Shadders

Thoroughly enjoyable meeting. Not a pass fest, but some good close racing. Scott Nicholls is pure box office when he misses the start. I’m always happy to see ex Rockets racing at Berwick and the noisy away support added to the occasion.

Missed a few meetings recently with illness. Hopefully they’ve got to the bottom of the problem

Doesn’t Pepe do long track at the weekend?

I feel Gappmaier was a lock in purely because he’s an asset to save a loan fee

A lot more cars than usual parked up, so I’d say a definite yes

Not if we see you first

Friday & Saturday look fine

There may be a slight increase in regular attendance, but not enough to make it sustainable at £10 a pop. Need to make the racing more entertaining, because in truth it’s been pretty dull overall in recent years.

That’ll go down well with the locals who’ve paid a tenner. Do you seriously believe that offering away fans free admission would be cost effective? There will be enough Monarchs fans there at a tenner a pop.

You can’t charge visiting fans less than home fans.

Not as simple as that. With the Bandits financial situation the use of club assets is paramount. Gappmaier is usually pretty solid at home, but away from home (Sheffield apart) he’s usually worse than useless. Etheridge is clearly still carrying an injury. Coty Garcia and NBJ were way down on their last Brough Park scores. Too much pressure on Aaron Summers tonight, but young Leon rode above what was expected of him. The Diamonds were just too sharp. Nothing wrong with the track, in fact I’ve seen it a lot heavier in the past with most riders struggling.

Starke at 3, Gappmaier at 4, is that correct?

You missed Worrall knocking Summers chain off in the opening heat with the Bandits on a 5-1? Advantage Newcastle after that result. Write the Bandits off at your peril, but they won’t be the pushover they were in the Championship Shield meeting at Brough in April.

Yep. Jon Armstrong and Paul Burnett spring to mind

Can’t remember if it was last year or 2017 when the average age of the Stoke side was touching 30

Difficult to call unless the line ups are known. Guest or RR for Doolan? Will Garcia be fit? How will Newcastle’s new signing do? (2 from 3 on his last visit in 2016)

Support by putting money into the club in the form of admission to the stadium, but not a fan.

You’ll need one at Newcastle. They won’t be nearly as bad as they were in April and you ain’t getting much from Dany, Jye and Leon.

Not sure how up to date the green sheets are. They have KD at 4th in the Bandits averages. Etheridge, Gappamier and the reserves eligible to take an RR. Seriously weakens the Bandits and must make Newcastle favourites to progress in the KOC

Depends what you mean by an “average fan”. I guess the vast majority of Bandits fans that attend home meetings are only interested in what happens between 7 & 9 on a Saturday evening.

Doesn’t matter which way you look at it. That’s a good thrashing

Sure, but many more have disappeared completely, even since 1985 when I first went to speedway.

Very few teams own the facilities they use. They are at the mercy of the landlords. Go back and look at the number of housing and trading estates that now stand on the sites of former speedway stadiums

Many tracks closed because landlords had sold the stadiums for redevelopment. Not always because of the clubs financial problems

When Rye House were decimating most teams at home in the mid 2000’s there were very few complaints and crowds were generally around the thousand mark. Most promoters would kill for attendances like that these days.