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And yet, here you are. The amount of moaning that five teams is not good enough, makes a mockery of the sport...a sixth team looks likely to appear and STILL moaning. 🤦‍♂️

Hard to understand why anyone would be anti a new venue being created per se, and i'm not seeing much or indeed any of that being expressed. However, there is considerable concern and scepticism over the chances of it being ready on time, and successful and sustainable, with time constraints being one of the main concerns over effective local marketing and publicity. These concerns and doubts can be expressed in humourous or serious ways, and are sometimes wrapped up within more general concerns about speedway in the Uk and the way it is being run. These are mostly perfectly valid concerns, made in good faith and with the underlying well-being of speedway in the UK at their heart. Whether the above could be justifiably deemed "moaning" is rather irrelevant, especially as the definition of what constitutes "moaning" is likely to vary greatly. I'd liken it to "complaining", and there doesnt seem to anyone complaining that a new venue could be happening. But there are doubts and concerns being expressed, which for the most part seem to be perfectly valid

Why on earth would they do that until they’re actually sure they’re running? I’d imagine the advertising and promotion of Northampton Speedway would commence ONCE they’ve got the green light to run, not before! Pretty bizarre gripe from you again which seems to happen a lot lately 🙄

Agree totally. The sport faced a tough winter, and to come out of it with a 6-team league (as we've had in the past) is something of a miracle. Let's hope we can add Coventry and others for 2027 and really start moving forward. I'm hearing TV deals and corporate sponsor deals are making progress. Maybe if we had a bit more positivity from "fans" getting out there and spreading the message, who knows? Hopefully we'll see fixtures at weekend. Then we just need the news that Northampton have signed Bartosz...

To be fair Danny is somewhat occupied with his newborn!! "🏫 The Pirates were out in the community this morning! 🏴‍☠️ Zach and Cooper paid a visit to St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, chatting to the pupils about speedway and what it’s like to be a Pirate 🎒 We’ll be visiting many more local schools over the coming weeks as we build up to the start of the season!" 🏴‍☠️ #PiratePride

It's all part of the slow indoctrination process that is regularly used by conspiracy theorists.

All valid points. We had a long dry spell with no one, other than Tai, coming through to challenge Bomber and Scott Nicholls for a place in the GB Team. And even with only three decent riders, we had boycotts and fall outs over pay as well as a lack of professionalism in preparation. But, over the last 10-15 years, we’ve had several initiatives to help bring the next generation through. Neil Vatcher with the British Youth Championship deserves much of the credit for this but Phil Morris and the late Graham Reeve were also heavily involved. Bev and Marcus Williams in Australia set up the scholarship - some called it boot camp - in their house and Ian Sinderson of ATPI and Richard Cotton of Rentruck got the No Limits training programme going. When the efforts of Vicky Blackwell and Rob Painter are added to this, you can see how individuals are the ones that have created a set of circumstances that have moved us out of the doldrums when it came to developing riders. From a very lowly position, as well as the GP stars, we’ve now got several decent riders chasing for success. Like Tom Brennan, Dan Thompson, Drew Kemp, Joe Thompson, Dan Gilkes, Leon Flint and several more. Each and every person who has helped to create this, and, of course, Simon Stead is part of this, deserves recognition and thanks. BSPL and many individual promoters are the villains in this - taking but giving little in return. Turning the Development League from amateur to professional was a huge mistake, driven by vested interest. The bottom league should have been a ride for expenses league, but who remembers the year Adam Ellis - and no slight on Adam intended - turned down a championship role because the NDL was paying him too much? For him, it was the right thing to do but it should have been a wake up call for the promoters. Coming back to the original point, the GB Team has been more than the individuals involved, whether that’s those that operate in plain sight or those in the background. But its strength has been because it has operated as a team and Simon was part of the team. Of course GB will regroup without him, but that doesn’t mean his departure shouldn’t be regretted.

Would normally be a minor annoyance but the Ben fund is a worthy cause.

He hasn’t left the club today though, just announced he’s leaving. He’ll be helping with the transition over the next few weeks.

You can tell Matt is back at the helm

Pirates Zach Cook and Cooper Rushen starting the school visits today. Full kit, new bike, video presentation. Proper promotion 😀

😢

Northampton could quite easily kick off on the late bank holiday Monday and have more than enough time to fit in 10 league fixtures and 1 KO Cup before the cut off. If a late start means we get the same amount of teams as some previous seasons, then I’m all for it.

Cheers DJ.Did a Wikipedia search and Belle Vue Rangers were active at Hyde Rd between 1933-1955.

Great idea that. If they can get to Calais, they should pick up a boat, no problem. They wouldn't need a Passport and they would be put into an Hotel free gratis. What's not to like? 🙄🤬

All clubs should be doing stuff like this, fair play to the promotion.

Surely all toilets are ‘bog’ standard?🙂

Nick Morris is also racing in it

Don’t think many fans care these days.Its just a circus of sport .

Well deserved retirement. A great servant to the club and the voice of Ipswich speedway. Thank you Kevin.

Big shoes to fill - the presentation can be the make or break for people turning up.

He’s a rough diamond definitely

Rushen, not Rushden. And he's riding for King's Lynn so no.. 😂

Don't wish your life away mate, the years pass all too quickly and appear to go faster with age.

What are the Team GB's home fixtures this year?

Good luck Northampton. We all wish you well. Period

I think someone was attacking Youhave2minutes. It’s shouldn’t be a crime posting as much as he liked. However you appeared to have him disapear which I hope you are pleased about? This forum don’t need troublemakers like you. I personally was not affected by his postings. He started many interesting topics. Sad loss unfortunately.

Original zzzzz

Thought he’d got caught in a trap.

Enter Craig Saul.

Slight update, with Ekstraliga announcing today the days on which each meeting of each round will take place, throughout the whole season. Slight caveat though, as mentioned previously, Canal Sport reserve the right to swap meetings between Friday and Sunday, until no later than 6 weeks before each round. I've also updated my own Teams and Fixtures blog to include the few changes I spotted. It's here: https://speedwayteams2026.blogspot.com/p/calendar-of-meetings-in-2026.html

The most telling thing to me is that in Poland , that would be a bog standard toilet block so to speak. They must look at the state of speedway over here , the stadiums, tracks but most of all the organisation and pi*s themselves.

Looks worth a read this week for Ipswich fans

I’m hearing this is very much still ON and they plan to be in the premiership this season, I know there are lots of non believers but hopefully news in the next couple of days.

That building is on the bend and quite a long way from the track. Would assume a ref's box would need to be overlooking the start line ?

Whoosh 🤣

Hasn't Rushden been lined up for Northampton ? He must be local with a name like that.

This has been put up on Northampton shaleway Facebook page, saying new hospitality suite but could be a refs box 🤔

It’s your holier than thou tone of your posts that irk people. ”oh if only all the other clubs were like belle vue, we’d never treat riders like other clubs do” (you know, accept for when you do) like you’re the saviours of British speedway and everyone else has an active agenda against belle vue to bring British speedway down.

They could use a boat to get to the UK... Just like their great, great, great grandfathers used to get over there years ago... Hopefully they won't be chained up the same way, though. Edit: On the plus side, it did qualify their great, great, great grandchildren to ride NDL..

I'm not certain but i believe Belle Vue Rangers played Rugby League there up until the mid 1950's. The BLRC speedway meeting always took place around my son's birthday date so it was always a regular family day out for us. Arrived there early & spent the afternoon at the Zoo,then the evening at the speedway, completed by a few hours at the fun fair. Great memories, some of those BLRC meetings wil never be forgotten.😊

Great news for UK Speedway... Yet another overseas rider being given a chance to take up a spot that a UK rider should have got... And on, and on, and on, the Great Plan goes.. Well, if it ain't broken, and all that!!!

Apologies, he was in the plans SINCE December. He sounded gutted, is rather have a bit of loyalty and chose him over any news riders, especially to then come out and say they basically don’t care about this season and gave Scotty a sent off season. Do the right thing and put Jenkins in, speedway is failing in a lot of ways for me.

Hard to see anyone beating BV in the prem? Kurtsy and Bewley top two will deliver.

I don’t understand all the cynicism here. GB was a joke of a team year after year but Painter, Blackwell, Allen, Stead, Vatcher plus the professional team around them involving fitness, psychology, physiotherapy and media profile have produced some world beating performances. No more pizzas and beer but pride in the job instead. And top class sponsors. It’s not been just a one day job either with qualifiers and finals in the same week resulting in the squad being together for 4 or 5 days. GB has team spirit, team uniforms and, allowing for 2025 being a hiccup, great results since it changed to the current management team. Olly and Simon have worked well together but they will acknowledge they are only one part of the whole set up. When domestic speedway in UK, especially the way the top league is going, is a clown show, and is working its way down and down, the national team has shown that we still have good people with great skills in this country. And Simon has been one of the key players. We should be thanking him and not making smart ass comments about his wish to devote more time to his family, his job and Sheffield speedway.

For certain clubs visiting fans help make the sport more financially viable, add to meeting atmosphere and help reinforce the feeling that the sport is actually worthy of travelling for to witness live. Travelling to the likes of Poole for Northern clubs fans on a Wednesday isn't so practical, this is were BSN is beneficial. However, if fans who would normally travel within a certain distance to support their team stopped doing so en block because they have a BSN package purchased at a very low price per meeting then this would be detrimental to the sport. Rumour mill was that because the TV money has currently been lost the BSPL are wanting a bigger slice of the BSN pie the result of which would be a lower payout for individual clubs at Championship level.

I’ve been watching the replays that have been on YouTube and they are very welcome in the off season. I do however wonder what management have seen in Smith that has resulted in him being back in the team. He had a decent meeting against the comets but a fair amount of that was because of bad luck for the away side. I also wonder what Max Perry was asking for that he didn’t end up as a Bandit. He was brilliant on both visits so it can’t have been a performance issue.

You've got to laugh at Reid Battye's quote about Berwick...... “I’ve heard it’s a really big speedway town and it’s on the coast. I live near the beach in Australia so it’s probably the same – just a bit colder!” Me thinks he's in for a bit of a shock

He was also a lying druggie that ruined our 2024 season. And let his wife make a show of herself on Facebook giving it laldy that it was over the counter pain medication that caused it