tomkat12

I checked the mercury...there was actually an article about speedway, tonights cubs meetings, but nothing about the title win, just as there was no coverage of the shield win. Disgraceful !!!

Last season having attended the much vaunted opening of the NSS as Belle Vue and the resulting farce i emailed the BSPA among others to express my displeasure. Much to my suprise I got a reply from Buster Chapman who asked for my phone number and rung me up. We spoke for some time and a most interesting conversation. How many others would take that trouble and be so open? Seems a decent bloke with the interest of the sport at heart

Just a thought....last season the Lions Admission was 18 quid, the Bees 17. Will the Bees now be charging the same as Lions or will the Lions be reducing admission prices, or will we have two teams same league same track charging different admission rates?

I see Belle Vues in a mess. reading threads theyve been messing around with their race nights to fit in with their GP star resulting in smaller crowds, but still having to pay him his full wack. Speedway promoters dont seem to get it. People want entertaining at meetings, good regular racing, good atmosphere fair admission price and a team they can associate with not big names stars who certainly dont guarantee any of this.

If they race mid week thats me and the family finished. No doubt mid week used to be a good race night but there are now many competing interests particularly where kids are involved and weekends , either sat or sun are by far the best both re other interests and getting home as midweek for school the following day is a no go. ( not all of us live in Leicester). It just seems that in speedway the tail wags the dog and they have to ride when its suits the riders not whats best for the club and customers. Someone mentioned the fact that the kids are off for 10 weeks during the speedway season. How many times did the Lions race at home during the summer holidays ???. If you look at the demographic of speedway fans at Leicester the age of the fans is getting older and the few kids that do go will struggle if the meetings arnt at weekends and without attracting new younger fans the sport is as good as dead.

A sad day for speedway

No suprise with Doyles attitiude. Never did laps at Leicester to acknowledge crowd after he'd won a heat last year. When I asked him why he said he was to tired after a race ! Couldnt turn up at Poole on time for an away meeting........So no suprise he shot off... Great rider but not very good at the PR side

what about Fridays..no school after that and as for saturdays being a good reason for larger crowds this is just not the case as "adults have more to do on staurdays (and I speak as a Lions supporter who would have been able to watch more meetings this season if they had been held on Wed/Thurs/Fridays...plus why is it such a problem if it is a school day the next day, unless of course we are talking about real young kids and lets also not forget that Speedway is held during the summer when the kids are on hols....no school at all for 6 weeks. Conclusion. no easy answer but there is more than one! Unfortunately we travel about 40 mins to the meeting. As often happens due to accidents / being too sunny / grading meetings dont finish till 9-45 and its often near 1030 when we get home. Then for kids to get up at 7 the next day for school its too much. Ok if you like local but otherwise forget it. Nice to know theres 6 weeks when we could go, unless we go on holiday of course. As i said before not family friendly if in the week Fri would be fine but mon tue wed thu and sun no go for us. At least sunday meetings at Leicester are usually a 6pm start for families

If thats the case thats me and the family finished with speedway. We travel to Leicester Lions on a sat so theres no problem with the kids staying up as no school the following day but wednesday......no chance and no doubt it will be the same for other young families. If the sports to have any future its got to attract kid and a mid week date is not really compatible with school the following day. Midweek also often clashes with other childrens passtimes like brownies cubs dancing etc. Speedway needs to think long and hard about its future supporters and not just what night the riders can fit in riding in the UK.