast majority of Die Hard Fans that we've still got left couldn't care less about it. So how on earth are we suppose to get a New Generation of Fans on board when it comes to the same crop of NDL Riders that'll be propping up 1 Big League to cover mass departures of PREM Riders? Here's the math. 27 of the 49 PREM Riders who ended the 2025 Season in a declared 1-7 D/UP'd in the CHAMP = 55% of the League and those 27 Riders will no longer be shared between PREM & CHAMP Clubs. If One Big League was to happen and fixtures didn't take place on a MON & THU Night, Then we're going to need replacements for the other 22 Riders who finished the 2025 Season in a declared PREM 1-7 as none of them will be here. Add that Rider shortage up and also take into account the 2027 Polish Rule and you'll see that One Big League is a 1 Million % destined failure before it's even begun.

With the biggest mistake being "if we bring back the top riders the crowds will come back too"... Obviously forgetting that the crowds were dropping annually when pretty much all the top riders rode over here on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday... With the year on year inflation busting admission increases needed to pay them certainly not helping the crowd numbers at the time... I would say crowds overall in the past decade are pretty similar, given such low numbers, and, as the sport is now pretty much bomb proof from the die hards support for it, any drop is mainly down to an ever ageing fanbase for the most part, rather than "who is riding".... With not enough "newbies" to replace that ageing fanbase... To choose vehemently to run in the entertainment business on a Monday and Thursday night only, is a strange hill to die on...

I overheard Kurtz in a bar last week saying that it has always been his dream to quit the GP's and ride for Workington in the Championship. At least i think it was him, he was ginger but i'd had a few jars.

Exactly. So a pointless exercise in preaching to the converted! Not a single non-speedway fan in the hall, but some misguided souls think promoters should have been there, "marketing the sport" to people who weren't there.

Exactly that. All this 'your league' stuff is the reason there will never be any progress. You can't have the two competing against each other, if they can't work together then they're all doomed.

Bang on, but regarding a price decrease. Will never happen sadly, look at the admission for champ teams last season, it’s not far off prem really.

Bradford were Champions and closed... Workington too.... The top tier simply isn't fit for purpose in its current guise... (Nor has it been for well over a decade)... An Aces team, riding in one league,on a Friday with the likes of Charles Wright at No1, would, for me, deliver (at least) the same level of crowd that they get on a Monday with the 2nd and 3rd best riders in the world in attendance... And would be significantly cheaper to run, thus hopefully, significantly cheaper to attend... I actually think the crowd would increase due to "no school or work" for many the next day...

I wouldn’t no. Not until it had a total shake up from the bottom . None of this them and us rubbish regarding both the leagues. It’s all the same sport isn’t it . The two leagues should be intertwined. Meaning promotion and relegation. None of this I’m only racing in that league and on that night crap. I know riders race in different countries on different nights. Surely there’s a way to get around that. More complicated issues than that in life have been overcome. The current model doesn’t work, causes divisions. It’s only going one way. There has to be jeopardy to the sport to make it more attractive and entertaining. No doubt I’m living in cuckoo land wanting this though.

Don't know why Glasgow would be talking to him. He's too old and too Danish for a place in the Northern Junior League with the Ashfield Giants. That's about his standard round Ashfield.

Judging by the attendance when Ipswich staged the “Tiger’s academy open” meeting a few weeks ago, including the latest Great British hope Cooper Rushen, I’d say you’re wrong and spectacularly wrong. Look, people on this forum are obviously die hard fans of the sport where any level of speedway is seen as great. But they’re in a tiny tiny minority. I’ve seen someone say on here recently that we don’t need the “GP Stars” because riders of a far lesser ability can provide “just as good racing”. But that isn’t reflected in the attendance the further you go down the Speedway pyramid. The NDL is pitifully attended. You can literally stand there and count the supporters in between races. So not many actually want to see “Johnny Local” making his way to better things at all. The hugely successful Championship that has their “house in order”, is also embarrassingly attended. You’ll get the odd anomaly such as Poole and Glasgow who get decent crowds by Championship standards, but they are an exception to the rule. The majority in that league have pitiful attendance figures. Any Poole fan by the way that comes on here and try’s to convince people that the crowd levels they’re seeing in the Championship aren’t that much different to the crowds they got when they had Holder and Ward ruling the roost, or Trick and Leigh Adams before them, are lying. Simple as that. The fact of the matter is, that attendances has steadily declined in this Country over the last 10-20 years, and that has coincided with an ever dwindling number of world class riders that ride over here to the point we now have only a small handful left. There are other factors as to why attendances have dwindled of course there are, but let’s please stop pretending that having or not having, the best riders in the world riding here doesn’t make a difference! Of course it bloody well does. Rider costs have spiralled out of control for the very top riders and any increase in attendance at tracks that manage to sign them, wouldn’t in all likelihood cover the financial outlay to get them over and that is the problem. It’s a catch22 situation unfortunately but getting shot of the ones we do still have, water the product down even further, and the death of the sport in this Country will gather pace at a rate of knots. You can forget any meaningful sponsorship or TV deal! Nobody will be interested. There’s a reason nobody, even back to the Sky Sports days, were remotely interested in showing anything below the top tier.

True! Flying in and out of Glasgow would be a lot easier.

Actually, BSPL is a limited company and one of the directors is Danny Ford, along with Damien Bates, who wants out, the other 2 directors are Chris Louis and Rob Godfrey, so 2 PL, 2 CL.

I said the same, however Klima rather than Bowtell, Ritchings at 7

Just seen Thomsen wont be at Poole in 2026 due to Danish commitments... A perfect pick up for Plymouth at 2

This might not go down well with some people on here , but why dont the Championship Promoters get on with the job of building there teams to a 40 point limit, 2 home and away against each team in the Championship, Have the draw for the KO CUP,BSN Trophy Sections. name their Teams and leave the Prem to sort out their own bloody mess,that will take until Jan to resolve. Glasgow and Poole will NOT be moving up,which would be financial disaster for both, and no other Championship side would survive.

But it’s blindingly obvious the premier league is unsustainable in it”s current guise so why force someone to go up if it can mean the end of a track. You only have to look at Oxford and see the damaged done by being in the top flight and then you here about losses made at other tracks and it’s bloody scary. British speedway needs to cut it’s cloth and run at a level that is sustainable and if it means the top boys don’t return and even some of the lesser riders go then so be it.