IainB

There's a woman in Eastbourne with a groundhog apparently

The way out is for the cancelling club to forfeit the match 0-75, 4 league points to the opposition if called off more than a specified time before the event.

I often hear the bikes going around Leicester during the daytime

It's not "rained" off though is it... it's "forecasted" off... anyway forecast off back to your Peterborough thread Sorry, couldn't resist that.

3 days out in a country notorious for its inclement weather, Wow! You'd never get a season completed if every club were allowed to do this unless they were to forfeit the match.

I hope you've given that finger of yours a good rest overnight and I know we can keep this to and fro jousting up without being disrespectful or hostile... But I'm not stirring it at all, I am in fact semi serious. Now we both know clubs are not going to get £300m each but from what RobGod was saying money is available to be applied for. I'm not going to use the word promoter but club owner, if you're a club owner at the moment there is no way out, even Matt Ford can't offload the Manchester United of Speedway, the only option he's got is to make the best out of a bad job and run his club according to the crowds he gets. At the start of the season you had the madness of clubs opening up under Covid crowd restrictions that they should have known damn well they couldn't sustain... and out came the begging bowl for some of them. If you can't sell your club and you can't make it pay on the crowds you are getting (for whatever reason) and there appears to be no plan to MSGA (Make Speedway Great Again) then you either close... or seek a coronavirus loan, if the government are stupid enough to loan money to failing businesses in a failing sport they can't really expect to get their money back and I can't see how the directors would be personally liable for that loan. There will be businesses out there (not Speedway) that will be taking Coronaloans, paying themselves a big fat salary, paying back director loans etc. and syphoning money out of their businesses, that's up to them and it's not what I'm suggesting Speedway should do. When I say let the administrators run the sport after it's all gone bankrupt, well my tongue is half in my cheek when I say that as really it's what's needed to get the sport back on the straight and narrow. So the choices are close (losing your money), make it pay (which most clubs can't) or take the loan and worry about it later and hope for a miracle that turns the sport around into a profit making business so that you can pay the loan back.

So Eastbourne are not only consulting mystic meg for the weather in Eastbourne and the Radio Times for the TV listings... they've now got to ask mystic meg to put together a forecast for Lublin on Saturday night! What if that's rained off?

I've said before, if you're going to quote me have the decency to @ me. If you don't think that was a good Speedway race you don't like Speedway! That was a better race than anything served up in the gate and go fest of Peterborough's last home match... which was so long ago I can't even remember who it was against. ... And I'm still waiting for anybody to suggest a cut off time of how early it is acceptable to call a Speedway match off based on a weather forecast.

What exactly was the point? What do you consider a bumper crowd. All I said was a bumper crowd is relative. It may be a bumper crowd compared to those they were getting while under covid restrictions but they certainly ain't bumper compared to even 10 years ago. Just joining the simple debate, no need to be condescending

I also run a limited company and like you would never dream of doing such a thing and I am of course (half) joking... but we have seen shady dealings by some promoters in the past. DogFartGate, JackHolderGate And I have a perfectly good Snooker Cue thank you very much!

Not bumper relative to 10 years ago

I don't see how you can go to jail for your limited company not being able to pay a loan back. The whole point of a limited company is the limited liability of the directors... which is why so many directors will be taking loans, paying themselves a handsome salary and then declaring bankruptcy. The government will end up writing all that debt off

There's only Jack Holder who rides Ekstraliga isn't there? Race nights, like Neil Watson has said, its to enable doubling up. But if postponing on forecasts becomes common place there's no way other clubs will be able to complete their fixtures

What else are they gong to do? They don't seem to be able to promote their way out of the situation or organise their way out of the situation. Maybe the way out of the situation is to take the money, run until bankrupt and then let administrators restructure the sport to make it viable. It's crazy I'm even suggesting it, I know, but what else is the sport gong to do? Remove the green helmet colour? Reintroduce the 6 point tac sub rule? Stop riders getting off their bikes at the starting line... etc. etc. It'll never happen if course, I know it won't, there's not the collective spirit to play the system

If every club starts to call off based on forecasts, which you find acceptable, to only run on a night when the forecast is favourable, there's only going to be a limited number of acceptable nights for any club to run and that leads to fixture chaos

https://www.speedwaygp.com/news/article/8872/covid-loans-offered-to-english

Yes all these speedway promoters are fine upstanding members of the business community. Why as a failing business would you not take £300k of government money? Many thousands of businesses have with no intention of paying it back. In fact it may be a blessing in disguise if clubs and the sport as a whole is run by administrators!

Yes, I totally get what you're saying. I was brought up in an era of speedway when clubs tried all they could to get meetings on, so all this canceling based on forecasts, as I've said before especially in this country, I don't like to see. Speedway is always at the mercy of the weather, we all know that but the Eastbourne postponement takes things to a new level. I was looking at my met office app at 7pm and it said the sun would be shining at 8... it p1ssed it down! As Eastbourne have set a new precedent in calling a match off 2 and a half days in advance, would anybody who does think that cancelling based on a forecast is acceptable care to comment on how far in advance it is acceptable to call a match off? I do accept with current crowd levels it's something that's now part and parcel of speedway, much as I dislike it, surely you've got to leave it to the day of the event to give yourself a chance. And if you think you can't compete against a TV programme unfortunately there really is no hope for the future of a club in that promoters hands. Just my opinion

Not really fraud if you've taken a loan and are unable to pay it back because your business isn't viable. It's what the banks write off as bad debt It's called playing the system

A bit hostile... not quite sure why, but if it butters your parsnips...

They could be riding away, they could be riding in a rearranged fixture due to one of their own postponements or they could be riding away due to another clubs cancellations. This is not just a Peterborough problem, anytime any match is postponed it has knock on ramifications.

And the Eastbourne one?

What would you class it as?

Some people on the Birmingham thread are suggesting this has more to do with Birmingham's future than Eastbourne's, as in they don't want to stage a meeting that may well be expunged from the records. As for recording the GP, that is what I shall be doing and going along to Leicester as it hasn't been called of as yet.

Well, if you'd elaborate on your one word answers maybe we'd all have a clue as to what the hell you're going on about. So in that respect I guess I am clueless yes