SINCE taking over the club in the winter of 2021/22, the Directors of Birmingham Speedway have sought to be transparent with supporters over the issues and challenges we have faced over the continuation of the sport at Perry Barr.
We feel it is now the correct time to provide an update on the future, and our prospects of racing in the ROWE Motor Oil Premiership once again in 2025.
It was no secret that during our final two years in the Championship that attendances regularly fell well short of break-even and substantial additional funding was required from the Directors in order to maintain the club’s participation.
The move into the Premiership for 2024, brought about by the change of available race-nights at Perry Barr, has resulted in an encouraging increase in crowd levels, with attendances for several fixtures significantly up on the previous two years.
However, running at Premiership level also involves running with additional costs, and once again the Directors have had to take action during the season to ensure the club has remained on a secure financial footing.
The closing weeks of the season have proved to be particularly difficult, with an imbalance of home and away fixtures during the month of August, and unfortunately of the three home matches staged over that period, the match against King’s Lynn saw us record our lowest crowd of the season for a Premiership meeting.
We also suffered misfortune with the weather earlier in the season, with two crowds in particular for matches against ‘local’ opposition being badly affected by rain.
The Directors are determined to take the club forward if at all possible, and to come to the tapes in the Premiership next year, and we have an agreement in principle that Perry Barr will be available to us for the 2025 season.
There have also been several encouraging conversations with individuals and businesses who would be willing to further support the club next season.
However, due the factors above, and the general economic situation involving business outside of speedway, the club is battling a severe cashflow issue which must be overcome in the coming weeks in order for us to be able to declare our intention to compete in 2025.
We are bringing this to public attention because, unfortunately, we are not confident that in the short term this is an issue which can be resolved purely from the resources of the Directors and other existing club benefactors.
We must be able to start 2025 with a clean slate if we are to compete, and whilst we have been able to achieve this over the past two winters, we cannot currently say that will be the case for next year – and if the situation does not change over the next month or so, we would be unable to declare.
We must stress that it is not our wish or intention to liquidate the club, or to place an unrealistic value on a sale when the future beyond 2025 is clearly highly uncertain due to the changes at the stadium.
What we do want to do is make sure we are there next year, and it seems the only way that can be achieved is via external funding which will help alleviate the current cashflow issue.
We believe this can be achieved by bringing together a relatively small group of individuals, or businesses, who would be willing to assist us at this crucial time.
If you would like to come on board with the club, and help us into the 2025 season, please contact us at commercial@birmingham-speedway.com and we will be happy to discuss matters in full confidentiality.
Finally, given the financial circumstances and the current lack of rider availability due to other fixtures, we feel we have no option but to cancel the planned final meeting of the season at Perry Barr on 7th October.
We feel it would be wrong to take the risk of staging this event and potentially worsening our current position, and our intention therefore would be that the Alan Grahame Memorial instead forms the opening meeting of the 2025 season.
We realise this update will not necessarily be in line with expectations; however, we wanted to lay out the current situation clearly, and the possibility of solutions, before tough decisions must be taken.
Words by Birmingham Speedway – Feature Image by Jeff Higgott
