PotteringAround

It's a sad fact that there will, no doubt, be a few promoters who visited the weekend's collectors fair, who will now be patting themselves on the back and claiming that, by standing around in the village hall talking to a few diehard fans, they have done their share of promoting and marketing their club to a new audience. That will be the excuse not to do any real promotion and marketing, and next season they'lll be wondering why crowds are down.

You've completely missed the point. (perhaps you haven't been following the thread from the start?) No one is suggesting Doris and Bob should be ignored. No one is saying they shouldn't be catered for. They are absolutely an important part of our speedway family. As important as any other fan. Maybe more so - they've been there through thick and thin. And no one has knocked today's Collectors Fair. Everyone seems to agree it's a great product and they have praised the fans who organised it. It's a great way for super-fans to pick up old programmes and memorabilia, and see old bike, old leathers and wallow in brilliant nostalgia with like-minded friends. A great day out for fans. What we've been reacting to, is a crazy suggestion that all 2026 club promoters should be there because it's a chance to market the sport to new fans. Of course this is nonsense, and this is what we are all disagreeing with. This collectors fair provides a great day of nostalgia for diehard existing fans (Doris and Bob). But young Oliver and Amelia are at home playing on their smartphones. They were born in 2015, so they are not interested in a show of oily old 1960s bikes. They've never heard of speedway. And 30-year-old Tarquin and Jennifer, who run their successful dot.com business, (who could be a potential speedway sponsors of the future), are not wandering round a village hall collectors fair on a saturday afternoon either. In short, there are no ordinary members of the public, potential new supporters, for promoters to market to. It would be a completely pointless waste of a day for Chris Louis, or Matt Ford, or Gerry Facenna to be there at a collectors fair, selling the sport to Doris and Bob, who have been there and bought the t-shirt many years before Tarquin and Jennifer were born. That's what we are disagreeing with - The suggestion that current promoters should be forced into wasting their time at a collectors fair when there are far more important issues they need to be addressing.

Can you provide a link to where you read this? I go to Belle Vue quite often. I'd say crowds have held about the same this year, after slight increases in the last couple of years. Also noticed a switch with a better percentage of younger fans. I'd like to see your link to where they have said they've had their "lowest crowds ever, this season".

Sadly, there are indeed a lot of insular, narrow-minded, stuck-in-the-past, head-in-the-sand speedway supporters, who think it's still 1940s Britain with Hitler, Rickets Diphtheria and Ringworm. Of course we all love old Doris and Bob, who turn up at their club every week with their rattle, tartan blanket and Thermos flask. They tell us great stories of how when they lived in London, they would cycle to a different track every night to watch speedway, go dancing, have some fish and chips, and still have change out of a farthing. Doris and Bob love a Saturday morning in a village hall looking at a 1961 Ove Fundin rosette. But should Danny Ford spend "just £15" (plus fuel, plus food, plus 10 hours of his day) travelling a 320 mile round trip to a village near Coventry to talk to Doris and Bob? Will this increase Poole attendance? Will it increase his business turnover? Of course not. I ended up talking to Phillip Lanning at a meeting earlier this season. He handles a lot of the marketing for Glasgow and Belle Vue (two of the more forward-thinking clubs in terms of marketing - and two of the clubs who don't bother wasting £15 at the village fayre). He was saying how they both spent thousands on strategic partnerships with Facebook and the media company which owns the biggest local newspapers in Glasgow and Manchester. (Reach Media, I think?). He said the Facebook advertising won't necessarily be seen by existing fans as it's not targeted at them. It can be targeted at very specific demographics of interest, and feedback is monitored. Speedway has to move with the times and use the clever marketing technology which is available. The social media generation of Youtube, TikTok and Instagram are who we need to attract. Doris and Bob are not the future. The past is a foreign country; They do things differently there.

Absolutely agree with you. There's no point in any club having a presence at this collectors' fayre. I'm in no way knocking the show. Quite the opposite. It's a great idea, lovingly organised at huge time and energy by some ultra-devoted fans. If you want to pick up that missing 1969 Nelson v Crayford programme, or buy a vintage "Happiness is 40-38" badge to sew on your anorak, then it's perfect. I love the history of the sport, and I fully recommend taking the grandkids to see a restored 1930s Rudge, or the leathers Ole Olsen wore in the 1972 World Final. But it has no value to a 2026 speedway promoter. The audience are speedway fans, and highly-devoted fans who know everything about the sport already. There will be zero members of the general public paying £10 to go into a Speedway collectors' fayre. So no potential new punters to sell the sport to. If it were a motorcycle show in general, with a chance to reach out to others from different bikesport disciplines,or some kind of Business expo with a chance to network with potential new sponsors, it might have some value. But it isn't. So enjoy the show if you go, but don't think it's a place for clubs to promote their businesses. It isn't.

All achievable in a couple of months. Installing a safe fence would be the priority. Pits can be fabricated and installed in a week or two. A portable shower block/changing rooms can be hired. Starting gates and the electrics for a referee control panel isn't a big job. Presumably most of the existing shale track could be used without a lot of further track work. I remember when Belle Vue lost Hyde Road and got permission to move into the Greyhound stadium in early 1988. That involved digging the track, building the fence, building the pits, building changing rooms and showers, and installing all the electrics. It was all done and opened on 1 April 1988.

I wasn't for one minute suggesting that should be the Sheffield team, or that it would be a good team. Someone suggested Sheffield could build a team to keep Leon Flint at reserve. This team was just a way to make that fit. Of course in reality Flint isn't going to be at reserve. Sheffield couldn't build a strong team which keeps Flint at reserve. He will be a second string.

Here's a team that fits with Flint at reserve: If they increase the limit by a point, swap out Kildemand for Danny King. C Holder 6.84 T Musielak 6.63 C Harris 6.53 P Kildemand 5.28 A Rowe 5.22 L Flint 5.06 L Harrison R/S

I think this is spot on... R Douglas 8.12 S Masters 7.28 L Becker 6.88 N Morris 5.89 K Howarth 5.00 A Vuolas 3.36 L Killeen R/S (Not sure if Vuolas's short spell with Brum was enough to make a 3.36 PL average stick. If not, another 3 pointer is needed).

Very few changes from 2025... Swap Pickering out for Musielak. Lose Morris (to Leicester) and move Leon Flint up into the team on 25% reduction, then you just need a new Rising Star J Holder 9.08 C Holder 6.84 T Musielak 6.63 A Rowe 5.22 L Flint 5.06 J Etheridge 3.00 L Harrison R/S That fits the limit. If the limit gets a little move upwards, just swap Etheridge out for any potential upgrade.

Have you tried Speedway Researcher? https://www.speedwayresearcher.org.uk/

Royal Mail deliveries are very haphazard, but I'm pretty lucky with mine. My post normally comes between 10am - 11am. I'd say that 60%-70% of the time my Star arrives on Thursday. When it doesn't, it almost always arrives on Friday morning. Very, very rarely it's the following Monday morning. However last week it arrived at 4pm on Saturday. I rarely get post on a Saturdfay, and never at 4pm, so I don't know what happened.

Shame it's looking like 36.00 then. As usual the weaker teams hold all the cards,evn though such a low limit won't benefit them. They just think it will.

If they then changed the scoring from 4-3-2-0, to 3-2-1-0, then it would be perfect. Second and third should be ranked equal to first and last. only If there's a tie on points at the end of the night, do you count back including bonus points.

Might be training an understudy, but he's running the show.