wjm

For international weekends football has “non league day” does anyone know how successful it is? It always seems to get a pretty decent press coverage (it is football I know so it has more of a chance in the mainstream) If you look at their “ideas to increase attendances at your club” it’s pretty much what is covered by most on here, or has been actively done by clubs in the past. http://www.nonleague...s/nld-ideas.pdf Given that attendances seem to be problematic across the country would it be worth speedway encouraging a similar promotional push for the start of next season? (Speedway gets 2 and a half hours of decent promotional time every Monday so maybe a Sky meeting before any tracks started with this to help with promotion?) Difficult to do early season as earlier crowds are normally your higher attended meetings in general, weather isn’t that great either so maybe deters families etc, but is it worth the sport taking the speculate to accumulate attitude? A “Speedway Open Week” when every track in the country offers free or reduced entry free to start the season that was heavily promoted up and down the country might help? (given that the low crowds are affecting all involved possibly the riders could give up their services free of charge?) If you got say 80% of tracks attracting crowds of a couple of thousand or more does this then generate more media and public interest, which might be a start and a decent way to kick of the season? I appreciate you will get posters like the above who are of the belief that no one has any interest in ever going to speedway other than those that already do, but is it not worth taking the chance if it meant each club could see an increase over the season…might be a start.

Nae bother, enjoy watching the bandits.

Would it be worth Berwick, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle getting together and agreeing that showing a season ticket instantly allows £10/7 entry at any track? Dont know how many it would atract, but in theory helps all 4 clubs get money in early and encourages fans to attend more meetings at the other tracks, might be a start? The season ticket would hopefully take away the feeling of "I am a regular but missing out" Fans attending on a meeting by meeting basis could be offered a "weekend pass" allowing the same discount

They aren’t “above criticism” no one is. The problem with threads on here is the definition of “criticism” or "opinion" I can say what the hell I want, true or not, but as long as I put, aww its just my opinion......its fine, No, that’s actually not how it works. If John Terry had said what he supposedly did to Anton Ferdinand but said “aucht that’s just my opinion” he is still an idiot and a racist. Fromafar can praise and be critical of Berwick in equal measure and its rarely done in the sleekit way of certain others. No doubt the “brown nose” p*sh will come out from taffy, the point he will miss, again. isnt that “brown nosing” goes on, but when you come out with the hyperbole dog sh*t that you get when it comes to “criticism” the “criticism” is that black (and on occasion false), that the only reply you are going to get is white.

My suggestion would be that the one missing the point is yourself. To put some context on this for you. If a social media platform, forum, twitter account, whatever, was set up relating to “shops in Berwick” and day in, day out, you got posters the equivalent of you and screm on it banging on about your shop with sarcy comments, and utter p*sh such as “Taffys shop is promoting decent deals” in the same patronising tone screm chooses to post, after a while it would get on your wick once you started to realise it isn’t “criticism”, comments like “that shops just sells cheap crap” being made with very little substance or “I would stock Tag Heuer if it was my shop”, then, and only then would you be able to “get the point”. However the difference you would find is, if that did happen you wouldn’t get comments like that as the majority of people don’t need to act like an utter d*ck all the time in the way a few people decide to on this forum and Berwick threads in particual do for some reason. Its tiresome p*sh. Screms comment was pretty much saying Berwick will bother to promote the meeting on their site this week, said in a sleekit sarcy tone, its not criticism its just an utter wanky thing to do.

Glad to see Workington have been bought over, new owners will have a tough job on their hands to follow “Denham” might not be as easy to attract riders as it was for “D£nham”, hopefully the fans are realistic with their expectations, this thread suggests not.

You would need to extend the season to fit in the fixtures you hadn't ran when the stadium was sitting empty, that's before you consider 2 or 3 rain offs a month.

If it's a summer of good weather that leaves clubs with an empty stadium once a month.

I could see Woffinden doing pretty well in the GPs, it wasn’t the time for him when he was last in for a number of reasons, he is a very decent rider.

Didn’t have the best view of it from the 3rd and 4th bend, could you have put forward a case for Auty being excluded in heat 10? I don’t mind Auty, sorry to hear he was injured, but I thought he was a bit over his limits yesterday with some of his racing.

Is this a daily competition with yourself? “what the stupidest thing you can post today”? When it’s a section in the programme in some ones name they aren’t hiding behind anyone……., its his opinions and his views, it even has his picture at the top of the page, just to make it obvious that it is his views. If you want to reply, or feel that your view is that important, here is a grand idea, go up to his face and make your point, or e-mail him. But naw, instead you will show how a:hypocritical you are and b that you have completely missed the point of his article by doing the exact thing that he is highlighting.

That Berwick has been chosen to host the Ben Fund meeting suggests that the promotion are doing something right. You stick to spraffing on about toilet roll holders though….

Cook was a fortunate winner, Doyle had him leathered in the first running of the final. Full credit to Hall and Alden, the entertainers of the day, Aldens from the back display against Fisher and Doyle was sensational.

The “he could score 4 thing” wasn’t to be taken literally but as always someone takes things a tad too seriously…. To put it another way… You can also read and see posts where he has turned in riders at Birmingham and Newcastle against guys like Robson, Lemon and Lyons and passed Lindgren from the back at Sheffield. So he was capable of not only challenging, but pulling of the spectacular, so it suggest an inconsistency in performance. His away form wasn’t the same as his Berwick form, that’s natural, very few riders score 9.50 averages both home and away, that being said I will take a guy who can score 13 and 15 at home most weeks every time. Even with his “home/away” spilt, he still turned in paid 16 scores at places like Sheffield and Newcastle this year, 13 at Leicester last year, and 7+ around Rye Ipswich, Edinburgh and Glasgow this season, looking back further there is the 19 at Newport, and a further 15 point maximum to go with that when guesting for Berwick. That’s before you even go into his early form for Sheffield, some of his performances for Stoke etc. Its perfectly true to say Lee Complin, at one time or another has scored a barrel load of points and produced rides folks will talk about in 10 years time around most tracks in the country.

Apart from Newcastle, Sheffield, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stoke, Newport, Birmingham, Hull, Redcar…. He wasn’t good on away tracks. His problem on away track wasn’t that he wasn’t good, he just lacked consistency on them. Complin is made out to be a novice around some places, he wasn’t, he could score 4 in a meeting, but have been involved in every race he was in and about 10 yards away from scoring 13, he was just that kind of rider. Complin would have been a decent EL heat leader had it not been for his first retirement and away from track incidents IMO. He was the absolute dogs bollocks when he first started at Sheffield.

The Berwick promotion are more in touch with the reality of the sport than a lot of people who have been involved in it for years. Complin will be a massive miss to Berwick, and most fans around the country, one of the most entertaining riders to ride in the PL in the last 10 years, good luck to him in whatever his future holds, a definite good guy.

“tainted title”

Thread of the year?

Quite a few riders kicking around on what could be “false averages” next season, Wilkinson and Schramm are both on about 5.00 averages, gamble you take is if they are going to come back to what they were, or if that is just the level of performance you are going to get from them now. There is only so often you can sign riders like that before it all just becomes a bit too predictable to the point that they aren’t going to be much more than middle of the road second strings. At least with guys like Edberg and Albin they are young enough that they are worth the low risk/ possible high reward you might get from them. Plenty of riders that have came over for a limited time and haven’t looked overly impressive during limited second half outings yet went on to have very decent careers.

That is a pretty logical, and decent side. Its still far too early to say, but it will be interesting to see how the sides that manage to run line up next year, I would imagine you will get sides structured a lot closer to the Edinburgh, Rye and Sheffield sides of this season.

With a North/South divide before Play Offs? I know it’s an idea previously floated which a lot of people don’t always seem to enthusiastic about. But looking at the North and Berwick and Workington in particular, the possible removal of Plymouth and Leicester from the fixture list opens up two more Saturday nights which in turn helps with fixture stability, same case clubs “on tour” don’t then need to miss a race night in the summer to recover from a 3 day jaunt etc. The idea of “North v South” could also help create a culture for the Play Offs where the opposition provides genuine novelty. Say Berwick v Somerset, possibly Somersets only visit up North then attracts 20 or 30 fans from surrounding clubs to what should already be, in theory an above average attendance given it is a Play Off meeting. In turn the “meaningful” league meetings like Redcar v Newcastle when both are in the hunt come the end of “league fixtures” offer fans even more an incentive to attend than say Newcastle v Rye House with both sides needing a win to make the Play Offs. This winter could prove that the “powers that be” do have a rough idea what is going on, the “3 year plan” to bring the leagues closer together could be prove to be a worthwhile exercise this winter.

But a club that seem pretty stable and haven’t been afraid to take the tough decision to move leagues to help safeguard the long term future of the club…..there are differing ways to be “successful”.

Extension of R/R would only lead to the previous problems seen when sides like Exeter, Sheffield and a lesser extent Berwick could tell guys like Scott “Scud” Smith and Seemond Stephens not to bother turning up at Edinburgh,funny one as spectator in that you are more likely to see a more competitive meeting (R/R for Scud around Edinburgh more often than not made sides stronger), but at the same time it’s a manufactured away side. One of the few things that is right about Speedway is that in the most simplistic terms its 7v7 and no BS to a paying punter, doing all that is possible to get back to that is a start IMO, increasing the chances of sides using R/R and turning up with 4 and 5 men team isn’t going to do much for the sport IMO. It is tough.

Because only an idiot would think that? Same case what he is paid the two people who will know that are Lee and the promotion are either running around telling people how much they pay/get paid? i doubt it, so it's rumour, but rumour is what makes all the little unimportant people think they are of importance

Anyone else laugh when they read this?