Alan Grahame Memorial Meeting

[brianbuck]

Just been announced that the Alan Grahame Memorial Meeting originally scheduled to be staged at Birmingham next Monday 16th September, has now been re-arranged for Monday September 30th at 7.30pm

This will be a Four-Team Tournament between Birmingham, Coventry, Cradley Heath and Wolverhampton, with all four teams being comprised of Championship level riders.

[TheSmiler]

They need to make their bloody minds up…

[GiveusaB]

Can't be easy to arrange a date that 'works' for everyone....it's more important that Alan's memory is being honoured!

Well done to B'ham for putting this meeting on in the first place!

 

[1 valve]

14 hours ago, TheSmiler said:

They need to make their bloody minds up…

Makes sense though as it means avoiding a clash with the playoff final on TV & the improved potential of available riders. 

[GiveusaB]

Plus...Birmingham City are live on Sky Monday night! (I'll wait for the banter/jokes...but they're playing Wrexham and now that 'both' sides are controlled by the Yanks, there is a bit more euphoria involved atm...)

[GiveusaB]

17 hours ago, brianbuck said:

Just been announced that the Alan Grahame Memorial Meeting originally scheduled to be staged at Birmingham next Monday 16th September, has now been re-arranged for Monday September 30th at 7.30pm

This will be a Four-Team Tournament between Birmingham, Coventry, Cradley Heath and Wolverhampton, with all four teams being comprised of Championship level riders.

That means any of the current Prem riders too 😃(apart from a handful...)

Can anyone name 4 for each team..... past or present?

I'm guessing that Cradley's line-up will be most difficult?

[heathen52]

On 9/10/2024 at 9:48 AM, GiveusaB said:

That means any of the current Prem riders too 😃(apart from a handful...)

Can anyone name 4 for each team..... past or present?

I'm guessing that Cradley's line-up will be most difficult?

Here is a quick  past or present 4 man team, mind you if these riders took to the track may as well give it to Wolves with Cradley being Wooden Spoons.

Wolves;

Masters

Douglas

Becker

Flint

Birmingham;

Lampart

Cook

Palm Toft

Batchelor

Coventry;

Harris

King

Barker

Nicholls

Cradley;

Brennan

Kemp

Edwards

Newman

Starke

 

 

[HGould]

On 9/10/2024 at 9:44 AM, GiveusaB said:

Plus...Birmingham City are live on Sky Monday night! (I'll wait for the banter/jokes...but they're playing Wrexham and now that 'both' sides are controlled by the Yanks, there is a bit more euphoria involved atm...)

It is worth pointing out though, and hopefully Nigel Tolley is not hidden under a rock on this issue that the new Owners of Birmingham City have just bought the old Wheels Site for an absolute pittance in terms of land value to build a new 65000 seater stadium, a sports village complete with retail / entertainment outlets and a secondary athletics track (needed to attract Global events to the main stadium).  They have got Gary Cook on board who did very similar to the Man City Etihaad development.

I'm sure given US links they will be looking at Stadium MX / Monster Trucks etc and all kinds of Xtreme Sports as an income stream somewhere on the development. 

Somewhere in the region of 75 acres for £30,000,000. They have already started decontaminating the land. The Land value alone once cleaned up will be worth around 5 x what they paid for it.

Now surely that could be the last real bit of accessible sporting real estate inside the City boundaries where some form of motor sport venue could be tetained / added. Plans include a direct tram link to the City centre, a new railway station on the intersection of the main lines running in to and out of Birmingham New St / Moor Street and the new HS2 link in Curzon Street etc. An Oval tracked linked to an electric Go Kart facility on 3 acres of land in the corners of the development (adjacent to a railway line to mitigate noise issues) is not too wild an expectation surely.

The openly say the Football Club will be about 1% of the annual return on the investment they are making in terms of income.

You'd hope Tolley and Co and may be even the BSPL are knocking on someones door to at least enquire!. We're not talking a bew NSS hre but a functioning and available 3-5000 venue to sustain Speedway in the West Midlands area!

 

[DaveWayne]

15 minutes ago, HGould said:

It is worth pointing out though, and hopefully Nigel Tolley is not hidden under a rock on this issue that the new Owners of Birmingham City have just bought the old Wheels Site for an absolute pittance in terms of land value to build a new 65000 seater stadium, a sports village complete with retail / entertainment outlets and a secondary athletics track (needed to attract Global events to the main stadium).  They have got Gary Cook on board who did very similar to the Man City Etihaad development.

I'm sure given US links they will be looking at Stadium MX / Monster Trucks etc and all kinds of Xtreme Sports as an income stream somewhere on the development. 

Somewhere in the region of 75 acres for £30,000,000. They have already started decontaminating the land. The Land value alone once cleaned up will be worth around 5 x what they paid for it.

Now surely that could be the last real bit of accessible sporting real estate inside the City boundaries where some form of motor sport venue could be tetained / added. Plans include a direct tram link to the City centre, a new railway station on the intersection of the main lines running in to and out of Birmingham New St / Moor Street and the new HS2 link in Curzon Street etc. An Oval tracked linked to an electric Go Kart facility on 3 acres of land in the corners of the development (adjacent to a railway line to mitigate noise issues) is not too wild an expectation surely.

The openly say the Football Club will be about 1% of the annual return on the investment they are making in terms of income.

You'd hope Tolley and Co and may be even the BSPL are knocking on someones door to at least enquire!. We're not talking a bew NSS hre but a functioning and available 3-5000 venue to sustain Speedway in the West Midlands area!

 

They have kicked stock car racing out to do this. Can you seriously see them letting oval motorsport of any kind back in there on a regular basis ? Especially when it is only just outside the clean air zone.

[HGould]

1 hour ago, DaveWayne said:

They have kicked stock car racing out to do this. Can you seriously see them letting oval motorsport of any kind back in there on a regular basis ? Especially when it is only just outside the clean air zone.

With respect to you, I think you need to give your head a bit of a wobble.

Stock Cars and Go Karts were taking up about 3 acres in the midst of a cesspit of contaminated waste, illegal dumping, drug dealing dens and in a prime piece of land within the view of the Second Cities Centre. Those venues were not even venues, they were old underused decrepit facilities.

They have committed to cleaning up the whole area and building world class facilities on the Site that will be not only the best in Britain but amongst the best in Europe. It has diddly squat really to do with football, that's a small aside to them, what they see is a significant piece of land that they can purchase for about 5% of it's long term value, the chance to invest a few billions and recoup tens of billions.

They haven't closed a Stock Car track to do this, what they may have given just a slight chance for in the future is "an Oval Track Motorsport facility" the might offer option for Speedway IF Speedway can get a small toe in the door. 

[SpeedwaySlider72]

1 hour ago, HGould said:

You'd hope Tolley and Co and may be even the BSPL are knocking on someones door to at least enquire!. We're not talking a bew NSS hre but a functioning and available 3-5000 venue to sustain Speedway in the West Midlands area!

 

Correct that hopefully a small portion of land as you suggest could be found for such a multi-purpose speedway-focused stadium. They aren't going to wish to include some shabby facility though. As a minimum something of the like of the NSS should be aspired to as it is far more appealing for such a large scale development than something like a Leicester-type facility as an example. Speedway will forever be small-fry if we don't aspire to be big.

[DaveWayne]

1 hour ago, HGould said:

With respect to you, I think you need to give your head a bit of a wobble.

Stock Cars and Go Karts were taking up about 3 acres in the midst of a cesspit of contaminated waste, illegal dumping, drug dealing dens and in a prime piece of land within the view of the Second Cities Centre. Those venues were not even venues, they were old underused decrepit facilities.

They have committed to cleaning up the whole area and building world class facilities on the Site that will be not only the best in Britain but amongst the best in Europe. It has diddly squat really to do with football, that's a small aside to them, what they see is a significant piece of land that they can purchase for about 5% of it's long term value, the chance to invest a few billions and recoup tens of billions.

They haven't closed a Stock Car track to do this, what they may have given just a slight chance for in the future is "an Oval Track Motorsport facility" the might offer option for Speedway IF Speedway can get a small toe in the door. 

I'm not going to get into an argument about it, but maybe you need to look into the underhanded ways in which it was all done, and the way the existing tenants were treated. I'll happily eat humble pie if it happens, but I really can't see it.

And for the record, the stock car track was far from underused and was a profit making business.

[brianbuck]

Yes, the stock car operation was well used and profitable, and the promoters didn't deserve the shabby treatment that they received from the City Council, who forced them into relinquishing their lease and to close down their operation, and then sold the land to Birmingham City in spite of receiving a substantially better offer from elsewhere (my information is that this alternative offer was actually over £30m greater - the the Council rejected the offer as "too low!"

I know the site well as I was born and lived within walking distance of it, for the first 27 years of my life. It was formerly the Council rubbish tip and I've seen it described as the most contaminated piece of land in Birmingham, but although it was a desolate place in the early days, it was developed as a quite attractive venue in an extremely run-down part of the City, and I have always believed that speedway could have been successful there.

The problem for the Brummies came in that fact that Dan McCormick moved in there far too early and when the place was in the very early stages of being developed. He had no option at the time for the old Greyhound Stadium at Perry Barr was about to be demolished, and there was nowhere else to go, but in hindsight, it would have been far better to have closed down Birmingham Speedway temporarily, and waited three or four year for the Wheels Park's facilities to be installed.

If there is a possibility of getting Birmingham City to include speedway in their plans, then the Wheels Park would definitely be a lifeline for us.

[HGould]

3 hours ago, DaveWayne said:

I'm not going to get into an argument about it, but maybe you need to look into the underhanded ways in which it was all done, and the way the existing tenants were treated. I'll happily eat humble pie if it happens, but I really can't see it.

And for the record, the stock car track was far from underused and was a profit making business.

Clearly there are some issues I was not aware of that Brian Buck has referred to in his comment. Hopefully though there may at least be an opportunity of Speedway (and Stocks) getting back in to very much possibly improved facilities under the new Billionaire Owners. 

Unfortunately timescales would be 5-7 years. 

[HGould]

3 hours ago, brianbuck said:

Yes, the stock car operation was well used and profitable, and the promoters didn't deserve the shabby treatment that they received from the City Council, who forced them into relinquishing their lease and to close down their operation, and then sold the land to Birmingham City in spite of receiving a substantially better offer from elsewhere (my information is that this alternative offer was actually over £30m greater - the the Council rejected the offer as "too low!"

I know the site well as I was born and lived within walking distance of it, for the first 27 years of my life. It was formerly the Council rubbish tip and I've seen it described as the most contaminated piece of land in Birmingham, but although it was a desolate place in the early days, it was developed as a quite attractive venue in an extremely run-down part of the City, and I have always believed that speedway could have been successful there.

The problem for the Brummies came in that fact that Dan McCormick moved in there far too early and when the place was in the very early stages of being developed. He had no option at the time for the old Greyhound Stadium at Perry Barr was about to be demolished, and there was nowhere else to go, but in hindsight, it would have been far better to have closed down Birmingham Speedway temporarily, and waited three or four year for the Wheels Park's facilities to be installed.

If there is a possibility of getting Birmingham City to include speedway in their plans, then the Wheels Park would definitely be a lifeline for us.

Clearly issues I was not aware of but hopefully the current Birmingam Owner can at least pitch his case to the new Site Owners.

On a separate topic, very sad to read in the past few hours of the passing of Peter Mason.

Peter and David worked their proverbials off in very difficult times to keep Speedway going long enough for the new owner, who seems to have far deeper pockets, to take over.

Peter and David were anything but local but worked incredibly hard and I always found Peter in particular very personable and willing to stop and chat on Match night.

Their efforts should never be forgotten in support of Speedway in Birmingham.

[DaveWayne]

51 minutes ago, HGould said:

Clearly there are some issues I was not aware of that Brian Buck has referred to in his comment. Hopefully though there may at least be an opportunity of Speedway (and Stocks) getting back in to very much possibly improved facilities under the new Billionaire Owners. 

Unfortunately timescales would be 5-7 years. 

Issues that you were not aware of, but quite happy to jump in and tell me to 'give my head a wobble' !!

[uk_martin]

23 hours ago, HGould said:

Hopefully though there may at least be an opportunity of Speedway (and Stocks) getting back in to very much possibly improved facilities under the new Billionaire Owners. 

Unfortunately timescales would be 5-7 years. 

Maybe they can install a boxing ring for forum scribes to sort their differences out in, and see whose heads wobble and whose don't? 😄

And as for timescales for things like Metro extensions and train stations - don't expect this within the lifetime of most of the Brummies fans. Looking at the pace of development of the Metro, (measured in yard per year) and the lack of funding for its future, I doubt if I'll live long enough to see that happen, let alone anyone older than me.

[Speedway fan]

ALAN GRAHAME MEMORIAL DATE MOVED (AGAIN!)—NOW MONDAY OCTOBER 7^TH

 

With the Premiership play off final now moved to Monday 30^th September with the 2^nd leg at Leicester postponed on Thursday , the Birmingham promotion have made the sensible decision to not run against it.

This is partly due to rider availability but also how it would affect the attendance with people either going to the meeting or watching it on Eurosport.

Brummies co-promoter Laurence Rogers has the unenviable task of sorting the logistics for the meeting and ensuring the four teams have riders! He said, “ well I’ve had to change the  date  a few times now and tie in the availability of the riders to represent the four Midlands teams. I am hoping the majority, if  not all, of the riders who were due to line up on the 30^th will be able to ride on October 7^th. It’s also ensuring we have the medical cover, security and staff in place and that the stadium is available that day! We also have five sponsors in place for the meeting and they can hopefully be in attendance plus our commercial manager Steve Rolleston has several possible sponsors for 2025 due to be there. “

“We also have had a good response for advance tickets including a lot taking up the Gold VIP ticket so again I have to make sure all those who have booked so far are able to make the new date. It’s not too late for fans of any of four sides – Birmingham, Cradley, Wolverhampton or Coventry to pre-book on this Trybooking link :  https://www.trybooking.com/uk/DUNT

We will be confirming the riders for each side once the confirmations are  received .”

 

[GiveusaB]

Good call....'common sense' !

[BryanUgest]

Brummies co-promoter Laurence Rogers has the unenviable task of sorting the logistics for the meeting and ensuring the four teams have riders! He said, “ well I’ve had to change the  date  a few times now and tie in the availability of the riders to represent the four Midlands teams. I am hoping the majority, if  not all, of the riders who were due to line up on the 30^th will be able to ride on October 7^th. It’s also ensuring we have the medical cover, security and staff in place and that the stadium is available that day! We also have five sponsors in place for the meeting and they can hopefully be in attendance plus our commercial manager Steve Rolleston has several possible sponsors for 2025 due to be there. “

“We also have had a good response for advance tickets including a lot taking up the Gold VIP ticket so again I have to make sure all those who have booked so far are able to make the new date.

He's the best in the business is old Laurence!   Lets hope that the Stadium, the medical team and security are all available, as the logistics of getting riders must be a nightmare as well as contacting all those advance ticket holders.