Mick Bratley

By saying it’s a dreadful idea, you’re actually saying what we currently have is ok (ish). It isn’t, it is not viable. Great to have the GP stars but we need enough people to come through the turnstiles and enough sponsors to pay for them. It clearly doesn’t happen for 95% of the clubs and the 5% bet everything on getting to the Grand Final and getting five times their normal attendance to pay for the season and a bit of the following season. It is a crap business model. Monday is a rubbish night to watch Speedway, the diehards will come but attracting a new audience to come on a Monday night is nigh on impossible, if it was working we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Those who say yeah well football is played on Tuesday or Wednesday nights, well yes that’s true but it’s not every Tuesday or Wednesday and the majority of a clubs midweek games coincide with school holidays.

100%

IMO Monday night Premiership racing is the worst decision ever made. Thursday is slightly better. Who wants to really go out on a Monday night especially parents with kids. And if you’re trying to attract a younger early 20s audience, generally they’ve spent out over the weekend. The majority of our meetings should be on Friday, Saturday or Sunday and if that means we have to lose the ‘stars’ then so be it, the sport is or needs to be bigger than any individual rider.

You’re missing out a lot of expenses. Riders and Public Liability insurances Tyres Rental of stadium - that can be over £3k Payment of referee and anyone else who is not a volunteer Paramedic attendance Track preparation Track preparation equipment Shale The list is pretty endless

It is a moment all Panthers and Speedway supporters should take great pride in. We’re not there yet, but a foot is in the door.

Sounds like a load of Cobblers to me.

Pleased for Ipswich, it’s been a long wait, tough on Leicester but hopefully their time will come. Especially chuffed for Danny King who has now won league titles at all three levels of British Speedway, I wonder how many riders can say that? I was concerned at one point that the winners would win by a single point and eclipse the Panthers 2006 final win, thankfully that honour remains intact! As always, great presentation from the centre green by Kevin Long. 27 years, it’s been a long time, I hope everyone connected with Ipswich savours every minute of it. The crowd was mahoosive, we didn’t stay for the trophy lift as we wanted to get out of the car park before Friday evening. 🤪

The meeting only has two possible outcomes. Reject the applications or extend the time to satisfy the reserved matters.

Bloody Nora, I hope not!

I have to say I agree about the enjoyable experience and nice staff. They have been very welcoming to the many Panthers fans who are on loan to them currently. 😉 Last night they even did a stadium announcement about the Panthers fixture at Mildenhall on 25/10 they didn’t have to do that. I’ve been there about eight times this season and yes, it’s a bit jumpers for goalposts, but I quite like that. Kudos also to the Leicester supporters club, very well organised and no one can say they are not top of the league for their 50/50 draw, £615 prize last night and £850 prize the week before, shame I happened to win it earlier in the season when it was a measly £364! 😂

That was probably the best meeting I’ve seen live in the last two seasons. Congratulations to Leicester (and Ipswich) on reaching the final. Be good for the sport to have a new name on the trophy for a change!

Sponsoring the Panthers team not the meeting.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122225007938107497&id=61553224922528

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122224594268107497&id=61553224922528

I’ve never understood why we don’t do this in the U.K. In Poland, riders are given some laps practice before the meeting starts and when it does start the track is race ready.

Credit where credit is due. This was a pretty decent meeting in miserable weather conditions, the track held up well. The meeting presentation was first class, with some great touches. The crowd size was, in comparison to other league meetings I’ve been to in the last couple of years, enormous. Well done to everyone at Oxford.

A 350% increase in the monthly subscription! I suspect they’ll bring some sort of deal out that will be less, but it will almost certainly be more than speedway fans were paying before.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/210443765632762/permalink/28525751370341956/? An evening with Scott Nicholls, hosted by Craig Saul, on January 17th. The event is kindly sponsored by KIM SYSTEMS THIS EVENT HAS NOW SOLD OUT. A WAIT LIST IS IN OPERATION, EMAIL THE SUPPORTERS CLUB TO JOIN IT.

Do you have contact details?

Do Wolves have a statistician? If so I’d love them to get in touch with me for a project I am working on. I can be emailed on mick.bratley@hotmail.co.uk Thanks!

Do Coventry have a statistician? If so I’d love to be put in touch for a project I am working on. They can email me at mick.bratley@hotmail.co.uk thanks!

Thanks for the info, I’ve passed it on.

I remember reading somewhere on this site a discussion about Portsmouth Speedway, I can’t find it now, unfortunately. However, I was talking to a guy on the phone today and we got talking about Speedway, he’d been to Swindon a few times before it closed and he told me about a poster for Portsmouth Speedway that he bought at a car boot sale for £8. He wanted to know was it worth anything, I told him I thought it was likely because I didn’t think Portsmouth ever had a team called Portsmouth and I remember reading on here that there was a series of challenge matches between, if I remember correctly, London based teams. Anyway, he frames pictures and he’s framed this poster, the link is below, I think it looks really cool. https://www.instagram.com/p/CFPMIZWHIQk/?igsh=ajgyOHBpMXQyaTF2

The developers are not keen on appealing to the Secretary of State a) they’re skint and b) they pretty much know they’ll likely lose because of the Coventry precedent.

A ‘call in’ on a planning application refusal has never happened before, ever. I’m not even sure it’s within the councils constitution and the scrutiny committees remit to even do it. Looks like the legal department will have been working overtime for the last ten days.