nw42 Posted 3 hours ago Report Share Posted 3 hours ago 51 minutes ago, mikebv said: Me and my lad on Monday were actually joking at just how many "wear the club shop".. Plenty were doing so ... Granted most were fifty something's so were wearing a coat over the top to keep the cold out... Which maybe hid just how many were wearing some Aces memorabilia.. The issue the sport has was clearly highlighted on Monday when, on an evening where there was no threat to it not taking place, given the forecast from 24 hours before, not enough Aces and Ipswich fans could be arsed turning up for a POSF... The whole reason we go through a season of qualifiers is to get this part of the season meaning the competition itself must have so little kudos and credibility, even to some of the sports most regular followers, that so many simply couldn't see the worth in attending... The Ipswich fans stated a Monday night as being the problem, however, I am sure if it was the final then they would have attended.. (Maybe Phil was right in putting commercial reasons in front of everything else when he put Sheffield with Belle Vue!?).. There are only SIX meetings that actually mean anything all year, therefore when one of those six delivers such disinterest, those who run Speedway should really be very worried.. No point having the play offs if they don't generate more money than the tracks lose by fans not bothering to attend qualifiers.. Agreed on the fans wearing the gear, I was stood in the first bit of the stand off the 2nd bend, just behind the half dozen Ipswich fans who had made the trip, (kudos to them), there were plenty around me wearing the club stuff, including a couple of the Witches fans. I wouldn't wear it at my age, 65, but would've loved some of the gear available now in my younger days. Back then the only choices were a black, white and red anorak, or a red, white and black anorak, oh and a bobble hat, now there are hoodies, t-shirts, bandanas, all kinds of hats etc. As someone pointed out, seeing the Poles twirling there scarves following a race victory is great to watch, it's just a whole different sport over there isn't it, something we can only dream of now. I can remember the sights and sounds of the BLRC at Hyde Rd, for me it's the only thing that comes close to what we see in Poland. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sargent10 Posted 3 hours ago Report Share Posted 3 hours ago 10 minutes ago, PersonalResponsibility said: I agree it's not easy to compete, but that isn't a reason to just not bother either. Worryingly, it comes across as if most involved in the sport share your way of thinking. You've named 2 clubs that BV have to compete against locally, and yet they seem to do a pretty good job. They're one of the biggest/most successful clubs in Britain. If they can manage that with 2 huge football clubs on their doorstep, what's stopping others? Who's competing locally with Kings Lynn, for example? Glasgow are another who have done very well, and another with 2 huge football clubs sharing the city. I assume it's also very difficult and costly to get a ticket to watch any of the clubs mentioned above? Surely that's something we could at least try and exploit? People want to watch live sport, they want entertainment, so why not give them a fast-paced motorsport, plenty of entertainment and all for X% of what it would cost to watch a football match? As I said in my first post though, it's not VFM to watch speedway at 99% of places in this country, so people won't bother. Belle Vue are doing okay like Glasgow but let’s say 45 years ago when they were in the hey day of speedway, football was still attracting massive attendance numbers, what was the draw? It was cheap to watch, it was cheap too ride (if you wanted) it was fairly regular most weekends you’d be at home and probably somewhere away, fairly local indeed and because of that it was tribal so if you were in a group of friends and went to watch it was the craic giving opposite team some stick and usually good fun and friends followed it (like Poland now), fast forward to today, premier league, Monday or Thursday nights, work, school etc after school clubs, more expensive than imho it should be (but let’s park that) and hardly any local derby and kids just not interested in the sport unfortunately unless they are actually riding themselves, and there are less and less of them because of the cost Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
secsy1 Posted 2 hours ago Author Report Share Posted 2 hours ago When Belle Vue moved to the National Speedway Stadium many incentives to buy a season ticket were on offer. Year on year since then no incentives whatsoever, only a continual purge on the aging fans purse strings. Every club that offers season tickets should show how much the fans are appreciated by giving them a shirt/scarf. Why is everyone moaning about how so few fans wear team merchandise, when the reality is they cannot afford them. It was unjustifiable to raise the price for Mondays meeting and really what has club merchandise got to do with it? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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