Fewer meetings and Rain Offs

[wealdstone]

This looks to me to  speed up the decline in Speedway.

[Fromafar]

Think the lack of regular weekly speedway will come back to bite the Clubs,sad IMO 

[RobMcCaffery]

For the first time since league speedway began we are now 'enjoying' the first year when top-level speedway will not be staged in Britain at weekends (including Friday nights), with the exception of Cardiff. 

Once we had six senior tracks racing on Saturday nights with several more racing on the also lucrative Fridays. Now we have none. Fridays and non-GP Saturdays are Poland's playground now. 

Add in endless breaks in continuity and you have a toxic situation, as I fear several tracks will find to their literal cost. From a six day a week sport, top level speedway is now on two nights that nobody else really wants. 

The sport and its supporters will wake up one day, as usual far too late. 

[mickthemuppet]

25 minutes ago, RobMcCaffery said:

For the first time since league speedway began we are now 'enjoying' the first year when top-level speedway will not be staged in Britain at weekends (including Friday nights), with the exception of Cardiff. 

Once we had six senior tracks racing on Saturday nights with several more racing on the also lucrative Fridays. Now we have none. Fridays and non-GP Saturdays are Poland's playground now. 

Add in endless breaks in continuity and you have a toxic situation, as I fear several tracks will find to their literal cost. From a six day a week sport, top level speedway is now on two nights that nobody else really wants. 

The sport and its supporters will wake up one day, as usual far too late.

I would think after this season the Monday and Wednesday night odd scheme will be forgotten. When live TV matches start that's when it will hit home. You could not get a worse night to stage Speedway than a Monday

[cityrebel]

How can clubs that have traditionally ran at weekends, still expect to mainain their crowds levels when switching to a midweek race night. Lemmings jumping off a cliff springs to mind!

[wealdstone]

Can't blame the Mafia for rain offs , but imo they have got the rest wrong. 

[Crump99]

16 hours ago, wealdstone said:

This looks to me to  speed up the decline in Speedway.

Friday night is speedway night. Remember when it was Rodders! I would say that it was so much better than the fragmented comparatively meaningless product that we watch these days but it's been so long that I can't remember what that is anyway

[Hawk127]

I think the decline/rot has already set in and the weather is just what it has always been, dire. I am sure they are justified, but call offs are all too frequent when even there is a hint that the weather looks dodgy.  Go back a few years and they would do anything to try and get a meeting on and go back many years they used sawdust. The lack of speedway on nights (mainly thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday) when fans want to watch and with weekends when you have the best chance of good crowds, is something I find ludicrous. The decline is evident on this forum. The lack of feedback to those meetings that are on and in some cases nothing at all or perhaps one comment says it all. I agree with Rob re the state of things and I think it could well be the end of the road for a number of clubs come September. All very sad and no doubt many more will get out of the habit of going. One big league with home and away, ko cup and British invidual championship and you probably would get back to regularly weekly meetings. This country can no longer compete with Poland, Sweden or Denmark and the other nations such as Germany will soon overtake the U.K. Back to basics might just save speedway in this country.

[wealdstone]

25 minutes ago, Crump99 said:

Friday night is speedway night. Remember when it was Rodders! I would say that it was so much better than the fragmented comparatively meaningless product that we watch these days but it's been so long that I can't remember what that is anyway

Totally understand your point but from where I come from it was Thursday  or sometimes Saturday.

[Crump99]

41 minutes ago, wealdstone said:

Totally understand your point but from where I come from it was Thursday  or sometimes Saturday.

We could always nip down the A47 on a Saturday to the 22 percenters in the days before they lost their credibilty

[wealdstone]

1 hour ago, Crump99 said:

We could always nip down the A47 on a Saturday to the 22 percenters in the days before they lost their credibilty

Way  off track , however I did go there quite a lot mid seventies. Tommy Price may give you a clue.  Mind you I can remember rolling starts and black tracks

[cityrebel]

Last night at Eastbourne was my eleventh meeting of the season. The majority of the crowds have been very poor. How some clubs remain solvent, I will never know.

 

[WembleyLion]

12 minutes ago, cityrebel said:

Last night at Eastbourne was my eleventh meeting of the season. The majority of the crowds have been very poor. How some clubs remain solvent, I will never know.

 

Tony - probably by relying on you, me and a rapidly dwindling bunch of other old gits nomads!

[steve roberts]

4 hours ago, cityrebel said:

How can clubs that have traditionally ran at weekends, still expect to mainain their crowds levels when switching to a midweek race night. Lemmings jumping off a cliff springs to mind!

Back in the 'Good Old Days' we used to go to Reading (occasionally) on the Monday, White City on Wednesdays, Oxford on Thursdays and more than occasionally Swindon on Saturdays.

[tonyd]

Hawk127 has hit the nail squarely on the head in the above post " All very sad and no doubt many more will get out of the habit of going" I know I have already. From being a regular at Rye I stopped going each and every week in about 2008/9 and just started picking and choosing my meetings. Moved to the East Midlands in 2012 and not been to a meeting since coming up here and now get my fix via television, internet, youtube and dvd. Sad I know and Im sure many on here will say im not a true supporter BUT watching it this way I dont have to drive for  xxx amount of miles each way, stand around in a clapped out stadium and go home £30 or £40  lighter in the pocket and moan about the meeting or lack of meeting at the end of the day.

Plus the best bit of watching speedway my way is that if its crap there is always the off switch or something on another channel.

High speed bikes with lay down engines and slick tracks I think killed it for me its all open throttle and hang on today ........ what happened to throttle control and riders natural skill and ability? 

I think whats even sadder is that im 61 this year and I just cannot see myself attending another live meeting 

 

 

[steve roberts]

11 minutes ago, tonyd said:

Hawk127 has hit the nail squarely on the head in the above post " All very sad and no doubt many more will get out of the habit of going" I know I have already. From being a regular at Rye I stopped going each and every week in about 2008/9 and just started picking and choosing my meetings. Moved to the East Midlands in 2012 and not been to a meeting since coming up here and now get my fix via television, internet, youtube and dvd. Sad I know and Im sure many on here will say im not a true supporter BUT watching it this way I dont have to drive for  xxx amount of miles each way, stand around in a clapped out stadium and go home £30 or £40  lighter in the pocket and moan about the meeting or lack of meeting at the end of the day.

Plus the best bit of watching speedway my way is that if its crap there is always the off switch or something on another channel.

High speed bikes with lay down engines and slick tracks I think killed it for me its all open throttle and hang on today ........ what happened to throttle control and riders natural skill and ability? 

I think whats even sadder is that im 61 this year and I just cannot see myself attending another live meeting 

 

 

...likewise. I attended Cowley for over thirty years but since moving to York 14 years ago haven't been to a meeting since. I'm afraid the thought of having to travel to a speedway costing petrol money no longer appeals...used to walk to Oxford and I was one of the unusual regulars who actually enjoyed the second halves back in those days. 15 heats of racing just doesn't offer good value for money in my view (together with many other issues that I have often cited on this forum...over dependance on non-descript foreigners being one) 

Edited April 29, 2018 by steve roberts

[chunky]

Going back to a couple of earlier posts, one thing that always concerned me with fixed race nights is the fact that so many of us used to frequent other tracks on nights when our own teams weren't in action. Apart from being a fixture at Plough Lane, I was a regular visitor to White City during their short BL period, and it wasn't unusual for me to go to Hackney, Rye, Arena, Crayford, Mildenhall, Milton Keynes, Lynn, Swindon, and Canterbury. Again, I would see the same people at a lot of the tracks, and fixed nights automatically reduce those numbers.

The sad reality is that it was the crowds that generated atmosphere as much as - if not more than - the actual racing. As crowds dwindle, so does the atmosphere. That leads to more people staying home. Fewer meetings will only cause more to stay home...

Steve

Edited April 29, 2018 by chunky

[RobMcCaffery]

We are in a vicious downward spiral. Part of it comes from Poland, part from BSI and partly through domestic incompetence, some of it just bad luck.

For many years life for me living in east London revolved around speedway, not through my commitments in the sport but as a fan. Friday night was speedway night at Hackney and Sunday was the day to see my beloved Rockets at Rye House. The idea of doing other things on Friday nights or Sunday afternoons was just inconceivable. Yes the close season was hell for me. Thankfully both of my 'local' tracks ran full seasons so the close season really was only four and a half months of relative hell. 

Of course that wasn't enough and the temptation of 'extras' at Reading, Wimbledon, White City and Canterbury, Crayford then later Arena Essex were always there.

The core was Friday nights and Sunday afternoons. Now it's a mess. I live in the west country so my closest option for speedway at the weekend nearer than 100 miles away is Stoke.  Still the scenery and pace of life is better than Upton Park....

I do have several tracks much closer to home, all running midweek and it seems whenever I'm able to go they're not running! 

Going back to running full seasons and on the nights that pay is not idle nostalgia, it's a vital necessity. It means running independently of international interests and ideally one large league with a supporting equivalent such as the present National League. One main league avoids doubling-up. Not using riders who have contracts in Poland will also cut out more absences. Instead of doubling-up a much larger league will give overall more bookings for riders than if they were in two British leagues thus removing the need. 

The key problem, apart from allowing for the fact that further 'names' will have to be lost is that I suspect that the sort seasons are favoured by promotions because they budget for a loss over the year, a budget that will only pay for about 14 meetings. The painfully-thin fixture lists in the CL this year with just 10 home league matches a year is a new low for the professional leagues. 

It's not those of us wishing to learn from the past who are the dreamers, it's those who think we can keep struggling on as we are blindly hoping that riders and fans will magically return. 

Whether the sport has the intelligence to make the necessary changes is doubtful though. It'll stagger on. How long can you stagger on your knees by the way? 

Mind you, for most here as long as their team's winning many who use the BSF won't care - until they find themselves facing a track closure.....

 

 

Edited April 29, 2018 by RobMcCaffery

[chunky]

16 minutes ago, RobMcCaffery said:

We are in a vicious downward spiral. Part of it comes from Poland, part from BSI and partly through domestic incompetence, some of it just bad luck.

I do have several tracks much closer to home, all running midweek and it seems whenever I'm able to go they're not running!

The first paragraph above is so true. People think they know THE reason why British speedway is in such a mess, but the reality is that there are so many, and not all of them are speedway related. I've said it before, but I will say it again; one of the big problems is that speedway is no longer a city-centre sport.

When we had tracks in urban areas, everybody was exposed to speedway, even if they didn't actually follow it. Now, thanks to the constant quest for industrial estates and housing developments, the demise of greyhound racing, the ever-growing NIMBY population, dereliction (let's not forget the age and condition of some of the older stadia) and several other factors beyond our control, we are being forced into rural locations away from the population.

With 24-hour live television sport, obsession with computers and video games, and stuff like that, people don't want to leave the house, let alone drive out into the sticks.

As far as your second point, it is a ridiculous state of affairs, and of course, much of that IS speedway-related. Living in Surrey, I wasn't always going to travel the country, but I ALWAYS had options. Even when Wimbledon changed from Thursday to Wednesday, it changed the specifics, but not the opportunities.

Exeter was too far on a Monday, but Reading was easy to get to. Tuesday, Poole, and later MK and Crayford were doable. Wednesday was White City, later Poole and Long Eaton. Saturday was wonderful with all the choices. Even Sunday was great for choice.

Those were the days...

Steve

[tonyd]

We were spoilt for choice back in the day Steve

Then back in the 70s I lived in Wembley (just off the A40) and 70/71 I could walk to wembley stadium as a kid to see my beloved Lions and after they closed it was off to Wimbledon. For this I had to get a lift either from parents or friends BUT there was always some speedway supporter I knew around my area who went each week and had a spare seat in the car. 

When I was 18 I had passed my test and owned a car and the world was my oyster and I was spoilt for choice, Monday Reading. Wednesday White City, Thursday Wimbledon, Friday Hackney. The weekend was Swindon Saturday or maybe Canterbury, Sunday was maybe Eastbourne. Or maybe a weekend of it with Canterbury Saturday and onto Eastbourne Sunday sleeping in the car or a tent. Cannot say I done all the tracks every week but if I had enough for a tank of petrol entrance fee and a programme then I was off.

Then while on the road you would get a toot and a wave from a passing speedway fan when they spotted your car adorned with various speedway stickers or sun visors (or the big action speedway rider a lot had in our back windows). Happy days never to return.