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I was told at Lydd yesterday that some tracks will be charging £20, plus programme and parking. An astronomical amount for such a watered down product.

I expect the issue people have is that we are paying more for a weaker product....no Lambert, Doyle, Fricke, Thorsell, Tungate etc compared to last time but more to get in. Pubs won’t be serving weaker beer or hotels offering less comfortable beds you’d imagine!

Exactly,you can see why people don't trust Governments.They are now allowing more people to get closer together in smaller stadia than they are more spread out at larger ones.Unless it has more to do with everyone leaving at the same time which i can understand. He's there next Monday according to King's Lynn twitter i think it was.Anyway we will have Elliot Kelly on standby which we should still beat Ipswich anyway with some to spare

A really nice little article with a lovely picture reminding me of why I love Speedway. Thank you Philip. Am I missing something? (aside from the usual negativity from this forum) Isn't Saddlebow Rd the home of the Kings Lynn Stars???? ...........and there you have the typical Speedway Fan/promoter

Don’t know your job but with the pandemic things have changed massively and put your self in Jakes position he come over in 2019 and was basically stuck here on no pay and no racing so he stated he wouldn’t be coming over . Things then changed for the better and he was left without a team spot and Redcar supporters will have been devastated when Erik Riss decided he wouldn’t be coming over but look at there side now they are one of the favourites ,we all know it’s easy to support a winning side but for me 2021 is about getting back and watching speedway live I’m fairly confident we will avoid the wooden spoon and admire Rob Godfrey for his loyalty Hope the 2nd strings At Scunny reward him with some decent performances . In 2018 we put together the best team I’ve seen in years and that was blown apart by injuries. Enjoy your speedway and admire the riders who risk life and limbs for our entertainment are the EWR raceway and all our tracks

What`s happening Friday ? if you read my post 3 above you will find out.

wouldn't say Redcar cost millions and its arguably the best track in the division. Facilities aren't plush but hey ho. If someone can get a field in a suitable spot, put the track in and build the facilities as you go = not cheap i know, but not millions. I've said it before but there are dozens of showgrounds where the land is unused for long periods, other than boot sales and they're usually out of town - Westpoint, Exeter for example or Royal Highland at Edinburgh

Come on Shrimmy, what has Allen done bar changing his mind. Last summer he stopped in Britain, not earning a penny & no one knew how this pandemic would turn out. It has been Britain's mass vaccination programme that has put us in a better position than other countries in Europe. Germany, Italy & Poland are still having high levels of covid. We know over the past few years Rob has shown a lot of loyalty to his riders, sometimes too much, when we think changes should have been made & he has done the same again. The 2 news snippets at the end of Jan showed us how quick decisions are made. One minute we announce the same team then 4 days later, we have to announce Jake has changed his mind. Rob had probably got Josh Macdonald signed but not confirmed to the public well before Jake's change of mind, which is frustrating, but we have to abide by it & wish Jake & Josh all the best in 2021 & just get to see some racing at the EWR. The vaccination programme had started back in January but we did not know how it would evolve to give us the low levels of deaths & confirmed cases we have now.

I think the problem with all these stadiums, and speedway in general, is that promotions are happy to be tenants which means that they don't have to pay directly for stadium maintenance or improvements or general upkeep but they also don't have any say or influence when a developer comes and offers millions for the land. Odsal has reopened for motorsports because Startrax put hard cash into making it happen - full stop. If speedway wants to revive any of these dormant stadiums - Coventry, Cowley - then someone has to come forward with hard cash and make it happen. Leicester and Belle Vue show the way forward for speedway - but also underline that it needs someone with deep pockets to build a modern stadium from scratch ... and we're talking millions.

Injuries aside the top 3 will be in no particular order Redcar , Leicester & Eastbourne

Am I the only one surprised that there seems no info on this meeting with tickets on sale tomorrow?

But you didn't say that.

Like i said, Belle Vue Stadium & track one of the best in the world. OPEN your EYES

What in all that has anything to do with British Speedway league racing for the majority of UK fans?? The racing, at King's Lynn From these 3 comments pretty much proves my point. You certainly couldn't sell the sport to a newbie or an oldie with those comments. It absolutely proves the death of the sport that you had to say any old nonsense just to say something. British Speedway needs a hell of a lot of work to bring people in, right now it's dead. Facts

I'm not sure i understand the questioning of the small increase on entrance prices. Pubs have put beer up, hotels have put there rates up. Everyone is going to have to claw back some lost revenue after being out of business for such an extended period, speedway is no different. Most supporters will be super eager to get back into stadia and watch racing....can't please everyone though, thats the way it goes. I think £20 for a good night out is ok, all things considered, even though i'd be happy if it was less .

You lot are all the same but love the odd sausage eh?

Does the club have any plans with selling the teams merchandise on line through the official site. There is a shop option already there but only selling season tickets. Looking at virtually every other club they have this option for their fans and IMO on line shopping for a jacket, hoody hats etc will be attractive to many fans Berwick might be missing a trick there.

What’s good about British Speedway? Having a team to support. Having a night out for 20 quid. Watching the young riders develop into decent riders. The British youth meeting at Lynn last year was worth the admission money. And most of all from my point of view, watching the Stars beat Ipswich Witches.

Of course results have to matter. It’s a sport, winning is the end game. Whether it’s CL PL or 2nd Half. I’ve heard this before you’ve got to have a will to win. If the aim is for Championship you won’t get many promoters & Team managers in the CL saying “Just go out and enjoy yourself” and of course they have to be able to challenge weaker CL riders to gauge where they are and where they need to be!! Rothery was the stand out rider on Friday i felt Edinburgh was let down with the streaming Production team ! I didn’t get any buffeting but I thought the production and presentation was poor, comparing it to Berwick’s . Hopefully everyone will give this Friday another go

My head isn’t in the sand. Some people on here do nothing but point out the things that are wrong with British Speedway. It would be better if they pointed out the few good things about British Speedway instead of being negative all the time.

Andy Hewlett?

Allen can do one for me

...and all the while Cowley Stadium is laying dormant. A travesty for a once such great facilty.

Like I alluded to in an earlier post, the 1985 exit from the Shay Grounds was the beginning of the end for speedway in West Yorkshire though I do appreciate that financial issues (expense of moving floodlights to comply with new regulations and the Shay landlords hiking up the rent while Odsal was offered rent free) at the time were why the Halifax to Bradford move was made. I wonder had speedway continued at the Shay after 1985 whether the 1990's stadium redevelopments would have taken place or maybe stadium redevelopments would have included keeping the speedway track? I still maintain that had Halifax kept going at the Shay and stadium developments would of included speedway then Halifax speedway would still be running up to present times and more than likely would still be one of the best attended tracks in the Country. - I also say the same about Bristol (closed 1977), Cradley (lost Stadium in 1995) and Coventry which closed in 2016. - Now how much healthier would speedway look today if the sport was still staged in Bristol, Coventry, Cradley and Halifax?

Better get Don Quixote in to shift them then?

Would loved to have watched Ward & Zmarzlik going head to head in this league

I’ve taken the step to purchase a season ticket. I think Plymouth is around 50 minutes from where I live. I do appreciate though that there are folk with much tighter schedules than I have these days. Looking forward to the 17th for sure. Strangely, the last time I was at Plymouth was when Glasgow visited....led by Joe Screen. Up the Gladiators!!

You may be surprised by how many can manage keyboard skills and be able to book online. For example, I am 74, have a smartphone, tablet, laptop, and pc, and I am nothing unusual. I recall 30 years ago when computers became popular there were lots of schemes that provided “computer familiarisation” (training) courses, very often free or very low charge. Some, like my parents, couldn’t be bothered, whereas others took up the offer and become quiet good and since then gained the benefits from what computerisation can do

Sex is like speedway, the first one to finish is the winner...

And will the admission go back to what it was when things get back to normal.

That was mr godfreys reaction to workington wanting to ride on friday nights .

Really? Not that I've seen, and I walk past the place on a daily basis. What I do see though are a significant number of 24h site security personnel from the adjacent construction sites constantly in the area. If I was a vandal looking at torching some laid-up vehicles, this wouldn't have been my first choice place to do it, Also on the subject of what's been explained before, apparently insurance CAN be obtained for fire and vandalism for business plant and machinery. At least two contributors to another thread say that they could have arranged it. But hey ho. Who needs to pay the premiums when the Go-Fund-Me Insurance Company will bail you out of a crisis?

Boo bloody hoo , so we've got to wear a face mask for probably the 1st few months of the season until restrictions are eased . Well why don't we ask the Swindon fans if they'd be prepared to wear a mask in the stadium if it meant they could see their team on track this season ? We've been following guidelines and restrictions for the best part of 14 months now what's another few months if it allows the sport of speedway to start this season. Look at the bigger picture people , before it's too late .

Pathetic. Get a kebab in you.

What do you mean? The AFA is still in Saddlebow Road .... For me, it's great to even have our sport mentioned in/on The Spectator

Well written and not aimed at the anoraks of the sport. It is for those who probably know nothing about speedway and unlikely to have ever heard of the riders or tracks mentioned. From an outsiders perspective, it might encourage a few to take a look on YouTube to see what it is all about and the exposure cannot do any harm. Given where the sport is any publicity outside the normal channels has to be a good thing.

A worthwhile article for the 'Spectator' and worth the read. Maybe it will encourage a few folk who have never heard of Speedway to visit a Track out of curiosity and maybe get hooked as I did all those years ago. I, for one, certainly hope so. Thanks for the Link Philip.

Somerset was the ideal model wasn't it? Until about a month ago