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Who are the idiots still fighting for a Premiership? Lemon, Chapman and Dickson? It's done, all over Get on with one league and adapting the race format. Get rid of the nonsense of riders riding for multiple clubs, race on a night of the clubs choosing and start again. The current model is finished.

If there is no Premiership I won't be purchasing a BSN Championship pass No way am I funding the clubs (indirectly - no blame to BSN) partly responsible for its downfall should it happen

i think the premiership promoters have managed the majority of the downfall by themselves

British speedway is saved, hurrah 🥳 sir Phillip Davies is appointed by speedway futures Ltd, he loves speedway so much he said the same quote as Harry Redknapp on his appointment, personally I was having my doubts about British speedway surviving but this appointment has restored my hope for the future 😳

Any top rider opting out of the UK isn't good, but Jason Doyle doing so speaks volumes. This is one rider who'd go to the opening of an envelope if he could race speedway, if he doesn't think the UK is worthwhile then it makes you wonder.

Why should championship change racenight to suit premiership, which would put most in financial difficulty. Not our fault Premiership is in the state it is in.

Good luck and good health Erik, always be welcome at Redcar whatever race jacket you're wearing.

You ever known someone who excels at their own job but the people around them are useless… I think everyone has and this is case and point, if a select few idiots are next to him and you have to have a majority vote it doesn’t really matter what your title is. He ran the best performing speedway club in the country so he knows a thing or to about success.

I don't mind him commenting on a Poole thread but Lisa has a point Ipswich have more problems to solve than us. We have a good team for 2026 and should challenge for honours.

Now.... You know that... I know that .. And most on here know that, and have all said it for well over a decade .. However....

gilkes . Poor imo . They need to make some decent signings to finish as apart from Lawson and cairns not good

Maybe you should be more concerned about Ipswich!!

My local football team has the kids on at half time, kicking around with the mascot and doing silly stuff. It's fun for everyone and a great part of community engagement. But it's not the product. Without the 10,000 fans coming to watch the football there is no business. That's the product. This forum is full of fans with ideas and, in isolation, they are not bad ideas but the speedway product is so fundamentally damaged that points limits, race formats or, indeed, giving out sweets to kids, are not the answers. I have no idea what the answer is, but if speedway didn't exist and I just had a brainwave for a new sport which involved motorbike riders hurtling around a dirt track, this wouldn't be what I would come up with.

What part of handing out sweets and having a mascot is working for BV? Genuine question… it adds to a family day out (possibly/probably) but it’s not adding numbers to the gate, it doesn’t encourage late teenagers/20-50yr olds through the door. It doesn’t add professionalism or credibility, these are things to add on when your product is working, not a starting point.

Poole desperately need Zach Cook to sign …. If it’s not him that’s a bang average side

Yes he shows the same loyalty in Poland too, keeps Częstochowa in the extraleague, celebrates like they won the extraleague them next day signs for someone else,don’t kid yourself as much as Jason has some loyalty to Ipswich and it would probably be his preference, he would ride elsewhere if the money was there

If Ipswich do not come to the tapes next year then for the time being it is all over for the witches but like most on here we all hope it does not come to this but the reality is that at this stage in proceedings they have little or no hope of putting together a competitive team to grace either championship or premiership league and at best they could run an NDL team or if it still exists allow open meetings but I suspect the latter has been all but ruled out by the arseholes who allegedly run the sport. To my mind it is now all about keeping tracks open at whatever level because once they are lost it is game over. Permit tracks to put on meetings at whatever level until the authorities can decide what to do going forward. I would rather see a few good individual meetings at Ipswich rather than see the track lost to the sport. Over the years Rye house and many others have in the past survived on the basis of individual meetings but it really depends on what the overall plan is for the sport but at this stage that plan does appear not exist. Headless chickens, self interest and perpetual denial leaves the sport where it is today. Anyone that thinks you can afford to lose a club like Ipswich to the sport of speedway has lost the plot.

Without a TV contract, what 'extra' money do Prem clubs have? It's not as if their income from crowds over a full season's fixtures is any better than most in the Championship.

IF.. Still nowhere near big enough

Can't blame any rider for not hanging around waiting, it was inevitable really that they would start to look elsewhere rather than wait until January for any guarantee. Hopefully not the last we've seen of Doyle over here, but if it is then thanks for the 20 years or so he's given to the sport in this country.

Works well at Glasgow. The kids race after heat 10/11 is hugely popular, and is now 2 different races. All the kids get a sweetie at the end. Most kids beat the mascot, and Ben Basso was a regular participant when he was a Tiger. The promotion have spent a lot of money doing up the stadium, and making an entertaining race track, and employing an entertaining team as well, but for the kids it seems that their races (under/over 10) are a big part of their night at the speedway as nearly all kids in the stadium take part in it (and most adults seem to be watching it)

Has it really been destroyed by those in privileged positions or just kept alive by fans with a bit of money? It is a different world now and it's hard to plan for the future when just getting through today is hard enough, it's a problem many people face on a daily basis. It is a different world now. Pubs, cinemas, high street shops, nightclubs, signwriters, coal miners, airlines, motorcycle manufacturers... the list of businesses, industries and professions to have died, or way past their halcyon days are many. Team speedway was of it's time, when fans were happy standing on terraces, smoking a woodbine, chanting appreciation songs and blowing airhorns. Today's speedway is trying to be all that and is run by people who remember all that. It's yesterday's sport and stuff like league structures, race formats and team makeups are just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Speedway did prepare for the future. It's called the Grand Prix but it doesn't appeal to the purist. League speedway is dead in three years, but its thanks to those in the 'privileged positions' that it wasn't dead three years ago. I was amazed it wasn't another Covid casualty...

It's little more than an expensive hobby for most, and one that they, and those who regularly attend, happily collude to make out it has some relevance, and resonance. All cobbled together so the riders get a chance to be "professional" for six months of a year... The operating model clearly doesn't work, (as we see each season that it gets used), however, the skill set required to maximise what is very much a unique product in its most raw form, simply doesn't exist.... And those who run the sport show no signs of ever bringing anyone in who maybe could maximise its potential... Yet, will quite happily pay well over seven figures collectively to all the riders who, in the main, put hardly one extra person through the turnstiles... (Quite baffling)...

Never said they couldn't.

especially when/if Rushen signs elsewhere.

I saw this the other day from 1933 and the remarkable thing is how much of the presentation has not changed since then:

Is handing out sweets and having someone dressed up like an extra from Paw Patrol really going to bring speedway into the 21st century? It's just the old ideas being regurgitated. So basically get three of the people whose old school thinking has helped us get into the state we're in. The sport needs a dictator, who will run the sport with a view to making profit and without the rose tinted glasses. Sadly I don't think it can be run at a profit, which is why it will die a death in the next few years.

Plenty of winter activities planned, how teams announce there lineup is down to them. Personally I don’t think there is a wrong or right way it’s solely down to what way suits them.

I'd rather have socks 😚

It might be a case that we just have to accept the sport in the UK at the level we have known it previously is now over. I mentioned before i stopped going in my late teens in the early 90's when I discovered nightclubs , fast forward 33 years and nightclubs that pulled in thousands of people on a Saturday night then are all gone. The nearest city to me had 10 night clubs in the early 90's now it has one tiny one, and loads of pubs have closed over that time frame also, places that from 1990 -2005 if you had said to me one day all these will be gone you would have thought never going to happen but it did. Its accelerated since then with social media really taking off a lot of the youth of today have near zero interest in going out, online gaming, dating app's so you don't physically have to trawl out rounds pubs any more looking for a likely partner. Why bother with restaurants get Deliveroo to drop off a pizza to your door, Blockbusters video gone the way of the Dodo when streaming caught on. I occasionally look back at threads on here from 10 years or so back, and there's loads of names I come across who are no longer posting, I would guess there is maybe 50 of us die hards on here now posting and hoping a miracle happens so even this forum is probably on last knockings. Really sad how its ended up all be it the sport has actually limped on for far longer than i thought it would but these days its a struggle to attract punters even when you are offering a professional leisure opportunity let alone when you are trying to attract people to a sport where the riders all ride for different teams every other week and after the first month in you can pretty much guarantee every week from the two teams on show there will most likely be at least 2-4 of the combined 14 riders missing. It really does look like checkmate is nearing I would say one big league but the argument that there has to be some form of even dire top league to subsidise the bottom league as far as rider earnings goes does have merit as an argument, so it really is a case of least bad outcome. I would imagine it will be a five team top league in 2026 with a view to finding a sacraficial lamb to get it up to six in 2027 unless someone with a load of money and no business sense can be shoe horned into getting Northampton running in 2027.

You have question what all the talk was at Promoters Meeting during the season.It must have been around a5 Team Premiership at best.Even the most gullible fan could see there was not a queue to join Premiership.

I suppose if Ipswich closes, it could be to Mildenhall's advantage. Different speedway for sure, but still 4 bikes riding an oval track. Somehow, speedway needs to reinvent itself. When you consider the number of tracks speedway has lost over the years and still losing, it really is on life support! 😪

Because the short-sighted Championship clubs would not entertain forming one league, something that CL was willing to embrace...

Complete comedy show,and what a shower the british promoters are.

Glasgow are the benchmark business in terms of the product they offer, perhaps down to having solid businesspeople at the helm. It's still hard to imagine they make money and the product is still very bobble hat. I never intended to come across as saying this sort of stuff is bad, but in the grand scheme of things it's not the silver bullet. Glasgow is the benchmark because so many things they do are better than the others, I'd argue Belle Vue is a similar case. It's about knowing your audience and putting together a proposition for them. Glasgow appear to be good at this but there's not much flex to be creative in your offering in speedway. It would be great to see promotions able to offer something more tailored to their own audience. Isle of Wight being an example of where a product built for tourists, who don't care about team racing, could give them an offering very different to the one at, say Poole, Belle Vue or Glasgow.

See you down there! Plymouth do seem to be leading the way with their initiatives 👍🏻

The Doyle news being another nail in the coffin of this once great sport. From the early days and that magical smell to summer USA test matches at Hyde Road etc . Televised coverage to the point where everyone knew about speedway. It’s been destroyed by those in privileged positions with no regard to the future. But then it’s a different world now. All we of a certain age can do now is reminisce. Today’s generation don’t even have this sport in their mindset. It was always going to reach a conclusion one day. That day has almost definitely come.

Pathetic running of a sport that he is a director of….

Good signing, we hope he stays fit as he is a great rider to watch.

I don't blame him because as it stands at the moment there is no top tier Speedway in the UK in 2026

I think its probably down to Stock cars holding less meetings and your not facing seeing the same team 4-6 times per season syndrome. I remember going to Lynn a few years back when it was a world team cup round (Billy Hamill) had come out of retirement to help the USA for the event. This was my first meeting after many years away and there must have been 5-6k turn out for it so it shows for the right event people will still come. Maybe a shorter calendar for the top league if it survives might be one of the ways forward with less but better meetings run over May to August possibly.

So no Doyle in UK next season No Emil in UK next season Rumours no jack holder in UK next season. Is there any point in a top league really?????

Changing the subject slightly, my mother used to think EF meant Eventually Fell. 'He wobbled for a couple of laps, before he eventually fell'

I was under the impression that as a forum you can post on whatever thread you want. Im pretty sure that’s how a public forum works.

4.91, so would not fit if the expected Mitch and Luke return, the top heavy team might just work if Rushen signs for the team his pen had on it… Looks like they will have a top 5 that can compete with Glasgows either way

6 weeks you mean lol

You know what that means you'll be able to book a 3 week holiday and not miss any home meetings 😉

Until the sport reinvents itself, I don’t see how anything changes. You need salaried riders, a squad and no averages (for team building purposes) but you can’t do that, as no money, not enough riders or interest in the Sport, it’s not football where all you need is a ball. If riders can/do manipulate their average then you’re essentially watching a bent product, which was probably part of the *sports undoing back in the day. This is before modern stadia, all weather surface or preventable measures to minimise rain offs, then you may have some credibility, which is a starting point…but that is all it is.

Take a bow.. this thread should now be locked after this post, magnificently worded

It'll be good to see the European Ice Speedway final at Varkaus. Big respect to the Mustonen family and all the other volunteers at Varkaus.