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Any chance you can explain to me your end game with your endless posting about how crap in your eyes one big league would be? Every time we go back and forth you agree with me that big changes are needed, you’ve even agreed with me that Ipswich don’t do everything right and that the top league isn’t sustainable as it is? We know you have disdain for the championship and the quality of it and of course Poole and Glasgow for not bowing down to Chris Louis and moving up a league. But I really don’t get your end game other than to act entitled and make on that you are cleverer than everyone else for thinking you’ve got the future of the sport sussed out?

I'd say there needs to be discussion much much earlier than mid year Ideally they need to start as part of the rearranged AGM in January

Birmingham closed due to development not self interest and having a pop at Oxford who have gone from three leagues to two is rich when Louis won’t even run a junior team, despite all the hype about a run of the mill, one off, end of season junior meeting being touted as the most innovative initiatives in decades. Spin at its finest.

100% agree, however... A fair few Ipswich fans, three weeks or so ago on here, were, post after post, calling out the Glasgow and Poole promoters for not running in the top league and being prepared to potentially lose money in doing so... I presume these people will now be urging Chris to do the same?....

Birmingham aren't running because their stadium was demolished from under them. Not because Nigel Tolley spat his dummy. If Birmingham stadium was still there, then Nigel Tolley would still be there.

actually getting paid and knowing you'll be there or thereabouts talks

If anyone wants to see the reveal and hasn't yet.

I think the fact they didn't speaks volumes....

Trouble with that is, if Batchelor gets stuck behind traffic, we all no what he does, Cooper would be late for the meeting

Birmingham have struggled for a couple of years with crowd levels and limped from season to season, unable to attract quality riders and then lost their track. Not quite the same as the Ipswich situation is it?

And this silly vendetta against all things NORA needs to STOP!

Let’s just hope the Poole track doesn’t ruin Cooper … best young rider I’ve seen for a long time but isn’t a renowned gater and I can easily see his away average being higher than his home one

That is a popular unsubstantiated reason why Poole get the best young riders. There maybe a host of reasons and none of them cash related. Don't ask me what reasons but it has been said many times that Poole are not the best payers.

It’s been inevitable the last few years what was coming for UK Speedway but certain Premiership Promoters want to hold on to the TV Money as opposed to reconstruction.There was no way Worlds top riders would want to ride for money on offer in Uk. League reconstruction should have been done years ago .

Birmingham closed due to development not self interest and having a pop at Oxford who have gone from three leagues to two is rich when Louis won’t even run a junior team, despite all the hype about a run of the mill, one off, end of season junior meeting being touted as the most innovative initiatives in decades. Spin at its finest.

Partial to wrinkled stockings Ian?🙂

Very sensible chap that advisor!!

Spot on 1valve my friend pretty much said as much it just makes the losses in his pub in theory lower but he would be way better off if he just owned his cash cow insurance business. Without straying to much into politics he mentioned when Reeves lowered the employer ni threshold in 2024 that alone cost the pub an extra 45k a year for zero benefit other than paying more to the tax man. So your burger, bun, salad and chips has to go up from £16 to £20 to cover it another reason pubs are going the same way as speedway tracks.

Yes less tax is paid but ultimately the net profit (after tax) is also less because of the loss making company. In simple terms its actually good for a company to be paying tax (after correctly taking into account all of the available allowances) because that translates into a measurement of success.

You are correct. If company X makes a profit of 100 and company Z loses 50 then a person owning both companies would be worse off than if he only owned company X. He also doesn't get to offset the total loss of 50 in his tax return only the taxable value. So say he is due to pay 35% on his 100 profit i.e 35 he would be able to offset his loss of 50 x.35 = 17.50 giving a final tax calculation of 35 - 17.5 meaning he would pay only 17.5 instead of 35. So If he had one company that made 100 profit, after tax he would make 65 net. If he owned to companies, one making 100 and one losing 50 he would make 32.50 net Also worth considering that if a person owns two companies then they must be declared in the eyes of the taxman as being a part of a holding group or that a single person owns both.

It warrants a big build up as no one has any idea who it might be

Get what you’re saying,but that’s the state the sport in Uk.There’s no quick fix .IMO

You're right about the poor end to 2024. I think he had a poor start too, and a poor end to 2023 after a poor start, then a poor end to 2022, etc., etc.

Thanks, Bluey. However, are you sure it's not all just some sort of deep state conspiracy?

There were two offers, but it's not been announced if one of them has been accepted or both have been rejected. CL flies back from Oz on Jan 7, the day after the AGM starts, so it's fair to say he won't be attending that. It's unclear if an announcement will be made before the AGM or just after. Anything else is just guesswork, as even those close to him are being kept in the dark,,,

So there can't be a 6th team then as they've missed the declaration?

We as loyal fans (1981 was my 1st visit) all have opinions on what's gone on or going on at Ipswich, i enter my 44th season, give or take a couple i took a break from, and i totally back @Aries in everything he has said. We can all say about what if we were in a position on losing money, that situation i can't argue with, you would consider selling it, that's obvious, but the Radio Silence for all of us fans for me is simply poor, irrelevant at what he has done for the club as a rider and a promoter through the years, just be honest with the loyal supporters who has backed him and his family for years. His silence is painful for so many. As a very loyal Ipswich fan, i now can see all the frustrations that Wolves,Peterborough,Swindon,Lakeside and many more, to many to name, supporters feel at all the uncertainty surrounding their clubs. Now it's our turn, and i hold my hand up it's painful. There maybe 2 bidders on the table, there maybe more, but until Louis lowers his asking price, it's simply not going to sell. Yes its controversial, and yes there are Witches fans rolling their eyes at my post, but I've spent many evenings travelling the country Home and Away supporting Ipswich for years, and in my own honest opinion, my loyalty towards Chris and the situation is wearing thin. Not saying loads agree with me, just giving an honest opinion. Clubs already naming riders (That's the 4 teams that remain), but as we sit here this evening, there is NO guarantee Ipswich come to tapes, irrelevant of the Fine @PhilTheAce is talking about, that simply won't happen, as we all know rules and regulations in this sport are not worth the paper they are written on. I would say we are closer to NOT running than people think, unless as i read on here earlier today Chris is calling people's bluff and he remains in charge, but for me if he does that, he will have a lot of rebuilding to do with the Supporters. I hope i'm 100% wrong, and we race, but im nowhere near as confident as some. Many Apologies for the long post. Tomorrow is another day???

And it was all looking so positive, but having Etheridge and now Smith in the same team means its yet another what might have been season for Berwick.

I’d love to see your workings for this. There will be 63 Championship riders this season, plus from last season, Kemp, Borke, Gusts, Heeps, Knudsen, Nagel, Boughen, Starke, Klindt, Polis, Bowtell, S Worrall, Z Kennedy, D Kennedy, Voulas, Hook on the sidelines. I’ll remove the unlikeliest ones and you’ve still got around 74 Championship level riders. We’d require 98 for 14 x 7 man teams. 24 riders to find, a few Premiership will drop down to the one big league, riders like Iversen who aren’t good enough in Poland anymore. Say that leaves 20 spots, 10 to be foreigners coming in on assessed averages, and 10 NL riders moving up seems fair, but you could easily get 20 Aussies/Americans/Danes to come who aren’t involved in the top leagues, this is presuming we stick with 7 man teams, we may go 6 and then suddenly you’ve only got 10 spots to fill (14x6=84 - 74 riders =10). So no, why on earth would Jack Smith on a sub 3 be a second string, stop over dramatising, Championship riders aren’t going to leave the Britain.

Not long to wait then. Bit of trumpism in the club announcement re season tickets and pricing for next year I think. Stating season ticket prices excellent value to then announce a price increase on general admission. The Harbourmasters meeting is included which the promotion boast as a meeting that fits perfectly with Poole's aim of showcasing the best of young British Talent British 😏

There so little fixtures and monthly average changes it has little effect on Team Changes nowadays.Fixture list is very lopsided also hinders changes in some cases.

It sounds like 2026 is going to be limping along as we were, not much more needs planning. Planning for 2027 should be well under way by now if the people in charge have any sincere interest in saving and reviving the sport here. The outcome of the AGM in January should be a long term plan, one that the fans are made fully aware of. It's easier to invest in another season of dross if there's a transparent plan for improvement in place and in full view for those who pay their way each week.

I'm pretty sure neither of those offers were from Blackrock... Happy Christmas Norby...

Christmas announcement has to be Lambert signing that's the sort of thing Godfrey classes as a Christmas Treat

I honestly couldn't give a sh#t who signs for us. I simply cannot take anything seriously anymore with the premiership.

Now if I was being a bit cheeky I would edit as above

As Cookie say above ,a friend of mine owns two business's one is an absolute cash cow, the other is a pub which turns over a mil a year but still is loss making. As my friend is an old softie he doesn't want to sell the pub as the girl who runs it for him lives there and he doesn't want to make her homeless. Part of the profits from the successful business is offset against the pub losses to reduce the overall profit figure, as you say if you only had one business you would be making more money but if you want the cudos of owning the local speedway club having a successful outside business is one way of partly subsiding the failing business. As another example Tolley has his badge business which I'm guessing must make a fortune so as a result he can write off six figures of losses a year at speedway without blinking.

Why is it? I dont spent my life on here unlike you . I said my bit on what I think of you and your pal Shovlar. Pair of wronguns.

The top flight is finished, nothing is going to save it...

The nine championship teams finished this season with a total average of 377.61. It’s been well documented that the five premiership teams aren’t bringing any riders with them as the top liners would skip the UK and the rest are already riding in the championship. To fill those 35 vacant spots would require using new (to the championship) NDL riders who average around 2.50, so thats a total of 87.50 to add to the pot. 465.11 divided by the 14 one big league teams gives a team total of 33.22. To create some kind of bargaining power when negotiating rider terms the limit would be set lower than that and most probably be around 30. Would championship clubs have wanted to water down their teams just to accommodate the ex premiership teams and how would they have felt letting riders whom they had agreed a verbal contract that there was no longer a place for them? The option of five or six man teams doesn’t sugar the pill either. Once you understand that one big league is unworkable with just 3/4 months to sort it out then the only alternative is what we have. Digging your feet in and saying I’m not supporting that doesn’t help whatsoever but then this has been going on for decades. Me, I’m just happy to enjoy that sixty seconds of excitement and I’m not bothered about the score nor what the competition is just that race, wether it’s U16, NDL, Aces or GP’s at the NSS.

Like chalk and cheese though... One has jeopardy, consequence, relevance, resonance, credibilty, and delivers a reasonable level of publicity and financial reward... And the other, which delivers none of the above, is British Speedway... Fans stay away from the POQ's because, well, without being too harsh, the whole shebang isn't too far short of being meaningless... Other than to provide riders, and some promoters and managers, with another job, and other promoters an expensive hobby to spend a budgeted amount of money on...

There`s a reason why he never gets a good run in any team.

Shows the difference between Facebook supporters and the ones on here, still each to their own.

Exactly and who would not like to see what the best young Brit of his age can do? Hopefully he'll get towards Brennan's level this year, I know I'd rather see a rider on the up, than one just hanging on to be a No1, just got to stay injury free as usual.

How can he reassure the supporters? For whatever reason something radical changed between the end of October & mid November that meant that he didn’t that he could or wanted to run Ipswich anymore. The statement put out when he announced it was going up for sale was clear enough. He isn’t running Ipswich in 2026 if a buyer can be found then it will carry on. He can’t guarantee he’ll find a buyer & as Louis isn’t going to run it in 26 no chance of being able to provide guarantees. Unlike the other promoters Louis doesn’t have other businesses that he can offset loses against. Louis seems to have put his family & financial security above running Ipswich speedway in a climate that could see him sustain losses that he can’t afford. Because of that he has my support because no one else on here would take a major gamble like that with no other income stream.

That'll increase the season ticket sales 10 fold 😂

I hope you are right, he's the next cab off the rank for GB so to see him flourish again in 2026 would be great. Exoect him to be in the SWC team. Its a pity when people just laugh at opinions on here without presenting their own argument as to why they disagree.

They changed the rules last year, Zischke dropped to 3.00 in the Prem, so did Gusts allowing into the Champ on 4.50. I totally agree with you, that it shouldn't be allowed to happen, at a time when foreign riders are more restricted due to Poland flexing their muscles, why not encourage more Brits?

I’ve said it a few times; the energy on this forum is crazy.😂 Last night’s exchange was just one example. A few days ago, someone called a Poole fan a ”w*nker” and a ”parasite” for absolutely no reason. Simple questions or attempts at engagement become hostile for absolutely no reason whatsoever. You can disagree with someone without resorting to name-calling or insults. The strangest thing is that those you meet at tracks are salt of the earth people.

One guy called Chris will become a hero for all five Premiership teams for sure.