Hazzman

Might be the case, you need to sadly allow for that. Has the customer said they want to close the track? No. There's only so far blind faith can take you, as much as people hating hearing it maybe Speedway would be better with less track. We need entertaining, well run clubs. The fans want to see improvement. Improvement which was promised. If Hemsley came out and said we simply don't have the money to change the track, fair enough. But he didn't, he promised changes. Even if he said we havent quite got the budget to major alterations, so we will try other alternatives. He never said that but if he did, there would be a lot more respect for him.

What you define as 'having a go', I would define as 'constructive criticism'. The customer is always right remember.

There were and still are a lot of helpful volunteers at Beaumont Park. Quite a lot have left because of Hemsley. That time would be shared across a decent number of people. Ermolenko was the very first to go and then it just continued. As for this raise the money, I find that disappointing in two aspects when people suggest that. Firstly you wouldn't expect any business to get it's customer to pay for the business' mistake. Secondarily, there were volunteers/fans who helped build the 'stadium' under Hemsley's direction. It would be particularly gutting to hear that they would be expected to put money down in order to correct the track. All those hours being considered a loss. We can moan about the track all day long - regardless of how it's dressed up, it's a considerable chunk of money. What is more worrying is the recent news of falling out with sponsors, issues with the tractor hire etc. etc. That suggests a cashflow issue. Didn't Hemsley dismiss the woman who did the books recently?

Worth mentioning because of the lack of top flight meetings in Sweden. The likes of Jonsson and Lindback ride in the Swedish second tier to help with the bills.

BSPA are becoming more and more like the Polish/Russian authorities during the Iron Curtains years. Afraid of change, afraid of adapting to Speedway in a new era and don't want to see British riders thinking 'outside of the box'.

My personal feeling is that Elite League would eventually kill the current promotion. Give it three months and I think the bills would not be equal to the gate receipts. Hear hear. Like most sports, fans want open-ness. As it stands passive fans like me will not go due to the lack of entertainment. In Leicester, if you are a sport outside of football and rugby...you've firstly got to be successful and then make a show of it, the Basketball team are currently doing that leading to sell-out whether their matches are in Leicester, Loughborough or this weekend at Wembley. Another person you can stick in the 'dismissed' category with Hemsley. Surely many can see why the likes of Volty are worried about the whole promotion? The bottom line is we all care about Speedway in Leicester and Speedway in general. The fanbase will always be split with postitive and negative; some fans will be encourage by the promotion's decisions, others not so. I personally believe the reason why there is such a furore over the track etc. is that everyone connected to Leicester Speedway etc. including fans etc. had a dream of seeing Speedway back in their city and then this dream was painted to them in artist impressions with full scale plans. Those plans were far from the reality but most of us thought 'well to be fair it's a decent arena for a sport like Speedway still and if the track's alright, I don't really care'. When you've not had your own club for so long, the winning doesn't matter so much, the racing does (particularly when you had Blackbird Road as a home track - another factor for the 'moans') The track is not alright, it's a disaster really but the promotion promise changes. Changes which end up minimal. Then the promise is made again but it's minimal, in fact the distance added is a bit of joke IMO. It's as if I made changes, so the problem with the fans now. Can't help but feel that Hemsley was a victim of his own ambition. When the finance didn't come through, rather than scale down the plans and provided a great track with minimal facilties, he wanted an 'arena' but the money was never there for day one to do such a project. Ultimately his vision of the arena differed with that of a lot of fans (or dormant fans) wanted (e.g. a great track). Maybe sometimes that ambition translates into arrogance and ignorance to some people who worked extremely hard to get the track built and then get the team ticking over. It's that same streak which probably made him a champion of his sport and he uses the same approach - bit like Bradley Wiggins, hardly makes him an amicable bloke. I think it's gutting for a lot of Leicester folk because you see Scunthorpe's approach to build their track and creating their club bit by bit to make something brilliantly successful.

It's a lot different; a player doesn't play for two different teams in the same week. They have to be at another club for a minimum of a month. There are also lots of restrictions on ages and numbers. For example, in the Premiership a player must be loan for the minimum of six months (transfer window to transfer window). No point comparing Football to Speedway.

And it continued to rain on and off on Saturday evening.

I suspect not a lot of people have heard of it but I suspect 'Inside Speedway' are basing themselves on the success of the Blizzard. The Blizzard is a quarterly football magazine which adopts a pay what you like policy. Most of it's readership is subs. It's very no frills i.e. very little adverts or glossy features, instead it concentrates on providing the very best journalism regards football. It almost allows a media where a journalist can go into great detail regards a subject. I'd say the articles are either historical, interviews or in depth investigations as opposed to 'news'. Ultimately it's providing something different from what else is out there. They can not afford to publicily stock the magazine in newsagents etc. So it relies on word of mouth. The success is in the quality. If it's not very good, it will fail. If it's good, it may break about even and continue producing.

Theres a condition of the planning permission regards the programme of the overall site. That would be the first issue with the Council. Then the lease which is favourable to BSC Ltd. and had a set time for review after the first few years of the Speedway was in operation. It's time for that review. Typically on the Councils side certain people have left albeit retirement or redundancy.

Business is not necessarily the issue. It's became more political and very complex. There were other missed opportunities at the time and in a city which elects it's mayor, the councillors feel a bigger need to score points. Without going into detail, the approval of the 'sports complex' had a lot of knock-on effects elsewhere which included missed grants for the land, the proposed extension of a school and destruction of a velodrome. I'll admit to not knowing anymore about it though. I don't know a lot of particulars either but there's a lot of talking about the lease on the land. Hoodwinked is an apt word.

Spot on. I am the sort of casual fan the club need to target. First season I went about ten meetings and then gave up on the track. Went one meeting last year to see a slight improvement albeit largely down to a better Leicester team. This season after a couple of months of tweaking with the surface, I'll visit again. If the track fails to dish up worthy entertainment, I probably will not return until further alterations have been achieved. I've had friends ask about visiting and work colleagues but I have told them to save their money; as the experience of meetings in the past two season would probably kill their interest altogether. However, without wishing to worry anyone I think the big issue regards Leicester Speedway will eventually be the rest of the site. Opposition is building to the eyesore of landfill and the rest of the land being under used (particularly as some of it was proposed to be be used as football pitches etc. as part of a Football Foundations scheme). The local community lost a facility in parkland and recreation and Beaumont Park as a whole would probably be the cheapest option in providing that facility again in the local area. The Speedway club missed a couple of chances to house other minority sport teams on the site. I can feel a storm brewing on it.

Interesting point. You can under a slight different guise I.e. lots of 5 a side leagues without FA affiliation. So if you dress it up slightly different, ie. differing format may you could. The disturbing point here really is how dismissive the BSPA/SCB has been. Most sporting leagues have to hold affiliation with the national body and very, very rarely are the leagues/competitions dismissed with such ignorance.

16 riders and the entourages may be looked after but what about tourists etc?

Personally think Togliatti is a red herring. The mayor who heavily supported the Speedway club is now in jail for corruption. The city's crime rate is booming and it's been a victim of Chechen terrorist attacks.

All of this I can totally see and agree with.

They are! The other week when the only football on all weekend was Spanish between 7 and 11 due to the FA Cup, the following sports were on:- Second tier Rugby Union, indoor Hockey, speed Snooker and Netball. Bottom line is that Speedway has to compete with these sports for it's television coverage. As it stands Sky have now got more favourable financial deals in place for the likes of Netball, Basketball and Ice Hockey than what they pay to televise Speedway. A lot of minority sports are willing to offer the coverage for free bar the production costs. I am also of the opinion that all Sky Sports cares about is it's audience in Football and Cricket. As along as the audience are achieved due to these sports, they get their money back. ESPN in it's current guise will not be around much longer. Likely to be more exclusive with high concentration on Football from South America, Italy and Germany.

If they are loaded.....well that will be the case throughout the season and has been for the past two seasons, Tigers/City often clash against on the same day as Lions but at differing times. The decision is up to the individual. So it's irrelevant really about the Coventry game. I could personally leave home at 7.20pm and be there for tapes up at Beaumont Park. The choice is again the individual's. The two don't clash, if you are willing to miss ten minutes of either event you can still make it.

Except Coventry will be kicking off at 3pm leaving more than enough time to be there for tapes up. The Derby v Leicester game will however be kicking off at 5.20pm. Still should be finished by 7.20pm, leaving local a good chance to watch the game on the box and still be at the Speedway if they wish.

Couple of things: Nice to hear these riders want to join us, must be the reptuation as ontime payers of money. Encouraged that win or lose, this is a team which if the track changes work will be excellent team to watch and support. Will certainly try to visit early on next season. Bit of a tail but Graversen is good for a few points at home and here's hoping one of the other three have a breakthrough season.

Well it's difficult to say who will be riding in the Series when qualification will not begin until April. As of yet, it's difficult to say if Masters or Bjerre will be away for a number of meetings

Jim, I think the majority know the track isn't good and it needs adapting. Little tweaks have been made and some successful, others not. Some don't agree with Hemsley's way (stubborness), others more supportive (still learning) whilst some who can't work out tbh are very supportive of the promotion. However, the constant posts knocking the track, knocking the fans, knocking the promotion are not constructive in any manner. If an opinion is to say 'I don't like the track for reasons a, b and c. I think the following should be done'. Fair enough. But just a stream of the same opinion of 'this is crap' is tiresome.

Lions need to pull off the biggest upset since their second coming. Can't see it but a more than solid season this year

My first visit since the Glasgow massacre. The racing had improved slightly, mainly because the riders have sussed the lines which work. Oh hum...got me out of the house on a Sunday afternoon. Still a work in progress.

I am surprised that the Poles weren't exempt from the GP restrictions.