The Wightlink Warriors’ season has been cut short with the final meeting of 2023 cancelled due to a lack of available riders.
It’s said that the Warriors could not raise a team of more than 5 riders for tomorrow’s planned season finale, with opponents Rye House only able to secure 4 riders. Furthermore, 3 riders would have been missing from the Training Challenge Championship, also due to be held on Thursday.
Warrior bosses say that at this stage they do not know if the meeting can be re-scheduled, but they are looking at all options as it is a far from ideal way to end the season.
Co-Owners Barry Bishop and Martin Widman have said:
“For now, we would like to thank all of our fans and sponsors for your commitment, our riders too for all your efforts and finally our volunteers who do such a superb job week in week out.
“We will announce our end of season party date soon so keep an eye open for that”.
Much as I enjoy speedway, attending meetings in Leicester, Coventry and the Isle of Wight over the years, it does seem to me that the sport is pretty well dead on its feet in the UK. Loads of clubs closing down and attendances pretty dire. It’s a shame, but no doubt all the tree hugging, climate warriors will be happy.
Always blame someone else eh? Went to speedway at Smallbrook once, fairly recently. I think it is one of the worst sports venues I’ve been to, a decrepit stadium that looks like nothing has been done to it since about 1975.
The sport only has itself to blame.
Who exactly do you think I am “blaming” IsleKnow? I am simply stating a fact as I see it, I don’t know what the reason for the decline is. What you say about the venue is true, it is not a pretty sight, however it seems that the people running speedway venues these days are fans of the sport who do not have wads and wads of cash to invest. This is a countrywide issue in speedway, not just one that affects Smallbrook.