IanBrannan

Its stands to reason, as in most other sports, that the best teams last longer in competitions and therefore will play against each other more times. It amuses me that people say why are we seeing Poole / Glasgow / Redcar / Oxford / Sheffield / Ipswich / Belle Vue again. It's because they keep winning..!

I believe that was the whole reason the green helmet colour was introduced in the Sky days, the idea being you could use the Sky remote to bet on a helmet colour. But it never really went anywhere. I think it will happen sometime sooner or later, it's just how it all works and I guess safeguards as well towards people trying to rig it or play the system. As inevitably somebody will be along to ruin it for everyone at some point.

But I think this is the root issue. People are talking about promoters and league structure and marketing, but the base cost of a stadium owned by someone else certainly impacts profitability, which impacts the budget so marketing and promotion take a hit, which these days is a considerable cost. Even getting leaflets printed isn't cheap, but reality is with social media you need to be on Meta platforms and there are no deals to be had, you pay what it costs. And then the owner shuts it down to sell it for housing. Newcastle the cost of stadium hire was astronomical, ARC wanted speedway out, they did it with Wolves which had great crowds. They are taking massive betting money from China, they don't care how many people come through the doors. Perhaps speedway needs to embrace betting in some way. People talk endlessly about a "Barry Hearn figure", but there is absolutely no way he is going anywhere near speedway without betting being involved in some form. That is where the money is, and if you want to open to other markets, then that is an obvious route really.

Speedway is fighting in the face of extremely challenging and unhelpful outside forces too. The list above kind of suggests it is speedway's fault or a lack of interest causing these clubs to shut down. I believe were it not for the lure of land development or one particular greyhound operator who dislikes speedway with a passion, the majority of those would still be running today. Wolves for example you cannot in a million years suggest was a failing prospect as a speedway team. Yes there are many things in speedway which could be improved, but the biggest and most complex issue is stadium ownership / land to race speedway. Taking that list: ARC Greyhound Racing have effectively shut down Wolves, Birmingham & Newcastle for various excuses. Land being sold for development has claimed: Coventry, Cradley, Lakeside, Rye House, Peterborough, Swindon, Stoke and Covid brought things to a head with Somerset which has also now been developed on part of the land. Eastbourne - Owners down want to run speedway There are still tracks at Mildenhall and IOW, that's down to other decisions and personal arguments as to why they are not in the league, but the tracks are there. So as we can see, the big issue here before we get into the sport itself is land ownership. That is the reason why most of these clubs are no longer here. Birmingham would absolutely be running next year if the stadium hadn't been taken away, as for most of the rest of that list. It is a massive problem, however just saying use it or lose it doesn't make a difference, the developers do not care even a tiny bit. They also don't care about the letters of support or petitions which are sent in when a track is under threat. But there is good news, the Coventry appeal ruling is now a significant piece of case law, and it is going to make life an awful lot harder for people to do what they have done in the past again, without first providing a suitable alternative for a sporting venue. And that means not just whacking a 5 a side court down in place of a 100 year old speedway stadium. To this effect, I have only this week recorded a podcast with a man called Brian Connolly, he is a speedway fan but also a former solicitor and planning expert. He played a significant role in getting the team together to defend Coventry, and he's also had some success this week with Peterborough. He's also working on Rye House, Lakeside and Swindon. You can listen to it here https://pod.fo/e/3430a4 it is the 2nd part after the Poole stuff. It is interesting and shows the realities of what has gone on, and how there can be a way back for these tracks, but speedway has to learn to outsmart the developers, and we are getting there thanks to people like Brian and his contacts. There are many battles to be had in speedway but this is the biggest one, and hopefully the tide is turning, slowly.

We interviewed Chris Harris because he won, by quite some way the public vote as rider of the night. This was after the trophy presentation and while the Poole riders were at the other side of the stadium being interviewed. The rest of the Poole rider interviews are on Facebook and have been viewed 9000 times so far. We also interviewed Richard Lawson and Zach Cook on the main show as soon as they took their helmets off after the super heat.

Because a 3-3 is not a heat advantage. This situation I'm told has never happened quite this way before, ever. The rule was there for the day it did. It will probably never happen again.

It is total heat advantages, if they were 4-2 or 5-1 or 5-0 or whatever doesn't matter. The score achieved doesn't matter. It is heat advantages, it cannot be any simpler than that.

The rule is ANY rider who has a British Speedway established average can be considered a guest, so long as their converted average fits. For Premiership riders that only usually leaves a few possibilities such as covering for the very top riders as in this case. When you look at the other top averaged Championship riders they are mostly Redcar, Glasgow or Poole riders, none of which can be considered. The rest you would argue are not on a par with the top rider in the league at this time in Richard Lawson. Obviously the very top Premiership riders wouldn’t be eligible in any case not least their average would be hideously high. So Adam Ellis for Richard Lawson is one of the few situations this would work.

The problems usually mainly arise with rearranged rain offs etc. A massive amount of work has gone on between GB and Poland to try and coordinate things as much as possible so there are few clashes. Indeed Poland have had to cancel fixtures this week to allow for the Premiership KO Cup final on Thursday, so it does work both ways but nobody ever mentions that...

Plymouth have no priority over Poland, and that includes time to get there he's not got a private jet

Major difference being that Poland have priority on those days as per the international agreements. Only meetings on Mondays, and partly on Thursdays depending, have priority in Britain. So if a rider is required elsewhere for international meetings be that Denmark on a Weds, or Poland on a Saturday or Sunday or whatever the situation, then that's fair game really but you do get a guest option.

That is defo an AI answer.. 😂

Yeah I think the message is if clubs are gonna bin you at the drop of a hat, don’t expect the rider to wait around for you.

Haha true, the bias tends to depend on who is winning and losing

I think when it comes to club streams you've got every right to be biased, it's the clubs own channel. To be fair I did the Workington v Poole club stream and that was pretty Worky centric..! 😂 Then next week for BSN a bit more on the fence.

The Jason Edwards situation is explained in great detail for around 10 mins by Jason Edwards himself on the latest No Brakes No Fear podcast, around 20 mins in. you can find it here. https://pod.fo/e/300824

You realise you’re watching a Workington club stream, so shock horror it probably is a little balanced towards the team who own it 😂 I get accused of being anti Poole by Poole fans, and Poole biased by away fans, and in reality I’ve covered more Poole meetings than any other club including all bar one cup final where I think you’d have a hard job saying I was anti Poole. I’ve also been issued with a Bailie House survivors T shirt by Middlo. Now when BSN do the fixture against Redcar, well maybe that will be harder 😂

No, I always broadcast to strictly ABC1 Financial Times readers with a 2nd home. Enjoying Neil Diamond is acceptable though.

You sir have won the internet 😂

Thanks

They don't anticipate any issues, but Sunday is he reserve date so the cancelled meeting would run Sunday. However, this is subject to the FIM decision, there are lots of variables such as if the meeting gets to heat 16 then the result would be called. They will do absolutely everything to make sure the meeting happens though.

If he doesn't fancy it I'll give it a bash

The interview with Phil was recorded around 9pm on Sunday night. as it stands at this moment 5.20pm Thursday, Kurtz & Doyle are down to ride, there has been no media briefing otherwise, however both are fitness question marks. Missing 2 GPs would be significant for both riders though so neither will want to pull out without giving it the maximum opportunity.

One if the main differences is we live on an island, and as a result the weather is more volatile literally depending on which way the wind blows. The track material here is totally different, even riders say it is a different sport. Comparing Polish and British tracks is largely pointless as the type of material available is different here, they also use different tyres, and run bikes with tubeless tyres which we don’t. So the wheels they are racing on are different too.

Firstly, I was not referring to any of your posts, it’s was the one which was claiming it will never happen. I have never said a return is imminent, just that maybe closer than we have been what with everything but a long way from imminent I’m not party to anything specific but I know things are going as well as they can at this stage, as has been detailed in press releases from the group and interviews which are in the public domain not least on the NBNF podcast with Jeff Davies. I know first hand what it is like to lose a club, I’m a Bradford fan so you don’t need to tell me about super domes and roofs. Even more frustrating is they have a shale track down and still no speedway but that’s another story. Should anyone wish to hear the interview with Jeff Davies it is in this episode here, it’s a few weeks old but nothing has happened in the meantime to make this update any different or less positive at this stage. https://pod.fo/e/2c96c6 So whilst not getting anyone’s hopes up but the to say it will never happen is equally wide of the mark. Let’s see, this is not just a petition, people are working to try and make this happen and they deserve our support. Many have supported it, we’ve spoken about it on BSN to help drive the campaign for public backing, and the support has been excellent. We all hope it has a good outcome, anybody can say it won’t. One of us will be right 😂🤷🏼‍♂️