Covid rules and masks put punters off watching Eastbourne speedway action

Eastbourne Eagles Ltd Director Ian Jordan sat down with journalist Paul Watson to answer questions about the club’s withdrawal from the 2021 Championship season. We will be running the Q&A in full over a few weeks. Part one can still be viewed here – here is part two.

Paul: In those circumstances (the difficulties caused by 2020’s Covid lockdown and loss of the season), would the Eagles have ever come to tapes this year?

Ian: When I said Covid probably saved us, the paradox is that it probably did. We’d have had to pay back all season ticket monies and the sponsorship we did have before lockdown as opposed to the very generous position, due to Covid, where almost all was carried over thanks to the good grace and understanding of Sponsors and Supporters.

We would effectively have had to start again this Spring in a far worse financial climate than a year before and with very restrictive lockdown restrictions that weren’t actually fully eased until mid July this year.

The team would undoubtedly have been broken up had 2020 happened and with us having to withdraw, they would have needed to ride in the CL in 2020 and it would have been a very different septet that would have started in 2021 and with a genuine shortage of riders I think our side would have been far less attractive.

We fought tooth and nail to retain the 1-7 from 2020 to 2021 as it was as many wanted a reduced points limit, so with no work permit options available at the time, who knows what kind of side we could have built?

Paul: This year began under tight Covid-19 restrictions. What effect do you think the cap on numbers had? How many fans would you have hoped for when Poole came, for example?

Ian: We knew we needed 800 to 850 and were delighted in many ways when Barry Johnson managed to secure a limit of 1,000 just before the first match. We had around 1,000 for the first match, around 925 for the Kent match and we then saw a decline to around 800-850. So, I don’t think the cap on numbers had a massive impact.

What did have a big impact was the requirement to wear masks and to strictly segregate. I think that for the first few matches it was a novelty, everyone was delighted to be out.

Very quickly though there was negativity from some supporters across social media about why they had to wear masks and some even wanted to mount campaigns and complaints to council and Government.

The fact is that the only way we were allowed to run was due to masks and segregation.

As part of the segregation, we had to utilise Stock Car security teams as they were compliant with all of the required compliance and believe me there were thousands of pages of the stuff.

They did a great job in the context that they were there to ensure no regulations were broken and were monitored closely by the council. Again, had they not been there to do that we could not have run. Massive credit must go to them and Barry for the work done.

Unfortunately though, the wearing of masks and the imposition of what some thought was over-draconian security was not popular.