mikebv

I am sure Bomber would give it a try.. And... You never know, maybe an air fence panel or three will need fixing, meaning he could possibly get there in time to ride in a few of the last five races or so... Tac Sub, Heats 13 and 15.... Be like Phil Collins on Live Aid Day.... Edit. (Not the Heathens' Phil Collins, the "other" one)...

And to be fair to even the most compliant and supportive of councils.. Seeing clubs close each season due to a lack of support for the sport can not fail to start to seep into their judgement making (maybe even getting mentioned by developers as persuasive leverage)... And a chance to get £60k a month tax, ad Infinitum, from 300 houses, not to mention several million pounds up front, most be extremely tempting.. Even more so when a recession bites and cuts to services are an inevitable consequence.. An elected representative has a choice to provide services to over several hundred thousand people, or keep providing an evening out for much less than just a couple of thousand of them.. If I was putting myself up for a public vote at election time, I know what I would do...

Has to be... . Given that structure has worked so brilliantly well to get the sport in the UK to where it is today..

Of course it is... It is total nonsense isnt it? But fans of the sport who attend each week, and collude with promoters pretending that it a real team sport, cannot really have it both ways... Great sport to watch but best not to take it seriously from a competitive team sport angle in the UK.. Just enjoy, what can be, a great spectacle and ignore the infrastructure around it... The crowd numbers at Oxford , after their long absence, certainly seems to suggest that they are happy with what they are watching, and having a track with numbers like that can only be good for the sport..

That particular ship sailed a long, long time ago....

But also suffered when success wasnt being delivered... Big crowds suddenly became "average" when the trophies were not guaranteed... They are a club that, more than most, seem to do very well at the gate when success is happening, but lose out more than most pro rata when it doesnt.. I presume choosing to drop down into Div 2 was down to not getting enough punters in to make Div 1 deliver what they wanted? If they had got 2000 a week I would have thought that this would have been more than enough to stay in the top flight..

Councils benefit hugely by house building through "new" council tax being paid.. Therefore they wouldnt want to put too many "difficult" demands on developers.. So asking any developer to stump up a few million to get planning permission isnt likely to happen.. And if the developer has zero intentions of carrying out any promises from the outset then why would they offer up some cash that they dont need to...? The bottom line is that any council will be very pleased to have 300 or more Band D and above houses paying them well over half a million a year for decades... You can do lots of good with this money, can get plenty of funding with that guaranteed income behind you... And some developer spending a few million on, (as examples I have come across when being involved in new store builds), re routing congested roads, paying for traffic calming measures, building a new roundabout somewhere within the borough to improve traffic flow, or sponsoring some local public amenities... In short someone improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people over decades... Will always find themselves out weighing the arguments of a few hundred protesters... And come election time, the councillors will all be happy to jump on the positive message bandwagon...

Of course, if two teams in different leagues didnt share riders, then there is no debate to be had.. As they do, you will always have winners and losers from any situation like this.. Sharing riders will always kick out such things on the odd occasion.. Same with Poland. If resting up on a Thursday means being ok for Saturday or Sunday then that is perfectly reasonable from a perspective of someone who is self employed.. And in the scenario being discussed.. Someone could pull out of a Div 1 match on a Monday and still be able to "give it a go" at Plymouth on the Tuesday... I am sure the integrity of both riders in this situation was absolute, and it was just "one of those things" that can happen when teams share employees...

Have you not been watching much British Speedway LC? I would suggest it is a very good crowd... Poole get 1300-1500 or so dont they I seem to remember Steve S mentioning not too long ago.. Which, given they are Div 2 is no mean figure.. When they were in Div 1 they did get over 2000 quite regularly when Ward and Holder rode there didnt they? However, they were not getting those crowds when they decided to drop down I would imagine, hence the decision taken to drop... Any crowd over 1500 is good for British Speedway nowadays, and at £20 a pop brings in circa £30k which means you should be able to pay two meetings out of it and cover your staging costs I would think, with maybe a bit left over.. Even when HMRC is paid their dues...

In front of one man and his dog... Only add on for me tonight was they missed an opportunity to get a crowd in next week.. "Bring a friend, bring a neighbour" is not really much of a marketing plan, but fair play to the presenter for giving it a go.... Half price tickets tonight, or maybe better, even BOGOFs, would have brought a fair few back who simply wont be there next week as many there tonight will watch it on TV... Been a better advert for the sport and the Aces brand too, and maintained momentum crowd wise, which sadly will be lost next week... When you get the feel good WOW factor... You milk it for all it is worth...

Enjoyed that tonight... Some cracking racing from both teams.. No guests either... (Not sure if that is allowed in the regulations though).. Connor Mountain and Tom Brennan both deserved more for their efforts, but great to see young British lads mixing it with GP stars.. Plenty of sponsors on the centre green too, and that ball game thingy is good to keep the kids involved, so the Aces look like they are giving something a go off track too... Biggest crowd of the year at the NSS for the Premiership? Maybe 1800/1900? No guests, decent crowd, full on cracking racing from both sets of riders, regardless of the scoreline, interaction with the fans, and all done an dusted by 915pm... When done this well, what's not to like about British Speedway? It shows it can be done...

Glad it isnt as wouldnt have gone... Looking forward to this tonight... Should get a very decent crowd...

Plus no ZG maybe?

I do love watching Kolodziej.. Would be great to watch around the NSS.. As long as he doesnt gate.... You dont ride as one of the top riders in Poland for so long without being a genuine top level talent..

Needs a "Dave Norris" 2nd phase of his career ... Something there definitely to compete at a higher level, but just seems to be drifting along at present.. And if you dont move forward, you effectively go backwards as others move past you...

Didn't get a point even with Jensen's EF.... He is much better than this... "Polish Speed" needed...

100%... UK Speedway needs to get some proper marketing and promotion behind these two lads... Could be at the vanguard of the sport globally for a decade... Even if they dont ride here, the sport will get some much needed reflected coverage domestically..

Wow... Amazing how many times the "frightening ones" end up being less impact to life and limb than some almost "innocuous" looking crashes... Speedy recovery Dan... A HUGE future lies ahead for this lad I would say...

Three top riders usually ride in14 of a teams 30 races, 15 if one a Tac Sub... And on at least two occasions, together, three potentially if one on a Tac Sub ride.. A potential 10-2 off two heats can be a game changer, as can 15-3 if running a Tac Sub ride.. Reserves ride in less races combined and in some of those one of the top three will be alongside them.. Makes sense to me to get a strong trio leading the team...

I thought the same re the NSS.. However, lots of leg work had gone in previously, and Dave Gordon and Chris Morton had very much got the right level of people within the council completely onside.... When you have the right contacts supporting you 100% then it can be surprising how quickly the wheels can turn..

He said he closed the track to protect it so hopefully someone would come in and buy it and keep it going... I would suggest selling off everything needed to run a Speedway meeting might not make it much of a tempting proposition...

But if he doesn't sell everything then the club may close forever as no one would want to come in and buy it... Errr... Think I have spotted the slight flaw in his cunning plan....

Wasn't it around 20 years at over a million a year? Not bad that for such a minority sport... Sky pulling the plug the way they did probably didnt too much for the "brand" either I would think in the wider media world... Be interesting to see how Discovery make good their big plans..

Speedway looks like it could end up being a unwitting pawn in a strategic game... Unfortunately Geeyhound racing is similarly dying on its arse as a spectator sport so will end up being something followed on TV only, living off the very lucrative fees paid from the betting companies to them for providing the racing which make the betting companies several fold on their investments.. You wont need many tracks to do this so strategically the owners of the tracks, the GRA, the betting companies and the developers can work together to build a business plan in who stays open, and who goes... Given the "mad" Far East betting market, racing could take place from early morning through to the evening as, for example, Hong Kong is seven hours in front, so 10am here is 5pm over there, and then you will have the UK market later in the day.. Not many Greyhound tracks will remain open due to spectator numbers that is for sure, and even those that can, face an uncertain future from protesters, activists, public opinion etc.. The big opportunity Speedway didnt take was when the Sky Millions came in... Using that money to shape their own destiny was a "no brainer", particularly for those who ran at Greyhound tracks and paid rent... Instead it did nothing to cement it's own future with that huge cash injection.. Hence we are where we are today..

You can imagine that if every track had 3000 a week, all paying £20 on average, and the landlords got £10k a match rent 20 times a year, then more landlords would be more supportive of the sport... It certainly isnt the landlord's fault that the crowds their tenants get are so low, and that they then look elsewhere to make more money..