marko

at last a decent race, lets to if Harris can work the outside now?

Witches missing Allen badly tonight, I know that's something of an understatement

Interesting to read that there could be some development in the future use of Rye House as a speedway venue again, although this is very much on hold at present, I do believe in my own mind that speedway will return there at some point as long as the track remains in situ. Meanwhile over the border here in Essex, everything has gone quite, the previous limited company running the speedway has gone bankrupt, no word from Stuart Douglas former owner on why he decided to no longer keep putting money in or why riders like Kim Nillsen were never paid moneys that had been owed to them for some time, Jon Cook is back at Eastbourne and if you had been living on the moon for the past decade or so, would never have had an inkling he had been part of the Essex club, no word also on any news on the development of the former site, we have seen a statement that some of the people behind the scenes at Lakeside want to start a new club under the banner of Thurrock but whether that is purely a pipe dream no one knows, but to me it feels like the club has been quickly forgotten.

Not much of a pay day if the team who finishes top gets knocked out in the semi final stage

I cant believe BT Sport will continue to show a league of only 7 clubs and that over half of those teams will be in the end of season play offs to win the league, might as well just toss a coin now and get it over and done with.

I feel same as Liam, the match against Glasgow was the real goodbye, I will still watch the sport on the tv every now and then but live no thanks, it’s Arena Essex Hammers or nothing at all, that’s my team.

Spot on, if your not in their bubble they do not want to know. It says it all that you can come into the bubble, put a fair amount of money on the table and still you will not have a voice for a year or so. The BSPA is like a family Christmas, they get together once a year, pretend everything is great and then spend the next 12 months bickering.

I have seen pictures of the final banger meeting, the Firecracker was always popular and the place was rammed, they even had to turn people away! I am sure the four wheeled fans were thinking the same we were for the Glasgow match, if only a few more of these Johnny come lately's turned up on a regular basis this place would not be facing closure.

Pretty much anything that has leached into the ground that should not be there, in the case of Arena your talking about various oils etc, over 30 years of bashed up cars depositing oils and fuel all over the place, you could probably put and oil well in the back car park where the bangers and stocks used to park. I am not totally in the know when it comes to those things but when Stratford was going through it’s massive regeneration ahead of the Olympic park being built that sort of thing was a massive issue, of course It was never going to stop the project.

I heard at the Lakeside meeting at Arena the devs were keen to get their hands on the site because of the sheer amount of pollution that needs to be removed from the ground, and that it was potentially a lot worse than they thought it would be, all this plays into motor sports hands, because for every penny that has to be spent on clearing the ground to make it into a area that can be built on, takes away there end profit, and hopefully viability. Would love it if speedway could carry on for the time being at the stadium, and hopefully for less rent than they have been paying the family who did own it, and who simply took the piss out of it and crapped on their fathers/grandfathers legacy, Chick would turn in his grave if he could see what they done.

Yeah but there is a certain integrity about it, its like someone trying palm you off with what you know is a fake rolex and insisting its the real thing, as opposed to someone saying hey, this isn't what your looking for but it will do the job and you will be happy and look around at how many others are wearing these, they know what it is and they are happy too. Probably that's a crap analogy but you get my point, there is no pretending to be something they are not.

If it’s at Rye it should be Rye House Rockets, if you try and appeal to two sets of fans you end up appealing to neither. We saw in 2017 a swing of fans go to Rye instead of Arena as they wanted to see a higher level of racing, that could still happen again especially if you have the odd rider or two with previous Hammers connections. The Hammers are done, at least for the time being, no point in losing another track in the process of trying to keep two sets of fans happy.

Probably just words of support Hammer180, I remember when the club were looking to drop the NL, Richard asked if there was anything he could do to ensure the club continued to race at a higher level, Top man is Richard Lawson. If you made a list of the top 5 most likable riders the club has had in its entire history, Richard would be in that.

The thing that above all else that has kept me away from Rye House is the small car park, if that is full I wouldn't want to leave my car over the river/railway, that estate always used to look rough to say the least, at Arena I knew even if there was 3000 in, I would still get parked and my car would be safe.

Once you get north of Chelmsford I think that is a sort of boundary between Arena and Ipswich although I did know of some people who lived in the north side of Chelmsford who were Witches through and through, many years ago.

I doubt that very much Whisperer, it would be too far for him to travel.

Stuart is/was the money man, Jon was just a paid employee who was named as a promoter, most promoters do not put money into the club, their title is for administration purposes only, without an owner it really is goodbye to any thoughts of even a track share.

I am in a similar situation, I let it go! all I want now is for its history to be respected and left as is it, in the past, at Arena! Even if there was somewhere else in Essex to go to, I wouldn't want the club to carry on in that name, it should be a fresh start, new identity, the works.

Richard doesn't seem like the sort of person to go around throwing gestures, I think there is more to this than meets the eye and I also feel that maybe the vibe of the Hammers camp isn't anyway near as good as has been painted.

Both clubs could be fined for failing to complete their fixtures or the bond that each club pays before the season could be forfeited.

To say inherited makes it sound like we brought the place, we merely hired it for a few weeks and there is nothing to say they will allow us to hire it next season, even if we did want to use it, we have no track of our own, we do not own the rights to promote at any track that already has other parties with the licence.

Either way after tonight Lakeside will no longer exist, our run at Rye was temporary as a stop gap to get our fixtures completed, which we did. "They" however do not have licence to run speedway at Rye House, it is not down to them whether they do or not run there in the future, its down to other parties as to whether they wish to hire out the venue to another promotion (same with Kent or Eastbourne). Even if Stuart wishes to keep going next season, he must have learnt by now, you can't simply move a club and carry on, there isn't a club in history that has successfully moved venues other than those who have moved the odd mile or two. I would rather not lose the Hammers, but to me we lost them once we left our spiritual home of Arena Essex. Maybe we will see Stuart pop up somewhere else where there is a track without a promoter as a opposed to a promoter without a track.

It’s also been proven fans wont support NlL racing at Arena, never mind at another track.

I don't call it doom and gloom, I call it being realistic and not burying ones head in the sand and hoping everything will be ok, we have no track and evidence to say the club doesn't have enough support outside of the county, and that's with a good team.

Dread to think what the score will be tonight, Hammers have pretty much nothing to ride for so if they could not hit 30 last night then I think we could be looking at a record loss for a Hammers team in the modern era.