mikebv

Damn that Gregorian Calendar... Does UK Speedway few favours...

Or not enough Monday's and Thursday's?

1993,'Wolverhampton v Belle Vue... Wolves needed a draw, and the Aces needed the win to be Champions.. No play offs then, just a league that ended with the top team winning.... The Aces were 8 points down, with only a few races left, and only that win on the night would do... The four of us there that night all agreed to watch one more race and then get out quickly, so we didn't have to watch the mullet headed Wolves fans (in all their 70's denim clothes), celebrate... Then the Aces got a 0-5.. Then suddenly a couple of races later, were one point up, with just one race left .. And then Bobby Ott flew from the tapes, with Jason Lyons riding shotgun, whilst Peter Karlsson did his best to spear him at the end of every straight, eventually doing so, lap 3, which let Henka Gustafsson through too... But neither could catch "Bob".... There must easily have been 800 and more Aces fans there that night (how times change), and the lady in the " Wolves Megastore" was particularly unimpressed when, as we finally left, I asked her if she had any "Wolves 1993 Champions" car stickers.. I think her face, and the pile of unopened boxes behind the wallpaper paste table used as a "display", told me the answer...... Big crowd, great atmosphere, and the right result... Just like the other night at the SON....

And people still comment negatively on the weather we get in Manchester... Norfolk seems to be akin to the Amazon Rain Forest.... Buying a brolly business down there when I retire to top up my pension..

Not weather impacted... And they dont have guest players replacing those listed, so are both bona fide competitions...

Of course, But to be fair, it is clearly obvious what it is... Those who attend are happy enough to keep going to watch it.. In ever dwindling numbers admittedly...

A new age of TV coverage for UK Speedway... When that was announced, I presume most of us thought it was going to be a good thing... Kabaddi gets more coverage on Eurosport...

Barely 30,000 (tops), people watch it each week in the UK... That is considerably less than 0.1% of the population... No surprise it gets ignored by the mainstream media.. BSB, MX fans, Stock Car fans, Ice Hockey and Basketball fans and even Crown Green bowling supporters, could argue the same..

I cannot for the life of me understand that.. Surely the organisers would have told them that they had zero chance of filling it given the ticket prices required to pay for the stand? If the capacity was to be 7,000 then, again, the organisers should have said no chance in getting that many at the prices they needed to charge to pay for four meetings worth of costs.. Anyone could see that the prices charged were too high to fill 7,000 spaces, given UK Speedway's tiny following, however, it could be argued, that the prices for the grandstand and back straight were accurate as both were pretty much not far off full.. FWIW, £60 for seating, £40 for standing, and £30 for U16's would have been my thoughts..

100%. To get 7000 there at an average of £70 was a huge gamble, especially given that would be around (being kind), 25% of the whole Speedway watching public in the UK.. As a one off event though you would be delighted with well over the £200k that got delivered.. And at £50 on average a ticket I would think 5000+ would be attainable.. They didn't "read the room" too well when it came to planning a week of Speedway given the lack of interest in the sport nationally, and the fact they must have expected a couple of thousand at least would stump up four meetings worth of money, (never happening in a million years), when at least two of the meetings had no national UK interest.. A one off GP would easily "wipe its face" though and probosbly more, in my opinion.. A great night though, regardless of the other issues...... And one of those events that you can truly happily say "I was there", so kudos to the organisers for delivering such a fantastic experience... When Speedway is done this well you should be filling your stadia, and, maybe, one day, the marketing will be taken seriously enough by promoters to back up the on track action.. Lambert and Bewley...

The crowd tonight? 3500? Paying an average seventy quid or so..? Well over £200k, which is easily the highest gross taken in UK Speedway for probably ever outside Cardiff..

Got to be Sweet Caroline surely?

Wow.... Just f*****g Wow!! Speedway when done like this......

Now also fluent in Polish for.. "F**k this, I'm off"......

Love watching Brady Kurtz around the NSS... Lemon should use a montage of his rides to advertise the club...

Is Bartek showing that last race to Phil?..

Great ride from the lad... Has Kelvin got his name right yet?

I am now fluent in Polish for "the referee is a c**t"....

In the middle of all the Polish lads on bend two... Enjoying myself....

Cold? Its tropical for us...

Kubera at fault for the tapes not going up... He is on a warning too... So he has to go...

They get free Steradent handed out....

Lambert performing a move that Dan wouldn't dream of.. Proper hard riding....

Quite clear the moment it got announced... As was the plan to build a stand that wasn't going to be affordable to many... A truly baffling business decision.... But this is a UK Speedway promoter...

The PCMM crowd must be similar... As for Poole, you charge ninety quid to sit in that grandstand and see how many you get...