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The approximate scenario that I have gathered from various sources including people who rent the shops on the site is this : 1. The stock car crowds have been falling for years and it's has taken a handfull of big meetings per year to balance the books.There are 5 members of the Woodroffe family that inherited the site from its founder , the late Chick Woodfoffe, so profits all have to be cut 5 ways. None of them are particularly stock car enthusiasts and the place is just a cash cow to them . For several years they have been apparently screwing the Speedwáy club and the shops foe every penny they could get before bailing out. One of the shop tennents told me the rent the has to pay. I forget the actual figure but it is absolutely eye watering. The rent for the Speedwáy track is said to be the highest of ant Speedwáy track in the country, despite the poor facilities. basically it seems the owners have just been trying to fill their pension funds for sometime and sell the stadium before things start falling down. 2. Representations by the Hammers have been going on by the Hammers promotion to Thurrock Council and the local MP for several years now. A mere Speedwáy club it may be but it still draws the biggest crowds in Thurrock. There was talk at one time of the name being changed to Thurrock Hammers at the councils request . So planning permission has been given for developing the site subject to the developers allowing some facility for "Motor Sport". 3. Apparently there was buyer for the site when the club nearly closed in 2016, but he pulled out. 4.As I understand the present position, there is a buyer interested but he would like to buy off the provision for motor sport and help facilitate it being transferred to another site. To that end Thurrock Council have two possible sites under consideration, within the Thurrock boundaries . I.e.not Southend, Chelmsford, Colchester or these other places people have speculated on here. 5. It may well be some time before the present site is built on, because being a former gravel pit there are things like risk assessments for pollution to be carried out and a range of other things to be done before anything can start. As far as I know Speedwáy could possibly have squeezed another season or two out of Arena but of course once the owners decided to cut and run it meant it would be financially impossible for the Hammers promotion to run the place on their own. Jon Cook did say to the crowd just before the move that he was speaking to all parties interested in continuing motor sport of all kinds and if there was a deal to be done they would do but it seems with all the ifs and buts and uncertainties of the situation that was not to be. The above comments are what I think is a fairly full picture. It may not be 100% accurate all the way through but I I pretty sure it is about 90% of it.

It’s a bit like the old kid tv programme “runaround” with mike read but not as well organised

Thanks for the feedback. It does really show why you would have to be start raving bonkers to invest in a track or a club where you are not allowed at the top table for a few years during which you are told when and how you run your business and any decisions made by those who are at best only considering their own self interest yet they can materially affect your bottom line and you have to accept it even if it makes no sense.They also want you to put up a bond in the knowledge that they can change the rules at anytime that can be detrimental to you and your business and you can do nowt about it and if you pull the plug you effectively get fined even though continuation could leave you with substantial losses. You have a sport run by a few incompetent people and yet next step up in the chain of command is the ACU who are in effect condoning the behaviour of a collective body that is not fit to run the sport. Good luck to anyone mad enough to invest in speedway.

Decided to leave you an open goal. You tapped it in, well played

No choice Even where a captain notes each meeting that riders pay is not up to date it will take a time to get it sorted If a rider refuses to ride as he has not been paid what happens? Does he get backed? No Instead he gets backed into a corner and threatened with a 28 day ban

I wouldn`t be surprised if riders wages come at the end of that list.

and where do I say he wont be read the post properly and then you might understand what I said

Just caught us with this ,just another sad and standard tale of someone who is hooked on Herion . Once your hooked you become a different person and will do and anything to fund your Habit even if it means hurting your family My heart go's out to his mum who quite clearly will not give up on her son no matter what he has done .

With respect, I struggle to see what good - for the rider and the team - having Kyle Bickley in a Premiership team would be. He has failed to reach his 2 point Championship starting average and really needs to substantially exceed that before moving up. I’m not knocking him in any way - in my view, he arrived with too much hype and needs to gain more experience, and points, before thinking about moving up. The bravest thing for him to do would be to say no to the top league until he has become a Championship top scorer.

That would be, 'some cake'.

Can a cake dance? Can a cake get you drunk? Will a cake let you put your hand up it's jumper?

You're asking too much there .......

I think BMR upset the old boys club. When you do that, there is only one winner.

yep. but just a bit of fun until we find out

1. Josh Auty (8.36) 2. Jake Allen (7.37) 3. Steve Worrall (8.17) 4. Josh Pickering (6.11) 5. Dimitri Berge (5.03) 6. Anders Rowe (2.00) 7. Tom Bacon (4.52) Total 41.56 -??

Although i couldnt get to the "do" on fri was nice ro see the riders who could make it looking good with the trophies, nice to see ty smiling sometimes watching him in the pits he comes across as a bit bad tempered. Well done to liz on her award thats a tie u owe me !see u all in april next year i hope

What I meant was that I discounted riders who were still on assessed averages at the end of the season (like John Lindman, Kasper Anderson etc).

You always try to come up with a get out of jail card. Seriously have misgivings about you being a Poole fan.

In house debts; riders wages at BSPA rate, SCB fees, BSPA fees, loan fees, insurance, monies owed to other clubs, fines that's about it.

Sundays are the only viable day for Peterborough. Anyone who thinks the top league on a weekday is going to work are bonkers.

Nothing to do with lack of planning !!! I hope you are joking( i am not blaming Workington solely but the other championship clubs and the BSPA equally) Between the beginning of the season(March 15th) and season end there were 33 weeks- i would be interested to know how many home fixtures did Workington have and how many rain offs ??

Just like the Hammers have moved from Lakeside to Rye House, maybe the Robins will have to move from Swindon to Oxford one day ?

I can't understand why You need doubling-up of riders. There are loads of Young Aussies waiting to come over, who would be happy fill the teams.

This certainly seems the rumour, however his interview in this weeks Speedway Star indicates differently.

got the dvds of this meeting , lots of entertainment and memories on these too.

Hans fan saying wouldn't touch Hans!! maybe time for a username change.

1 man who id love to see on a regular basis is pickering wouldn't touch hans nki or bjerre this isnt 2007

Becker will start at Glasgow imo

I have heard that showground availability is one of the reasons that Peterborough are going up as very few clashes mid week where as they already know that there are 5 Sunday’s from March until May that the stadium is not available. It also makes sense with local matches against Kings Lynn and Ipswich plus possibly Leicester depending on decisions with the level of racing in Championship

totally. agree quick enough to sack riders so that means contract dont mean much either

He'll be used to them by now, BB.

He'll be nursing his hangover today

Surely if you cough up the bond, that should entitle you to a seat at the table. A sport like speedway needs fresh ideas, not the same old voices.

Try doing a PM to THJ on here. Look in your profile for a link to it. He doesn't bite that much.

My honest belief is the Robins faithful are going to be very disappointed. As much as I am an Oxford fan. I feel for them. The sport unless it gets one hell of a shake up is dead on its feet in this country

I remember him, came to Hull with Oxford in 1995 and maybe also in 1996 with the Cradley/Stoke venture, a tall-ish rider with a fairly upright style, bit like Per Jonsson as mentioned. Seem to recall he was highly rated but had some kind of accident and was never the same afterwards. Bit of a sense of humour too, unless I'm mistaking him for someone else....

I don't need to save up. I have £25k saved up and I'm only 22. I'm going places.

Finally managed to catch up with Blair`s appearance and my thoughts are this, firstly I hope Blair gets and completes the treatment he was off to start at the end of the show which helps to heal at least some of the rifts that clearly remain within his family and sees him remain clean. Unfortunately I have zero sympathy for him, he has put himself in the situation he is in, and dragged his family down with him, he has lied to and stolen from his close family and split his family asunder right up to the point where his mother has lied to her husband. Whether he can be reconciled with all of his family remains to be seen but hopefully his appearance on tv the other day is his turning point in his life.

rider of the year- cookie most impressive team- worky team rider of the year- campton for staying and risking his job for next year one to watch- theo pijper (good young rider with bags of potential and put over a point on his average after signing for Berwick) bulldog- auty meeting of the season- edinburgh v berwick (league) suprise of the season- berwick bandits gentlemans club underpeformers- sheffield unluckiest- kerr newcomer- kemp

It is thought - by some - that an extremely low average will force some of those in the NL who are content to stay there and score big points on reasonable pay up. My own view is that there are very few like that, any rider with ambitions will want to go up anyway and that the higher leagues have a disastrous record of dumping a young rider within a short period of time if he doesn't score well. The latter will mean at least potentially that they can't ride anywhere. From what I have heard, almost all NL promotions are against it and that suggests a very low team building average won't happen. It would be utterly ludicrous to force most of the league to do something that they don't want and I can see a number of tracks closing if they do. The NL can see that people won't be shelling out for something little more than a training session and while wages will reduce, the cost of stadiums, insurance, medical cover. shale etc will remain exactly the same. Frankly - and even allowing for the point about disparity of strengths - I believe that the NL just about hits the balance between developing riders and being a business spot on. It should therefore be left very much alone and allowed to go its own way without interference by outsiders who, lets face it, aren't exactly in a position to tell others how to run their league.

Speaking to people in and around belle vue I don't think He will be back. He will be at Glasgow who will either be in same league as us or riding Friday for them on same race night. So He will have to pick and choose. A full season at glasgow will do him good. He's very happy there. It was good to see a smile on his face again soon as he signed for them. I'm 50/50 with Worrall heart saying keep him. Head saying go top heavy. We have kept the nucleus of the same team for near enough 4 years. We have failed to deliver when it matters all those years. Think the owners will while the slate clean and start a fresh

1. I would say one league, but unfortunately there don't appear to be enough riders. Unless we have six man teams (All premiership teams mainly consist of championship riders). 2. North-south divide to reduce early season travel cost, but at the same time create a two league system. Where the top four in each group could meet in a play off for the league title. 3. When the split happens for the play off, the lower teams go in to a competition for a shield trophy. 4. The split mid season for the playoffs would rejuvenate all team supporters, as an influx of new riders/teams would be like starting the season again and give teams something to play for. 5. Start the league at the beginning of the season and keep cup matches etc for the later part of the season, where if the weather intervenes the matches are less important. Just my thoughts......

Once you have declared your side within whatever points limit/rider numbers, no team changes allowed except for long term injury. R/R to be employed to cover any non availability due to other comitments or injury lasting less than 6 weeks.

from a simple selfish point of view i hope 2019 is the same as 2018 as ive seen some outstanding speedway this year at many tracks,and for 15 or 16 quid ive been very well entertained the racing at Scunny has been top draw this year,seen excellent meetings on well prepped tracks at Boro,Redcar ,Workington,Sheffield etc, plus the BT sports presentation of the League and the GPs have been tip top,Also enjoyed the unfancied teams emerging this year such and Worky and Berwick [ ill even confess to become a secret Bandits fan toward the end] only bad meeting ive seen all year was the Swindon dust bowl on TV i hope the clubs with an uncertain future manage to find solutions and arrive at the tapes next season and entertain me as much as they have this year

It would be nice to have a team, riders you get to know, and stick together as a team for a whole season. Guests should only be an exception. The team that tops the league are the champions, non of this play off nonsense, especially at the end of the season where the team you followed during the year looks not much like the team in the play offs. Get the admission prices lowered, and get pricing so families can afford to go. Get the kids involved with activities that they will never forget - aka IoWight. Prepare tracks for racing, not just prepared for home advantage.

Its Big Tony, Garys dad that will keep him grounded, and there is hope that he will also keep Gary grounded as well.

As I said, would love the opportunity to watch Leon race regularly, if his progression in the sport is elsewhere to the benefit of his career, then I am happy whatever his decision. He is it a stage where sentiment is launched right out of the window. He owes Berwick speedway nothing, most of his progression has been elsewhere, and with the support of Big Tony is all of his own doing.

'Hello Dragons, I'm the Chairman of the BSPA and we're looking for an investment of £200,000 for a....' 'We're out'.

One of the major cancers affecting british speedway is the farcical way in which the published league fixture list is ripped up by some clubs on a whim. Is it any wonder hardly any fans travel away now.? Booking an overnight stay even a week in advance has proven to be a very risky thing to do as some clubs treat potential visiting fans with potential long journeys with utter contempt. One wonders if any clubs will ever arrange any formal away travel ever again... I cannot imagine any credible sport allows individual clubs to cancel fixtures like we have to put up with. Totally unprofessional and the fact they are allowed to do it so regularly sums up the awful lack of governance of our sport. To be honest I don't think they deserve us fans they still have. This season has been so awful with so many fixtures still outstanding which was totally avoidable. The whole prevalence of self-interest by so many clubs is galling and a major reason why the sport is losing fans.

Tbh, I think you’re kidding yourself about the “professionalism of this promotion”. They were handed a ready made stadium, a ready made track and a ready made team manager and done what exactly? Where are the new sponsors and the new supporters? Look at what Glasgow have done if you want to see professionalism. Turned an absolute dump into a smart welcoming little stadium with good food and bars, clean toilets and promotional activities that are almost unmatched. Plus entertainment all through the meeting and new sponsors. The result is that crowds have more than doubled and supporters are properly engaged. That surely is professionalism.