ouch

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/other-sport/aces-on-offer-983611?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/other-sport/prices-cut-as-aces-thank-loyal-1002582.amp We still do things of a similar vein but just to be clear we didn’t stop doing the specifics mentioned in the links due to them being so successful. We can all get a handle on where speedway sits in the public consciousness. I’ve asked this twice but I think fans lethargy dwarfs that of any promoter. Invite 20 people you know to attend a meeting with you and let us know their reaction whether they attend or not. These are “hot” invites as they know and like you so it’s infinitely easier than a “cold call” invite. Having your 20 responses will give you a sense of what speedway in the UK is up against. Just to add, you don’t need to do this. You can all do nothing or even better just keep telling other folk where they are going wrong.

Pleasing result for The Aces with better a performance from our reserves. Shame about Jaimon but these things happen and even an average return from him would have seen another away win, not that it was needed. I was 250 miles away but even I could hear Brady say f*#^ that in his last two rides and it difficult to argue against that when comparing a late season filler to the world crown. After this, I’m very optimistic about our play off meetings given the form of our bottom four and the scores to be delivered by our top three. Exciting times again on the domestic and world front for Aces fans.

Whilst taking the sport to the kids again is worthwhile we have hundreds a year with their parents walking past a 50 foot image of Dan Bewley before walking across the speedway track to play football. https://www.playfootball.net/venues/manchester-belle-vue-sports-village/community-sessions

I’d utilise bank holidays and school holidays to attract families. The first meeting of the season is always well attended for speedway starved fans, so I’d run a Sheffield meeting then and put the PCMT on a Saturday later in the season. I’d do the same with the British Final if no other club wanted it. That first night plus bank and school holidays would account for 12 meetings, all being well attended hopefully. The league title should go to the top of the table team with the top four competing for the KO Cup as this would make for more meaningful meetings. Run a wooden spoon cup for the other two, if it’s a six team league again like four years ago. I’d offer more special deals (endless options to try) and freebies to bump up the crowd as we saw on Monday that a big crowd can elevate an ordinary meeting. All this should be done if we stick with Dan & Brady types or not. If we throw them out then we restructure completely with rules making equipment cheaper to run and admission reflecting what’s on offer.

Decent enough meeting for an end of season filler. The racing was compromised due to the need to keep the dust under control on a hot and breeze day. Only 6 heats had anything of note happen after they had sorted themselves out off the start by B3 L1. This meant it could appeal to the racing fans and the gate’n’go brigade so win win there. Big crowd and great atmosphere with the usual excellent presentation added to with the sound and pictures from the big screen. Shame a Tate EF in the away fixture cost us the bonus but if we are to have our usual bad luck, then have it in a qualifier. This unfortunate loss and our aggregate win against the lions earlier in the year just leaves Ipswich who we have failed to tame. Given the fact we pulled back 14 points over just 9 heats suggests we can be successful again when it comes to giving trophies out. It’s squeaky bum time though as our annual play off injury jinx is due in the next fortnight. Opponents take heart.

Apologies if this is already on here but I’ve just registered my support for this via https://development.wiltshire.gov.uk/pr/s/planning-application/a0iQ300000FdUf7IAF/pl202506229?tabset-8903c=3 It can only help.

I think that the bloke on the kerb from gate one is moving off the inside due to his momentum from that start position, thus allowing the gate four bloke the opportunity to undertake him, all due to the gates they started on. We will have to disagree on this one but I respect your opinion.

Absolutely NOBODY has said that.

I know for a fact that speedway isn’t the best kept secret in town as we have done the following over the years to bang the drum. Have an advert on local radio over an extended period of time. Have an advert in local newspapers over an extended period of time. Have an advertising board on some of the busiest roads in Manchester. Have posters in shops and businesses. Had out flyers in local shopping areas. Have a float or attend local fairs and carnivals. Attend local trade shows. Give out free tickets to schools and businesses. Take bikes and merchandise into schools to accompany the talk they deliver on the sport. Be featured on local tv news’s 4 or 5 times between March and October. Have a regular editorial in local papers. Have a 30 minute highlights programme on a local tv satellite station. Form a tie up with local groups and offer free entry and supporters club membership. Attend (and win) local sports team of the year awards. I know I keep saying it and it’s a bitter pill for us all but as a generalisation, people do not like speedway. I asked recently if you could all ask family and friends to attend a meeting with you. I had no response but I’m guessing if each asked 20 people then out of the collective thousands that were asked the answer would have been around a 100% no. This is from people who now know where and when and how much the local speedway is and the opportunity to attend with a knowledgeable friend but still refuse the invite.

With regards attendances, the lore is fans overestimate home crowds and underestimate away. Clubs aren’t happy with their crowds and if you’re making a bob or two then great but no club has any bragging rights about attendance. Manchester has so much going on in the battle for the leisure pound. The average man/woman in the street (which is exactly what a speedway fan is) only has so much expendable cash so should they attend one of the many many shows or concerts etc at £50-£100 a pop they do not have the money to visit speedway. They can catch the speedway almost any time but when a particular show or artist comes to town for a short run or one night only then it’s easy to see who wins. Add in the plethora of sporting greats in and around the city then it’s amazing that such an unfashionable sport as ours can hold its head above water in the area. This is not a dig but I spent a week in the B&B Hotel in Ipswich at the end of last October. I struggled to find anything to do. No theatre (one production had been cancelled), no gigs and no comedy. There wasn’t even a pub quiz night. I had to travel to Cambridge to get my theatre fix. I found Ipswich to be a lovely town and had it been summer then a walk along the waterfront together with a drink and a meal would have been great but winter time offered me little. With limited competition for the leisure pound it’s little wonder that places like this and Poole get fairly decent crowds.

With regards attendances, the lore is fans overestimate home crowds and underestimate away. Clubs aren’t happy with their crowds and if you’re making a bob or two then great but no club has any bragging rights about attendance. Manchester has so much going on in the battle for the leisure pound. The average man/woman in the street (which is exactly what a speedway fan is) only has so much expendable cash so should they attend one of the many many shows or concerts etc at £50-£100 a pop they do not have the money to visit speedway. They can catch the speedway almost any time but when a particular show or artist comes to town for a short run or one night only then it’s easy to see who wins. Add in the plethora of sporting greats in and around the city then it’s amazing that such an unfashionable sport as ours can hold its head above water in the area. This is not a dig but I spent a week in the B&B Hotel in Ipswich at the end of last October. I struggled to find anything to do. No theatre (one production had been cancelled), no gigs and no comedy. There wasn’t even a pub quiz night. I had to travel to Cambridge to get my theatre fix. I found Ipswich to be a lovely town and had it been summer then a walk along the waterfront together with a drink and a meal would have been great but winter time offered me little. With limited competition for the leisure pound it’s little wonder that places like this and Poole get fairly decent crowds.

FTG is no longer a derogatory term as many fans have expressed their liking for this kind of heat and find the passing at some tracks boring. There is no need to defend FTG anymore, nevertheless this defence goes on with some examples being plain daft. If you can’t fathom the intricacies of the first few seconds of a heat and the impact a riders start position has then you need to rewatch some televised meetings. The commentators discuss at length the options open to a rider over the first part of a heat or more importantly options not available. Any passing up to the exit of B3 L1 is almost exclusively influenced by the start position and this is why I call a heat at that point then compare the order come the checkered flag. This is by no means an insult but yesterday only heat 3 & 15 saw a change in order after B3.

I’d be happy if this was the play offs as we can pull back a 14 deficit within 9 heats. In every meeting at Foxhall this season we have suffered 5-1 in heat 13 & 15 which is unacceptable given our top two. In both fixtures we were in touching distance on a close defeat of small win as the rest of the side had done their thing. Harsh on Brady & Dan but everyone has a job to do in their particular slot. I’m confident that they will succeed in these heats come the play offs and help lead us to the ultimate prize once again. Whether they go on an unbeaten 29 ride run again like last year is debatable.

All this talk of points being available to some teams and not others reminds me of the double point joker used in the 2006 final. Peterborough were successful in gaining 61% of their total points whilst Reading gained 63%. Peterborough won! It was then I realise speedway was more in line with WWE than a proper sport and entertainment was the holy grail and not providing a true sporting contest. Whilst the sport is definitely still the latter, maintaining the former has proved elusive for the UK’s top league.

Everything will be finalised on the Thursday before Mondays play offs. Can’t wait. https://britishspeedway.co.uk/calendar/september-2025/

It’s so frustration but you make a valid point. Looking at positions 2, 6 & 7 this season, they ride well at home but as you point out poor away. The difference in their collective home and away average is 2.07 and you are correct that this signifies their “one track pony” status. We don’t often agree but there is no getting away with the figures on the one.

Sheffield will pick The Aces again.

Spot on and as good an argument for one lap dashes being adopted by UK speedway as I’ve ever seen.

Very much a gating contest and one our bottom end have been successful at in the not too distant past. Norick has fairly recently posted scores of Paid 9 & 2 Paid 8’s but he was making the all important start, so crucial at Foxhall. Similarly Jake 2 Paid 6’s and Zach Paid 13 & Paid 10, both riders wearing their gating gloves on those occasions. I’m not overly optimistic of an Aces win nor an exciting night’s actions as the gate’n’go leagues second best gaters take on the perennial worst of the bunch. All those “it’s only 15 minutes of entertainment” will be having kittens as this one will be down to less than 2 minutes.

Looking at the current GSA’s and taking into account Dan’s Brit reduction for next season, we can keep six of this years team and replace Cook with Zagar. Fair play is The Aces way, sadly lacking in our sport and life in general imo. Leon is still young. He’s only 16 months older than Norick. Had a read of updates and I’ve seen the Brady race on social media but apart from this and the world number four passing their RS for second, is their anything else I’ll miss after the first seven seconds of the heat if I don’t watch the “highlights” on Dmax?

Given Dan’s showboating after heat 15 I’d guess the communication between manager and riders was sadly lacking. You hit the nail on the head about letting Emil go and concentrate on Jason, a tactic that I think would have worked if attempted. It’s always been a bugbear for me when riders are told the score and they say they had no idea. If I was manager I tell all my team that I could ask them the score at any time and I’d want a correct answer. Sure, riders want to win but the team must come first so why jeopardise a needed safe position with an unnecessary risky passing manoeuvre. It’s very different these days as it’s a group of individuals riding for a club and not a team in the true sense of the word. If a rider doesn’t know the meeting score how will they know if Jake is have a bad time and needs some assistance?

I think we spend as much time on here discussing what might be prior to a meeting as we do discussing a meeting result. We use past performance as a way of formulating our predictions and I feel this predicting is right and proper on a speedway forum. We predict what Dan and Jake will likely score together with all those in between and we do this for both teams. Using this method we can arrive at a likely score for any particular rider and base our assumptions on this. If we are to stop doing this then pre meeting discussion will be less than it is now, which is down greatly from its heyday. On the Jaimon scores we need to remember he would have been partnered by a very effective Zach Cook so we can’t just willy nilly add 4 or 5 points to our total. Using the previously mentioned method of predicting scores I’d have us finishing on 48 points with Jaimon in and it would still have been a last heat decider. As I posted before, not a convincing win and not one to inspire an aggregate win should we meet in the play offs.

I use to live near Stuart and a few years ago my ex organised him to attend an It’s a knockout event, at her school! A while after a friend of hers bought her a lovely painting of some giraffes. I came home, admired the picture then noticed the artists signature. It was Rolf Harris! Like I say she’s my ex so I dodged the conversation when asking how the kids are, “They’re fine, Gary Glitter has taken them to the Jimmy Salville appreciation society where Rolf Harris is doing portraits.”

That would unfairly amplify the home advantage imo. 1 lap dashes are a great concept as almost completely at most tracks the other three laps are redundant.

Depends on the meeting. For more years than I care to remember the governing body have been lenient when riders are chasing world championship individual glory, often making use of the column inches that follow with the true grit stories. The fans also rally around such riders. If he was to ride in a foreign league, completes that fixture and does not aggravate his injuries then action should quite rightly be taken. I hope he returns, especially if we end up against them in the play offs as two fit teams would be a great spectacle as our A fixtures demonstrated.