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flagrag

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Posts posted by flagrag

  3. Posted

    4 minutes ago, Wee Eck said:

    The signing of Hans shows ambition and a complete disregard for Leicester’s finances. It’s no secret that they’ve struggled to pay riders on time in the past and there’s nothing in the way things are this year to suggest that will change.

    I know the press release says the owners will bail them out but what an example to set by the vice chairman? He supports, from his own pocket, a move that basically hands the title to his team and bankrupts them at the same time. 
     

    The other clubs can write off 2021 but they’ll have  the visit of Anderson to boost crowd numbers and, although they can expect to lose at hone, at least they’ll have decent crowds and lower wage bills.

    Meanwhile, Leicester will run up 60+ borefests which will see their crowds drop. Great business move, Mr Bates. 

    I wouldn’t say Hans signing has disregard for the club’s finances, Leicester have had good amounts of fans coming to watch the racing which always goes up during the summer when the football & Rugby are having their summer break it’s not unusual to have an extra 800 fans on a nice summer Saturday night.

    Leicester are also fortunate to have some very good sponsors who help support the club along with a strong supporters club with 50-50 draws nearly always being over the £350 mark meaning that riders don’t have to pay for tyres.

    Looking at the league table Leicester do still have some catching up to do to go above Glasgow and I can foresee Poole being strong challengers for the title as well.

    I understand that Hans was very keen to ride in the Championship but his options for clubs was quite limited by overseas commitments with Denmark on Wednesday & Friday and Polish league on Sunday so only left Saturday clubs as an option 

    • Like 1

  5. Posted

    1 hour ago, iainb said:

    Are the twins involved in the young Lions (national level) at all does anybody know?

    All I ever hear about are the Kemp, Palin, Rowe, Flint etc.

    I've never seen the twins wearing national garb

    The twins are involved with Team GB and Young Lions but with riding for a Saturday home track and having already had away matches at Scunthorpe,Berwick and Newcastle over weekends hence they have not been involved in any meetings on the continent.

    I think it’s fair to say that in their first season of professional racing they are doing well but are probably a bit behind the more experienced riders like Kemp,Flint and Rowe so when limited places are allocated in meetings then places go to these riders.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  7. Posted

    17 minutes ago, Gambo said:

    But after 4H & 4A for the twins to get a true average, Bates would probably be at Reserve.

    My understanding is that the once the required matches are completed Dan will move into the team possibly above Ty with Josh going down  to reserve with Joe which is quite worrying with the amount of time Josh crashes out of meetings and is missing  through injury with guests very limited at reserve 

  8. Posted

    1 hour ago, Lenny Lion said:

    I am sorry but with today’s result Ty Proctor & Josh Bates simply have to go now. I know Josh didn’t ride this weekend but his performances & injury's alone are enough for me. Don’t get me started on Ty Proctor last time i checked you turned the throttle back & the bike left . He rolls the throttle off & turns the bike right almost like he doesn’t want to race. Can anyone who was there tell me if he was the same at Newcastle today ?

     No more excuse or compassion can be given . We all know the only reason they are still in a job is because of their connection to our club owners.

    The next 7 days will be key to what the ambitions of the club are . Strengthen up & we have a fighting chance of the play offs leave the team as it is & we can kiss goodbye to any chance of silverware. 

    I wasn’t at Newcastle myself but from reports of people who were Ty Proctor looked uninterested in racing and even when he got in front soon found himself at the back by going too wide and shutting off too early.

    To make changes even with the Bates family blessing is difficult due to Dan Thompson and both Douglas and & Morris improving their average. So to make one change there is not the riders out there that would make that big difference. 

    The other option is to make two changes and bring in another heat leader and then sign a 2-3point rider but then more pressure on Dan Thompson who would be at 2 or 4 although he seemed to handle the pressure well this weekend. This option may have progress if the right rider becomes available but is complicated with the restrictions on admission to pay for these changes.

    I agree in principle that the season is fast pushing ahead and if Leicester want to push for play offs need to get wins on the road as well as assuring home wins and not allowing visitors to gain any points on their visits to Leicester 

  10. Posted

    35 minutes ago, PHILIPRISING said:

    STEVE was for the first time in his career the floor manager following Steve Brandon's unfortunate injury over the weekend

    The comments I actually made Phil , Was about coverage the week before at Wolverhampton and the Peterborough coverage was a lot better. I just wish Steve would sort out with his OB provider Cloudbass what is going on with the start line camera as it looks like it’s coming from a 90s mobile phone so blurred and out of focus 

    • Like 2

  11. Posted

    It’s pleasing to hear that Josh Auty has escaped serious injuries other than deep concussion as at one point he was quite poorly and it looked like it was going to be a major incident hence why it took so long to get him off track and why none of the medical staff could return to the track until he was in the care of county ambulance who to be fair to last night were very prompt once they knew the potential severity of the injuries.

    Hopefully Josh he will be back on a bike in the next few weeks and to me was just a racing incident

    Stewart was very open and admitted that the  track was too slick to start with but one of the issues you have a Leicester is bends 3 & 4 are not in the sun at the same time during evening meetings so if water heavy just before the start it is very wet coming out of bend 4 . 

    With regards to Sun breaks these are essential for rider safety and a prime example of this was at Scunthorpe on Friday night Adam Roynons crash in heat 15 was caused by sunlight in his eyes 

    On the team front it was good to see Ty Proctor looking more comfortable on the bike and scoring good points, Josh Bates form  is very concerning and it’s not a speed issue he is not getting out of the start and riding wrong lines not just for Leicester but also for Sheffield 

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    3 hours ago, W9 Lion said:

    I have looked at what the riders have achievied this season Morris 10.00, Douglas 9.25, Howarth 8.25, Proctor 3.50, Joe 3.50, Dan 3.25, Bates 2.75.

    Five of the team have increased their averages and two riders have dropped almost seven points between them.

    So what should "the special one" do next....

    Tonight will be a crucial match for some of the Lions riders, It’s time to show what they can do otherwise the Special one will need to be having a delicate discussion with the Bates family 

  13. Posted

    I must admit that the TV production didn’t seem as good this week, with on screen graphic errors and some strange camera work and vision mixing showing close up of race leader while a pass is happening behind and lots of crowd shots which made it harder for Nigel and Kelvin to justify the gaps 

    I just wonder if Steve Saint who usually directs British and GP Speedway was away doing WRC this week and that is why production was not as per normal 

    • Like 2

  14. Posted

    I don’t think it is as simple as just saying going back to Mita’s tyres as British Speedway has signed a large commercial deal with Anlas for a certain quantity of tyres  so it will need to be proved that they are not as specified in original contract.

    This is why SCB and FIM have become involved and have taken a number of tyres away for independent inspection 

  17. Posted

    The issue is often not ambulances but legal medical red tape that holds meetings up when a rider needs to go to hospital.

    As once a paramedic/doctor has administered controlled drugs like Morphine or inserted a cannula for fluids then that individual has to stay with them until handed over to county ambulance or goes with them to hospital.

    At Leicester we have had two ambulances and two paramedics for some meetings and had an incident but still had delays as SCB will only allow one medical officer 

  18. Posted · Edited by flagrag

    This is currently the only planned double header at Leicester unless there is a few rain offs then this decision may have to be reconsidered .

    For the Berwick meeting it was not the Leicester club that wanted a double header they would have preferred a 6pm start just for the Lions as it allows Stewart more time to prepare the track especially if the sunshine holds out  and also for riders to get home from Berwick then wash & prepare bikes for Leicester some will only have 9 hours between getting home before having to leave again. In that time they need to sleep,eat and prepare bikes .
     

    The dislike of double headers is the reason why the Edinburgh Championship fixture that got rained off last week was not added onto the Armadale NDL meeting last night which in logistical sense would have been better.

    However on this occasion it is more of a needs must as Berwick made it clear that if they went in NDL they wanted as many double header meetings as possible to cut down their expenses for travelling and this was the only way that they could make it viable.

  19. Posted

    Not sure the UK is such an attraction to NKI now that he has got rid of his house in Peterborough and moved his family back to Denmark it was this reason that he didn’t sign for Peterborough.

    What has changed from the winter is that more flights are becoming available to UK and we have the season started with crowds and maybe some riders that opted out of UK are reconsidering their options and maybe some Swedish clubs are looking to reduce their costs as well.

  20. Posted

    I would say the Cook decision was made before the meeting and Craig was told which resulted in him going through the motions tonight and making the rest of the team unstable.

    They don’t have a meeting for a week so could have released press announcement at weekend or Monday, I would have a guess the replacement will be someone that was originally unavailable at the start of the season 

  21. Posted

    56 minutes ago, GAH said:

    it was always wolves/b/vue :nono:

    I know it was always Wolves vs Belle Vue to be the planned TV fixture what I meant was when this got rained off on Sunday, Eurosport planned to switch their broadcast to Peterborough hence why it appeared on the Sky EPG/ Tv Guide for a while yesterday, however the forecast is not brilliant for today and there has been a lot of rain over the last few days so a decision was made to not broadcast any meetings this week 

    • Like 1

  25. Posted

    22 minutes ago, Steve Shovlar said:

    On another point, the promotion is considering if the fans would prefer a Friday or Saturday race night now that the dogs have gone. 
     

    We have been a Wednesday night club for a long time before shifting to Thursdays, which brought about a 20% drop in season tickets. Would fans prefer to come along with their kids on a weekend with no school the next day? I believe there are going to be a couple of weekend meetings in the pipeline this season.

    If the Leicester meeting could be moved to a Saturday or Sunday that would make good sense as I am confident a number of fans would travel along with possibly a coach like they did to Eastbourne and Berwick  in 2019 

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