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Even for 2026, Phil has been a great advocate for British Speedway Premiership and has done lots of work behind the scenes which most people simply do not see. Always knowing that his role of Chief executive wasn’t to continue this year due to lack of money He was instrumental in keeping Ipswich going including being part of a consortium that made an offer to keep it going if Mayfield deal had fallen through. Has also had a a lot to do with the opening of Northampton giving guidance of what was required to get Speedway running along with being involved in the negotiations with stadium owners and management . There has been some failures previously maybe the loss of TV deal being the greatest but he did explore various options but none could be got over the line for various reasons. It has not been helped by some promotions not backing him fully. He wanted to modernise the product to try to get in new fans and sponsors some of which cost money like for tv meetings having a set presentation team and DJ, Lights and fire cannons on centre field but certain promotions wouldn’t back this and could even be objective like refusing to move advertising A boards for tv meetings and not even keeping the league sponsorship ones clean. Phil was also key to a number of top names returning to the UK like Woofy , Janowski and Lindgren along with brokering deals for Lambert and Dudek to ride for clubs to then back down on the deals

It’s quite possible that this could cause issues in a few weeks. Ryanair have announced that they have been assured that fuel will be available until May and they have hedged their purchases already. Other airlines and holiday companies may need to invoke a clause in many travel contracts with regards to operating costs increasing and add 20% onto flights

The protected properties legalisation is only applicable in the area of that you protect which in Northamptonshire is Rugby and unsure if football have even done that.

You would have thought the Leicester owner may have said no fellow consortium members this is not a great thing to call Northampton The Foxes . It should have been The Saints or Dons if you want my opinion the other suggestion was Racers which again would have been better

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Probably should be but as the series has not stated and Woofy was a Wildcard they may just choose another wildcard rather than promote a reserve rider may want to get another nationality into series so may look at Kvech,Becker ,Vaculik

Unless there is any last minute changes in the ownership of WBD before the GP season starts . Speedway will continue to be on HBO Max coverage is changing hence Abi no longer required as Marcella is going to be the main tv anchor and will likely be less build up. It remain to be confirmed if ALL GPs will be shown Live some may be reduced down to highlights depending on viewing figures and other schedules

The people whom I mentioned about opening Northampton are not the people behind it this year however they remain interested if proves to a success in making an offer. They felt that it was a financial gamble that they were not prepared to do with the setup costs involved and no proven sign that fans will attend

Problem is the play offs are at the wrong time for mainstream broadcasters as in September and October the Premier League and EFL is in full flow and the European Champions, Europa and Conference League has just started so they have plenty of content. I did make the suggestion back in December when it became clear they had no Premiership broadcast to BSPL that maybe they would be better to look at running a short separate SuperLiga series of matches just one Home and Away . This needs to take place late May until end of July then Sky and Others would be interested in broadcasting it Maybe also may attract more GP stars for a short period season. This needs to be a more modern format with DJs, lights , smoke , Cheerleaders etc However this suggestion was turned down as promotions didn’t want to clash with Euro football games as thought attendance will be down but they will whichever way and also had concerns that fans would not attend the Premiership fixtures at start and end of season instead just going for SuperLiga matches . This is exactly how Cricket has moved forward clubs make big money and attendance for 20-20 and the Hundred during peak summer which purest supporters don’t like but they can get their traditional cricket early and later on the year

No the other side of the world I understand and the new promoters have very deep pockets along with some great sponsors lined up

The GP Number 1 has I believe fallen through due to the continued delays and not being offered what they originally thought was being given. I obviously want Mayfield to make a great success of Ipswich just hope that they up their organisational skills. Getting the thread back on track Chris Holder lives only 20 mins away from the Northampton track so they were probably just passing by and thought they would go and have a look . The info I am hearing is that construction wise plans are in place and the work required to build the Speedway facilities is being done by a construction company but being overseen by Phil Morris and Andy Meredith to ensure it’s done the right way.

Unfortunately Mayfield don’t have a great record with Speedway organisational skills. The GPs that they promoted operationally were a disaster with a number of important things that they forgot to arrange and in the end Discovery got them out of a mess by arranging the missing bits and bringing their operations team in. Even on the day little things were not arranged like buffet and food for officials , sponsors not getting their pit walks and badge allocation with track marshals names not on lists for practice just for the event etc

A decent offer was made by Two Premiership promotors in conjunction with Phil Morris to buy the Witches but this was turned down by Chris Louis as he felt it was worth more and had private interest . The latest I heard early this week was the proposed new owners were waiting on signing a number 1 before completing the payment for the sale transaction but do have most of the team signed

What average would James Pearson come in on ?