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Yes just like when they conned Ronnie Russell into taking Arena Essex into the top flight in 2004 with promises that help would be provided, they left us as whipping boys for the others to beat.

Peter Oakes mentions about food this week and the Rye House fish and chips, it was not just a gimmick that Len used, they really were that good.

I love this podcast and Dean and Crabby are my favourite pundits because they know the sport inside out and have good common sense ideas.

It’s negative talk because anything else would be deluded, we are where we are and it always feels like those in charge say the right things, but then go and continue to do what they always do. If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got!

Back in the 90s I could name every rider just by looking at a race pic in the speedway star, now I would struggle, as they all look the same.

All this talk of teams being able to return if things go right off track but what happens if the likes of Boro, Bees, Robins and Heathens were able to return, where would the riders come from, its exactly the same issue without those teams and running one league. The sport somehow needs to be scaled right back so it effectively goes from weekly/semi weekly to monthly so each event is more important, quality over quantity, at least until more riders are brought through and again its the same issue of the sport being too expensive to get into. As talked about recently, all these costs and yet the bikes are going no quicker than what they were 30 years ago, its bloomin madness.

Leigh Adams Mark Loram

There used to be good individual meetings but then the promoters started to water them down to 12 riders and 15 heats with very mediocre cards, public stayed away.

Ipswich played the system or maybe it suited them, they started like a train and could have run away with the league but there was no point, a top four finish is really all they needed, you saw last night what they can do when they are on it especially Emil, and that’s what counts in this modern play off system, you do enough to make the play offs and turn it on for those, you could say Brady Kurtz done the same but Belle Vue were not quite strong enough to get the job done when one or more riders were riding in a preservation state, we don’t like it when riders don’t give it 100 all the time but the reality is they can’t and the current system allows them to be like that because there is always another day, when the league was decided on who came top you couldn’t afford to carry anyone unless your team was exceptionally good, one bad result could be the difference between being champions or not. Have to say some of the racing last night were amazing, Leicester is so much better than the track originally built by DH which was dog rubbishe.

When I first started following the sport, Div 1 was really just that, very strong. Only Belle Vue, Oxford (now dropping?) and Kings Lynn remain from what was always historically top flight clubs, Leicester and Birmingham didn’t exist, Sheffield and Ipswich were very much national league, Ipswich did go not be a top flight club and I now consider them as such. We have seen too many times where lower league clubs have been pushed up to make up the numbers, Ronnie Russell took Arena Essex up in 2004 after being badgered, they were not ready for it and despite help being promised, we were left to be the whipping boys for a couple of seasons. The top flight as far as I’m concerned is finished.

I see no point in talking about which riders may leave if there is one big league, as they may leave anyway as many have, you can’t stop them. You have to build the product with what is viable and what is available, I think I say it every season, the biggest issue the sport has is running costs, bikes cost to much to buy and run, promoters then have to pay a fortune to them and fans pay the promoters back but everyone except the riders and tuners are losing money. One league or three won’t make any difference until costs are brought under control. At some point the sport in this country is going to have to take more steps back before it can go forward, and I am talking semi pro at best, so National League late 80s but without nine and ten point calibre riders of that time, or the team version of grass track and lots of people go and watch that without big star names. You would have to go smaller size teams until enough new riders can be trained and again that’s where runnings costs comes in plus you would need a proper training program. They had the same issue after the War, different times but the problem is the same, not enough riders.

Every track would be like Bristol, hmm how did that work out again? 😉

Most of us said it was a silly idea to run so many teams, at the one track, they will be a lot better off concentrating on quality over quantity as would most clubs.

Just to echo what a few others have said, no one wants any track to close even if that track was seen as a rival, the sport is only as strong as the clubs in it, the more that go, the more chance your own club could fall. I have seen three clubs that I used to attend on a regular or semi regular basis go, Arena Essex, Rye House and Hackney, not been to a meeting since 2018 when Arena went but still get the star every week and watch the odd match on you tube or the highlights posted on social media, because having followed it from 1988 to 2018, it’s in my blood now, for me personally at its core, four riders sliding around an oval track is classic.

That’s what you call a play off final