Thanks again to the Fans Trust

NEWS Wednesday 31st October 2018, 10:53am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Monarchs Fans Trust have once again given the promotion of the Staggs Bar Monarchs a generous donation towards stabilising the club and helping to ensure that we have a future.

This time they have handed over £8,500 which brings the total of their donations this calendar year to over £30,000, with a total of over £90,000 since the Trust was set up. It's all too obvious where we would be without the Trust and also the continuing success of the Monarchs Grand Draw (commenced 1993!)

John Campbell described the Trust's latest contribution as "Amazing!" adding "Grateful thanks to the Fans Trust."

John had spoken of the worrying state of finances throughout the sport in his final programme column of the season. He said:

"Back at the end of July we had the opportunity to sign Richie Worrall and we went for it right away believing that it was the missing link in taking our team to the play-offs and knock out cup success with the consequent increased attendances at the closing stages of these competitions. It was a huge financial gamble on our part and, unfortunately, it didn't paid off and we ended the 2018 season with heavy financial losses.

"We are in a similar situation to many tracks in our league. It is a situation that cannot continue for the sake of speedway in this country. I anticipate major changes coming up during the winter as we must stabilise the sport before it disappears. Our sport will come again but we must ensure that we have enough clubs in operation."

Following the Trust's latest donation he said "I am 100% committed to reducing costs to get us to break even in 2019 and we will be looking at ways of increasing revenue from new sources on an ongoing basis."

The promoters' Conference in mid-November has some important work to do, with question marks against a number of clubs in British Speedway.