topsoil

This is pretty much the same over for every sport. I bet if you did the same thing for football especially the comparisons would be frightening. The wages / salaries for professional sports has escalated almost out of control over the past 20 / 30 years, mainly driven I would say by satellite TV contracts for football, rugby and cricket. Speedway has tried to follow suit, but doesn't have the TV contract in place to fund the costs.

Jam?

Not a classic by any means, the heavy rain this afternoon put paid to that. The track actually looked like a throwback to the Peter Waite days for the first few heats. Attitude was the difference between the two teams tonight. The visiting number one obviously didn't fancy it and cost his team the chance of a point IMO. Ben Barker as always was value for money. Nico Covatti unlucky to have a recurrence of an old injury. Cracking win for Berwick though and good to see NBJ, Jye and Dany in the points again. Spud obviously still feeling the effects of last week, but Coty looking more confident. Two good wins in the past two weeks over two much more fancied sides than the Bandits. Just like to say as well how good it is as well to see the riders in the crowd afterwards and the number of kids wanting photos taken, giving riders high fives. Those kids go away with memories, tell their friends, it's all great PR.

must be worth about 84 points in scrabble?

A money saving move. I read in the Speedway Star a couple of weeks ago the Isle of Wight promotion said that the first season they were in charge they had a late call off which cost them over £3,500. They vowed never again to let this happen, so now call meetings off early if there is any doubt.

Always look on the bright side of life 2 programmes included in the £35.

Health and safety would go into meltdown just looking at that photo. What Berwick speedway (and football) would give for a crowd like that these days.

Social media should and can be a useful tool for providing information. Unfortunately it seems to be used mainly as a platform for moaning.

Sadly this is the forum all over Very easy to criticise, but very few actually come up with credible solutions

I would love to follow the team away from home but commitments don't allow at the moment. One day hopefully. You're right, I am positive about Berwick speedway, basically because I enjoy my Saturday nights with friends. I often think that speedway fans must be the most negative people around. The sport is absolutely unique, speed and power up close.

Careful, you're not supposed to say things like that on here, you'll be labelled a sympathiser. If you want to fit in with the locals, stick to phrases like "lack of entertainment", "no value for money" or "rider X must go". At the risk of sounding like Basil Fawlty "don't mention you had a good night, I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it"

The way I saw it, there was at least four bloody good races, all featuring Scott Nicholls, all very close at high speed, it takes a hell of a lot of skill and courage to do that. But that doesn't fit in with your views, so it's not telling it like it is (in my view), it's rose tinted glasses. Opinions, we all have them.

So passes only count if they take place on certain parts of the track now?

Nicholls also passed Garcia in that same race. Then what about Spud passing Ryan Douglas, the Douglas re-passing him in heat 10. Or were these not "decent" passes? I would take five gate and go wins from Dany every week thank you. Not his fault nobody could catch him.

Dany Gappmaier, who would have thunk it? Well that was a bloody good meeting. Never seen anybody work so hard for so little reward as Scott Nicholls did tonight. He had five races, only one of those featuring a pass, but they were five excellent races none the less. Decent atmosphere created by the travelling Leicester fans, always makes for a better meeting when there is a bit of travelling support. Good to see all the riders walk away from that crash in heat 9 it looked a nasty one. All in all a cracking win for Berwick tonight.

Could be, but with the money lost, there was no way they could afford to bring him back again, unless a big sponsor could be found. There again, I would point out again that some of the racing even in the first half of that season with Lewis Bridger coming from the back was good, but fans at that time wren't appeased with good racing, they only wanted a winning team. Sometimes you just can't win.

The fans, however they might have enjoyed it, didn't turn out in sufficient numbers and the promotion still lost a bucketload.

He was brilliant to see at Berwick, it was the first time we have had a genuine number one in the team for a while (since Adrian Rymel), but unfortunately he did not add many to the attendance, so Berwick simply couldn't afford him. I just wish we could find a sponsor or a big enough crowd to afford riders of his calibre. Unfortunately...

He cost Berwick a fortune

Out of those 3-4 weeks, one we were away to Eastbourne, one was the Saturday May Bank Holiday, when it rained all Saturday night and one clashed with the GP qualifier at Glasgow (would that have affected the attendance, given that folk often stay away to watch the GP's on the TV?).

And risk losing the money they did against Edinburgh? A fast way to go out of business. Like it or not, this is the way speedway will be run now.

Apart from last Saturday (when Edinburgh were at Eastbourne, so they couldn't come anyway and it clashed with a gp and you know fans love to use that as an excuse to stay in the house), both postponements were after those "free weeks". Last Saturday Leon was in Poland, NBJ was ill, Gary Flint was probably in Poland as well with Leon? so there's probably two guests and a new team manager you would be looking at. Cue more moaning about the use of guests in speedway.

So when do you suggest they fit the fixtures in, given there is only one spare Saturday before September? Run a double header (financial nightmare and the big risk of the second match only going ten heats) or a midweek match (guaranteed lower crowd)?

Funny because back in 2017 a lot of Berwick fans on here were saying that they were staying away because the team were poor and getting beat and the quality of racing didn't appease them. So what has changed in the track preparation, because it's the same curator? And second, what do you think can be done to improve racing? I've got no experience in preparing a track, so I don't have the answer and if they were honest, very few posters on here have. Some of the responses should be interesting.

The original argument was about the cost of getting in, nobody ever mentioned the racing.