Chris116

Statement on BSPA site says:- NATIONAL Development League clubs attended their AGM at Rugby on Tuesday.The meeting was adjourned until December 16 when clubs should be in a position to finalise their declaration of intent to participate or otherwise.The format of the competition can then also be finalised.We thank everyone for their patience and understanding.British Speedway Promoters' Association. We have a little longer to wait for the news!

Got something right for once!

Until the AGM has sorted out exactly which teams have entered the NDL and then the format of the league no one knows what is happening. The AGM is on Tuesday (I am led to believe) and then I look forward to seeing good news about the NDL. UPDATE:- Statement from the BSPA NATIONAL Development League clubs attended their AGM at Rugby on Tuesday.The meeting was adjourned until December 16 when clubs should be in a position to finalise their declaration of intent to participate or otherwise.The format of the competition can then also be finalised.We thank everyone for their patience and understanding.British Speedway Promoters' Association.

Maybe that is what he is hoping!

I think he is too busy learning to ride his keyboard!

Telling the truth, maybe!

I have to say that it worries me that we seem to have total silence from the most forward thinking promotion in the National Development League! I just hope that the NDL AGM produces a positive outcome. I only got to two meetings in 2019, both at Smallbrook Stadium to see the Warriors, and both were very entertaining although Warriors suffered a home defeat in the first. If Buxton can return to action that would be a big positive and if Rye House are also able to run it would mean I could see a lot more meetings in 2020.

Hopefully the referee will hit the red light button quickly. I do think that we could get even more injuries and that many riders would avoid a league with races of more than four riders. I know that Ipswich had the 16 lapper and Arena Essex had their 12 lapper but both were once a year events. If we are going to have more than four riders then I would suggest six riders over five laps with only one or two such races in a meeting and the number 1 and 5 riders each having one race from a 10 or 15 yard gate. Something like 1, 2 & 3 in the first race and 4, 5 & 6 in the second race. Knowing how the handicap league racing in the 60's was hated by the riders I don't think today's riders would be willing to take part in such events.

The easy way to curb doubling up/down would be to only allow a team to have a certain number of riders who are in two British leagues. Maybe make it 5 for 2020, 4 for 2021, 3 for 2022 and 2 for 2023 onwards. Teams would not be allowed to sign a rider in a team that had already filled their allowance (could be a real can of worms I realise).

On this thread and in others many posts have said that they want to see riders staying at clubs for longer and not having the annual 'all change' that we get at present. Maybe a way to encourage clubs and riders to stick with each other would be that for team building purposes riders who were at a club the previous season would get a 4% reduction with riders who had been at a club for two seasons getting a 6% reduction. I know there could problems with this idea that I have not thought of but hopefully something could come out of it for the 2021 season.

There are many threads saying that Speedway in this country is on a down hill slide. I would view the destruction of the NDL as the biggest threat to its continued existence in a form that means rebuilding is possible. You have to have the lower level leagues if you are ever going to be able improve what is above.

I find the comments about young people not being able to attend midweek meetings due to school the next day interesting as throughout my school days I went with my parents to Wimbledon Speedway every week and they used to run on a Monday evening in the early days which then changed to Thursday evenings. My parents had a strict rule that I had to finish my homework before we went to the meeting. If truth were known it was the one day in the week when I did do my homework properly as there was no way I was going to miss the racing! Are today's children really so soft that they are unable to have one or two late nights during the school week?

Sadly I have read it all and have nearly lost the will to live!

I think it is a simple case of fat fingers! Should be 'who' but hit the 'i' by mistake.

You just did!

Wimbledon Stadium was opened on 19 May 1928. The old Silver Stand had a large amount of money spent on it within the last 20 years after it was claimed that the 1947 (I think) built home straight stand was condemned due to asbestos in the roof. It was widely thought that if the money had been spent on repairing the newer stand it would have been better value especially as the new entrance was a long walk from both the road and the car park. The truth is that with management who wanted to keep the stadium it would have survived and would have had dogs, bikes and cars racing. We lost Speedway at Wimbledon due to the stadium management making life as difficult as possible for a promotion who could not cope.

The GRA were formed as a property company but then found that running the dogs and letting first Speedway and then Stock Cars use their stadiums was a profitable idea. As soon as the profits started to fall and the developers made offers the GRA sold out. I HATE the firm with a passion. The saddest day was when they got their hands on Wimbledon and at that point I knew what the end result was going to be. The flats are currently going up at Plough Lane and I am now just praying that the Wandle floods and makes them all unsellable.

Maybe a scheme where riders staying at the same club have a discount of 0.5pts or a suitable %. So if a team had a total average of 45.2 and the team building average was 42.5 the teams above the team building average would get an advantage by keeping most of last year's team.

That makes it Good Riddence A***h**es to the firm that has done more damage to Speedway, Greyhound and Stock Car racing than any other.

I just hope Arena Leisure buy all the GRA's other tracks. Shame they didn't buy Wimbledon.

It is NEVER nice being anywhere near the GRA! Trouble is they tend to sell to developers who then knock your stadium down.

But where does this leave the Buster Bundisliga ? Think that gets the message over!

IF we have the full story and I was in the manager's position I would tell the SCB to stuff their sport. EDIT:- I am not surprised but a lot of extra information about what happened has now surfaced which proves there is more to this situation than the original post mentions. What the SCB are guilty of is a total lack of transparency which has backfired, as it often does. If the full story had been detailed by the SCB in this case and others then they would have avoided a lot of annoyance directed towards the SCB by those who care about the sport.

Would that committee be composed of Buster, Rob Godfrey and Matt Ford? They always work in the best interests of the sport!

Exactly, so the BSPA website had no excuse for taking as long as it did before acknowledging the meeting was taking place. I bet they would not be so slow advertising the PLRC if the venue had to be changed! They just treat the National League very badly all the time instead of treating all the leagues as equal.