YeOldPitGate

I am utterly grasping at straws here Dean but I got the impression at Birmingham there was someone else in the background who was as minted as Tolley underwriting the losses was this H or am i way off base with my speculation ?

Pretty much what most expected just a shame it was so late in the day they might have ended up with three riders who sometimes are only interested 50% of the time.

They would do a Rune Holta and take out a polish licence

Agreed 99.9% on here want this to be a resounding success that means the club can carry on for many years, the worry as the same 99.9% have said is it seems to be the standard speedway operating model of lets just open the gates on opening night and they will turn up. This semi works at existing tracks as the wealthier owners can underwrite the losses but its been a very slow death by a thousand cuts for the last 40 years, people on here desperately want it to succeed the concerns are it seems the owners are following the current operating model that we all know doesn't work unless you can cover losses elsewhere Poole and Ipswich excepted.

Not a bad idea Mike personally I think if the top 4 UK clubs joined it would be a better proposition to sell to the public, the other 1 or 2 remaining prem clubs could drop down to the championship and it would still allow the 3rd heat leaders/second strings to double up in the championship to help with the lower leagues expenses and allow said riders to top up their coffers also.

I think as has been mentioned before a lot of the promoters are just happy with the status quo some are relatively wealthy people compared to the normal Joe and are happy to offset the losses against their other business profits. They work on the basis that 90% of last seasons crowd will return , build a team to win at home, get a few local sponsors on board to pare some of the expected season loss rinse and repeat. The Northampton situation gets ever odder we are told 100k plus has already been sunk into it and as others have said zero promotion has been done . I can only think the people who have stumped up the original 100k are happy to loose another 100k over the season or they aren't promoting it as they aren't really sure they can get it over the line and as such think we won't push the promotion side of things to avoid agg of refunding season tickets , sponsorship etc.

i would imagine he already is

Yes that was the time I was really into the sport I can remember poor old Terry's woes he was another fella who went from being relatively wealthy to skint by the end of his promoting days.

The Terry Chainey days from memory.

You know what I mean.

Remember the Belle Vue opening night ?

And a budget travel lodge room to carry out the post tombola interview

Sensible thinking to be honest , I personally wish he had retired as he's had some really bad knocks in recent seasons but only he can decide on that, if he's not looking to take to much on I wonder if he will just focus on Poland this year is he still riding in their top league ?

Whats the reason not fit for start of the season ?

Wasn't there two Horton's and the other one took over Peterborough cleared the debts and led a successful era for 2-3 seasons before he got bored of underwriting the losses or was that the Frost fella ?

Excuse the pun given your handle but I'm thinking the "Northampton Ghosts" given no one has seen any riders, team manager or promoters yet.

Or get Eddie Kennett in for opening night then go with your plan match 2 to season end or Niki Pederson for another one of those awesome first corners.

He's put in one hell of a shift since coming on board for speedway at the back end of last year for sure.

Agreed I would love to see one off world finals back but can't see it happening the gp's were a reasonable success for the first half of their lifespan but I would imagine the one's held in Poland now counter the losses on the other gp's.

Leading by example

I'm beginning to think you might be onto something M.D

Thanks for the update Flagrag that would indicate they are pretty shrewd people can only hope the new promoters are reasonably well financed as trying to do this operation on a shoe string will be fraught with risk.

I'm 99% sure your correct Mike at one of the Lynn talk in's from memory, maybe the new lot are the front men for the other promoters all be it alternatively that's not what Flagrag seemed to hint and he's way better informed than most. In the perfect world hopefully the new management team are stand alone, uber minted with some heavy sponsorship lined up.

I do wonder if we just have to accept the sport is beyond saving now, I've mentioned before nightclubs that were packed in the 90's early noughties are now virtually all gone, loads of pubs closing daily, when I used to go in the 80's early 90's there were generally a couple of tracks in trouble every winter but generally a new owner stepped forward to save them. You didn't have Sky in the 80's, streaming services, mobile phone and broadband monthly subs, multi plex cinemas, online shopping and so many other things these days tugging for attention of the monthly pay packet, that's before you get onto gas and electric and the cost of running a car going though the roof in the last decade. I have a feeling if it does survive and someone takes it on it will look radically different to what we know and love and that probably won't include league racing in its current form if at all. I wish the Northampton team all the very best but there's no getting away from the fact they have a massive task on their hands on multiple fronts.

Interesting Al is this something Harry has come up with or Chris Harris ?