marko

Just to echo what a few others have said, no one wants any track to close even if that track was seen as a rival, the sport is only as strong as the clubs in it, the more that go, the more chance your own club could fall. I have seen three clubs that I used to attend on a regular or semi regular basis go, Arena Essex, Rye House and Hackney, not been to a meeting since 2018 when Arena went but still get the star every week and watch the odd match on you tube or the highlights posted on social media, because having followed it from 1988 to 2018, it’s in my blood now, for me personally at its core, four riders sliding around an oval track is classic.

That’s what you call a play off final

There is a difference between being over the top on here and how one would act at a track in person, I suspect most who like to banter on here are actually pretty decent people at heart, and the ones who act badly at a track, are probably not even on here.

Thing is though, no rider is ever judged from just one meeting, it’s normally down to a history of not being invested in certain meetings, pulling out of certain meetings etc Brady isn’t the first and won be the last, I would say KK is probably the go to rider when it comes to picking a choosing when he can be bothered. I try to put myself in the Belle Vue fan position, say back in the day, Lakeside were in a play off and AJ was contesting a GP final and only scored three points away prior to such final, I don’t think I would be angry, but I would be very disappointed, as even if he went onto win the series, how would that help Lakeside especially if the following season he decided to quit racing in the UK. I think what you have to remember is, winning the league is your clubs title, a rider winning the World Championship, isn’t your clubs title, the rider is representing his country, not one of the two or three clubs he rides for every week, although it is an added bonus to say your tracking the World Championship the following season if you retain him. If I was an Ipswich fan, Brady not wanting it, is Aces loss, and come the end of the season will be soon forgotten but I can still understand how they feel because such attitudes could easily be replicated on mass if the sport in this country doesn’t sort itself out, if clubs start to fall because riders have too much power, the whole deck of cards fall with it.

And so the biggest issue British Speedway is summed up, the league matches do not matter to the fans and sometimes not to the riders, the play offs do matter to the clubs who see it as possibly a break even pay day, but for whatever reason not all the riders are equally invested and some fans are smart to that, so if league matches don’t draw and the play offs by design or accident don’t draw, what is the point? I don’t have the answer, I think we will lose more clubs as the sport in the country will become a very small league setup with maybe only seven or eight home fixtures a season plus a koc match or two, or become similar to what Isle of Wight do or what grass track does, a few meetings a season. (That won’t be viable though if speedway is the only sport in said stadium)

Indeed if this weather in Essex hits Ipswich they are done.

I feel sorry for the fans but the track is rubbish because it’s prepared that way and the promoter shouldn’t be allowed to have anything to do with the sport ever again.

The thing is pro wrestling is scripted to provide a fixed outcome, speedway is fixed to try and provide a scripted outcome. A close match resulting in a draw is more entertaining than a one sided match (for the neutral) so why gimmick it up further, making one sided matches look even more inferior?

It’s a gimmick made for TV which is what speedway became many years ago. It might add something for the neutral but what about those at the track? You see your team battle to a draw or salvage a point only to then walk away feeling like you lost.

Chick Woodrolf was the guy who opened Arena Essex, he once pledged that so long as he is around there will always be racing at the venue, more I hear the more it sounds like his family completely went away from his wishes, they sold it off behind peoples back and shafted every fan of both two and four wheeled motorsport at Arena in the process. i hope that family rots in hell.

Vinnie actually made a good start but then they “shut the door” on him

Lots of mention of 1996 and how it was a failure and it was, not helped for me personally by the fact I was watching London Lions in that league and that was a disaster in itself. But let’s talk about the gaps in class between merging two divisions, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as it was in 96 because so many riders in the prem still ride in the second division. At London you had Leigh Adam’s as the top rider and a very young David Mason as the number 7, David would have struggled to average 3 in a stand alone second division. From memory some clubs struggled to field a genuine number one, the Scottish Monarchs I think was one of them.

Everything else Birmingham is inept so why should the team planning be any different 😉

They say it can’t get any worse, with the current lot in charge, oh yes it can! Everytime a new promoter comes into the sport with fresh ideas like Stuart Douglas did, they get pushed back by the old guard who continue to drive it into the ground.

They can’t possibly claim they can’t run an extra meeting because of costs when the reason given for the club ending is down to the stadium? Does that mean had the stadium been available in 2026 Birmingham would have continued or is the stadium issue just a smokescreen for the fact Tolley can’t run a bath let alone a speedway club.