ouch

We needn’t worry, Chris Louis said in a press release “ I vowed to leave the club in safe hands and that is why it has taken me this long to announce that a sale has been agreed.” I, as always believe everything that man says.

We needn’t worry, Chris Louis said in a press release “ I vowed to leave the club in safe hands and that is why it has taken me this long to announce that a sale has been agreed.” I, as always believe everything that man says.

That amount of guests is crazy. Sometimes it’s inevitable but if a team could limit it to say two a season. It would also be good if the same 1 to 7 was used instead of all the chopping and changing. Pipe dream I know but should a team manage it, they and their manager need to be applauded.

Sorry for the late response as I’ve been working on merchandise. Currently available is a rather nice hernia belt and banded pile cream. Know your customers. Phil Morris has also made me the speed limiter the sport has for so long been talking about. Speedway - Fuelled by Gaviscon. Follow my adventures on Talking Pictures TV.

The only silver lining to all this is it’s looking more likely that I can achieve my childhood dream of representing The Aces on track. I might not be at Dans level but who cares, right?

We wanted a complete fixture list that we could publish but gave up waiting and put the PCMT info out on Monday. A months notice is not what was wanted but when compared to how Phil & his buddies promote the play off fixtures it looks positively gold star.

That’s the problem we at Belle Vue have had for decades, knowing who will be in our league. Any of our current or past competitors can just decide on a whim that they are dropping out. It’s a nightmare and very amateurish.

It’s a joke. The only domestic fixture Belle Vue is allowed to promote is the PCMT. That’s on the 16th of March with tickets now on sale. As for when the idiots running the rest, well your guess is as good as mine but patience is wearing thin on both sides of the fence at the NSS.

Engaging with the youngsters is such a pain for us long time attendees. Quite why the track shop doesn’t stock club flasks and comfy cushions is beyond me. Could we ban kids altogether or is that just happening by default due to the jolly nature of those older fans around them.

Undoubtedly? Play offs every season. Two title wins. Pairs championship. SON, 2 golds & 1 bronze. Had no small contribution to GB’s FIM medals haul with Dan & Tom (and Jake). Help develop a plethora of No 1’s for the top tier to make use of. and more……

My mistake, I thought the point you were making was about away wins. The bonus points system works on race points and not match points so your comment about us being the strongest home team only applies if taking match points into consideration which have little bearing on bonus points. When looking at that, out of the play off teams only Leicester had a lower home points total. The only difference in ours and the lions bonus points was the B fixture when we got hammered whilst missing Brady. With Brady in the team in the A fixture we took it to a last heat decider, only missing out on our fifth away win during the final laps of the meeting.

Jacob Thorsell last achieved an average in 2019 and therefore we will reassess him to 4.50. Robert Lambert last achieved an average in 2019 and therefore we will not reassess him to 4.50.

Belle Vue had a woeful league campaign last season with a paltry 4 away wins. They need to aspire to powerhouse away teams like Sheffield & Ipswich who won an impressive 5 each.

World of Sport served up the big names! but even back then I was in a real minority liking speedway when at school. What’s that, my football loving mates said. I use to like knowing about my niche sport back then and being different from the sheep and their football. After the post war boom in the sport, by the time it got to the halcyon days in many fans memories of the 70’s, there was still people saying “is that still going”. We absolutely need something new and I don’t mind admitting I’m (we) are not the solution. There is a whole new world of social media that I (we) cannot get our heads around. We need the fomo effect and need to abandon the continued old school approach of leaflets, newspaper ads (young people at my partners work asked her what a newspaper is) and all the other old school techniques. My daughter has worked with Molly-Mea and sport personalities in her role with a major sports brand and it’s all French to me no matter how she tries to explain it. IMO that’s our last hope, Joe Wicks, KSI, Steven Bartlett and all the others old farts like me have never heard of. What they will also bring is a sensibility of what modern customers want. Just hope we like it too.

I do get frustrated by the rhetoric continually posted on here. There’s a fallacy that things were different in speedways heyday and the problems blighting our sport are of the modern era. The other week I posted about the excessive use of guests on one Saturday night in ‘74 and the fact that most teams did NOT ride at the weekend, yet people will still point the finger as these being the failings of modern speedway Taking the now famous ‘73 KO Cup final as an example. Belle Vue used a guest and Reading ran R/R. The 2nd leg wasn’t run until the last week of the season, some 3 weeks after the 1st leg as due to the late running it was hit by the bad weather. Sounds familiar? Jim Mcmillian had been knocked out in an earlier round but enjoyed his “winners” medal as a guest for the Aces. We had been running a guest since June. The rules stated in the event of a draw it had to be re run but this was jettisoned in favour of a run off. All this was carried out on a cold Wednesday late October night. All those people who attended that night and in ‘74, ‘75, ‘76, 77 etc did not suddenly experience amnesia, they DECIDE not to attend. During its heyday we had ALL the ills currently affecting the sport, the big difference is that of the customers - they have changed massively and we need to find the holy grail to attract them back. The league is as meaningful as ever. The guests & R/R as prevalent as ever. The UK FIM golds are pretty much as regular as in our heyday. Our “gaters paradise” tracks are still here as they were back then, etc, etc. If we keep kidding ourselves that the sports ills are new then we will waste an awful lot of time and energy trying to fix the bits that are not the reason for our downfall. Speedway is primarily populated by old blokes who think the old days were better, but the reality is that’s not the case and it is to our peril that we get bogged down by this dogma instead of looking to the future and how we engage with modern customers in the modern era.