Matt Maher: Loss of speedway would be a disaster for the city

For the club’s long-time promoter Chris Van Straaten, meanwhile, it summons the kind of emotions for which there really are no words.

Now a month on from first being told of Entain group’s bombshell decision, the man who has run speedway in Wolverhampton since 1986 is still unable to find phrases which do justice to the personal torment it has caused.

If you were to back anyone to find a path through a crisis, it would be Van Straaten. The 72-year-old has seen off numerous threats to the club’s existence before, not least the pandemic, which pushed things to the brink.

But he’s never faced a problem like this. There is no alternative venue in the city to which the club can move.

The history of speedway tells us if you lose your home, your days are numbered. Just ask fans of Cradley Heathens, now nearly three decades after they were forced out of Dudley Wood.

Van Straaten was part of the promotions team which got the Heathens back on track – ironically enough, at Monmore – and then spent nearly 10 years searching for a permanent home in the Black Country without success. He might be a fighter but he’s a realist too. He knows that in making this decision, Entain has put the future of Wolves speedway at serious risk.

It is why the decision is deserving of more scrutiny and explanation than a 210-word press release, complete with a few cold quotes from the company’s “transformation and experience director”. Whatever one of those is.

Entain, an international firm which owns an array of gambling brands including Ladbrokes, Coral and PartyPoker, say the decision has not been made lightly. As owner of the venue, it is entitled to simply say that business is business.

Except that sport is and never can be just business. There is no other pursuit to which so much emotion and history is attached. Speedway has been part of Monmore since the stadium first opened in 1928. Now it is to be discarded.

Whatever Entain’s claim, this looks a decision reached rather abruptly. Wolves have traditionally had a rolling three-year lease and Van Straaten says discussions over its renewal were proceeding normally until, in February, he was delighted to receive the offer of a four-year deal.

Yet the contract, which he signed and submitted on March 1, never received the required counter signature at the other end and barely a fortnight later, he was invited to a meeting at Monmore where two executives who had travelled from London told him the offer was now for just one-year, with no more to follow.

Why the sudden turnaround? It is not as though Premier Racing, the greyhound venture Entain now claims will be the focus of its operation, is brand new. It was first announced in December, 2021. Everyone knew it was coming. What has happened for Entain to decide two sports which have co-existed quite happily together for several decades can no longer?

Van Straaten believes staff based day-to-day at Monmore, with whom relations have always been cordial, have been blindsided by the decision as much as he was.

This appears to have been a decision made hundreds of miles away but which will have its biggest impact right here.

Speedway might not grip Wolverhampton’s collective conscious in the same way football can but it is still a crucial part of its fabric, loved by thousands and helping put the city on the global sporting map, a reason for civic pride. That is what is now at stake.

After the March 16 meeting, Van Straaten carried what he termed his “terrible secret” for a month before yesterday’s official announcement.

The comfort now is this is no longer just his problem, it is everyone’s and the hope must be those in positions of power have the means and the will to back up the words of support which will undoubtedly be uttered in the weeks and months ahead.

The first hope is Entain might understand the ramifications of the decision and reconsider it. If not, Van Straaten needs support in finding the club a new home. The recent track record of local authorities across the UK in assisting the construction of speedway venues is none too clever. Here might be a chance to change it.

The impact on British speedway as a whole will be considerable. In a sport always fighting to stay alive, Wolverhampton are one of its biggest and strongest clubs. Yesterday’s news will have sent shockwaves through teams up and down the country. It comes hot on the heels of Peterborough Panthers, their Premiership rivals, admitting they too are likely to be homeless at the end of the season.

The hard-nosed, business view might be that times and tastes change. But tell that to the fans who still go to Monmore on Monday nights in good number through the summer, for whom speedway has long been a dependable source of excitement, laughter and love.

Some things are worth fighting for. If Wolves speedway disappears, we will all be poorer for it.