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Another factor is the age profile of speedway supporters. As folks get older they don’t turn out for every meeting in poor weather to stand outside in often spartan conditions on cold evenings to watch the stop start racing punctuated by all too frequent delays . With each passing year, I would suggest there are fewer “hard core” fans who will turn up every meeting .

As part of my earlier Teams and Fixtures blog, which I posted about last month, I've now created a week-by-week fixtures list for all mainland European leagues and other relevant fixtures such as SGP, SEC, IMP and others. Obviously we don't have all fixtures as yet, so it's a work in progress, but once the remaining leagues publish their fixtures, I'll be adding them in as well. Everything is colour coded to make it easier to follow. Hope it helps for anyone planning any trips this coming season. Link here: https://speedwayteams2026.blogspot.com/p/calendar-of-meetings-in-2026.html?

Delighted to see Cook back this season. I’ve been critical of some instances involving him in the past, but a British speedway without Craig Cook is a sadder, less entertaining and lower in quality place. Really strong side being built at Northside.

Another Poole Speedway article in the Echo online today with Matt Ford (more coverage than Semenyo!) stating that any discussion about a 'one league set-up' for 2027 should start NOW, including clarity on likely rider costs and any TV/broadcast contract. Its no good leaving it til August/Sept when many clubs have started their team-building for the next season. He has confirmed once again that Poole will NOT go 'up'(?!) into the Premiership within the present structure and fixed race nights!

Workington looking pretty strong with there top 4 there’s no reason why batchelor,Zischke and Jeppesen can’t all put a point in there averages there definitely going to be near the top end of the league,anyone know who the 5.00 rider will be as I’m assuming that’s what they will do. shaping up to be a really competitive championship this season some very good teams being built very much looking forward to the season starting.

I don’t think anyone genuine speedway fan will be disappointed if speedway stays on in the Poole area even if they don’t like the team. As soon as people hear the name Clark Osbourne they are then genuinely worried for that club. The man is a cancer to the sport and a habitual liar to speedway fans and promotions.

Batch at 5 sounds great to me especially if Cookie/Tate can reform their partnership. Batch for 2 seasons has been the backbome of the side and gets knocked for his one off poor performances when over the whole he held the side together. This is looking one exciting team 🤩

It's amazing that in 25 years of tv coverage they never ever addressed this... which is an indication that points to the rest of the failures within Speedway. If they couldn't/wouldn't address this, they were never going to fix everything else that needed fixing.

I think the biggest concern for Poole and every other team in Britain is not having a stadium but more importantly having a British league to ride in,especially now mark lemon is on the board of directors who will want to make the championship weaker and the premiership stronger.

might even see batch at 5 at home and cookie at 5 away

As i see it the big difference is the position of the Councils, both saying more or less the same that the Stadium is very important to the town as are the teams, but Poole council know how much publicity the Pirates bring in is good for the town.

So it seems that Ipswich may field a decent 1-7 after all.😉

Nobody down as "Northampton"?

That's the one I always use, fantastic site.

A possibility of 3 number 1s as batch on his day can beat anybody, and with less pressure to be the top rider, think this will help all 3 heat leaders

Matt said that everything is fine for at least 2026 and 2027, probably longer. The discussions with the Council have already identified some alternative site options ,with Matt and Danny having a 'preferred' track site within the bcp council boundary.

Are management already looking for a replacement for mid season?! 😉

Cook`s signing will end one way and one way only. Recent history tells us everything you need to know.

I think we are sorted for the reserve birth

Thou this is different with the council owning the stadium we have heard all the other stuff before. The council will do what makes them most money and that will be building houses on a prime bit of land. As we seen altrenative sites are like rocking horse poo

Considering that there is plenty of empty land nearby which has still not been developed, I can't see anything happening in the short term. And with the current housing market stalled, many developers have slowed down building anyway.

Is he bitter or just stating the facts? 😜

Let's try another way. See if mods actually look at this thread: Bum titty bum

Speedway is dangerous as we all know. The ageing spectator demograph however might feel even more vulnerable knowing that only a mesh fence a few feet high separates them from Garrity. So long as they do not have anything valuable in their possession though, things should be fine. In defence of Garrity, he’s probably looking at Craig Cook and thinking he’s repeatedly let so many people down and continues to get offers to ride.

Yes. The TV ones at Ipswich last season were not that much different to any other meetings in terms of length and stop/start. Now some people have an issue with the grading breaks 😁

Yes that would make a lot of sense to have a different format and structure for the B fixtures. I think something along those lines is the only way of avoiding the monotony

He’s totally right, it should have been discussed at the AGM, maybe it was but there was no mention in the statement

No mention of a percentage- like a lot of things in speedway they'll just make it up as they go along!

Didn't he ride for Plymouth?

Best of luck to cookie, really hope this is the return of one of the best riders in the league.

Surely Howarth and Jeppesen will be the last 2 🤷🏻‍♂️

Its not a silly comment, there are a few people on here who would like to see the back of Poole

Exactly this, my elderly parents both now 85 were season ticket holders at Ipswich and Peterborough for yrs plus attended Mildenhall and Lynn fairly regularly and had been going right back from the Norwich speedway days but they haven't attended meeting's probably since Covid, i set them up with BSN and their more then happy to get their speedway fix from the comfort of their own frontroom every wk, i did drag them along to Mildenhall last season but it was just to cold for them tbf.

I wouldn't read into anything about Woofinden being at Sheffield #justsaying. But then again, i wouldn't read into any rumours concerning any riders being linked with an Ipswich septet, but convinced more will become much clearer this week.

Up early or dirty stop out. Which one is it @aries 🤣🤣

Ues this better one https://www.gbspeedway.com/2025/ridervstrack.php?mc1=s&mc2=rv&mc3=x&mc4=x&name=Jaimon Lidsey&track=Ipswich

A very good signing. Workington done a full season without a number 1 last year but are going into this season with two number 1s

Craig Cook would fit 😜

Welcome back Cookie, giving us very strong heat leaders home and away!

So it's Craig Cook. How often will he turn up to meetings?

Theyll come 5th at worst in this tin pot league. Imagining celebrating an achievement where you only have to better 4 other teams. There’s a lot of over excitement on here over nothing but a joke competition.

They can’t even afford a new chair let alone a new person to sit in it

100% right, no one wants it.

You are right, the championship promoters do seem to have it right, at least a bit more right than the premiership. However. Without the premiership, the championship would not work. The championship uses many of the riders from the premiership, but as was reported in the star, at a massively reduced pay rate, so without premiership money it wouldn't work for the riders. The premiership has lost a handful of teams in recent seasons mainly due to losing their access to a track. No one from the championship wants to move up, as their business model would not work,either due to race nights, losing local derbies, extra costs etc. In addition to all this, next year Poland are prohibiting riders from racing in more than 1 extra league, meaning we probably lose most of the better danes we have , and potentially quite a few to Sweden,meaning less " top" riders in this country, making next years premiership potentially weaker , so it begs the question, what next? For the championship to work it needs the premiership for the premiership to work it needs riders, so if the premiership falls, so does the championship in its current form. Riders need to earn x amount of money so either the championship has to pay more or costs must be cut. British speedway needs more riders to fill its teams, so we need to rebuild.If that means a " lower" standard , so be it, likewise if it means 5 or 6 man teams , so be it. Let clubs race on their favoured night, we've already been done over by Poland, and other riders will ride in Denmark or Sweden, so early on this season there needs to be a rider census to get a rough idea as to how many riders would be available to fill all championship and premiership teams, riding on whichever night, and then work out team sizes and strengths from there, based on 2 leagues, one professional league, but with protected races for at least 1 or 2 " juniors", and the national development league ,with a clear progression between the leagues. Reduce engine servicing costs, ban trick parts, put a rev limiter on that will make a difference, maybe a minimum flywheel weight, do the consultation now, with a view to 2027, reassure the punters that genuine change is on the way,and rebuild from the bottom up. Now going to grab my tin hat and get behind the parapet waiting to be shot down

"Speed" was no issue that night 🤔

There’s no real jeopardy at the PCMT as it’s just our individual meeting in tribute to the great man. The key to the big crowds is the level of the participants. Top riders attract a bigger audience, even at an increased admission cost. You’re right about the play offs and it’s great the extra crowds turn up but not so great for teams not in it nor the qualifiers. One of my gripes that fell on deaf ears when they came about was the implied importance or not of certain fixture in peoples minds. People, though they may not realise, like to be told what to do and adopt herd mentality. Back in the day all meetings had similar importance for most of the season. Even teams that knew they couldn’t win the league wanted to finish as high up as possible or beat the title chasing teams. This led to a consistent attendance. Now we are told that some fixtures are way more important than others, we naturally start to pick and choose. Play off finalist can make up some of the shortfall but others do not. The result for the sport as a whole is a nett loss. I think now as I did then that the play offs have had a lot to do with dwindling attendances but that horse bolted long ago and the simple fact that two teams get record attendances basically drowns out any other aspect of why they should or shouldn’t be adopted by our sport. I’ve said this many times without any kind of response, which says it all to me that even us as speedway nuts cannot persuade close family and friends to attend so any amount of advertising will currently fall on deaf ears. People don’t like speedway. The ONLY hope -and I’m too old to grasp what it is - is that some zeitgeist person or event presents itself that a social media guru can use to create the fomo effect. I’ve seen it happen with say Prime drink, Ibiza Final Boss, 6/7 etc but I cannot get my head around it.

Won't be Sweden if we have a mare as they are in the other semi. Germany won't be easy to beat in their own backyard though.

Jonas Jeppesen is the rider i'd be going for at No.6.

Who cares

So premiership 2026 thread is pinned, are there no moderators for championship threads? Can we not get some new moderators in place ? On second look, it says 2026 but is actually 2024, what a farce this forum is becoming.