YeOldPitGate

Think your right Cookie possibly even before that certainly as a team sport, it was always going to happen but has taken a lot longer than I thought it would, really from 1982 to now but the fact it took way longer doesn't make me any less sad about the outcome given it looks like last knockings are nearly here.

Would be awesome if you got Bastian but most likely Kevin he should still do decent but Bastian kind of rider who could put a couple of points on year one average once he was dialed in.

Agreed Mike truly hope I'm wrong but I think its nearly the end for UK league speedway maybe the championship can carry on for a bit longer. As some on here have said a lot of the double uppers from the top league might not stay if its one league of 10-12 teams due to the earnings potential being to low to justify the cost/time of getting to the UK and back. It would be great if there's a pool of SGP2 under 24 standard riders ready to come to the UK to replace them if some of the premier league regular double uppers leave but I personally doubt it which could make filling more championship teams difficult unless we go the five man teams route.

C'mon then M.D you can't leave us all hanging after that ?

To be fair Ian I think for 90% of clubs you would want paying for taking them on given most are loss making.

What we had in the 70's and 80's all be it juniors were at the end of the meeting.

Ideally he wants to retire hence why he hoped to shift Lynn on to the estate agent fella before they fell out, he said around that time he wouldn't put much more money in as he viewed his reserves as his and his wife's pension money.

Agree re Bailey I think so long as massive pressure not dumped on him from day one he will be the next Aussie superstar in 5-10 years time. As an aside James Pearson seems to be scoring pretty well in Aus could be worth a punt for someone no idea what his average was when he was last in the UK but guessing sub five ?

So guessing then when it comes to speedway the sellers should really be paying out to the prospective buyers

Busters days of bailing out tracks (other than Lynn) are well and truly over.

Who Bowes or Bailey ?

Get Kevin Brice back probably the best trapper in history only problem was the other three riders were generally all in front of him by the exit of bend two.

"worst decision ever" in speedway circles means its a shoe in Phil

Very dubious Iain Bill was yet another promoter who was probably reasonably wealthy when he got into the game most likely skint five years later.

Just did a quick google and it seems whatever the reason Simmo and Bill fell out over it resulted in Simmo being banned from holding any offical position in speedway for five years, whatever was the old rascal up to ?

Go on Arnieg I must have stopped going at that point I think my final year was when Richard Knight went to Berwick and Mike Lee made another aborted comeback, what's they about bill and the farting dog and the commonwealth takings ?

I would love to hear if anyone has any stories on why Bill Barker and Simmo fell out at Lynn, I was still going at this point and at first it seemed to herald a new dawn we had on paper a powerhouse team but half of them went from unbeatable around Lynn (Bo Peterson) to terrible around Lynn, dear old John Davis could only ride the boards but not in Henka style, JD always struck me as more suited to longtrack than speedway. The first season Simmo was the front man and then abruptly left leaving Bill to soldier on alone, Bill's winter talk in's pre internet days were brilliant, he should have been in stand up and had no problem telling fans they were being stupid and half the time the audience were in the aisles with his one liners. He never outright said why he had fell out with Simmo but it was obvious something had happened as Bill alluded to with some right old quips along the lines of "has any one seen Malcolm ?" silence from the audience followed by "well if you do can you let him know some people would love to speak to him, namely me" lol. Terry Linden and the lottery ticket, Colin Pratt wanting Lynn thrown out of the league as we were so bad for a couple of years mid 80's lets here some stories of ducking and diving.

I mentioned Ronnie Russell on a previous thread, I had probably stopped going to speedway by the time Ron took over Rye House I seem to remember through reading the speedway star around that time he through everything into it but again from memory it cost him an absolute packet. Did a quick google and found this great article I didn't realise he got involved at Arena Essex later but I guess this was with Terry his brother, has anyone else got any great stories and jinks from lively promoters over the years, I seem to remember again after I had stopped going to Lynn stories of Buster lying on the track to stop as race going ahead. http://speedwayplus.com/showered_in_shale_m.shtml

I can't remember exactly which promoter it was possibly Ronnie Russell talking in a speedway star interview how prior to taking on Rye House he had a nice house, car, money in the bank and by the end of his reign at Rye pretty much all his assets were gone.

Spot on as we pretty much all have said on here there's no good/easy answers anymore whatever the result is come March 2026 there will be some unhappy people. If it does end up as one league I'm guessing if promoters really got a shift on you could support 12 teams if 10-15 new riders can be found in the mould of the young assuies who have been signed up last two years. The issue will be 2-3 clubs will either not run in 2026 or 2-3 will have to be bumped down to national league level.

Totally agree the majority of promoters are rich fans who have other business interests normally the losses from the speedway can be offset against the tax bill on the successful business the risk you run is if the successful business suddenly starts struggling and becomes loss making also your in a world of pain pretty quickly.

Given the current state of speedway if he's as shrewd as he seems he may well ask the other promoters to pay to him a sub to keep the club running if they still want a top league. As others have said these days what are you buying, not the riders, maybe a tractor, air fence and shale, all second hand probably 5-10k for the lot i reckon. Whoever takes it on is walking into an inferno currently raging in British speedway with the risk if it flops you are going to have to underwrite all the losses.

The problem is given the current state of things you would have to give the club away its worth nothing, if anyone takes it on they don't know if they will have anyone to race against in the top tier, drop down a league and maybe get some SGP 2 youngsters over the fans might stick with it they might not if they don't you can set light to 100k minimum. Mr Nichols hasn't made his money by being reckless.

And this is the problem for getting new promoters interested especially if they are professional people not rich fans of the sport, first you might well need £100-£150k to set light to, you assemble a team of mainly british based riders so baring injuries your 1-7 should be on display most weeks to try and set a strong relationship with the fans. Even with that achieved you face the prospect of your opponents turning up most weeks missing half their team and borrowing riders from other clubs, and your having to run on generally unattractive nights also.

Its taken forty odd years to get here but sadly its looking close to finally being checkmate for the sport we all love. I have followed it from afar since 1992 and its still my favourite sport, I did think things might head in the right direction when Sky came on board but promoters let the number one's hoover up all the money so the foresight to put some of the millions into the general infra-structure to set a sturdy base for the future was wasted. I still have great memories of when I first started going in the early 80's Lynn had a dreadful team but crowds were decent and Martin Rogers really tried to promote things locally, every week powerhouse teams turned up and steam rolled us, but when we got the odd win the place went mental. This was mainly down to Bobby Schwartz being so reliable and the odd time when Mike Lee rolled back the years and could be bothered. I also had the privaledge of watching some of the most gifted riders ever in Henka, Loram and John 'Cowboy Cook' during his brief stint. So sad its come to this and even forty years ago I knew it was always a constant struggle for the sport as every winter a couple of teams would be in troublee, maybe there's a 10% chance that the promoters will now be forced to work together and some kind of rebirth can begin.