ouch

Given the major surgery required to the table topping Aces and the new U21 rules plus the fact it seems to be 37-38 limit on the top five, the murmurings seem to indicate this team to try and retain the trophy is. Brady Kurtz Tom Brennan Robert Lambert Jaimon Lidsey Dan Bewley Beau Bailey William Carins

So you don’t attend due to other people not attending. It wasn’t a given that The Aces would qualify until part way into the season. Why did you not attend for those earlier meetings? PCMT was on a Monday. Hope you enjoyed it. If you like variety just watch the other teams visit once, like the good old days. You would get your variety and the club would get five extra ticket sales. Jason didn’t help Sheffield qualify at all. Take his points away verses Kings Lynn and it would have been 2 points off the tigers and 2 to the stars, meaning Sheffield still qualify. Take his points off for the lions meeting and Sheffield would still have won the meeting. All the TV deals done for the last 30 years have all been clinched whilst the guest system was in place. The guest system has been around for (what feels like) ever. Why is Nicolai so different to Jim McMillan guesting for The Aces in our most famous KO cup win in 1973? I do agree that a new signing should be allowed but with this site as evidence the majority of fans wouldn’t like it and prefer guests. There was a lady offering free face painting for kids and adults alike. The presentation was our usual apart from the flames near the start line.

What a night and what a hangover yesterday. Had a wonderful time celebrating with the lads in the Craven suite after a terrific season and a superb finish. More of the same next year please. Just a note about Mark, yes he’s no Stewart Dickson or Rob Lyon but to achieve gold at domestic and international level again is no mean feat.

We’ve done better than most, if not all this year. The Craven is always very well attended along with our first home team meeting. We’ve made good use of the bank holidays this season which has helped offset the effect of having two expensive FIM events in town. Add in our play off participation and we are looking at around 24k-26k attendance over the season. I don’t see any team massively over or under that figure and to scoff at someone else attendance is as ridiculous as it is pointless.

You’d have to be a very unlucky team for that to happen. 😱 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_British_League_season#British_League_Knockout_Cup

That’s one of the many problems with the play offs and one I went into chapter and verse when they first came into the sport. Once the perception is planted that a fixture is less important, fans will think twice about attending. The repetitive nature of fixtures doesn’t help though as it was back in the day, you can ride local teams many times over with little impact on the gate. This was evidenced by Glasgow and Edinburgh successfully meeting ten times recently. The ONLY benefit of the play offs is the gate money two teams get (four at a push) but it’s now robbing Peter to pay Paul as all we are doing is clawing back what’s been lacking in the qualifiers. The original reason for them may come back into play if a tv deal is forthcoming as the broadcaster absolutely demands to screen the deciding fixture.

A reply well worth reading. I happen to think it would be good for the sport to have two people involved who are well versed in dealing with (one of the biggest) councils successfully enough to have a new dedicated speedway stadium in a built up area near to the city centre. By all means though, keep posting your insightful comments.

Looking at the gossip on this thread, next years team looks like Kurtz Blodorn? Brennan Lidsey Bewley Zischke? Cairns I know Richard likes what we do, but this is a tad too far imo. 🤣

It’s a shame the south stand never got finished which keeps the capacity low. It’s even more of a shame that when the owns took issue with the situation, the cartel seized the opportunity to oust them rather than back them.

Maybe do some research yourself, paying particular attention to the year you closed down mid season.

Belle Vue’s crowd for the 2nd leg semi was very good and any additional numbers had we rode the 1st leg wouldn’t have been massive. Giving Ipswich the 1st leg helped them achieve a far better crowd than if they had taken a dead rubber 2nd leg. It’s been seen through the history of the club the fickle nature of their fan base with even keen beans on here saying they are picking and choosing this season. The bigger picture here is that more money came into British Speedway with us having the 2nd leg. Richard seems like a strong ally to the cause so to assist him for the good of his business seems a no brainier. I know there is an everyone for themselves attitude but that simply won’t work due to the precarious nature of our sport in this country.

Or goggles. That happened once where a ref watched a rider throw them away whilst at the tapes but did nothing. What would possess him to do that£ Not sure which team benefited back then.

Can’t risk it. The last time we were at Owlerton in the play offs we lost a rider to injury and being us you wouldn’t bet against it happening again.

The changes to both teams brings the averages a lot closer together so it should make things interesting for the neutral. Hopefully the incredibly strong Aces can keep it close at Owlerton and don’t suffer a 22 point mauling for a second time this season. Running with 3 reserves in a play off final is not ideal but those are the breaks I guess.