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Agreed. But I was trying to look at things that could be changed, the facilities are in the main beyond promoters control. That said, I sure they could spend a little tidying things up - I'm not convinced it would be that hard to have a group of fans in on the weekends tidying and fixing up a lot of the mess in stadiums and I'm sure the landlords would love it too.

I agree to some extent. However, if a widgit manufacturer makes a change to their product, they put out a product change notice to their customers, they dont let them find out themselves by chance week or months after the change was made - thats all we really wants, a proper list of the changes we're expected to pay for.

Its such an easy way to waste away an hour before you realise it! It's an amazing reference point though.

That site is a geek/stattos dream. I love it yet hate it!

What doesn't wash with the fans is reason/excuses for poor tracks however "justifiable" from the track mans perspective. You can't imagine turning up at Old Trafford and being told, "the pitch is crap because we had rugby in here 2 days ago" or going to a restaurant and having a poor meal that you paid full price for because, "the usual chef is on holiday and 2 days ago we had a big party in here and he's been trying to clean up from that". If you sell a product or service, you have a responsibility to provide that service as well as possible. You can't expect people to pay good money and give them a bad service, even if there are "good reasons", it's all about customer service. Too many times this season Coventrys track has not been up to scratch, that has to change or people will stop going.

I'm with Trees. I dont want to sit down and eat at speedway (or any sport for that matter!). Like Trees I want a good track, good viewing, decent PA system, some loos (I don't expect anything to glamorous tbf but not having to wade through 2 inches of water is NOT good), I'd prefer a pint while Trees has her cuppa and I agree on the car park. I'd also like to add the sale of a decent bag/tray of chips and a burger to the list. I don't want a seat at speedway as it's wasted on me. All at reasonable cost too. Weighing all that up, Sheffield, Coventry and Somerset meet most of them criteria but all fall down somewhere. Poole probably, just sneaks this honour for me - I hope starman and co see I have given them some credit And for those who want it, you can even watch behind glass having a meal.

Or as a minimum look at running in the National Trophy at Monmore on Mondays. Ok it may only been 5 or 6 meeting and very irregular but better than nothing.

I want to say so why is Perry Barr now standing empty as racing has always been good there. But they finished top of the league and made a play-off final the season before last and that failed too. I could be wrong but generally, the safer and more stable clubs are the clubs with a decent home track advantage. And something I don't get is people demanding names. None of my mates if I took them along would know if they were watching Chris/Tai/Greg the World Champion, Hans one of the top EL guys, Cook one of the top PL guys or Greenwood one of the top NL guys. Names don't draw in a crowd IMO with the possible exception of "the World Champion" but thats a title, not a name. And lets be honest, if the sport was slightly less embarrassing, we'd all be more likely to drag along a few friends - so I'm not convinced actual "promotion"/advertising is needed. Just running a good, clean, slick show.

If only we did have that these days!

And thats why they'll fail. Only 50% of teams in a meeting can ever win. Only ~10% of teams can win a title at the end of the season. What the fans want is to see their team win home meetings, I'd bring in some rules that encourages massive home wins - sod what a team does away as away wins are not good, maybe 2-5% of a crowd is made up of away fans who if they are hard core enough to be travelling probably won't be as bothered about a loss as a floating home supporter will be. Every team need a rider who is good for 10 points at home even if 4 or 5 is all he can expect away from home, it keeps the locals happy. To attract people initially its needs to be entertaining (and I don't think the sport is any more or less entertaining now than it ever has been watching videos), on that point I agree. But after that, take a look at any sport. Who gets the crowds? It's the teams who win, the players who win. Not the guy or team who are "entertaining" but keep losing, people pay to watch winners/winning.

That would be my thinking. Pack the place out at £5 a person and sell it to sponsors, "I have 4000 here" rather than getting 800 people paying £17 and getting a free bucket of KFC, half price programme printing and the life time supply of nails, screws and bathtubs from sponsor. I could be out of business by May though, but at least I would have tried something different.

As Pinny has pointed out, Wato got an 8+ average for you guys, 8.7 rings a bell. Not bad for a guy going to a new track after the best part of 12 months out (half a dozen EL meetings where he averaged less than 1 for Poole aside). I guess as he'd have been signed on 9.4 he was not exactly a success it's harsh to lump him with the other 6 you have. As for Newport Vedel Mroz Truminski Taylor Cunningham Ezergailis Hurst/Legg - although Leg did score a 6+3 paid maximum vs Glasgow

I doubt it. The riders would still be pissed off at having to ride 3 meetings 1 week, 1 another, nothing for a month before a month of craming in meetings. All for less than they get in Sweden and Poland. It's the complete disorganisation of British speedway thats killing it.

So we only have one sub 5 pointer. How many 9+ men do we have? Zero. 32 plus the 8 the reserves are guarantee to average is 40. We're not a million miles from the break even figure tbf. The league has already lost Kildemand to and possibly Ward is he's banned so 32 may be enough.

I probably wasnt born? I'm 30. The sport is only 90 so for a third of it's life this is how it been. I'd say pretty traditional. There a lot of things that happened before I was born but I don't think going back to them days is the answer. And even if it was, we're not going to get it are we? We can blame Poland, Sweden, the GPs, the price of cheese and the amount of CO2 in the O-Zone layer but we can't change them can we? So we have to work with what we have. We have Mon, Wed, Thurs and some Fridays for EL racing while we have 7 days a week or PL and NL. We have to make choice, either run EL Mon, Wed, Thurs or cut down the meetings so we can also run some Fri and Sats too.

Monday - BV, Woles Tuesday - Cradley, Iow(possibly) Wednesday - Lynn, Poole Thursday - Swindon, Ipswich, Sheffield Friday - Coventry, Somerset, Edinburgh, Scunny Saturday - Eastbourne, Stoke, Berwick, Workington Sunday - Glasgow, Berwick, Mildenhall And that is just a small selection. We run speedway 7 days a week in the UK. Ok next season it may only be 6 if there no IOW or Cradley.

Or maybe CVS talks balls and tell the fans what they want to hear. Half of what he says at these talks turns out to be a crock of poop. If he told me the sky was blue Id ask someone else to confirm it. I'm amazed theres no 1 evening where the stadium is not being used and thus available to Cradley. I hope something is sorted ASAP.

Ok, we can stomp our feet, we can moan and shout. Or we can accept Sweden has 1 day a week, Poland has 1 day a week, ok the GPs are greedy with 2 day a week but British Speedway runs 7 days a week FFS! What exactly do we want? No GP, no Poland and no Sweden. Just British speedway? We have to share, we have to adapt buy we seem incapable of doing that.

You say that but more and more riders are not bothered about the GP series and I don't see them flocking to the British league. Where Gollob, the Lagutas and Lingren? What about Emil? The EL is just too many meetings for too little money to the top guys.

If I'm honest whenever I have seen oldies riding in the past I've been left disappointed - sometimes, memories are better than the reality. One exception I'll give to the disappointment thing was watching Ivan do the last 4 (plus a few more for good measure) laps at Exeters Country Ground, that was a joy to watch.

Sweden also only has 8 meeting at each track every season. Eat steak for every meal and it becomes plain and boring. Eat it for a treat once a month and it something to look forward too. We actually have too much speedway to some extent.

That nothing. At Newport we had a tractor smash though the fence and another time the tractor and water bowser crashed and nobody was excluded either time!

I heard a story recently of a NL rider having his helmet taken off him by a machine examiner. The helmet was cracked, most agreed with that. The young rider in question kicked off as he'd just spent £400 having it painted and personalised. He was a NL rider, he had paid 3-4 meetings worth of earnings (without taking out expenses) on a helmet paint job FFS! When I hear of riders doing things like that i struggle to have much sympathy for them when they plead poverty. Before we standardise bikes, why not start by standardising helmets?

You mean the league where teams get a facility for riders going on holiday, or just plain can't be bothered? Expect as many dodgy missing riders as ever before. It's a myth the EL is any worse than any other league.

It's odd. As I'd have said one thing speedway promoters are very good at is taking the piss.