IainB

I can only base my thoughts and comments on what has been stated publicly

WTF! Now I know Cook has erm... a bit of an unsettled track record recently to put it diplomatically but are KL stark raving mad? To ditch a rider after 2 meetings after not riding for nigh on 18 months is disgraceful behaviour. According to their statement there has been no fall out it's based on form/scores. Cook previously has a rather decent track record of loyalty to clubs Belle Vue, Edinburgh & Glasgow so it looks like if he's handled correctly then he can be a real asset to a club. Is it any wonder that very few people take up Speedway as a career in this country when riders are treated like this? Is there any other sport where the team members are chopped and changed as much as they are in Speedway?

Another sad loss for the sport... hardly surprising really, the only real surprise is that more clubs haven't closed due to Covid rules and restrictions. Swindon must surely be a major doubt.

Well if that's their reasoning we could well have seen the last match of the season on Eurosport lol.

It's the "official" BSPL podcast... been going a few weeks now

I wonder if there are any plans in place for clubs that may not be able to complete their fixtures for whatever reason? If a local lockdown is put in place and a club can't run or a club is forced to run without fans and elect not to run. Also rider availability is probably going to be an issue, looking at a number of clubs team photos and there are a lot of them with only 5 or 6 riders on show. It'd only take 1 club in the top league to not be able to fulfil their fixtures for it soon to become a mockery. Maybe this season they should have done away with the play-offs and gone to the old style you win the league you win the league format.

It did... but that's easily bypassed with a VPN

I booked yesterday as soon as they went on sale, for all home matches. Had email more or less straight away with the tickets and QR code attached

Well obviously they can't be sold without knowledge of capacity limits. You seem to be missing my point that why is there a scattergun approach to ticket sales? When Peterborough's finally did go live I was able to buy tickets until the end of the season (which I have), Leicester on the other hand only have 3 matches in advance, Kent ring up on the phone, Belle Vue first 5 fixtures... not sure about any others as they're the only ones I'm interested in at the moment

So who is Abi Stephens? Does she have a Speedway background? Her face seems familiar

George, I think It should be as simple as that, a centralised booking system with each clubs capacity set at whatever the local authority set. I assume those clubs that have got an online booking system have their capacity's set or will they be issuing refunds when it's oversubscribed?

It's the easiest thing in the world to set a capacity limit with an online booking system... it's just a field with a number in it

Yes... as has Leicester's. I don't want to go to Eastbourne though as lovely a place as it is. I wonder why the technology hasn't been shared between clubs?

So, as I expected there doesn't seem to be any plan regarding getting British Speedway restarted, regarding ticket sales at least. I've been scanning around trying to buy tickets for the matches I'm interested in attending and it seems that instead of the BSPL employing some kind of centralised ticket purchasing system each club have been left to their own devices. I bought my first Leicester ticket a week or so ago Belle Vue went on sale yesterday at 9 am as promised Peterborough postponed Tuesday at 9 am until Wednesday and as yet there is still nothing and Kent you have to ring up

I hope so!

Come on... they've only had a year to put something in place!

Can somebody change the title to the thread, Postponement is one word and it's almost killing me

I watch most of it on FFWD the next day, the beauty of Speedway is you're most unlikely to hear the result before you watch it especially Polish Speedway lol. It's not been VFM so far this season with around 50% of the matches so far being postponed and others being shown on FreeSports. I can't see myself returning next year, as long as life returns to something like normality, but in the mean time I'm happy to pay a tenner a month for some Speedway

Nothing like getting behind your riders!

We seem to be blessed with many good podcasts at the moment and while some seem to have fallen by the way, others have come to the party. 2 that I have listened recently that are worthy of mention feature 2 riders from opposite ends of the Speedway spectrum but both great characters. Nigel Crabtree on the Super Seven podcast, no heirs and graces, what a great character, the type of character that Speedway sadly misses, a solid top class club man just happy to have some fun, make some money and no particular desire to become a wold champion. and... Ole Olsen, I don't think I ever really appreciated what a charismatic man he is/was. Listening to him reminded me a bit of Tony Rickardsson. The story about the trophy he won at Newcastle had me laughing out loud https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8yNDg3MzU2MC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw== Give em a listen

Haha, I have no real choice other than to do just that... Anyway "real" Speedway is only 10 days away!

Yes, that's the way I'm reading it too... which just made me wonder why Polish Speedway seems so all powerful that it evens seems to be able to dictate to the TV companies!

I just hate it when clubs, or in this case a whole league, calls matches off based on a weather forecast, notoriously unpredictable. I know these are Friday matches but as a Premier Sports subscriber half of their Sunday showings so far this season have been postponed. And before anybody comes back at me I know that Polish Speedway couldn't care less about Premier Sports subscribers... Premier Sports couldn't care less about Premier Sports subscribers lol. I just wondered whether it was PPV in Poland as all these cancellations must be leaving gaping holes in their TV schedules. I can't remember many TV matches in this country being called off based on weather forecasts, there always seemed to be massive pressure from Sky at least to get matches on whatever the conditions.

FFS, Is Polish Speedway on PPV TV in Poland or FTA?

For me Premier Sports is the new Eurosport, the way Eurosport used to be back in the day. They have a few showpiece sports that they build their channels around Scottish/Spanish/Italian Football, NHL, some Rugby and NASCAR (I think) and fill the rest of the airtime with mostly showing 3rd rate sports (Speedway lol) on the cheap i.e. lone commentators working from home (or a centrally based studio) trying to kid you that they are at the stadium. I'm only interested in the Speedway really, so can only really comment on that. Compared to last year so far it's been absolutely p155 poor mainly due to PS deciding to only show the Polish Sunday matches and Poland deciding to call most of them off based on a weather forecast. Hopefully when the weather gets better in the summer things will be better with the added coverage of the Swedish speedway league.