Happy Hunter

According to the BBC Sport website today the Government has announced that no professional sport, even behind closed doors, will be staged in England until 1 June at the earliest. The government has published a 50-page guidance document detailing how England will begin to ease lockdown measures. Step two of that plan - which will not be allowed to start before 1 June - includes "permitting cultural and sporting events to take place behind closed doors for broadcast, while avoiding the risk of large-scale social contact. The document states that reopening venues that attract large crowds, such as sports grounds, "may only be fully possible significantly later depending on the reduction in numbers of infections". It seems to me, therefore, that a resumption of speedway with crowds is unlikely for some considerable time, possibly not at all the season so I am putting these basic suggestions forward to see if our combined brains can come up with a way for speedway to restart. I am quite happy for the suggestions to be pulled apart and perhaps ridiculed as long as, between us, we can come up with something sensible. First I think that Speedway is a sport that can be held behind closed doors and that the necessary social distancing measurers can be put in place to protect riders, mechanics, officials etc. Even Rob Godfrey concedes this. The big question is where is the money going to come from to pay for this. Unlike most major spectator sports speedway relies mainly on income from spectators and sponsors. Assuming that the sponsors continue to sponsor then we would have to set up a system for televising meetings and asking fans to pay to watch on T.V. I think that all tracks have a firm that records meetings and sells the subsequent DVDs to fans. Could these companies do live streaming via YouTube or, if not, show an edited version a day or two later on YouTube? I would be quite willing to pay what I normally pay to watch live. To make things easier could we take a leaf out of football’s book and only use a few tracks that are owned by promoters like Scunthorpe, Redcar and Somerset or are on long leases like Leicester and Plymouth and who do not have too many restrictions on the number of meetings that can be held or which host other sports. All meetings could be held on these ‘neutral’ tracks with the proviso that no team races on its home track. If a recording system is used then several meetings could be held each day during daylight hours at each track thus reducing costs. Football for example is talking about holding three televised matches a day behind closed doors. Over to you!

Bang on. What a brilliant piece of promotion as well as helping the NHS!

The PM today talked about wearing face masks when we go out. Is some entrepreneur already making them in team colours and with logos?

Tesco's and Sainsbury's are rushed off their feet. Punters need something to read whilst queuing to pay!

Several of the tracks I have been to have limited undercover seating so I take my own lightweight fold up seat and, if it looks like raining, some waterproofs. Simples!

There are still quite a number of people around now who were around at the time the stadium was constructed, including the current press officer.

I think I have a copy of the planning permission somewhere. If I can find it I will see what it says but I think that the brightness of the lights might have to be below a certain level to prevent light pollution.

They probably need to get the planning permission regarding the lights changed.

d

On the Speedway Star's web site this morning. 2020 FIXTURES The 2020 season is fast-approaching and the fixtures are out. We have the Premiership and Championship fixtures in this week's magazine.

Fixtures out tomorrow.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SpeedwayGB/status/1219288838658457605?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^embeddedtimeline|twterm^profile%3ASpeedwayGB|twcon^timelinechrome&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.speedwaygb.co.uk%2F

It's obvious that something more substantial is required.

Does anyone know when these might come out?

In 2017 the Supporter's Club made a donation of £2500 to the promoters towards the cost of the repair to wind damage to the roof on the stand on the home straight.

The Fours were staged at Leicester in 2011. Were there any problems then? I know it wasn't the day after Cardiff but the pit area and parking restrictions haven't changed.

I suspect that any improvement to the track lighting will need planning approval from the City Council as I think the lighting was subject to planning conditions when a the track received planning permission.

Sorry it's Bureau not Board. Memory failure!

You can see copies of the referees official scorecard under downloads on the Speedway Control Board website. Last season Carmarthen rode their home fixtures at Stoke. Danny did not ride in all the home meetings. For away meeting scores you will need to find out who they rode and when.

The Aussies will be up for getting some tinnies in the Esky!

Perhaps a Strine dictionary will be part of the deal. G'day all.

Not sure that there will be much of a National League to progress in next season.

I think most of the Lions team have already signed. The promoters are just drip feeding us with the names. Last Saturday they said on their website that they hoped to name the full team within a week of the AGM.

I thought he hung his gardening boots up years ago!