IainB

MCC want to see it a success so much it's not even got a mention on their "What's on" section on their website https://www.visitmanchester.com/whats-on/sporting-events/ If you want to get hammered and "socialise" then it's probably best to go to the local offy and then on to Crowcroft Park where you can while away the hours litter picking. 😂

Cook apparently hasn't told anybody anything... according to Stewart Dickson it was Cook's dad that called Dickson to deliver the news.

When was the last time Cook started a season in the PL?

Equally you would have thought they'd have said something knowing there must be huge questions amongst the fans.

Okay, let's dig into this a little bit. The last "big" Cardiff attendance was in 2019, that's only 3 events ago. In 2019 it was the penultimate GP in the series with Zmarzlik (103pts), Sayfutdinov (94pts) and Madsen (92pts) battling it out for the World Championship, the series line-up was: # Riders 2018 place GP Ch place Appearance Previous appearances in series 108 Tai Woffinden 1 — 8th 2010, 2011, 2013–2018 95 Bartosz Zmarzlik 2 — 4th 2012–2015, 2016–2018 66 Fredrik Lindgren 3 — 10th 2004, 2006–2007, 2008–2014, 2016, 2017–2018 71 Maciej Janowski 4 — 5th 2008, 2012, 2014, 2015–2018 45 Greg Hancock 5 — 25th 1995–2018 222 Artem Laguta 6 — 3rd 2011, 2018 69 Jason Doyle 7 — 5th 2015–2018 89 Emil Sayfutdinov 8 — 8th 2009–2013, 2017–2018 692 Patryk Dudek 9 — 3rd 2016, 2017–2018 55 Matej Žagar 10 15 9th 2003–2005, 2006–2007, 2008–2009, 2011, 2013–2018 54 Martin Vaculík 13 — 4th 2012, 2013, 2017–2018 333 Janusz Kołodziej — 1 2nd 2006, 2010, 2011 88 Niels-Kristian Iversen 14 2 8th 2004–2005, 2006, 2008, 2009–2010, 2013–2017, 2018 85 Antonio Lindbäck — 3 9th 2004, 2005–2007, 2009–2010, 2011–2013, 2015, 2016–2017 30 Leon Madsen — — 1st 2013 Cut to 2022, 1st post covid event with many people still suffering the consequences of that (financial, fear etc.) and a total disaster of a track in a meeting that very nearly didn't start and was very nearly abandoned, 2023 many people put off by the 2022 track and finally cut to 2024 and here's your line-up: # Riders 2023 place GP Ch place Permanent rider appearance Previous appearances in series 95 Bartosz Zmarzlik 1 — 9th 2012–2015, 2016–2023 66 Fredrik Lindgren 2 — 15th 2004, 2006–2007, 2008–2014, 2016, 2017–2023 54 Martin Vaculík 3 2 9th 2012, 2013, 2017–2023 25 Jack Holder 4 — 3rd 2016, 2020, 2022–2023 30 Leon Madsen 5 — 6th 2010, 2013, 2019–2023 505 Robert Lambert 6 4 4th 2015, 2018–2019, 2021–2023 99 Dan Bewley 7 — 3rd 2018, 2022–2023 69 Jason Doyle 8 1 10th 2015–2023 108 Tai Woffinden 11 — 13th 2010, 2011, 2013–2023 155 Mikkel Michelsen 12 — 4th 2015, 2018–2019, 2020, 2021, 2022–2023 29 Andžejs Ļebedevs 16 7 1st 2013–2014, 2022–2023 744 Kai Huckenbeck 17 — 1st 2017–2019, 2022–2023 415 Dominik Kubera =21 — 1st 2021, 2023 48 Szymon Woźniak =26 3 1st 2018, 2022–2023 201 Jan Kvěch =31 5 1st 2020–2023 Looking at that, yes the whole thing has become a little stale, I watch the GP series now more through a sense of duty rather than any excitement on who is going to walk away with the top prize. Add into that a non-sensical point scoring system and it's no wonder that the fans have given it the thumbs down. WBD adopted a if you build it they will come mentality and have fallen asleep at the wheel, they've done the usual Speedway thing and have just tinkered around the edges again, 2 minutes scrapped in favour of 90 seconds, Sprint races in front of empty stadiums, anyone from the top 10 can win the meeting. The whole series needs a massive overhaul. Maybe the field needs culling to 12 riders? Look at what UEFA have done with the Champions League, that was radical and from what I've heard it's been somewhat of a success.

A lot of nails hit squarely on the head there... but I'm still going! I must be bloody mad 😂 I think the "novelty factor" of it being at the NSS will wear off a lot quicker than it did with Cardiff especially at the prices they are charging.

The comment was not silly at all and to call comments silly and accuse people of being trolls are normally the comments that are reached for when somebody has no real cogent case to put forward. A better analogy was my holding the FA Cup Final at a non-league ground. Speedway is not in the business of economics (or selling Ferrari's), it's in the business of Sports Entertainment and it's a shame you do not understand that, if it were purely down to economics they should concentrate on the Financial Services industry or something and get out of Speedway. Did I ever say I found the racing at Cardiff a draw? No, I did not, that's something you've assumed. What attracted me to Cardiff was the sense of event, thousands of people being at the same place I was because of a shared passion and while we're on the subject of the racing, I never thought it was quite as bad as some of the naysayers on here claimed (but then I do watch my Speedway at Leicester 😉). For me it was very much like a music concert event, I've seen Dave Grohl murder his Foo Fighters songs for 2 hours live, the quality was shocking but the experience was unforgettable... and by the way that was with 80,000 others at the MK Bowl and not the local Village Church Hall. The NSS has the best Speedway race track in the world in my opinion... it's just not fit for purpose as a SGP venue.

To be fair we don't really know do we? Who knows if the few hundred on here represent the 40,000 that used to turn up at Cardiff?

To, in your first sentence, say that my comment is silly and in the very next paragraph go on about Ferrari's is quite absurd, we are talking about a working class sport that is struggling to attract a new generation of fans. Of course the capacity is variable, that's why they've got the East Stand! If they didn't the capacity would be around 4,000! To say the draw of Cardiff was the social side, well that may have been the case for you, but it wasn't for me and who's to say it was for anybody else, that's quite an assumption. The fact of the matter is that even at Cardiff's worst attendance there'll be around 15,000 less people attending the British Speedway GP this year, result!

By on, you of course mean backwards

Come on you need to take your Belle Vue blinkers off... holding a GP at Belle Vue after 25 years at Cardiff is like holding the FA Cup Final at a non league ground! If you think that losing Cardiff is a positive then the sport in this country really is finished. And by the way, I have got my tickets and I will be going along and enjoying myself despite the cost which I will have forgotten about by then.

I see you made Speedway Shambles headlines 🤣 Congratulations 👏 Even I haven't achieved that! 😂

Got to hold them before Poland starts up I would have thought.

Probably to do with Poland 🇵🇱

Only with an outboard motor 🚤

Modern day Speedway riders just don't want it! 😂

Didn't see many Scunny fans there, which was disappointing considering how many years Dougy spent riding for them.

Or it says the capacity wasn't enough... it may be a harder sell next year when the prices will undoubtedly be higher and all those that have given Cardiff a miss because "the racing was crap" realise that watching a GP at the NSS is just like watching the PCMT or British Final, absolutely nothing "special" about it at all.

That's not what I'm saying at all... I'm saying 1 night next year will be quite a bit more than 1 night this year.

You don't seem to understand that it's going to cost them the same to hire a 3,000 seater grandstand whether it be a 1 or 2 day event and if you're running your event only on 1 day you're going to have to charge more to cover your costs than spreading your costs over 2 days worth of ticket sales... it's basic maths and economics

A triple header at Belle Vue on the Sunday! Kerching 🤑💰

There's sponsorship and TV money offsetting this year's ticket price also though, so I'm not sure what you mean by this. You expect it to go up but be cheaper than this year, that's a total contradiction, do you mean you expect it to be less than this year's single day ticket price of £69? I beg to differ, £90 as a starting price for a Speedway GP is far too much.

Just doing a quick Google search the price of hiring grandstands seems to be around £100 per seat, so assuming the East Stand seats 3,000 that's £300,000, divide that by the total capacity, let's go with 7,000, and split that over the 2 nights, that suggests that each ticket this year includes a £21 charge for the East Stand. Double that for 1 night means a £69 ticket this year could start from £90 next year, assuming there's no double header again... that'll test people!