Promoters Feedback Through this page Poole co-promoter Matt Ford will attempt to answer questions and issues raised by supporters Matt makes no apologies for providing the viewpoint from the perspective of Poole Speedway Ltd and admits "some of my responses will, I guarantee, not being what the supporters want to hear. I would also emphasise that I am looking at this from the business perspective and may not be necessarily what I, Matt Ford the person, would want. It is vital that for future sustainability of the sport that we look at the bigger picture on a number of issues.

One bone of contention has been public access to the pits. "This is an area which I will have to look into in more detail. As far as I was concerned the public had access to the pits up until 7pm and if that is not happening then I will investigate why. I do acknowledge however that there needs to be some barrier control between the riders equipment and the general public. When we first began to promote here we had riders who were happy for the pit area to be full but we then employed someone who was very much against that arrangement and wanted fans to be kept at a distance as they didn't want to be pushed for room. In all honesty because of other things I am doing around that time of the evening I am rarely in that region of the stadium and therefore unable to comment on the specific arrangements but now this has been raised I will speak to the people concerned and gain a better understanding of what is happening. and if they have changed in the last year or so then I will ask the questions why. I will say that there has not been any specific directive from Poole Speedway Ltd that prevents people having access to the pits up to 7pm race nights.

Why does Poole Speedway not offer incentives for the youngsters to attend Speedway - "I could answer this by re-directing the question and ask 'when was the last time admission prices for children actually increased' and I think most people will be surprised to learn that it was 21 years ago! They were £4 in 1988 and are still £4 today. During that time everything and I mean everything has gone up in costs and so we have effectively pegged the prices of children back to try and make things overall more affordable for the families, We also offer the Family ticket option which does provide a discount and we have occasionally offered special deals but these can really only be one-offs. At this point I would like to say that almost everything I read and hear are people saying give more away and I can categorically say that if anyone wants to take the risk and challenge me on this then come and see me. I would be more than happy for them to take the risk on gate receipts. I will let them run the meeting and they can charge people what they like to come in. They will still have to pay the riders and all the normal expenses of the club but if they think that it will put 500 on the gate by allowing kids to come in for a quid, say, then they are sadly being misled. But there it is my door is open the challenge is there so if anyone is out there who is willing to take that risk then I will willingly bite their hand off.

No incentives for Season Tickets, is another topic regularly debated - "Let me start by dispelling another myth and that is there is very little made on interest from monies paid early in purchasing speedway tickets as this is generally used in contributing to the signing on fees and so when I hear people advocating that we should be giving something back to those people that choose to shell out early to buy their season vouchers then it would once again actually cost the club money to do so. However, I will take on board a number of the comments on this issue and in 2009 it could well be that we will make a change to the season ticket arrangements. On the flip side though that could well mean we cut out the Press Day gala arrangement which, in all honesty costs the club a good few thousand pounds, and use that saving to finance a 'free' meeting for season voucher buyers. On this point I can honestly say that I do not actively promote and advertise season vouchers. I do not force season tickets down anybody's throats it is a personal choice There is a lot of extra administrative work in providing the option and we will continue to do so whilst there is demand but please don't run away with the thought that speedway tickets are massive money spinners. I don't make any money on them, yes you could say people are buying 20 weeks in advance but you know the majority of people who buy the tickets would in all probability still come along each week if there wasn't the facility."

How can the promoters justify the slashing of the Elite league points limit and team strengths- "I think the term 'slashing' is a bit drastic, we did not 'slash'' the points limit. From 42 to 38.85 is not a slash, adjustments were made to try and make all teams competitive and you have to look now and accept the fact that there are six clubs that can definitely win the league so that is a point proved that what was done at the AGM potentially was correct. Now to pick up on that term slashing, which I don't think the points limit were, let me put things into perspective. If I had reduced admissions relative to the adjustment of the points limit then no-one would claim I would have slashed admissions would they? And whilst I am touching on admission prices I believe many people think that because we held admission prices this year we also held expenses. Well that is another myth. I will say here and now that all of my riders, except one, actually had an increase so hence the reasons why now I am saying that things in the whole of British speedway are tough because we have all given our riders an increase and haven't raised our prices to compensate for it. That can't be sustainable can it and therefore we have to continue to look at ways to balance things up. We had to act this winter and in the interests of British speedway I honestly feel that the decisions made were for the overall good of the sport in this country. We were faced with some clubs claiming that if they didn't have a competitive team they would not run. Now I can't say how truthful they were actually being but they brought that standpoint to the table and so we had to do something. We certainly couldn't have afforded to have lost any more clubs now could we. It would be wrong and unfair of me to name names but there were two clubs who claimed they would not run if there weren't changes and we just would not have been able to run a league on seven teams, that would have been unworkable and we would also have risked losing the Sky contract so there had to be decisions made to appease those clubs. None of the decisions were easy ones to make, but it was easy to know that without those decisions speedway for all of us would not have been sustainable. I laughably read about the things that have been said about which way I voted but after a lot of soul searching by all the promoters, many of whom in the room I must say only had their own self interests at heart, but I can honesty say, holding my head height, that my vote for 38.85 was because in the overall interests of the league that was the best option. It didn't exactly do my club any immediate favours, we had just shelled out on Jason Crump and had to let him go which was embarrassing in itself, but I don't deem that to have been a mistake.

So what about the next AGM, will it be tweaked further - "In truth I think that there are much bigger problems than just a points limit to be addressed. Clearly, with just nine teams we are meeting each other far too often and there are so many other problems in everyone's lives at this point of time and unfortunately many people only want to pick the sport to believe that there are problems, But I can guarantee that of many of our speedway patrons who at this point in time enjoy employment at present may not, if the country continues to fold as it currently is and it has been predicted that this will be the case, be able to afford weekly speedway. So rather than risk people picking and choosing their meetings and having a diluted attendance each week perhaps we need to have not so many meetings but make sure that the entertainment is absolutely right when they came. So if you were to say what would your perfect scenario be at the next BSPA meeting first and foremost I would have to say as a speedway purist, someone who has come like everyone else on a weekly basis, up to the time I bought the club, it would be horrible to lose weekly speedway and go to fortnightly. That is what the purist in me says. I don't want to only watch a meeting once a fortnight, I would want it every week. The club, not Matt Ford, the club cannot sustain that. So, forget Matt Ford now, the club will not continue to trade on the current basis that it runs, So the question is do we support 18 fixtures or do we insist on 28 and put the club out of business? Unquestionably there are an element of people that if they could only watch Poole once a week then there is a percentage of them, small as it may be, that would travel away and watch us away from home and likewise we would have that from the visiting fans coming here. You see, this business makes money until it opens the turnstiles! Every time we open the gates it cost us money. I read an interesting comment on the Forum recently when this point was being discussed and they said how would they make their money if they opened less frequently. Well that person has totally missed the point I am afraid. This isn't just a Poole problem, it's not just a speedway problem it is something that is affecting all sports. To move this point into another sphere, let's reflect and remember a t this moment in time Lewis Hamilton is the star of Formula 1 and the one time he will appear in the UK people will flock to see him, incidentally quite prepared to pay £100, and that is for the places further away from the action. But even if Lewis was to appear three, four or five times the promoters of those meetings would find it in ever increasingly difficult to keep selling the fact that is 'in town'. And I feel that we are facing that very predicament with the same teams regularly coming to Poole, and people are picking and choosing when they come along. This is something I will come back to later I am sure.

About making the speedway evening is one of more entertainment, how about filling the event with supporting acts, such as local bands playing live - "Yes a good point and one that I am glad has been raised. I am 100% backing the view of making the evening more entertaining and is something that we all have to look at. But lets start with the supporting acts idea. We would never get approval from the council for Live Bands because we have people living less than 100metres away from the stadium who would not tolerate it. They have to put up with the speedway, which many of them think is bad enough, but at least to our advantage is that we have been here for 60 years and that is not the case of the residents, most of whom bought their properties knowing of the existence of the speedway racing. The Council though would not entertain regular Live Bands in the stadium, you might be able to get permission once or twice but it would have to be under special circumstances. So effectively that is ruled out, although I would love to be able to host live bands here.. Performing animals is a non-starter as we have high-revving machinery operating and so we would have to look for other types of support acts. But, I do believe that we could look more inwardly and make some radical changes to the meeting structures. Let me explain. All too often I read about the 7th rider in a team being brought in simply because he fits the averages and is effectively the 'canon fodder' in the side and to be perfectly honest I can't argue with that. I sympathise with that viewpoint and have to agree it happens all too often. So why don't we go to 6-man teams and, I don't advocate doing away with the points limit per se,as I feel that it is a necessary evil otherwise the imbalance in competitiveness would re-occur and the richest clubs would win everything - and Poole would not be one of those believe me, so on this point there is some self club-interest! But we pro-rata the points limit to allow for the strong sides to be built by each club,and impose a minimum average so that we can create teams with riders of nearer ability and hence competitive. Combined with the once a week speedway proposal we would almost certainly entice the likes of Nicki Pedersen, Peter Karlsson and Tomasz Gollob back to British speedway, who incidentally didn't want to ride in British speedway because we have about 50 or meeting but would be happier to ride here again with fewer meetings. I would like to think that also we would be able to build on the Academy Team as a supporting act as we are still very keen on that and Garry May is having a very difficult time in getting teams to ride against this year. But wouldn't it be good if every team when they went away took an Academy level side with them so when, say Belle Vue rider their one league match here we follow it with 6 or 8 heats of lower level racing. I mentioned earlier that one of the necessary evils of British speedway was the points limit but I think the biggest evil is the guest rider ruling. I would dearly love to see us get to a position where we could abolish guest riders and introduce a true squad system. From the squad, of say 9 riders, a team can select any 6 riders to race in a meeting - subject to certain criteria of team strength. If a rider is out through injury then that team would have to cover his absence from one of the squad. So, the scenario could be that Swindon have Leigh Adams ruled out so they would have to call on one of their other squad members. If, there is a difference between the rider missing and the rider drafted in then the team would simply be allowed to 'strengthen up' provided they dropped one of the other riders so that the combination of six riders complies with the maximum points lime, so for instance, if Adams was missing then the Swindon could call upon Damian Balinski and Tomasz Chrzanowski but would have to stand-down say James Wright to ensure they are within the points limit. Would the riders be happy with that? Well it happens in Sweden, only recently Daniel Davidsson scored 9 points for them but the following week he couldn't get a ride because his average didn't fit in with the combination they selected. That may sound harsh on Daniel but I have to say that it is a good system and a far better system than our guest system currently is. Would riders be unhappy about not having guest rides? Well if you ask riders how many guest appearances they really want to take then if they answered truthfully it would be very few. Such a system would have perhaps allowed us to keep both Jason and Bjarne this season and used them on a rotational, horses for courses basis. I believe that if we were to go down this route we could well attract some of the 'drifting fans' back to the sport. I accept that these proposals may not suit the regular come-every-meeting supporter but harsh as it sounds we have to look at the wider picture and increase the fan base. That means tempting the drifters to come for each meeting. When I first began watching speedway I used to be itching for the night when Ivan Mauger, Peter Collins, Barry Briggs etc would be coming to Poole. Now unfortunately we can see the top visiting riders all too frequently. How many times has Chris Harris ridden at Poole this season? As a leading opponent we should be able to tap into the appeal that he has when Coventry are visiting and attract the floaters that want to see him ride. But when he is here on a near monthly basis the appeal of seeing him against the Pirates is not as great as it should be each time.".

There has been a European competition mooted. How do you see that happening - "This is something that does excite me and I believe we should be taking seriously. If we can be advertising around the town, on the radio and television that the Poole Pirates are riding in a European match at Poole Stadium then I firmly believe that we can attract some of the town folk to come along and see a meeting. Not necessarily speedway fans but the mere appeal of a European competition can often be enough to entice people to take more than just a passing interest. Wouldn't it be good if one week we had Czestochowa, another week Wroclaw, another Stockholm for instance. And it might be that we could be able to incorporate this on a weekly basis during the summer, when as a holiday town our catchment base is at its greatest. That might mean we start later in the season, say at April and unlike this season we don't always work around Easter, which in truth, from a business point of view the early Easter this year served only to crucify us, and I know that to be the case with other businesses too, not just speedway. There is a fair amount of talking still needed on the European concept but it has been something I have been contemplating for several seasons and we came very close to getting a pilot scheme off the ground in 2004. Now it is the time to move this up the agenda, You know the strange thing is that with the way travel costs are at the moment it might actually prove cheaper for fans to travel away to European meetings than some of the British ones.