Workington Comets owner Laura Morgan expressed renewed belief that the sport would survive in the town after a huge fan turnout at a meeting about the club’s future.

More than 100 supporters packed into the town’s Waverley Hotel tonight to hear Morgan, co-promoter Steve Whitehead, team manager Tony Jackson and commercial manager Dan Moody speak about their vision for the club.

The management team appealed to supporters to attend and share their opinions and ideas to help secure Comets’ long-term future, and their loyal following obliged.

The Comets owner finished with a heartfelt speech and suggested she would leave the meeting with a strong belief that the sport would survive in the town.

She said: “My dream eventually is to find a piece of land somewhere in Workington, build our own speedway track with a training track on the inside of it, with our own bar.

“That’s my dream for Workington speedway and that’s why we’re here tonight, to start making my dream come true.”

The meeting was called after Morgan suggested the current state of the club was not sustainable in the long-term and called on supporters to help.

Morgan began by confirming that speedway would be running in the town next season and also announced that, subject to certain approvals, star rider Kenneth Hansen would be returning as part of the line-up.

She also suggested there should be a follow-up meeting in the future.

One fan asked about increased leaflet and poster distribution, to which Morgan responded that if fans volunteered to deliver leaflets they would be happy to provide them.

Morgan later added: “Going into schools or shows, taking out posters, these are things that I believe I’ve had enough people coming forward to get a committee together for, which I’m happy to be a part of.

“We need a team of people who are happy to help out with that so if we create a diary of local events, people can say they can do this or help out with that, even just one or two shows or schools during the season.”

The suggestion of a debenture which could yield particular benefits for supporters who contributed led to about 40 people expressing interest in the idea and prompted Whitehead to offer a round of applause “from the bottom of my heart.”

He added: “These things are fantastic but we need people to pick up and run with them.”

On the question of how sponsorship was performing, Moody said: “It’s pretty consistent over the three years, but getting new businesses involved has been very difficult.

“Getting in front of the right person at the right time is hard so we need anyone with contacts or ideas to come see me and try to get me a window in front of them.”

Another fan floated the idea of building a team of local riders to be more cost effective, to which Whitehead said: “That’s what we’re hoping to do and that’s what Laura’s committed to do to make sure that in three or four years time your Comets team will be full of local lads, but it can’t be done yet.”