RoundTheBoards

The AGM these days isn't a 3-day conference to thrash out all the rules like it used to be. Nowadays the rules are thrashed out in a number of meetings, and the AGM is just a "box ticking" exercise to ratify what has been agreed. Clearly things haven't been agreed yet to a stage where they can be signed off, so last week's date was cancelled. The AGM has now been set for 6 January 2026. The Premiership is down to 5 teams, and realistically needs at least 1 more. An amalgamation into 1 league is impossible for various reasons; Several Championship clubs could not run on Monday/Thursday which would be needed to keep the top riders in Britain. Without the top riders, and with doubling-up ended, there would not be enough riders to fill 14 teams. With riders only having 1 club income and no doubling-up, they would need higher wages. Higher wage costs and lack of riders would close several of the less affluent clubs- So 1 league is a non-starter. Whilst some Premiership clubs may consider running with 5 teams, Ipswich are strongly against this, and are threatening to pull out, leaving a 4 team Premiership. A sixth team would appear to be the solution. A club moving up from Championship would solve it, but who? Rumours of a new club at Northampton is another option, a new promotion running a new team out of Oxford is another rumour. There's even rumours Peterborough could get their track back and relaunch, although that does sound far-fetched.

They really don't. The likes of Chris Harris, Danny King, Peter Kildemand, Sam Masters, Charles Wright, Richard Lawson, etc, etc, pick up a "top-up" wage from the CL, to supplement their main PL earnings. If the PL were to collapse, those riders would either need a big pay rise from their one remaining British team or they'd need a foreign league place, which would bring clashes with any British team who don't ride on either a Monday or Thursday. e.g. A collapse of the PL would see Danny King's Plymouth signing fall through. He couldn't ride solely for Plymouth money. He'd be better going to Ipswich on a Thursday and picking up a foreign league. The CL absolutely need the PL to survive, or else it will be the end for some of them.

I remember it the first time around when I was a kid. It was filmed at Rye House (and says so in the end credits). I believe Bob Garrad did the riding for Peter Duncan, and I think Kelvin Mullarkey, Hugh Saunders and Karl Fiala are mentioned at some point (Either introduced by Len Silver or announced as a race winner).

Well that didn't age well. Looks like @1 valve did know their facts, and rightly called out the garbage!

The thing is,(as many others have pointed out), there will be no one there to promote the club to. It's an enthusiasts collectors fair, and a bloody good one. But no member of the general public is going to pay £10 to go and look at old speedway programmes, books and leathers. It's entirely for existing speedway fans, and very devoted ones at that! There will be no one there who has never been to speedway, and no one who doesn't know of the existence of Workington Comets. In fact, I'd wager that the vast majority will have been to Workington as, like me, they are the kind of people who set out to visit every track in the country, and will have had Derwent Park and Northside ticked off their list already. Preaching to the converted in November is neither "thinking out of the box" nor "promoting the club". Just go along and enjoy the nostalgia and the lovingly crafted collections.

How many clubs do you think are in the NDL and NDT?

That's not true. I know of several clubs only paying the standard rates this year. Payments to NDL riders have come down considerably, particularly over the past 2-3 years, with the vast majority of NDL/NDT teams now being second teams to higher league clubs. (Only Iwade were a standalone club in 2025). It's not like it used to be. Going back to the days when Buxton were forced out due to wage costs, there used to be a lot more standalone clubs (Eastbourne, Cradley, Sittingbourne, Mildenhall, Isle of Wight, Stoke, Birmingham) and some of those were the clubs paying huge money to NDL riders.

Normally, they'd agree everything and rubberstamp it at the AGM. But this year they've had to put the AGM back 2 months because everything hasn't been agreed yet.

The AGM is the beginning of January

As people were saying earlier in the week, it's been put back to the first week of January.

I think that top 5 is correct. But I reckon once they all sit around a table trying to plan their teams, they'll realise that they are all struggling to shoehorn riders into the bottom end and will have to go higher than 36. Maybe just as far as 37 to give everyone an extra point at reserve. So R Douglas 8.12 S Masters 7.28 N Morris 5.89 D Thompson 5.87 K Howarth 5.00 4.50 foreigner or D Kemp 4.72 L Killeen R/S

Come on kid, you need to do better than this! Remember, you're supposed to be attention-seeking, and entertaining us, by role-playing as Clark Osborne. But this is a lacklustre effort. It comes across more like something from that 80s ex-Cradley junior with the mental problems who posts laughable drivel on Fracebook while talking into a car sponge.

Pretty sure Jordan Jenkins had his 25% reduction for coming out of the RS scheme in 2024, and you can only have it once even if your average drops you back into RS. So he shouldn't get it again.

I'll go with J Doyle 7.86 T Brennan 7.05 D King 6.50 K Rew 6.19 A Ellis 5.92 D Hume 3.48 J Edwards R/S

Turkey farmers are obviously going to vote for Christmas. It's their most profitable time of year by a long way!

The parting of the ways between Ipswich and Rew last year certainly worked out better for Ipswich than it did for Rew.

If your theory were true, there would only be 10 professional football clubs in the country, not 92.

The TV deal has never required a minimum number of teams. It's the BSPL themselves who want at least 6 clubs to make a PL worthwhile.

Tell that to the Americans then. The draft system is how they acquire college players in American Football, Basketball, Baseball, Ice Hockey and Football. They don't seem to think it's a farce.

That's how the draft pick still works. Any team can keep the same RS from the previous year, but anyone who needs/wants a new RS gets a pick starting with any newcomers and then from bottom of the league working upwards.

Think that is about right. And of course we must remember that Redknapp was not brought in by the BSPL, he was brought in by "Speedway Futures Ltd", the alleged marketing company who were formed in the summer of 2024 and given the media rights to the sport in Britain, and who seem to have done **** all. Knowing that the sport was going into its last year of the TV contract in 2025, they seem to have done nothing all year, and the Redknapp story does sound like a desperate last ditch attempt to get TNT to extend the deal after Speedway Futures Ltd failed to secure an alternative broadcaster. (This ties in with their inability to attract a league sponsor, except for a joke company "Rowe Motor Oil" who no one has ever heard of, and who don't put a single penny of sponsorship into the sport). I do wonder why Speedway Futures Ltd were appointed when they seem to have done absolutely nothing. Surely the BSPL could have done nothing themselves?

I must be missing something that you're reading into it. To me, it says nothing different for 2026. Already back with Vastervik and Bydgoszcz, so just the Ipswich deal to sort, and then no difference from 2025

I guess it's their right to free speech. Just take them with a pinch of salt is my advice.

No. But there are factions within Poland who are upset that a British company (Mayfield Sports Events) have taken charge of the SGP, when they wanted the Polish mafia to get hold of it. So they're trying to make negative crap up. It's a bit like that Clark Osborne apologist who keeps posting crap about the Save Coventry Speedway campaign, and the halfwit with the mental health problems who has a grudge against Cradley. They're best ignored.

Says the bloke posting the garbage.