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Wanting the best isn’t wrong. Living beyond your means to achieve it is. And eventually you’ll just go bust. Sound familiar? The sport cannot sustain having the best riders here. You must surely see that. All this “not enough riders,” stuff is nonsense. There are plenty but because of self-created circumstances over a number of years they’re not at the level they once were. There’s not an overnight fix but the situation can be rectified over time. The answer is to cut cloth accordingly now to ensure the possibility of one day being able to have a thriving sport here again, including the best riders in the world hopefully. It might not happen, but it might. Carry on as we are and it is a certainty to not happen. Sometimes you have to go backwards before you can go forwards. Being solvent is a pretty good first step.

Phil Morris gave evidence in person at the save coventry speedway enquiry and did a good job. He has also made the show slicker by standardising things and meetings over the last couple of seasons have moved through more quickly.

Reaping what they sow by having the backbone to stand by their more sustainable model and not sacrificing one of their number to hold up the unsustainable top level for another year. The Premiership is the division killing off clubs, not the Championship.

I tell you who will notice... land developers, for British Speedway to "choose" to run without 5 clubs next season is unthinkable and would be a suicidal move. Just at the point where the likes of Coventry, Swindon, Peterborough, Lakeside, Rye House, Wolverhampton et al are trying to prove to the local and national authorities that there is a need for these tracks to reopen if the powers that be decided to do this it'd be close to game over for those clubs.

Rye House was a track available 365 days of the year and had a history of producing young riders. How many young riders have been lost to the sport or never had the opportunity due to the ineptitude of the pair of idiots(Chapman and Godfrey) in charge at the time that saw the track unlawfully ripped out?

Yes I am worried there may be no speedway. we had a save our speedway in 1995 and like many others I’m a member of the 400 club some 30 years on but this scenario isn’t a financial one at the moment. The club is extremely well run and has many sponsors and is viable. however next season there won’t be no tv money which is rumoured to be £60k. Not only that will the sponsors want to pay the same money for no national tv coverage ? Unlikely. if the league is reduced to 5 teams will fans pick and choose or stop coming so often because it’s the same old faces ? Chris Louis deserves a lot of credit and respect for what he has done for our club and I can only imagine this is his last resort. im guessing as this is his primary income he isn’t going to gamble it away in a 5 team league. Maybe some of the other teams which are subsidised by their owners are willing to? Who knows. I don’t agree with some saying he has thrown his toys out. Like all democratic organisations you reform from within but he seems to have reached a point where he has had enough and doesn’t like the direction the sport is going. there had been no mud slinging just a for sale notice going up at foxhall. im desperately hoping a resolution can be reached and Chris will carry on but I’m less optimistic. But thank you to John and Chris for providing us with such service over so many years.

The counter-argument could be that plenty of these had larger fanbases than some of those that currently still operate and therefore they are of more benefit to the sport in general.

But what can they do if they want a 6 team Premiership & not enough teams want to join them? They can't just make Poole or Glasgow move up.

Gotta agree with arnieg here. On average teams that started on 40, should end on 42. If clubs start next season on 42, that should be the same strength as last year's sides starting on 40. So a 40 point limit is weakening the league. If the limit was raised to 41, the league would still be weaker (statistically).

Was never in doubt, 2026 was supposed to be the original plan but the way things panned out for us last year we thankfully managed to get him over for a few months last year to gain valuable experience. Shoukd kick on again next year, great kid.

Mike, You generally have your finger on the pulse and put forward some decent ideas, but it seems that you like many others have missed the current goings on in the Midlands, you mention Wolves and Coventry but missed out the 1 team that has irons in the fire in that they have land, and are making slow but sure progress in obtaining the necessary planning that is needed to progress further, so far as I am aware everything is in place to move ahead should those permissions eventually be forthcoming, take a look. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550875127536

What veterans are we talking about ?The championship racing is a lot better than any premiership meetings I have seen ,maybe apart from the playoff final or maybe Poole home meetings 😉

Its an absolute tragedy. What's just as shocking is there are folk on this forum justifying the direction the sport is going and (dare I say it) palpably celebrating the demise of more clubs.

Think most fans don’t give sh#t these days ,just go along with flow to see a meeting. No credibility in the sport . Racing can be OK though.

The sad reality is not many in the UK will even notice, nor care, if five teams don't come to the tapes next year.... It's been ran like a private members club, with, for a good many, a hobby rather than a sport, for so long, to become almost irrelevant... Eastbourne, Somerset, Peterborough, Coventry, Swindon, Wolves, Stoke, Exeter, Reading, Newport, Lakeside, Newcastle, Hull, Rye House, and the IOW have all closed since 2005 from the top two leagues.. Hardly been a ripple from outside the sport has there?

Championship Clubs, forced up into the " higher" league, have always had to run with "left overs" so no change there

Money some Premiership Clubs can’t afford though.Thats a problem.

It is doomed whatever they do, given the lack of teams, the high average age of the HL level of riders, and the lack of riders of the required level being developed... Keeping the patient on life support in the hope a miracle cure is found over the next two or three years is probably the best all can hope for.. It shows just how much the sport in the UK is just set up for the riders to earn as much as they possibly can, rather than being set up to be seen as bona fide team sport championships..

Of course.. However .. Being profitable down to having great sponsorship doesn't help when developers move in... Having thousands in attendance every week does make a difference when you want to influence a local authority and, possibly even more importantly, having the local councillors of those thousands, having to listen to them and support their views... Or they get voted out..

Perhaps he's delayed it as a deal is close to being concluded.... Fingers crossed if so

The developers moved in because they could... If those clubs had 5,000 a week then that would have been a very different scenario played out... I remember a photo of about 30 Swindon fans stood by a gate with some badly hand written signs... This was a "protest", and didn't "look good".. 5,000 fans, plus friends and acquaintances, walking through Swindon on a Saturday afternoon doing a "proper protest" and what has happened since might not have taken place... 5,000 fans and the landlords would get much more rent too, so maybe not so quick to "cash in".. Sadly, it took a long time for the custodians of the sport to "get it together" to try and defend the tracks, as a collective, against fhe developers.. The cynic in me could even think that some saw a closure as an opportunity to gain certain riders for fhe following season.. So many tracks lost in the past two decades, and, even now, 14 promoters seemingly cannot agree on how to run the sport, with some more clubs closing being a possible outcome...

In much the same way that £1 in 2024 is the same as £1 now. Except it's not in reality, is it?

If it comes to it that there is to be no Prem in 2026 but one league the general consensus is that there will be an insufficient number of riders to field a league of More than nine teams at an absolute push. No one should be surprised if none of the Prem clubs come to the tapes in 2026 especially if they are expected to make do with “left overs” for team building. Much better to spend 2026 planning ahead for a seven or eight team Prem in 2027 - if at all. Otherwise it’s a sad farewell to the Aces, Lions, Tigers, Stars & Witches with special thanks to the surviving promoters who really will reap what they sow.

Agree as the league strength is diluted, riders scores / average goes up, so the following season riders appear to be stronger/higher average, but the teams are actually weaker, if you get my drift

It's the same number ie 40 but not the same strength.

The only reason Championship clubs get away with paying riders peanuts, is because the Premiership pays them proper money. With no Premiership, riders will be very unhappy!

I'm alright Jack - our model is working.... It's a Premiership problem.... Why should we help sort it out.... Etc etc Well look at the facts of the funding and decide for yourself who will be left riding in the Championship at the same rates with no Premiership Take you typical double upper Championship heat leader riding as second string in the Premiership Approx 30 meetings in each league , 130-140 rides in each scoring approx 250 points in Premiership and 300 points in Championship. Averages approx 6.50/8.50 For the sake of ease of calculation pay per point is £200 in Premiership and £100 in Championship (someone else can qualify how accurate that may be) Income from Premiership £50,000 Income from Championship £30,000 Estimate of cost £20,000 initial plus season running costs £10,000 - total £30,000 Rider net profit £50,000 No Premiership - £50,000 down. Offset by reduced costs say £10,000 Generous allowance for extra 10 Championship meetings in bigger league £10,000 Rider net profit £20,000 - less than equivalent for minimum wage job So there is already a significant question mark over the number of riders being sufficient to make a feasible league How many seeing the above simply say no thanks? It wouldn't need many to make that choice to render the whole set up unworkable As the saying goes - Show me I'm wrong!

2 brilliant signings for Edinburgh so far

Oh that elusive planning permission, that indeed is the only thing stopping the whole thing at the moment, it’s a lot of money to put up so cradley have got to jump through all the hoops to make sure the planing permission application doesn’t fail and there are a lot of hoops

Hope it goes well... There must still be many people from that neck of the woods who still would return to support the team such was their local following... Bigger crowds than Wolves at Monmore wasn't it? Which suggests a huge potential.. Loved my visits to Cradley, especially the pork sandwiches!! Watched one of the best races in the thousands I have seen at Dudley Wood.. Jason Lyons led Billy Hamill for two and three quarter laps and Billy went under him on bend four, lap three.. Jason chased him and repassed him, bend two on the outside, on the last lap.. Not many races see a "repass" when a top rider is in front, without him making a mistake.. A cracking race track (even if the second turn had a bit of adverse camber), and always a very big crowd... Best Wishes...

More of you should try the digital subscription. I know its not convenient for everyone tho. Id say if you have a tablet then go for it, make the change... Like Speedway, get into the modern day!!!

There’s a oap home waiting for you 💦

Not entirely true. Granted new clubs have found it tough in the last couple of years but when in 2023 the Lions rejoined the Premier League they finished level with Ipswich in fourth place on 34 points which was fourteen & twenty four points more than established clubs Peterborough and Kings Lynn respectively.

Solution is simple. Don't let the tail (the riders) wag the dog (British Speedway). Come up with the best solution for British Speedway.

But that is one of the major problems the sport has... They are all "minnow clubs" in the grand scheme of things... Do any average more than 1800 a meeting? Many seem to average less than 1000... It must be so difficult for those working hard to bring tracks back, and make out the local community "wants Speedway" that, when they ran, hundreds rather than thousands, regularly visited those tracks....

Reading through this its clear we have had a few characters over the years - Simmo going missing seems to be a theme as he quit Arena mid way through 1989 after his ankle injury, never to be seen again. Always had a soft spot for leaping Len when Andrew was riding for Arena he was usually around. I always had a lot of time for Peter Thorogood - down to earth fella and they ran a tight ship at Arena - mainly cos they had too! When Terry Russell and Ivan Henry came in i felt he was cast aside somewhat (unfairly) and then when they quit to head off to Hackney - he was back rescuing us in 1996! By all accounts the Northern tours were very much what happens on tour stays on tour!

To quote Dennis Healey “The first law of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging.”

He was due to be on gen x this morning now delayed until Monday at 9:45

Is there really a need for these tracks to reopen though? Where would the riders come from to fill the teams? Forget guesting, some would need to sign for two teams in the same league!!! Isn't the cold hard reality that these clubs closing has actually helped to keep others going?

Riss has already said he is giving GB a miss.

No young lad, Ben Whalley, but will be based down south from what I read on fb, but has recently got a GB passport.

Surely it should be the end of season figures we should be looking at? Seven out of the nine CL teams ended with a total average above the 40 limit, so starting next season on 40 means it is weaker?

Not as simple as that... Some Double Uppers may get their best individual sponsorship from someone who follows their Championship team... Eg a new bike paid for... To presume those already signed for Championship teams would "jump ship" for "more money" should one league happen, and that be the only option, is too simplistic... Especially as signed contracts hold people to account ..

I've read that Sittingbournes stadium has new owners looking to increase the stadiums use.

He is a good young exciting rider, accidents are going to happen. I would think he is capable of increasing his average a little.

Well if he wants to ride for Belle Vue that's his choice, if he prefers Poland on weekends that's also his choice, basically whenever Belle Vue decide to ride in whatever League, riders have the choice to make in the same way that most of us choose where and when to work, sometimes we have to do what we don't like doing.

I always found as a kid that the star was a brilliant read due to not having the internet at the time. Every Thursday evening it would be full of news that you didn't know about, used to find out about signings every week in it even for my home team. As soon as we got internet on our computer, the star became a waste of time and money as everything in there was already on the internet. It will have interviews and maybe pictures not seen online but all the main news is already out there by the time its released. I do think the star is a great product though. Well presented, neat and tidy. Well it was the last time I seen one. This forum used to be alight during the winter back in the day. I was just browsing various sub-forums on here then and to see it so quiet is quite sad. The main forum on here now is the General Discussion forum, which I think says it all and even that hasn't had a post for over a day. Very sad to see as even though it has its faults, its been the center of the British Speedway fans community for over 20 years. Hopefully picks up during the season.

For a contrary view I usually turn first to the Foreign Newsdesk - all the contributors do a great job and I'd happily see them given more space. I agree with you that it's rare to find a rider interview that is genuinely illuminating and that given the circumstances the Star does well to keep going.

I've also taken Speedway Star for a very long time - since I first followed Birmingham in 1953, and I think they do very well to produce such a good quality magazine - especially during the close-season when there is not too much going on for them to report on. If I have a criticism, I think far too much space is devoted to foreign affairs. Last week there was a double page spread about a training camp in Denmark and this week's edition has an extensive similar feature which has just taken place in Poland. There is also the weekly "Polish Scene" and quite extensive reports of European, Australian, and American events and plans, none of which I find particularly interesting. Rider interviews are tending to be a bit repetitive too - with a big overuse of the description "cool" in too many of them - and I dislike and object to, the growing use of casual bad language in some features. These are generally, fairly minor criticisms and I'd say overall, that Speedway Star is still a pretty good read.