Big Al

One of the key questions for me is what sort of relationship will there be, between promoters (?) and landlord (DH). Will DH be capable of standing back enough, and staying stood back, when it comes to running speedway operations, including keeping behind any clearly defined lines as will be set out by the negotiations? Or will he start acting like a back seat driver? It will be difficult for him to stop regarding Leicester speedway as his "baby" and find it hard to let go. What I would fear is that the new promoters turn out to be basically DH's puppets and it becomes promoting by proxy.In the long term interests it's probably best if he were out of the picture completely,but it sounds like that isn't going to happen. Let us hope that any new promoters are good and strong enough to stand their ground and the agreement covers all the bases from their point of view. Maybe that's why it's taking time to thrash out. Even to the point of walking away if DH is not being reasonable. Meanwhile Rye House have got off to a flier putting their "Saturday" team together with riders whose availability is unlikely to be mucked up by weekend demands from Polish clubs.

And of course his reputation for pi**ing off people who have helped him and whose goodwill he needs.Even if someone agrees to his terms (or if he manages to compromise) you can see it being only a matter of time until a big falling out occurs. In the long term it may be better for the Council to go through the trouble of getting shot.

If one of Lenny Lion's recent posts is anything to go by (long list of conditions, top league only, weekend racing only) your confidence in DH seems questionable. As for putting in his own money, theres no doubt that he's put in a lot of his time, but other information suggests that he's raised money in various ways rather than from his own pocket.

How would Peter Kildemand go around the Oaktree?

Well Flagrag that may indeed be correct and the council are taking a pragmatic approach as long as they are receiving their annual rent and business rates payments. But it seems that for those payments to continue beyond this year, the small matter of a new speedway promotion is required in order for Mr Hemsley's company to continue making those payments, and not default and risk having the lease revoked. It's not as though the land or the stadium is currently able to generate the required income by any other means than speedway. Of course I hope that a new, professional promotion will come in and take over, and make a success of it. And if that were to be announced tomorrow, even better. But over the past 5 years I've heard and read a lot about how volatile and difficult a person Mr Hemsley is to deal with, and you cant help thinking that it's all true. You can't help thinking that as a landlord, he would be difficult to deal with, and so you can easily imagine that any negotiations such as any currently happening, are proving to be difficult - unless he's taking a pragmatic, flexible and realistic approach. It's easy to imagine potential new promoters ending up by telling him to stuff it and walk away. If that happens, will DH be bothered about Beaumont Park any longer? The BSPA would prioritise keeping Belle Vue going and would let Leicester go hang.

The City Council granted a lease to D.Hemsley's development company back in 2010/11 on the land which includes the stadium, and was conditional on other facilities being built. We all know this hasn't happened. The proposals were re-worked a couple of years ago, supposedly tightening up the specifics with a tight timescale and basically retaining the original conditions. Little has changed since.Hemsley's speedway company was given pretty much Carte Blanche by his development company from what I can make out - whilst still being in breach of the majority of the lease conditions for Beaumont Park. So now it seems he is wanting to play hardball with a new speedway company,whilst at the same time the Council could pull the plug on the whole thing if they get their act together. Also,if you rent the use of a stadium, you want to deal with reasonable, stable and honest people.....

Until Leicester City Council gets its act together and boots D.Hemsleys company out of its lease of Beaumont Park, then there will continue to be problems for whoever is trying to run speedway. Maybe the prospective new promoters are starting to find out what dealing with him is really going to be like. If so, they should have known. My guess is the AGM accepted 9 clubs into the Premiership, including Belle Vue and Leicester, with the likelihood that at least one of them will be unable to take part. In Leicester's case, maybe it would be better to sit out a year while the City Council deals properly with getting rid of the current cancer, the track can be sorted out properly during the summer, and new promoters have proper chance to re-staged the whole thing the way they want it to be run.

The City Council is involved then? (image of a snail comes to mind). Does this mean that DH's company is relinquishing its lease, or maybe the lease is being revoked? There would seem to be no shortage of grounds for invoking the latter. If I were a prospective new promoter, having DH's company as landlord would be an off-putting factor - in fact I wouldn't touch it with the world's longest bargepole

From what I've read recently, and this includes open knowledge, it's quite possible there will only be 2 league levels next season. National League and Premier League. (or whatever they are re-branded as.

1 valve I think society has changed though, and "leisure activities" are now far more of a 7-days a week thing rather than just weekends. This includes doing the weekly shopping at varying times. Also peoples work patterns have changed, with the increase of things like zero hours contracts, self-employment, part time work, and people sometimes juggling all of that, plus the leisure activities stuff. Grandparents are more involved with childcare. it all seems far more complicated than the "old days" . The level of competition for peoples leisure time and leisure pound is huge nowadays. No longer a case of "Tuesday night is speedway night" - it's more like "Tuesday night is x night, and x night, and oh yes, it's speedway night as well". The product's got to be good enough, and value for money. What constitutes "good enough" and getting the price right, is what's most crucial.

All depends on the product. The Elite League (or whatever it's called) has to be appealing enough to generate interest and not have daft rules and schemes. The racing's got to be close and exciting. Meeting presentation needs to be slick and professional. The team needs to be in with a real chance of winning the title, with riders who are prepared to give it a go for all four laps. A promotion which doesn't bulls##t and con people Realistic and affordable pricing. Get those right and it hardly matters which night it takes place. If it's worth going, people will turn up, including Sky. Can it be done?

Martin Rogers, Sam Ermolenko, come back and sort out this crock of s##t.

....or Leicester Speedway Ltd was prioritising trying to pay-off the mortgage to the bank.......maybe a combo of both? Anyway, going to be interesting to find out if a new company is formed or comes along to take things over, or whether LS Ltd survives and continues to run it.

I thought the interview DD gave to RL began with him sounding less than convincing about 2017, but at the end he was being far more definite and of course he cannot be more specific at the moment. He also said I think, the riders will be paid by the end of October, but it's a shame the interviewer missed the chance to ask if that means "paid in full" or just paid something. Again, he couldn't be more specific about the "off-track problems", but did refer to D.Hemsley's Architect businesss in that context. I think it's called Sporting Lion Ltd. Maybe he was so busy with it, that his time and attention for speedway suffered. And/ or maybe that business was having difficulties. If it was the latter, then Sporting Lion Ltd may have been calling-in money owed to it by Leicester Speedway from back in 2010/2011 for the cost of their/D.Hemsley's services, leaving the coffers of Leicester Speedway a bit short this year. But not having access to any accounts, i couldn't possibly comment on that. Credit to DD for at least being honest, if a bit belatedly.

David Hemsley wrote in the Leicester v Poole programme dated 31/8/15: " I suppose at this stage of our season we should be considering where we position the club going forward particularly with an AGM of the BSPA not too far in the future. I feel my aim would be to get the clubs represented on an equal footing and start to bring the sport more aligned to the professional organisations with the sports and leisure industry that I am used to dealing with on a day to day basis. I do think this will be a challenge to avoid the debacles such as the position we had with UKVI last year, and I can see similar issues presenting themselves in future, but with the right personnel steering the British Speedway ship I hope that further rocks can be avoided. Following these key decisions by the members I can then decide how the club should go forward in 2016, and then consider the manner in which we plan the next development of Leicester Speedway." The previous paragraph referred to riders breaking contracts, and something about the club's position on such matters becoming clearer over the coming weeks, and the implications of such actions taken by riders for the sport. Clearly dissatisfaction with the way the sport's run. Is he referring just to the Elite league or the whole set-up? Who are the "right personnel" he refers to? What's the stuff about riders who break contracts? Is Leicester going to take retrospective legal action against them? If the changes he is referring to are not made at the AGM, what's he going to do? Take Leicester back to the PL? Pack the whole thing in? The BSPA making these changes (whilst they may be badly needed) could be about as likely as David Hemsley making major changes to the Leicester track.

All that KL will probably need is 3 bikes between them, to get a 75-0 win

Ok, so put David Hemsley in the Stocks.....and who else? Come on man, name names

May as well count it as both an NL and EL match, with the Leicester team composed entirely of guest riders from Stoke.

With the defensive/aggressive stance of the PZM and its leading clubs, is it time for closer co-operation between the UK and Denmark? It seems they are the two most vulnerable leagues in this scenario.

As Happy Hunter says, there are two companies, they are both limited companies. I'm presuming Kye1 is talking about Leicester Speedway Ltd. The move by D.Hemsley to increase his shareholding does seem designed to give him control following his resignation as a director. I wonder if this has anything to do with the reported divorce (either forthcoming or current) between the Hemsleys, with the possibility of the company being sold. Sounds like Kye1 does need to study those Articles of Association carefully and get in touch with the other shareholders. Would be interesting to know if there has ever been any dividend paid to shareholders, I somehow doubt it!!!

Same with Leicester where D.Hemsley's company (supposedly) has a lease but isn't the landowner, and Y.Hemsley's company (supposedly) runs speedway.But that could all change......

I suppose they're all mercenaries now, eh? Like "real" mercenaries, it can all end very suddenly.

You can hardly blame anyone for being reluctant to stage speedway there while D.Hemsley is still the landlord, with his reputation. The City Council must have ample grounds for revoking the lease on the land which his company holds, and which he has desecrated so badly and failed to deliver on most of the associated planning requirements.

I suppose we will all have to wait till either or both of them have written the book and sold the film rights. They're sure to fly off the shelves at Tesco and The Works!!

Yes, I gather that is the case. The Council's legal department are possibly working on this, if not then maybe they should be.I'm a bit out of date with these things, but if there is no Company Secretary, does a company become illegitimate? It looks as though LS Ltd could have been using one of those "business services" type of companies to fulfil the Company Secretary requirement. Maybe there's a replacement lined up and will be appointed, but normally the resignation/new appointment are both listed as happening on the same day. Which leads you to suspect to these are not normal circumstances.