topsoil

"Tin pot Northern club" (copyright Jon Cook)

I very rarely use facebook, I've never used Instagram or snapchat. I bow to your greater knowledge of social media.

I would imagine the club would like to have a top notch website, online shop etc (which could bring in much needed funds, I have seen it done successfully with other clubs) but if you don't have anybody at hand that can do this sort of thing, it could be difficult to get going. Okay, you could pay somebody to do it, but they might think the funds are needed for other things.

Agree 100% with this

I don't know who runs the club website, but I would think that if nothing goes on it (I've no idea, I haven't been on it for ages), then that would suggest that whoever was doing it, has either finished, or hasn't got the time to do it anymore. From my limited knowledge of computers, I don't suppose this is a job just anybody can do. Clubs rely on a lot of volunteers and these days getting people to give up their time is hard. It's probably a case of there isn't somebody to do it, rather than the club doesn't want the website updated.

I too would love the racing to be like what it is at Belle Vue each week. But how you go about getting it to that position is the $64,000 question. You can come up with suggestions like 'alter the track shape', but that simply isn't going to happen. Is it track preparation? That is something I, and I would probably guess 99% of us on here are the same, have no experience of or idea what goes on. On top of this you are dealing with limited funds and very few people willing to get involved and help.

The make up of the team is more to do with funds (or lack of), rather than any lack of ambition. If you don't have the money, you can't spend it. Plus this was basically the same team which missed out on the playoffs by a point last year. As for the league table, let's wait until we've ridden the same number of home meetings as other clubs.

The only thing that persuades riders these days is money, something speedway clubs in Britiain don't have much of. I saw Lebedevs at Berwick a few year ago in the World U21 finals. Certainly livened the meeting up.

Maybe this is an age thing? I would guess the majority of the younger audience, who the club are trying to attract, use social media like facebook. I must admit, I am on facebook, but very rarely use it, but I know it's a staple of most young people.

I always do. Mind you, I can't remember anybody from the club saying they had no interest in winning? But I'm in the dark ages, so you'll have to bring me up to date.

I would suggest the shoe is on the other foot

Good luck trying to run speedway, or any other sporting club with similar budgets, without volunteers

Name a club at this level of any sport that doesn't rely on volunteers?

We must go to the same barber

Offer to give them a hand then

Coming in to give a hand?

Fans on this forum do a great job of "promoting" the sport. Don't think I would ever go to a meeting if I was to base my judgement on most of the posts on here.

No fancy offering your services and help right the wrong?

£13 for an adult at Berwick if you bought a season ticket

In an ideal world there would be enough junior riders to go round so that they are exclusive to one club, my reason for saying the above was that I was concerned there would be enough riders to go round and I did not want any bidding wars to take place on young riders.

Anybody used the tram from the city centre out to the stadium before?

The "asset" situation the sport uses is outdated and should be scrapped in my opinion. Once a rider is released he should become a free agent, just like every rider at the end of each season, unless they are signed on longer term contracts.

The difference being football teams tend to have enormous squad sizes to start with and can go out and have the finances to go out and buy replacements at the drop of a hat if they want to.

One point I would agree with wholeheartedly is that every team should have a junior team and every league meeting should be followed by a junior match. I wouldn't insist on a strict make up of teams, as I think the purposes that would be served is that young riders would get extra track time and the crowds get extra races if they want to stay back and see them. You could even name teams after local defunct teams just to keep names alive (e.g. Poole could call their junior team Weymouth, Swindon could call their's Reading) and teams could be made up of 500 / 250 / 125cc riders if needed. Regionalise it to cut down costs if you like, I wouldn't even worry about league tables, just make sure the young riders get as much track time as possible and the fans get more races for their money.

Unbelievable, but given who started the thread, no surprise. There's still half of this season left.