GeneralMelchett

As I said we can read into a result what we want to - it’s what fans do!

I suppose as a fan we can all project what we want onto a scoreline / final result - I wasn’t there but a last heat 5-1 the other way makes it 47-43 which would give it all a very different discussion after / it was 43-35 after heat 13 so I’d describe that as being ‘in’ the meeting until the very latter stages. hope it was good as we need good racing and close scorelines to help tempt fans either back or back for a second visit. Was the crowd any better with the offer?

Or when he was at Ipswich - he was the top BP scorer!

No! Unless BSN cover it then nothing. there is a special deal £0!! on for U17s for the duration of of the holidays - hoping to boost the crowd

I can't believe promotions took the money and ran, they simply paid it away to the riders so they had a (better?) chance of winning something! It's part of the circle of sport and, perhaps controversially, us fans have to accept we are sometimes part of the problem here!

Who would be a promoter eh? Afterall we all know what we think we might or should do - but of course most plans don’t survive first contact or in a speedway sense everything works until the tapes go up!

Completely fair and no disagreement from me - Lidsey is a bit like Brennan at Ipswich you felt they had the chance to step up and so far they haven't made it! Hopefully both will. You would likely keep Lidsey on potential tho as you feel he will get back to where we think he can get / be. I did expect more than 4 from him however.

Agreed and the one that was signed be the No1 isn’t maintaining the expectation!

That in reality is all part of the ebb and flow of a season - most riders drop a bit of form at some point sometimes people lose patience quickly - as the saying goes change for changes sake isn't usually worth it - lack of form usually corrects. No doubting however that due to the lateness of arrival etc you had a pretty weak top 3 - it was about the best you could maybe get at the time. For my money Batch has probably exceeded expectations riding in a tricky no 2 spot - now at reserve and for now scoring ok/ well he is merely replacing another reserve Thompson who had a storming first part of the season! Over to your promoters / team manager! BTW I was impressed with their comms and openness about the rack changes whilst we were sat waiting - as the saying time can go quick in a crisis but most people can handle waiting provided they are told why! I felt they handled that V well.

They are in reality about 1 rider away from being a decent team that can win home matches and that's probably a top end rider who will score in heats 13 and 15. If Zagar could start scoring like NKI then maybe they wouldn't have to make changes. From my anlaysis etc Batch isn't their problem this year

Finally made it last night - very impressed with the set up there - the track was bladed etc after heat 2 and then after that produced some really good racing. Its a shame its a 2 hr drive for me as I would be tempted to go more regularly but its a great set up and sat in the grandstand on a warm sunny evening watching a 45-45 draw with quite a lot of overtaking I was very happy!

Well have to say last night he rode more like the Batch I remember - quick away from the gate and mixing it very well - scored 11 too! Great meeting

I will give the Tigers there due I have seen them putting a lot of content out on social media of late - I hope they can get a few more through the turnstyles. I think the issue with streaming is whilst its great for people who have no chance to attend a meeting, for example I am never going to drive to to say Workington, it also means the locals can stay in watch it and save money so the stay aways are perhaps having a disproportionate effect on the crowd levels. I've been to Ipswich twice this season so far and to my mind crowd levels are down on 2025. Part of that maybe the loss of top line riders like Emil, Jason etc, part of this might be due to lack of competitive sides visiting, or Steaming etc - who knows a- without open and transparency in attendances we have no chance to judge for ourselves. One of the things I would like to see is Mayfield saying right last week we had 2000 in or whatever it might be! When Neil Machin stepped down as promoter in April 14 the Tigers had a very modest deficit on their books - in 11 years this has ballooned to 500k+ which co-incides with operating at the top level! Machin was always insistent (if i recall things correctly) whilst he was promoter they would never operate the top level!

absolutely no issues form me - When he was at Arena he was known as 'Awesome Richard Lawson'