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Have the bspl become so desperate and tunnel visioned in their quest to get Northampton running they have forgot what their actual job is ? They have practically isolated and ignored the fans and even the other 4 teams to a degree since November to the point now where even the most loyal fans are getting fed up and if like me thinking is it worth it anymore, this winter has been one of the most damaging to its credibility winters the sport has ever had

Whoever wins the "league" there is no kudos to it is there? I think attendences are going to be woeful after this close season, its difficult to see how the sport recovers from this now.

In a "normal" season would any other club starting out be given this much time weeks before a season starting , I think not. Only because of the lack of teams in the Premiership is so much leeway been given to Northampton.

With BSN saying their pricing structure for their streaming packages will be released by the end of the Month, then it has to be this coming week that we’ll finally know whether Northampton are in or out. BSN must surely have been given the nod on when to expect the confirmation of league structures for them to reveal that their price will be confirmed by the end of February. Morris in this weeks star also said they’ve now got to the point where decisions HAVE to be made. A Sale confirmation at Ipswich is also expected this coming week (stop laughing at the back) so we’re approaching the end game all round. Probably….

The sport is more of a hobby for too many to ever be taken seriously.... Winning at home (by a narrow margin) and getting hammered away is almost utopia for some... These promoters don't have any burning ambitions to win things or, if also in the second tier, move into the top league, and are quite content on funding their hobby through affordable losses, or other businesses contributions.. They run their team pretty much for themselves and the riders, who often need two jobs in the UK to justify their outlay on machinery... With the two jobs meaning two teams share the costs which then makes it cost effective for both clubs.. The clamour for "Team Six" isn't to make the top league look "relevant", (even 20 teams couldn't do that the way the sport is ran), it is simply to ensure another seven slots are available for riders, with four or five of those slots being so riders can double up.. Neither league has authenticity given the operating model (196 guests last season), therefore "Team Six" won't make a jot of difference to the way the sport is viewed by so many fans, and, (more importantly), literally thousands of "ex fans"... In short. Nothing changes because the majority of those running it have a lot of their boxes ticked due to the way they do run it, hence they are content with things... And as long as fans only slowly dwindle away, the losses won't become too big, too quickly, so the whole nonsense can continue on.... Until, of course, inevitably one day given its inexorable decline, it doesn't..

We’re just going to have to wait and see. Proof of the pudding and all that. They, just like anyone else, deserve to be given a chance. I do find these posts from this particular poster rather suspicious though. Not just the odd comment here and there, it’s literally essays every time criticising them which is a bit weird.

You were banging this exact drum a couple of months ago on the GP thread, predicting the end of the GP series under these utter frauds, and that they would be seriously cutting the number of GP’S, if they announced any at all. A week later they announced, a FULL GP Calendar, as promised. You, then promptly disappeared after being made to look ‘kin stupid. And here we are, you’re on here again with your broken crystal ball predicting all sorts of doomsday scenarios regarding Mayfield sports. Despite denials, you clearly have a personal axe to grind. You’re either a rider, a friend of a rider, family member or sponsor, who is unhappy that they’ve cut the riders prize money (sensibly). Either that, or you’re just completely unhinged and are in need or some serious help.

The only GP for which tickets aren’t yet available. Imagine my surprise…

If a rider in the championship has missed a season or more in the NDL, but has had a NDL average within the last 5 seasons, then they go back into the NDL on their last NDL average, UNLESS when their current Championship average is doubled and it’s higher than that last NDL average, within the last 5 seasons, then that rider will return to the NDL on the higher of the 2 averages. Jake Mulford’s current championship average when doubled is lower than his last NDL average in 2024, hence why Jake is on an 8.67 average in the NDL in 2026. I can’t make it any more clearer than that!

Fair point,but its the old "duffers" as you put it who keep the sport going, year on year more old "duffers" stop going and the aint no younger generation to take their place so it'll go twit's up eventually attendance wise sadly.

Seems to me that Plymouth have gone back to "grass roots" Speedway, the type a lot of us were brought up on before the Sport decided to take itself far too seriously and tried to be something it's not and probably never will be... a Professional sport. They're probably only a 2nd half away from getting back to the night out that most of us yearn for. Keep your flashy TV contracts etc. That's been and gone and we blew it.

HBO max does not officially launch until end of march for some reason. Presume apps will be available after then

Perhaps they are using Chatgpt or whatever the AI generator for nonsense is.

No i think it was Morrissey

I don’t know what to think at this point, I’m willing to give mayfield the benefit of the doubt but they are hardly doing themselves any favours in the promotional sense

It'll keep the cleaners busy though !

Good on them no pretending he is British

Where's your board "The End of the World is nigh!"

I fully applaud the introduction of Shakespeare to this topic. Although A Comedy of Errors, his iconic farce, is probably more appropriate. For me it’s not unreasonable that the riders want enough money to make a living. It’s a dangerous job, they could be paralysed at any moment, and there are costs. The basic problem here is NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE GOING TO THE SPEEDWAY. If there were more fans, there would be more money generally, more interest in TV deals, more ability to fend off developers trying to build on the stadiums, more justification for asking for local or national government support. Just more people, through the gates, that’s what is needed. In particular young people, since they are less likely to die and thus more likely to keep coming to the speedway. And maybe even allowing their kids to do speedway. Big name riders ain’t gonna do that if nobody’s heard of them anyway. What speedway basically needs is to hook in whole new categories of people, if necessary for free. The single thing that has allowed me to get my wife into speedway last year has been the matches showing up on YouTube for free. note that this is already happening. Nothing extra needs to be done to facilitate it, but if for example BSN decided to make one full match per week available on YouTube for one week only, for free, consistently, and publicise that, that gets somewhere. the other half of the strategy is an energetic social media campaign to push this free footage to people who haven’t seen it before, using mostly TikTok and instagram. Once a buzz starts, that will wake up monster and other potential sponsors. Potentially it might be worth the clubs giving out bucketloads of free tickets to neighbours and local colleges/universities - because none of those people are going anyway, the clubs would lose no money, but gain some in merch/bar revenues, and a stronger argument when negotiating with the local council next time round. And sponsors and tv revenue. look, it doesn’t matter what form the league takes or how many teams there are. It could be the same opponent every week, it would still be a much better sport than football. If they run out of teams belle vue could hold a Peter craven series, just doing open individual meetings every week. Whatever. All that matters is getting young people to go to the matches, which starts with not taking down the naughty YouTube videos but instead pushing them. The sport itself is good enough that once we get it alight the whole thing will catch. But if we just huddle in the corner waiting for the killing blow to come, then it’s all over sooner or later.

Boy those lads have put a shift in this winter .

The sports own ‘constitution’ is being broken to try desperately to find another club, but then the sports rules are constantly being broken so what’s another one.

Definitely not. I’d lump Ipswich in with that too. A four team league isn’t feasible, so Ipswich were even more important than Northampton. They simply needed them to run and had no choice but to wait.

I believe so, but only after they've moved to Dunsinane.

A fixture list is only a guide really, the weather and the nature of the sport means even more than ever a meeting is in the balance unless it’s been dry for days and zero rain is forecasted.

It's the Birnam Wood Badgers who are the mystery 6th team isn't it?

1st edition https://pzm.pl/pliki/zg/zuzel/2026/2026.02.17-kalendarz-2026v5.pdf

been away for a few weeks .... any nes on Ipswich new owners ??? Any team news ??

6 weeks to season starts, some decent looking new merchandise just been launched today, see Facebook or comets website for details 😃 UTC 🔵⚪

Still fully committed every time he goes to the tapes ,we should make the most of him hope he has safe and successful season .

As if 40 old duffers with rattles will add to the atmosphere

I don’t think Mr/ Ms Forty (whoever that is) is really that interested in it succeeding. I suspect their aim is to deter rather than encourage

Yet again, you reply without quoting ...

They certainly get a huge amount of tv coverage & bring in the big name sponsors outside of the olympics so yes we need to looking at what they are doing.

Not sure what you were watching but I think you need a trip to the opticians. 😉 There is no 'speedway' track in place. The scumbags dug up all the shale and kicked out the stock car promoters, despite the fact that without stock cars they would still be playing 'home' games outside Bradford and in the league below.

Do you actually think they discuss ‘ what will the fans think ?’ at promoters meetings ? I very much doubt so. I was told by a former promoter that when ever disputes occurred between them at their get togethers the first thing that Chapmen and Godfrey used to say was that they would close their tracks as they made their money on stocks cars , and there the guys who run our sport ! Fans do not get considered in any aspect of the sport. This Northampton farce, which is going ahead , could be the biggest circus the sport has come up with.

Just let away fans into tracks for free, (or a nominal fee), when it isn't a "local derby"... 40 or so maybe inclined to put on a coach if they were getting in for nothing/minimal amount. Adding atmosphere is one of the big challenges the sport faces, and getting a few dozen away fans in attendance would definitely help that massively ..

It’s worrying times because if Sheffield lost money last year then they certainly will this year. £80k less income this year I’d imagine. £60k via tv money and £20k possibly from a headline sponsor. points limit slashed and a weaker product and no doubt a price increase at the turnstiles will bring the crowds flocking. when will speedway learn that after 20 attempts of this master plan it’s quite obvious the 21st attempt will fail too. i

Not a lot to report from the STAARS meeting. Ipswich and Northamton, there are daily zoom meetings. Sheffield are not having a headline team sponceer but teaming up with the Childrens Hospital to promote their chatity. This was well recieved. Talk of setting up a proper supporters club to try and ge better away suport. Meetin concluded with a fantastic race night put on by Ryan. Meeting very well atended and a good night had by all.

Before putting this together, I was obviously well aware that the usual suspects — the Richard Coleman fan club from deepest, darkest Bury St. Edmunds and beyond — would be ready with their pom-poms to defend their hero. Anyway… While browsing the FIM Speedway website earlier, I noticed a link to the Mayfield Sports Events site and decided to take a look: https://www.mayfield-ms.com Ignoring the outdated design (it’s mostly text blocks and dated graphics), what instantly stood out was this: there’s no mention whatsoever of Speedway or MotoGP. It’s all about Formula 1. And even that’s stuck in the past — the site lists Günther Steiner as Haas F1 Team Principal (he left in January 2024) and Otmar Szafnauer as Alpine’s Team Principal (he departed in 2023). We’re now in February 2026, which means the Mayfield site hasn’t been updated in at least two years. Odd, isn’t it? Not that the Coleman cheerleaders will see a problem, of course… Coming from a background in the insurance industry — particularly compliance — I can say this much: the situation with Coleman/Mayfield doesn’t pass the “smell test.” Back in the day, we’d make sure anyone collecting client money — insurance agents, advisers, financial consultants — was “fit and proper”: no major debts beyond a mortgage, no red flags for embezzlement or mismanagement. When I read posts from “Flagrag” and “DHSS” on the Northampton thread, and then see multiple companies with near-identical names, plus Coleman’s previous court case, it all feels… off. Something doesn’t quite add up. My prediction (and honestly, I hope I’m wrong): even if Coleman and Mayfield finally complete their long-awaited takeover of Ipswich Speedway, they’ll scrape through 2026 by the skin of their teeth — if they finish the season at all. And when the dust settles? We could potentially be looking at unpaid riders, unpaid suppliers, disappointed sponsors, and a fair few let-down fans, and Coleman trying to run away from unpaid bills and responsibilities!