Derwent Park

[singy13]

1 hour ago, Lord Lucan said:

Being as we're just nit picking now Town played in the First Division 1995/96 after winning promotion and just missing the play off places, due to the new SL format being a "summer" objective they carried straight on into SL1 after barely finishing their original Div1 fixtures hence why I quoted "two" seasons in the top flight which effectively it was, one after the other and another reason why we didn't survive?

Oh and by the way, do you remember wondering why every time we won a match in that era and moved off the bottom of the table that French side always managed to beat someone they shouldn't have just to put us back down again, there was self interest in RL back then as well?

Hmmm all very mysterious wasn't it ?...you are right about the Paris St Germain situation....The RFL wanted the small town guys 'out' and the big city outfit ' in' for sure...tho they went down the next season.. ha,ha..and yes I do recall us in the top division...but thought you meant SL only...sorry marra......Up The Town and Comets...

[singy13]

1 hour ago, Marksman said:

Town played 2 consecutive seasons of Top Flight RL in the 90's, but your right it was rebranded to the Super league in '96 and only won 2 games all season before being relegated.  It all went downhill after Peter Walsh left and went back to Australia before SL1...

Yeah still can't fathom why Walshy left after being so successful at Derwent Park ?...home sick maybe?

[A.N.Other]

Chaps

Can we get this subject back on track, and deal with SPEEDWAY !

Thanks

 

[Lord Lucan]

1 hour ago, singy13 said:

Hmmm all very mysterious wasn't it ?...you are right about the Paris St Germain situation....The RFL wanted the small town guys 'out' and the big city outfit ' in' for sure...tho they went down the next season.. ha,ha..and yes I do recall us in the top division...but thought you meant SL only...sorry marra......Up The Town and Comets...

That's them, couldn't remember the name, I was thinking South of France region because of Catalans? 

40 minutes ago, A.N.Other said:

Chaps

Can we get this subject back on track, and deal with SPEEDWAY !

Thanks

 

Well this thread is about Derwent Park and RL does take place there!! 

[singy13]

2 hours ago, A.N.Other said:

Chaps

Can we get this subject back on track, and deal with SPEEDWAY !

Thanks

 

We were talking about the impending loss of Derwent Park stadium.... which hosts both speedway and RL......if you don't like it don't read it.

Thanks

[gregory peck]

5 hours ago, singy13 said:

Yeah still can't fathom why Walshy left after being so successful at Derwent Park ?...home sick maybe?

Think Kevin gorge tried to play the big time Charlie,regarding transfers and team selection,I believe Walsh was squeezed out and until the only alternative was to leave,big mistake on towns part,that's when the rot began to set in

Edited September 24, 2018 by gregory peck

[Lord Lucan]

6 minutes ago, gregory peck said:

Think Kevin gorge tried to play the big time Charlie,regarding transfers and team selection,I believe Walsh was squeezed out and until the only alternative was to leave,big mistake on towns part,that's when the rot began to set in

Yeah, didn't have the nouse to move the club forward when we needed to and wouldn't move aside for anyone who could? 

Basking in the glory and couldn't see the wood for the trees? 

[George Dodds]

On 9/23/2018 at 5:58 PM, ch958 said:

so the rugby, football and speedway teams attract roughly similar crowds. One question - do either the rugby or football teams bring players from all over Europe to perform in front of these crowds, and what do they get paid. For the football team i would imagine £100 a game tops.

not sure what your point is meant to be but surely that just underlines the fact that speedway is a sport which hires the stadium for a few weeks a year while the football and rugby are the semi-professional entities of sports which flourish at junior and amateur level around them. Bearing in mind that a majority in Cumbria voted for Brexit they might not see all the foreign riders as a good point!

[TotallyHonestJohn]

Honestly

Its all a bit pointless really as there wont be Speedway at Derwent Park next year, or anywhere else in Workington for that matter (with the exception of Northside) unless there is a serious benefactor out there who is prepared to run the sport as a hobby. Someone who has cash to spare and can inject between £50/£75 K per annum into the speedway, or they have someway of reinvigorating the crowds back to the heyday levels when anything from 1500 to 2500 people would pack out DP to watch the likes of Carl Stonehewer. Furthermore it goes to show that the "Myth" about a winning team brings people in is absolute total rubbish and the best laugh is people who no longer attend  (and haven't for a few years) will be on here bemoaning how awful it is not having a team to support in the town. At the current rate the club need around 850 people/fans through the doors to break even and this just isn't happening, without additional income streams the sport has no chance, whether that's a combination of the following like a bar facility, a room for hire, catering facilities, stock cars or any other motor sports, Kart racing, lawnmower racing drone racing or anything else you can think of but (and I hate saying this) speedway is no longer sustainable anymore in Workington

Sorry to be the harbinger of doom but that's how I see it personally. 

Regards
THJ

 

[ch958]

6 hours ago, George Dodds said:

not sure what your point is meant to be but surely that just underlines the fact that speedway is a sport which hires the stadium for a few weeks a year while the football and rugby are the semi-professional entities of sports which flourish at junior and amateur level around them. Bearing in mind that a majority in Cumbria voted for Brexit they might not see all the foreign riders as a good point!

the point i was trying (and seemingly failing) to make is that speedway can not afford international riders at this level.

[Carlislecomet2]

Unfortunately THJ I have to agree with you. I hate to think about how much Laura & Co will have lost this season ironically made worse because of our success and without any discernible increase in numbers through the gate. I wonder what the excuses are this season for not attending. They can't blame Keith Denham, a crap team, a lack of entertainment, no local riders, cost? (possibly you could say it is a £10-12 pound sport), so what has stopped people attending? I know we aren't the only team struggling to keep our heads above water and money is tight for a lot of people, but as you say, those people staying away will be the first to complain when it is gone.

Unless there is a radical shake up of the sport in this country, where it is governed and run by people without any vested interest other than for the love of the sport I too fear the worst.

What speedway needs is a Barry Hearn type character along with some well respected former riders to grab hold of it and rebrand the whole damned thing. This would hopefully bring in some bigger sponsors with some big money but ensuring the money goes into developing the sport as a whole and not just into the elite few.

We seem to say these things at this time of year, every year however, so I wont hold my breath.

Back onto the positive, and what a team we have this year, c'mon lets grab some silverware!

Edited September 25, 2018 by Carlislecomet2

[TotallyHonestJohn]

4 minutes ago, Carlislecomet2 said:

Unfortunately THJ I have to agree with you. I hate to think about how much Laura & Co will have lost this season ironically made worse because of our success and without any discernible increase in numbers through the gate. I wonder what the excuses are this season for not attending. They can't blame Keith Denham, a crap team, a lack of entertainment, no local riders, cost? (possibly you could say it is a £10-12 pound sport), so what has stopped people attending? I know we aren't the only team struggling to keep our heads above water and money is tight for a lot of people, but as you say, those people staying away will be the first to complain when it is gone.

Unless there is a radical shake up of the sport in this country, where it is governed and run by people without any vested interest other than for the love of the sport I too fear the worst.

What speedway needs is a Barry Hearn type character along with some well respected former riders to grab hold of it and rebrand the whole damned thing. This would hopefully bring in some bigger sponsors with some big money but ensuring the money goes into developing the sport as a whole and not just into the elite few.

We seem to say these things at this time of year, every year however, so I wont hold my breath.

Back onto the positive, and what a team we have this year, c'mon lets grab some silverware!

Agree with much of what you say here CC2

It has cost the promotion a great deal of cash and it is not sustainable

Keith (not John) Denham (I believe you are referring to) had some good teams with great individuals, Peter Kilderman being the outstanding one for me, and it just didn't happen for him but as a businessman he could see the flaws in the system after trying dam hard to give the Comets fans a winning team.

If you can guarantee 1000 fans I could guarantee an entry fee of £10:00 each meeting and make it work its as simple as that, Numbers! it is also the same for every other club that is struggling, a hardcore fan base of 350 to 450 does not sustain a team that's why other clubs have upped their entry fees, and set up supporter trust groups, would Comets fans be prepared to pay £20/£25 quid to watch their speedway?  When the consensus is that it is a £10 sport (I very much doubt it) (Although I do know one promoter who will argue reasonably well as to why it isn't a 10 quid sport as we have recently and he put a reasoned argument across)

Why have people stopped attending is a good one and if I had the definitive answer to that I would remedy the situation in a once but many theories have been put forward on here and all are valid to a point, but who honestly knows.

You are right the Comets are not the only team struggling most are, and their promotions are pumping in monies to keep the sport afloat but they seem blinkered to the extent that they will collectively kill the sport off, there needs to be a rationalisation and maybe go back to the "good ole days" of the 60's where the sport was primarily amateur in this country which may reduce costs, but again I don't think anyone has a magic wand.

You hit the nail on the head a radical shake up and radical change are required and more passionate and knowledgeable fans than me have outlined the issues on here more than once and like you say every year it comes up and Barry Hearn is a fantastic example and I wholeheartedly agree he is the type of entrepreneur the sport needs.

However I feel the grip the promoters hold over the sport are to great and they all look out for their own interests to the detriment of everyone else and no matter how much they polish the turd it's still a turd to my mind. Maybe one day they will see the light and work for the benefit of the sport, the fans the riders et al.

Finally you are doing the right thing and definitely do not hold your breath, keep breathing but count to 10, I was once told that counting helps, that was a load of old tosh as well...

Regards
THJ

[cometbaz]

Have to agree THJ. 

Teams like Workington just don't get the support to sustain a fully professional team. Time to go back to the days when 90% of the riders held down a full time job and rode in their spare time. Leave the high flying, full timers and their ever increasing demands to the premiership and make the championship a stand alone league, all be it a a lower level than now but at least sustainable for the crowd levels we get. 

[Carlislecomet2]

18 minutes ago, cometbaz said:

 

Teams like Workington just don't get the support to sustain a fully professional team. Time to go back to the days when 90% of the riders held down a full time job and rode in their spare time. Leave the high flying, full timers and their ever increasing demands to the premiership and make the championship a stand alone league, all be it a a lower level than now but at least sustainable for the crowd levels we get.  

I agree. I wonder if a 'second' division could be as you describe but possibly with each team being able to include one 'big hitter' from the league above - rather like the way our local cricket teams have a 'resident professional' in their ranks. That way the supporters still get to see riders from the top league and the other riders can learn from them and aim to take the scalp of the opposition number 1. Just a thought.

[SteelShoe]

Dwindling crowds are a conundrum contributed to by the amateurish way the sport has been run in recent times.

Without Workington opening up their accounts no one but those very close to Laura can have knowledge of the financial structure currently in place . The club will surely have budgeted for this season based on last seasons last average gates . We do not know how crowds are doing relative to last season but i would say subjectively they are certainly no worse. We had that horrendous run of away fixtures which put a huge strain on finances but it was hoped that some of that would eventually balance out. With half as many league fixtures compared to last season one would assume overall loss potential per meeting would be lower. To quote losses of £50K to £75K if accurate is serious money and unsubstantiated. Other season losses were mooted to be around £30K. Why double with half as many league fixtures ??.

The club employs a Commercial Manager whose major role is to generate income for the club. Laura quoted in a recent press article that some sports clubs generate £30-50K in sponsorship. Obviously we are not at this fairly modest looking level, a level that would surely help underpin the clubs financial security. 

 

[singy13]

25 minutes ago, SteelShoe said:

Dwindling crowds are a conundrum contributed to by the amateurish way the sport has been run in recent times.

Without Workington opening up their accounts no one but those very close to Laura can have knowledge of the financial structure currently in place . The club will surely have budgeted for this season based on last seasons last average gates . We do not know how crowds are doing relative to last season but i would say subjectively they are certainly no worse. We had that horrendous run of away fixtures which put a huge strain on finances but it was hoped that some of that would eventually balance out. With half as many league fixtures compared to last season one would assume overall loss potential per meeting would be lower. To quote losses of £50K to £75K if accurate is serious money and unsubstantiated. Other season losses were mooted to be around £30K. Why double with half as many league fixtures ??.

The club employs a Commercial Manager whose major role is to generate income for the club. Laura quoted in a recent press article that some sports clubs generate £30-50K in sponsorship. Obviously we are not at this fairly modest looking level, a level that would surely help underpin the clubs financial security. 

 

Good reading material on here right now...fans that care for the Comets obviously....but here, sadly, we surely only preach to the converted ?

It's not gonna be read by many who could be swayed to re-appear at Derwent Park....although fingers crossed it does help.

I was reliably informed that it costs £75,000 a season to run the Comets.....the informant didn't add the proviso the I kept this info to myself..(this was prior to Diamonds fixture)

And that certainly set the  mindset alarm bells for speedway at Workington.......although to be honest they have been ringing for a while now...hopefully I will still be showing the same concern as the bikes still roar at DP in 2019???????????

[topaz325]

I am surprised we have survived for this long, the death knell has been ringing for about 2 years now!

The theory of a £10.00 sport is all very well and many would like it to be but many factors come in to the equation for it to be viable, the main ones being rent of the stadium, attendances and any  club sponsorship.

Having crowds of 300/500 blow this out of the water.

[TotallyHonestJohn]

16 hours ago, singy13 said:

Good reading material on here right now...fans that care for the Comets obviously....but here, sadly, we surely only preach to the converted ?

It's not gonna be read by many who could be swayed to re-appear at Derwent Park....although fingers crossed it does help.

I was reliably informed that it costs £75,000 a season to run the Comets.....the informant didn't add the proviso the I kept this info to myself..(this was prior to Diamonds fixture)

And that certainly set the  mindset alarm bells for speedway at Workington.......although to be honest they have been ringing for a while now...hopefully I will still be showing the same concern as the bikes still roar at DP in 2019???????????

Honestly

You can put a 1 in front of that £75 K singy13 as the cost to run the Comets this year will be in excess of £175 K with a generated income of around £115 K on the original 16 home + 16 away meetings so that is a £60 K shortfall before you turn a wheel (so this is where sponsorship would fill the gap). To cover this cost with paying customers (crowd) alone there needs to be approximately 850 fans through the door and that is at a combined rate of £12.50 per person to allow for concessions, the last two crowds were 391 for the Newcastle meeting and 497 for the Scunthorpe one so working it out on the back of a fag packet those two meetings will have cost the promotion the thick end of a £10 K loss to run over the two meetings. Also the crowd for these two meetings needs to cover the cost of the away legs where Workington performed quite well so riders wages increase because of higher points scored and there is now no contribution against rider costs from the home side as there used to be in the past.

The other irony is that the more successful you are as a club the more it costs, teams not reaching semi finals, finals and play offs will obviously lose less money, due to having less meetings, but the Catch 22 on this is if you have a poor team the crowds dwindle so you end up in a spiral of lower crowds, less money to spend on the team, so poorer league position and a cycle that can be hard to break, especially in the current adversarial environment there is between promotions, there is no reward for a successful speedway team as the more meetings you run the more you lose and the "Myth" of these finals and play off meetings generating bigger crowds is just that.

However I would expect (surely) the next two home meetings with Glasgow and Edinburgh to bring in a few more fans through the door and swell the numbers on the terraces as both clubs, like Workington; have a healthy travelling contingent who follow their team, but I very much doubt we will see the crowd break 1000 fans with a more realistic figure around the 650 to 700 maximum, but I live in hope and who knows the word may get out in Cumbria and those lost fans from the 70's, 80's and early 90's come flooding back

Regards
THJ

Edited September 26, 2018 by TotallyHonestJohn
missed out key word

[singy13]

9 minutes ago, TotallyHonestJohn said:

the word may get out in Cumbria and those lost fans from the 70's, 80's and early 90's come flooding back

Regards

Hope 'the word' does influence larger crowds - somehow it needs shouted from the proverbial rooftops ??? ....like I said there's only the diehards on here.

Regarding £75k............that was the figure a renowned local 'sports person' told me the night of the Diamonds match (mis-match actually)..

I still recall the Workington guru Ian Thomas telling us - approx 10 yrs ago- that "the honeymoon isn't over yet"..given that Comets were still attracting 1,200 folk to Derwent Park.

And the blind optimist in me still thinks that the sport is capable of another honeymoon at Workington...maybe the upcoming re-structuring during the winter can be the saviour?

Meanwhile let's all Comets fans on here get behind the best team in blue and white, Workington style, for years.

[TotallyHonestJohn]

15 minutes ago, singy13 said:

Hope 'the word' does influence larger crowds - somehow it needs shouted from the proverbial rooftops ??? ....like I said there's only the die-hards on here.

Regarding £75k............that was the figure a renowned local 'sports person' told me the night of the Diamonds match (mis-match actually)..

I still recall the Workington guru Ian Thomas telling us - approx 10 yrs ago- that "the honeymoon isn't over yet"..given that Comets were still attracting 1,200 folk to Derwent Park.

And the blind optimist in me still thinks that the sport is capable of another honeymoon at Workington...maybe the upcoming re-structuring during the winter can be the saviour?

Meanwhile let's all Comets fans on here get behind the best team in blue and white, Workington style, for years.

Honestly

The figures I have quoted are pretty near to; if not spot on; the mark (and I do know your man)

Even the late great Ian Thomas (a man I liked immensely although not everyone's cup of tea) would struggle with the dilemmas that this promotion are facing, he went through it at Newcastle when he took them up and regretted the actions he took forever and a day.

Honestly I am a positive "pot half full" guy but I fear it has gone I can not see a resurgence in any way shape or form I have crunched the numbers for 2019 and it will take a very brave individual to take it on which saddens me greatly.

On you last paragraph "Here Here" it is the best team the Comets have had for years and lets see if they can go out with a bang, not just for the fans of Workington but for Laura, Jacko and the whole promotion, including the back room staff, 

When its gone its gone and it will be dam hard to bring back

Regards
THJ

Edited September 26, 2018 by TotallyHonestJohn