IainB

Haha... my bad, thanks, that top option is clickable not just a drop down menu. I've been looking at some of the other clubs websites and some are really bad Belle Vue, can't find the results, Glasgow Fixtures and Results on different pages and website kept crashing for me.

It would incentivise clubs to get matches on though and not call matches off days in advance based on a weather forecast that could be wrong (as they often are) safe in the knowledge that there's loads of blank Monday's and Thursdays left in the calendar (until there aren't). To have only staged 4 home matches in a spring that has been 23% drier than normal is frankly ridiculous for a sporting league organisation. ... and to those that oppose the 1 point each and move on solution with the what happens to season ticket holders argument... Leicester have rearranged the Ippo fixture for July the 6th, bang in the middle of holiday season where many, I included, will be unable to attend due to a booked holiday on what was a blank week in the home fixture list.

Not my management, Birmingham's... and the rider himself, as far as I am aware, never made any comment on the length of his contract before signing it or after it's expiration. If you think that the rider has zero responsibility to the fans that are ultimately paying his wages, that's partly why the sport is in the state it's in. Speedway is no longer a team sport, it's just a bunch of hired gun mercenaries travelling Europe to pick up their next wage packet.

Unfortunately I'd say that's highly unlikely, as Wroclaw will be paying for his rehab, he may just possibly return for them, can't see him returning for the Aces though AI: For a professional speedway rider, returning to the track from a broken femur typically takes 4 to 6 months, though highly aggressive elite rehab can sometimes shave this down closer to 3 months if the fracture is clean and heals without complications. However, achieving 100% full physiological recovery and regaining peak pre-injury strength often takes 9 to 12 months

Up to 25th of June 4 home matches!

I think the general point is the lack of fixtures, we all understand calling a meeting off based on a dreadful forecast, that is the common sense thing to do, it's the huge gaps in the fixture list that these postponements cause. Back in the day a track would have an "off" race night that fixtures would be quickly rearranged for, if we're not going to do 1 point each and move on, which I understand is not popular with everybody maybe the PL should take a leaf from Sweden and Denmark and just run on the one night Monday or Thursday, If Monday is washed out you run on the following Thursday.

How poor is your website! I just went to look at the results so far this season... nothing, look at the league table and it just links back to the BSPL website! Mayfield 😂

Not in its current form, but then we've all known that for at least the last 7 or 8 years.

Rybnik not riding this weekend so should be good to go... unless his knee injury flares up again 😉

However great the call proves to be it still leaves the Lions having only ridden 1 home match in 2 months! And only 4 home matches in 3 months by the end of June! And 2 of them against Sheffield!

Agreed... but 1 home Lions meeting in 2 months of late spring/early summer is far from ideal.

They've lost my £25 anyway, as I booked my holiday away for that week as there was no home meeting in the fixture list!

1 point each... move on

Interesting listening to Lemo on the Tatum Talks podcast where he mentioned that the 2024 SoN was a financial disaster and that (speaking in the week prior to the GP events) there were still 800 tickets available for the Friday night (just the £80,000)!

Re-arranged: July 6th 1 home match since May the 4th, next home match July 2nd!

I was down in Poole last Wednesday on a lovely bright and breezy day when you postponed your solitary junior development event of the season 😉

Staging a Speedway Grand Prix at a temporary venue like Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium is a massive financial gamble, heavily driven by infrastructure logistics. Because Alexander Stadium is primarily a premier athletics venue (with a fixed 18,000 capacity around its running track), hosting a GP requires building a bespoke, temporary dirt track from scratch and renting additional seating if you want to scale up. While exact, line-by-line budgets are kept strictly confidential by promoters, looking at what it takes to build a temporary track and secure an FIM license gives a realistic cost breakdown. You are looking at a total layout of **between £1.5 million and £2.5 million** for a single Grand Prix weekend. The major costs break down into three distinct pillars: ### 1. The Track Build & Logistics (£400,000 – £600,000) Creating a raceable speedway track inside an athletics stadium requires meticulous engineering to protect the existing international-standard running track. * **Protection & Base Layer:** Thousands of wooden boards or heavy-duty plastic geotextile membranes must be laid down first to fully protect the underlying running surface from heavy machinery. * **The Dirt:** Promoters have to source, transport, and lay roughly 3,500 to 4,000 tonnes of specialised shale or granite mix. * **Safety Equipment:** You need to hire and install FIM-regulated air fences, starter gates, referee communication systems, and track-grading machinery (tractors and bowsers) for the weekend. * **The Tear-Down:** After the meeting, every single grain of shale has to be meticulously removed and the stadium pressure-washed back to pristine condition. ### 2. Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Rights & Sanction Fees (£500,000 – £800,000) To host a round of the FIM Speedway Grand Prix, a local promoter or council must pay a substantial staging fee to the global rights holders, WBD Sports. * This fee secures the calendar slot, television production rights, and covers the base prize money fund for the 16 competing riders. ### 3. Stadium Hire, Staffing, and Temporary Infrastructure (£400,000 – £600,000) Alexander Stadium’s permanent capacity sits at 18,000. While that is solid, a flagship British GP usually aims for higher numbers. * **Temporary Seating:** If a promoter wants to temporarily scale up capacity (Alexander Stadium can technically be expanded up to 40,000 using temporary grandstands), the hire cost sits around £100 per temporary seat. Adding even 5,000 temporary seats can quickly add £500,000 to the bill. * **Staffing & Overheads:** Hundreds of turnstile operators, stewards, medical personnel, and specialized track staff are needed, alongside the cost of hiring the stadium itself from Birmingham City Council. > **The Financial Catch:** Unlike a permanent venue (like Cardiff's Principality Stadium, which can absorb immense costs due to its 70,000-seat potential), Alexander Stadium has a lower financial ceiling. A promoter would need to guarantee packed-out stands and high-tier ticket pricing just to cover the upfront costs of transforming an athletics track into a world-class shale circuit. 👆 ai

Somewhere like the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham might be the right size and even Nigel Tolley was talking of moving the Brummies there... but then he is completely mad 🎩

It was announced at the Manchester GP that Monster are running some kind of 3 round series within the series for the Polish GP's, I didn't pick up on all the details. And of course BSI ran some kind of "Super Prix" back in the noghties, the richest 60 seconds in motorsport or something, was that for £100k Benfield Sports International (BSI) did run a massive cash-prize gimmick in the noughties, and it is the exact reason why that specific "richest minute" phrase exists. The event was the **2007 German Speedway Grand Prix**, held at the Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen on October 13, 2007. BSI heavily promoted it because it marked the **100th Grand Prix** since the SGP series took over from the old one-off World Finals. To celebrate the milestone, BSI put up a staggering **$100,000 cash prize** strictly for the winner of the Grand Prix final. Because a standard four-lap final takes roughly 60 seconds, BSI’s entire marketing campaign for the meeting billed that specific race as **"The Richest Minute in Sport."** Here is how that dramatic night actually played out: * **The Track Farce:** The event became infamous for all the wrong reasons. The temporary track laid inside the football stadium began disintegrating almost immediately during practice and the early heats, with massive ruts and chunks of shale flying up. * **The Delayed Drama:** The track was deemed so dangerous that the meeting had to be completely abandoned on Saturday night and re-staged the following afternoon (Sunday, October 14). * **The Winner:** After all the chaos, the legendary **Andreas Jonsson** won the re-staged final, successfully pocketing the $100,000 cheque for his 60 seconds of work. He beat Greg Hancock, Jason Crump, and Leigh Adams to the line. While the actual event in Germany was a bit of a logistical nightmare for BSI, the marketing line worked so well that the "richest 60 seconds" tagline stuck around in speedway media and broadcasting for years afterward.

So I understand, nobody involved in that episode covered themselves in glory, silence all round, the fans deserved and explanation from somebody. The club and/or Ellis

And don't forget he buggered off from Birmingham after a month with no explanation

Remind me, who took the decision to run SWC at Warsaw Stadium, WBD or Mayfield?

Harry is not serious about his love for the sport... he'll say anything for a brown envelope full of readies. NOTICE: People stop calling for 'Arry to do stuff, it's quite clear it was a one off publicity stunt to try and keep TNT Sport on board, you may as well ask Linda Lusardi to step in and have a word... if you're having a joke, of course fill your boots 👍

Instead of renaming competitions, they could think about mandating all clubs run a junior team and give these kids some bike and track time! I'm not keen on him myself... but that's great 👍The sport needs these marmite characters... or just characters would be a start.

Seems strange that they've not done a double header with this, an SWC and a SGP round 🤷‍♂️