Sir Sidney

I think it's an illustration rather than an expectation of actual teams

Surely the number of heats rather than the number of riders is key.

How did it go?

Save the date *Saturday the 25th of October 2025* PANTHERS ON THE PROWL !! Peterborough City Auction Panthers will hit the shale once more in a long awaited return. The Panthers will visit the recently re-established Mildenhall Fen Tigers in a challenge match at the West row stadium.

Quite a big fiddle if it is, and in the public domain and declared. No doubt HMRC would be interested. I'd like to think there is a logical, and legal, explanation

As an aside, earlier in the year BSPL appears to have submitted amended accounts to Companies House going back ro 2021. To my untrained eye it appears to have gone from a position of a circa £250k net liability on the balance sheet, to a circa £900k retained funds on the balance sheet I'd be interested in a view from someone who understands accounts on how and why this might be

Who told you it was a summer sport? Ive been going since 1969 and it has always been March to October.

I don't know specifically about this meeting but usually stocks meetings are not as frequent as Speedway meetings. Perhaps less is more? If the entry fees you are quoting are correct then it shows again that speedway entry fees are competitive. We just don't market to or attract a cohort that will pay.

I suspect most of the people who would not worry about the current cost of speedway entry prices have no idea it exists, because British Speedway makes very little attempt to attract them.

What is noticeable about Poland is how many people (in addition to other team wear) have club scarves and wave them at any opportunity - especially during races as their riders go by. It creates a great effect and is very visible. It's virtually non existent in UK, but so easy to do

I don't disagree with you in the main. I was quite happy to pay my £29 in the seats to see the current world number 2 and 3, and another SGP rider and another most people seem to think should be an SGP rider. For me, heat 15 was worth the entry fee. At other tracks the amount I would pay might be less. I pay less to watch speedway than I do, for example, rugby - but British speedway could do so much more to attract more support and to improve the value of the event.

I don't disagree. I'm simply illustrating that other sports already do the same. There are a whole host of things that clubs could do to make meetings more of an event and greater value for money - most of which have been floated on here any number of times. There is endless free information available on the internet that shows tried and trusted methods used by other sports to engage fans and grow crowds. For whatever reason most clubs ignore that It may well be that the lesser difference in standard between riders is why some people prefer the Championship to the Premiership.

Mulford has the third highest Rising Star average currently - he isn't really the problem, but is made to look so by the lack of points elsewhere.

And perhaps that sums up one of British Speedway's biggest challenges - persuading our current fan base to part with entry fees that other sports would see as a bargain. Just as an example, and not in particular to compare to football, Manchester City's ticket prices for this year ( which also vary by category of team / competition) below Adult Category A: £40-£60 Category B: £35 - £55 Category -C £30 - £50 And Manchester United Ticket categories are listed below: - Cat D £32 - £52 (cup fixtures only) - Cat -C £37 - £60 (2 x PL fixtures) - Cat B: £57 - £86 (11 x PL fixtures) - Cat A: £59 - £97 (6 x PL fixtures) Less than 1% of tickets will be priced at highest Cat A price point of £97.

Using dynamic pricing it woukd go down - so don't expect British Speedway to use that.

It's common practice in other sports to charge different prices for different grade matches- speedway is probably slow on the uptake! And that's without the model of 'dynamic pricing' where ticket prices vary for the same sections based on demand. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I doubt that is the reason people are drifting away. Perceived value for money is a much bigger issue.

Yes, I submitted my comments based on the template as well. The only point I am making is that the site is proposed to have karting in addition to speedway, and so it is pointless to try to defend noise concerns simply by saying, as others have, speedway will only be for 2 hours a few times a year. On one Facebook page a local councillor has been called a 'c**t' for stating his objections, and told he is wrong when he says activity will be more than just a few speedway meetings. The best way to persuade the councillor is to use planning arguments to knock down his concerns, not abuse, whether we agree with him or not

One of the problems to be overcome is that the application is not just for a speedway track that might operate, say, 20 times a year, for a couple of hours - it's for a motorsport park with speedway and karting, and as far as I can see, no information about the potential hours of operation is in the application. On that basis, and to be fair to the locals, the noise may well be an irritant. I don't think some of the responses on open forums are putting speedway in a good light. I think we'd do well as a community to focus on responding to the application using the template provided, and refain from being abusive to people who hold a different view. Beat them with planning arguments, not abuse.

I agree. We were on the first bend, row 9, and it didn't look overly wet to us.

I agree. I've just come back from a weekend there. One of the most striking differences is the age profile of the crowd - but also that the older generation also join in with the chanting and scarf waving. Was the racing at the league match better than here? Probably not

I'm not sure that the Hundred is a drastic shake up in comparison to Twenty 20, other than having much more money thrown at it, being marketed to a different audience and getting much more TV exposure- all of which could have happened with the existing Twenty 20 format. And, as I say, it is rumoured that once more franchises are taken over by IPL owners it will become a Twenty 20 tournament. So it isn't the format necessarily. However, speedway needs to think about how cricket attracted all that and carried out the marketing. Strangely enough, a lot of what you propose, and I agree with, already happens at most IOW meetings. If only BSPL would have a discussion with Barry and Martin about what works and what doesn't I'm sure they would be happy to help

What do you think speedway should do 'to go the way of cricket'? In some ways, speedway is already the motorsport equivalent of short form cricket, in that it is short bursts of activity with space for additional activity in-between. It's widely thought that The Hundred will be converted to a more usual Twenty 20 tournament once more of the franchises are bought by IPL owners. I'm in Poland at the moment, and went to a play off match at Leszno yesterday. The age profile of the crowd was significantly different to the UK, with much more crowd chanting, scarf waving etc. But it was all about the speedway - no 'novelty ' entertainment between races etc

He hadn't signed for a team in Poland when Plymouth signed him

I won't hold that against you! And I do understand where you are coming from. I started going in 1969, and, even though crowds were much bigger than the 2000's, if I read programme notes from back then promoters were bemoaning the large drop off in crowds compared to the 60's and 50's. I'm sure there are many more knowledgeable forum members who could put numbers to it, and when the real decline started

Speedway peaked a long time before 2000. The decline started way before that.