cityrebel

I'm pretty sure it was the British quarter final, that was abandoned due to a power cut. I remember going to the restaging on a Sunday that was won by Andy Grahame.

Isn't Friday 13th meant to be unlucky. Might be too suspicious to run on that day. Must be grounds for a call off.

The average age of the fans, will kill speedway in the end.

Everyone else did though. Rye has always been a marriage of convenience for South East speedway fans. That's why so many neutrals attended at weekends.

When Wimbledon reopened in 2002, The sport was given the keys to the crown jewels. The BSPA should have gone in there and layed a proper track and staged their top meetings there. The stadium was in good nick at the time with executive boxes for corporate customers. This was at a time when SKY were getting excellent viewing figures, and a track in London could have worked wonders for the sport.

Totally agree with you, we have always had good meetings and poor meetings. What we have lost is great big city venues. When you are watching a meeting in a big stadium, The sense of occasion can compensate for a poor meeting. A good example of this is Wembley, never a great race track, but always a good atmosphere.

When I worked at Wimbledon, we used to flood the track daily from Monday afternoon leading up to the meeting on Thursday evening, weather permitting of course. We had two huge water storage tanks under the centre green, which we used to fill the big water tanker to soak the track with.

5 - 1's in heats 13 and 15 made the score look closer. At no stage during the meeting did the warriors look like winning. With no tac subs in the NL, unless you have a high scoring reserve, there is very little chance of pulling back a large defecit.

There was some great racing on the island last night, but it seems that's not enough to bring the punters in.

I went a few weeks ago against Kent, and there looked to be about 200 there. A mixture of Coventry, Leicester, Kent and a few neutral fans, like me.

Too right, I cut my teeth as a kid at Wimbledon, Wembley and west ham. I was also a regular at white city. Let's hope Swindon can survive and prosper in a new stadium.

Back in the 1950's there were a lot of former speedway stadiums sitting idle, ready to go. These days those options are virtually non existent.

Would anyone support it though. Lakeside's crowds were terrible for NL racing last year. It's a big drop from top flight to third tier. I would go, because I watch speedway at all levels.

The land at Arena Essex has been sold for redevelopment, so it's just a matter of time before it joins the long list of defunct stadiums in the South East.

There was two ambulances and a paramedic land rover on the island last night. This is standard procedure for an NL club with very limited resources. An example to a lot of tracks, I'd say.

Why would anyone run professional Speedway there again, there is no money in it. You could run a few unlicensed meetings there like iwade and lydd, but what's the point. The stadium will probably end up running different types of motorsport with less financial risk.

I never expected this meeting to be on. I'm just surprised how long it took to pull the plug.

An easy win for Kent tonight against a top heavy island team. Alfie Bowtell was very impressive, his race with stoneman in heat 4 was sensational.

The beginning of the end has been coming for a few years. I'm surprised it has taken so long to arrive.

With some of the championship clubs losing some of their Friday home meetings, maybe the master plan is to do away with all weekend racing for the middle tier. That should reduce the numbers nicely.

The amount of meetings getting cancelled up and down the country, during our best spell of weather in living memory is criminal. The sport is heading for oblivion.

I forgot about Brum, I went there that season as well. That's old age creeping up on me!

Oxford in 2007 was the last.

The sport just lurches from one crisis to another. Just a couple of days after losing rye, we are hearing that lakeside are having to ditch some of their Friday meetings. This is a very worrying time to be a speedway fan in the South East.

I leave my car at work in South West London, and jump on the train to lakeside and rye. I couldn't do it any other way.