YeOldPitGate

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.

Whats the other 2030 vision, you refer to ?

I think the issue is they don't know where things are going themselves literally every week we have been having huge bombs go off, no tv deal, no sixth club, Louis looking to get out, no firm buyer for Sheffield yet.

The reality is that's not as daft as it sounds Clarkeson's farm has been uber popular do to all the stresses and problems in the UK farming industry if the farming ship was running smoothly the series wouldn't have got past one season. They should try and approach Amazon and say look we have huge problems , Harry is super popular with Jo public if your willing to chuck 1-2 mil in you would have some great tv as there's about a hundred fires burning currently which nobody really has any idea how to put out, imagine what great tv it would be watching Harry deal with 15-20 other promoters all with different views, work permit problems, riders not showing up for meeting, guests galore and the general unworkable rule book. They could get three seasons just out of the above stuff.

As Mike has said the promoters have poured in millions over the years but they could never get a real long term collective game plan together, those that tried to make radical changes didn't last very long, (John Berry, Jonathan Chapman the two who most come to mind). When a club got into trouble there always seemed to be someone pop up with 100k-500k to burn through over 2-3 seasons before they threw in the towel but these people seem gone now also. The only positive is that Louis stepping down is going to force them to try something different whether it works better than the last decade or this is the beginning of the end we will have a better idea of when April rolls round.

I've said on here before I think the slide started after Penhall quit at the end of the 1982 season he was probably the most box office speedway rider ever. As a deja vue scenario a few years later promoters realised things were going the wrong way and got the ex Ipswich promoter John Berry (Berry was the best promoter in the early 80's and again Ipswich was the jewell) to be the big chief. If anyone could have turned things around it was Berry but from memory less than a week into his new role he quit as he couldn't implement the changes he wanted to do, fast forward forty years and the modern day version of John Berry has now also thrown the towel in.

Yep Louis has tried to do the right thing all down the line but has been caught in forty years of bad decisions finally breaking the bridge everything stood on. Can't see a way out now I think thats it for the premiership unless a bodge can be done on club number six and they can talk Louis round I really can't see anyone wanting to buy it given 33% of the prem want out , it will most likely shut down for a year at least to see if anything is left in the wreckage. I'm beginning to think this is it for UK speedway as we have known it.

Sadly it is worthless TTT who would be mad enough to set light to a pile of cash and enter the mess known as the premiership.

Not often I disagree with you Mike but even though its the best run club in the UK personally think anyone buying it would be mental, given Sheffield and Leicester ideally want out of top league by all counts, the 6th club if it happens will be a bodge, you could buy the crown jewell of speedway but it would sit amongst burning ruins. I admire everything Louis has done but personally think he will struggle to give it away given the state of everything else in speedway world.

Thing is even allowing for the fact its probably the best run and supported club in the UK given the current state of things this winter who would be crazy enough to buy it , I can't see its worth anything given you might not have anyone to race against.

Any sign of Harry in central London this morning banging on the doors of all the major broadcasters ?

Near zero I reckon unfortunately.

I don't think that's the case TTT we all have different views. I think the one thing we can all agree on is that due to being asleep at the wheel for the last forty plus years the day of reckoning has sadly now arrived and there's no easy choices left, its a case of either tough actions that are going to upset plenty of people or option b which is most likely total collapse.

Cause I did Iain

Just watching this on Youtube how we would all love to see these type of days again, Cradley packed to the rafters and wouldn't it be great if the USA could find another 7-8 world stars those Americans back in the 80's were box office.

I do get your arguement TTT but if you were Poole you would most likely want 100k passed over upfront or put in a bank account controlled by someone other than the bspa.