THE DEAN MACHINE

Another interesting bit in the star about wages was Poland are trying to introduce a wage cap and if it gets in as an example Jason Doyle’s deal would of been deemed illegal along with a few others like vaculik , Thompsen and pawlicki’s and half of tarnow team

I once asked Mike Bowden at Plymouth why he booked me for so many meetings as I lived over 200 miles away, he said because 1 you always do well here and 2 when I phone you you never ask how much am I getting paid

Well I wouldn’t go that far 😂 I had a go

In 2003 I did nearly 80 meetings with an average round trip of 400 miles per meeting, my van which I paid for was doing around 60-80k miles a year riding sometimes 4 times per week and washed and prepped my own bikes,,worked part time mechanic for Adam skornicki and sometimes washed Joe screens bikes and worked as a full time courier often delivering on way to meetings and sometimes after meetings and I did it for peanuts so forgive me if I have little sympathy for the likes of Jason Edward’s ,they don’t know they are born

We took no further interest in those places after we were told that and have moved onto other land available

To be honest I’m not really bothered, I went to the IOW twice last year and will be going twice again this year, I raced for them for 2 years and was one of my favourite tracks to get too, I thought the ferry crossing was part of the fun

Yea without subsidy it’s £160 return per van, slighty cheaper for smaller van but still extortionate for the couple of miles that it is but still going to work out a lot cheaper than getting Northampton off the ground

This is what we have been told by 2 football clubs, I must stress these were amatuer clubs not professional league clubs

Forget Northampton, use the IOW, track and stadium ready to go, can run on Thursdays, ferry crossings being the major downside but surely something can be worked out, will they get big enough crowd ? Maybe in the summer months but out of season probably not but you’re going to lose a lot less money than Northampton and it’s not going to set you back £200,000 to get it up and running

I firmly believe the only chance wolves have is a return to monmore, I have my theories about what the problem was/is and where we are today 2 years later and that’s why I said the MP Phillips is the man to speak to entain about this, he is on the board of the greyhound association and is also part of speedway futures Ltd, the problem(whatever it was/is is within entain the company and not the stadium itself who have told us it wasn’t them who kicked wolves out, Entain themselves said 2 years ago that injury to the dogs was the problem, I contacted the anti greyhound people to get the figures to see if the injuries to the dogs dropped after he speedway left, all they said was the greyhound association had the figures but don’t willingly publish them but did say there had been more greyhound deaths in 2024 at all tracks despite less races but they doubted entains claim about monmore and so did the MP pat macfadden in a letter to entain which I have a copy of

Chris still retains his love for the sport and is still hurt by entain but he isn’t out there doing the ground work to get wolves back either at monmore or elsewhere, I spoke with him in November about J11 on the M6 but that could be 10 years away, we contacted entain ourselves just before Xmas and also spoke with the manager at monmore and that is literally all that has happened in the last 6 months, I’m sure Chris would help any person/team that tried to get wolves back but doing it himself No, I’ve been helping heathens next generation for the past few months and they are relentless for some land and we have been to look at 4 pieces of land in the last 3 weeks alone and are still trying for the rocky lane site, I just wish someone was doing the same for wolves

Yes he does get called Chris who know him but it’s cvs to the speedway world

Trust me he isn’t, he isn’t looking for land and he isn’t trying to get back into monmore, we contacted entain ourselves a month back and he wasn’t interested himself, I think if it was 20 years ago then maybe but I think he just too old now to do it all again and I say that in a kind way not to be derogatory

Because firstly CVS isn’t interested and it’s time he came out and said so and more importantly CVS has no say in anything about greyhounds, Mr Phillips does and is part of not only of the board of greyhound racing but is also part of speedway futures Ltd

I care for the wellbeing of the sport and that’s all,as of this moment mayfield have been anything but credible about their speedway venture, they haven’t even said they are the company doing it. So forgive me if I don’t share your enthusiasm for another possible speedway disaster, I’ll be happy to be proved wrong

They certainly seem to be a company batting above their average or at least projecting that image

The holders have been at Northampton today ?

You are describing British premier league speedway there

While learning all sorts of rules/ regulations etc while helping to try and get cradley back, one thing we have found out is a football club will not get funding off the FA if they share the ground with another sport like speedway, I wonder if that’s the same for rugby

The rugby club say it’s the stox that have pulled out not them kicking them out and they haven’t made the pitch bigger because they didn’t know the stox were pulling out, I think one side isn’t telling the truth I’m just not sure which side it is

What is the deadline for Northampton (if it is actually Northampton) to declare ya or nay? we are 11 days away from march, 27 days away from first meeting, the secrecy is beyond a joke, no premier fixture list, no statements to the paying public, speedway has committed some real shoot itself in the foot moments over the years but this is just another level

I believe Wolverhampton could be persuaded if they had the right person to talk to entain on speedways behalf, you know like someone on the board of the greyhound association, I wonder who is on that board that could possibly help speedway out ? https://www.gbgb.org.uk/sir-philip-davies-appointed-next-chair-of-gbgb/

I was told it’s the same company as taking over Ipswich, could it be a case of they are putting the money up and getting someone else in to run it and maybe the money on offer to run it isn’t a good enough deal to attract a potential management team, with his MotoGP team the GPs and 1 or potentially 2 teams there is no way they could run it themselves, they have been in the GP series 5 minutes and have already cut the riders salaries, it has got to be a case of finances somewhere as both Northampton and the potential buyers both want it, I can’t see anything but failure written all over this, it was going to be a tough sell to the public if it was done back in November but a month before the season and not even the location has been announced, this whole thing smacks of desperation because imo they know they should of tried to make one big league but they dug their heels in for their own self reasons and have now gone too far to back down, I just hope this doesn’t have ramifications for speedway itself if it does backfire

And all that in a month

I was only on loan from stoke,,I did 18 meetings for them and went back to stoke in 98, as much as I enjoyed my time there,met some fantastic fans and picked up a sponsor that sponsored me for the next 20 years I can’t remember the circumstances behind the closure