topsoil

I was thinking about this when I was typing above. I have no insight to what the promoters at Buxton and Stoke are thinking, these are only my impressions. Buxton and Stoke are all about survival. Neither team gets many supporters therefore they cannot attract any big name / top riders. Occasionally they will get the odd nugget, Craig Cook, James Wright etc. but essentially they will attract the experienced riders like Tony Atkin who are riding for fun and young riders looking to establish themselves. And good luck to both clubs. As for the other clubs, Isle of Wight are in their first season, doing a great job of establishing the club. I would imagine through time they will fall into the same category as Birmingham etc. Then you have Mildenhall, who are a bit of a hybrid for me, they are a stand alone track, but also place a lot of emphasis on developing young riders and run an MDL team as well. The National League is an interesting mix. Unlike the Elite and Premier Leagues, where there is the common goal of purely winning titles, it seems there are different priorities in the National League. That's what makes it potentially more interesting than the other two. TMW nothing wrong with wanting to win and I have no criticism of any of the promotions. Read my post and you will see that. I was pointing out that different clubs in the League have different agenda, some need to succeed to win and grow, for some, success is feeding riders through to their senior team. Don't see what the rant was all about.

The National League is very much a two way split, you have the stand alone tracks like Birmingham, Cradley, Kent, Eastbourne etc. who are built around success, as they want to pull in the crowds to make their clubs grow. Then you have Coventry, Kings Lynn, Rye House etc. who are much about bringing riders through for their senior teams. Different clubs, different agendas.

Thanks The way I asked is that i can see many similarities in population between Isle of Wight and the track i follow Berwick. Both fairly isolated but gain a lot more population in the holiday season. I just wanted to know what sort of promotional work Isle of Wight did as I would like to suggest something similar to the Berwick promotion. I know a few years ago the Isle of Wight suffered with small crowds and this season they have been one of the good news stories for the sport and long may it continue. Hopefully a few more tracks will see the work being done and the dividends it is paying and can lead to bigger and better things for the sport.

I hadn't seen any National League standard racing until the Under 19 British Championship last season at Berwick and the Stars of Tomorrow meeting at the same track this season and I was very pleasantly surprised at the standard. Going back ten years and the same Stars of Tomorrow meeting would be guaranteed a fall in every heat. This year I can only remember one and that was first bend bunching due to all four riders going for the same spot. i would encourage as many fans as possible to back racing at this standard.

What sort of promotion / advertising do they do? What sort of entertainment have they been providing on race nights? Interesting to here what the Isle of Wight have been doing that other clubs could take notice of.

If there is more than one? They may decide who they think is the best option for the club?

Very true. The best use of music I've witnessed was at Prague a couple of years ago for the World Cup race off and final. Short blasts of up-tempo music right after the heat finished, then a little bit of music between announcements. As long as the music is up-tempo, with a decent sound system, the fans are entertained, the DJ has done his job. But too often the music at each track is the same, out dated, with poor sound quality. I know it might cost a little bit more, but I would like to see more tracks employ local radio DJ's to handle the music and even do some interviews. Back in the day it was great exposure to have the likes of David Hamilton announcing at speedway meetings.

Excellent meeting, the outcome was in doubt right to the end, some cracking races, a lot of talking points, a decent debut from Tom Perry with a great last to second ride in heat 2. Liam Carr was outstanding again tonight, he has hit a rich vein of form in the past couple of weeks. Berwick a bit unfortunate in heat 11 with both riders stopping thinking it was a red light. It obviously fired up TJ for heat 13, a brilliant ride to go round Rohan Tungate, that took a bit of balls (and credit to Tungate who rode hard, but gave TJ just enough racing room). TJ also looked very fast in heat 4 chasing down Tungate but a very poor gate hindered him. Some other really good races including Liam and Charles Wright, Matty Wethers and Tungate and TJ with a great pass on Charles Wright in heat 7. The fireworks were a bit surreal and I actually thought they were inside the ground they were so close. Overall a cracking meeting and a reminder that when speedway is done right it can be a brilliant sport. It was just a pity there wasn't many there to witness it tonight. Could be wrong but I thought the crowd wasn't much bigger than for Stars of Tomorrow. Understandable really, a Monday night, no travelling support (again understandable), Berwick's season is nearly over.

A club is only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. If nobody wants to buy it, the club is worth nothing, other than the bond which will be refunded and any equipment which can be sold second hand.

That's what I've just said

This has been done to death on a number of occasions and nothing is ever going to change, but if there was a way of making the track a couple of metres wider it would be a hell of a track, give a lot more entertaining racing and get crowds coming in. The stadium is one of the better ones at this level. Until then there will always be a struggle providing great racing with the bikes getting faster all the time. Just not possible to put too much grip on the track the way the bikes behave nowadays.

Everything that has been said in the statement is true, the promotion saved Berwick back when they took over and during their time in charge there has been some great achievements. The FIM meetings gave the club a huge buzz, it was a shame that two of them were rain-affected, but the under 21 meeting was one of the best I have ever seen at Berwick. sky have visited four times and again, this gave the club great exposure. Hosting the Ben Fund meeting was also a big honour. But over the course of time you could tell the enthusiasm of the promotion was waning. Until new faces came on board this season there was very little promotion of the meetings. It's onlt human nature that through time interest and commitment levels will fall. It must be very difficult to maintain a level of enthusiasm when the club faced as many problems as it has with rain in 2014 and injuries the past two seasons. So now a new buyer has to be found. If you believe the stories doing the rounds there are interested parties, my only hope is that the current promotion think of the future of the club and are fair with negotiations. Outside of the bond, the club has very few "assets". I can't think the riders the club owns would fetch much in the current climate where very few clubs are actually paying transfer fees. It would be interesting to know what other "assets" the club actually does own. Does the fence belong to the club? Do the tractors belong to the club or are they supplied by local businessmen? I am grateful to the promotion for what they have done, but the time is right to move on. They have played their part, had good times and bad, but the most important thing is the future of the club. What everybody has to understand is the club is bigger than any one custodian.

That's what happens when you have effectively replaced your number one with a young lad who was a NL 3 point rider at the start of the season. On paper the odds are stacked against Berwick on Monday night and it will be a great result to take anything from this match. It will be interesting to see how Jake Allen goes. He does developed well this season. Hopefully Somerset might be a bit fatigued (both man and machinery) with their third meeting in three days.

Mind you, I would probably say the same about all the Bandits riders this season and 99% of all speedway riders. One of the things Berwick do well is the riders' interaction with the fans after the meetings. All the riders go into the grandstand and speak to the fans and have photos taken. Also Dick Barrie does a good job with the mascots when the teams are being introduced.

Got to agree with everything so far said about Kevin Doolan. Every time I've seen him after meetings at Berwick he's been surrounded by kids and will always stop and speak and pose for a photo. Ideal captain material, nothing but praise for the way he conducts himself.

I think this will be another long winter, with a lot of doubt over the future

You could tell by the way Rye House celebrated their heat 15 5-1 at Shielfield, that heat could come back to haunt us. Unfortunately, you reap what you sow, a 7+ point average replaced by a rider struggling to average even 3 per meeting (heat 5 was surely a plot from Tales of the Unexpected, there's a modern reference) and we've been told all year that you don't need an out and out number one. Well today you got a prime example of what a number one can give you. It just shows you the draw we got down there in the league was helped a lot by a couple of useful guests. I can understand why some fans will not bother with the last couple of meetings. The season is gone. I'll still be at both meetings, but there isn't a lot of incentive to go. No doubt we will be told tales of hard luck and lots of effort. I don't doubt the effort, but we are outclassed time after time. Silver lining, it avoids the home and away humping I reckon we would have got off Newcastle. Don't think I could handle that.

There are lots of things you can do to raise awareness, there are free electronic signs in Berwick town centre, you can hire market stalls on a Saturday afternoon quite cheaply, you could give away a couple of free tickets on local radio, you could hand out leaflets (discounted?), none of which are done here. I look on with envy at the likes of Glasgow (okay, dealing with a much bigger budget probably, but there are ways of doing similar things on the cheap) and you hear of the big efforts made by the Isle of Wight promotion, which are paying dividends. That could happen at Berwick, where we are in a fortunate position that we do not have a lot of alternative sports to compete with in the town. But unfortunately there seems to be little interest in promoting the sport and it suffers as a rresult. Interesting to hear what 'bad decisions' you think Workington suffered from.

I've been having a look at those notice boards for the past couple of weeks and wondered if the speedway was ever going to get a mention. I've seen Berwick Rangers matches, coffee mornings, charity events and even a roller disco in the sports centre, but not the speedway. Yet again it looks like it has been up the supporters to take action and get something done. And yet there is surprise at the small crowds. The apathy from the promotion is amazing.

Two trophies in one season, this has to go do as one of our most successful seasons ever :-) I would love to be a fly on the wall of the Workington pits tonight. First there was the handbags between Hansen and Roynon, then Wells putting Campton into the fence in heat 15, winning Berwick the trophy (Workington were on a 5-1 at the time and were on course for a one point aggregate win) and never bothering about his team mate coming round after. Vissing (who I think has a brilliant racing style, made for Berwick) was totally put off after his first ride. Liam Carr had to be rider of the night. His ride to hold off Kenneth Hansen was the race of the night. Hate to be negative but tonight there were some very bad signs tonight. I know this was effectively a challenge match, but it was a nice night weather wise, it is a Bank Holiday weekend, Berwick town centre is full of tourists, but the crowd tonight was poor and it was a very flat atmosphere early on. Again, if you went over to the town centre this afternoon, you would have no idea that there was a speedway meeting tonight. One thing about the promoters who came on board this season, they attracted a load of new sponsors in the programme and corporate. You get the impression that now they have left, the actual promoting of meetings will be back to zero. Very nasty looking accident in the NJL meeting, hope the young lad is okay. Nice moment after the final race of the NJL match though, the Workington rider's reaction to winning the race, how much it meant to him.

Can't wait for those post-Woffinden days. The battles with Latvia and Czech Republic should be good.

Been on the centre green to watch races a few times at Berwick (similar shape / size to Isle of Wight) and for me it was brilliant to get a new perspective on racing. The speed and noise of the bikes up close is very impressive. I would encourage everybody to do it once just to see how very different it is to standing / sitting back on the terraces. But the real skill is to turn alternative ways during each lap, otherwise you are in danger of corkscrewing yourself into the grass :-)

Hopefully so Screm

Whichever side of the story you wish to believe, it seems again the fans are the ones who will suffer because there will be another winter full of doubt. Next year should be one of great celebration for the club, the 50th season since opening.

Great to hear of a promotion actually doing just that. Hopefully they will reap the rewards. From what I've read on here there seems to have been some good crowds over the Summer. Good to hear after a brave decision to re-launch the sport on the island.