Big Al

Sounds from what others more "in the know" have said, that repaying the mortgage to the bank was a priority, then after he got suspended as promoter the riders stopped being paid. So could that mean he was diverting the equivalent amount to increasing the mortgage repayments, and/or other repayments including what he himself may have been "owed" for his professional services dating back to when the stadium was planned, designed and built. I wonder what he would have charged for his track design and layout expertise? Would also be interested to know if riders did get paid, as DDarcy said they would?

I guess the only alternatives would have been to have one single league of 18 teams, or go for regional north/south conferences. Probably not enough riders to fill 18 teams in a single league with no doubling up possible, and would probably result in the same 4-5 clubs dominating the league table with the rest cast-off behind. In the county cricket championship, the two division set up has been fairly successful. I'm not sure if north/south conferences have been tried before in the dim and distant past, but I think the novelty would soon wear off. No, reducing the gap between the two divisions to a smaller one makes most sense, and should make it hard for anyone to reasonably decline promotion. The main issue is the price of the product, and the quality, as always but now even more so.

Was that Belle Vue OR Leicester, or Belle Vue AND Leicester? You'd think the financial situation with Leicester should be more straightforward than Belle Vue's. Much smaller scale of operation. But if there are more difficulties getting answers to questions at Leicester, more smoke and mirrors etc, then easy to imagine the relative complexity being greater.

So having lost out to Sumzet in the race to sign Gravesen, who should the attention now turn to?

A great team until it got messed up by signing Kauko and Magnus

Sweetman, Bondarenko, Hall, let's have em all back

Don't be too sure that he'd be number 7 !

Thanks. Didn't expect it would get that close! Hopwood? Why not!?

If I were Klindt I'd have a few early season "mechanical issues"

Waiting for a phone call I scribbled this team down on a scrap of paper P Hougaard A Thomsen S Wozniak J Sedgman B Barker R Douglas B Hopwood Not the foggiest about what that adds up to. Any stattoes welcome!

Just double checking - that's OLLIE not NORRIE ? :-)

Closely followed by Chapman and Hemsley, if rumours elsewhere prove correct

I have a terrible scenario for Leicester..... Mick Horton the promoter, with Hemsley as his landlord...... Don't have nighmares

Just been searching the net for a local Man & Van service. The list included someone called Sandhu. Better not use him, might never see my stuff again.

I was told a while ago that the name of National Speedway Stadium is just a name given to the place by its creators and is not any official endorsement of its status. This seemed more than a bit strange to me, as from my albeit limited knowledge, the place is supposed to be multi-function venue,funded by Manchester City Council! It can't help when trying to market it to other sports and event organisers. Why could it not have been called The Peter Craven Arena (or similar)- with stands named after Peter Collins and Ivan Mauger? Clearly the place needs to get a main sponsor as well. It all stinks of poor management by Manchester City Council

Depends which playoffs you have in mind......

It is the Polish top league clubs that make the big demands. If the lower leagues started doing it, we'd really be in trouble!!

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