RoundTheBoards

Tyres are provided by the home club for both sets of riders. They are marked for the specific meeting and handed out on the day so that no one can bring their own specially prepared tyre. Fuel and oil are the responsibility of the rider to provide their own. (Although they may have it in their deal that it's provided by the club or via a sponsor).

I agree that we need an independent figure in charge of the sport. This is what the SCB is supposed to be. But here we're talking about the BSPL selecting one of their members to be their leader. And Godfrey needs to go.

I agree there will be a new chairman and changes to management committee. Not Morris, Ford or Facenna. Ford has been there with management committee and I don't see him going back. Facenna, I think has resisted the offer to get involved previously. Morris isn't a promoter, and I don't see him sticking his quiz winnings into Northampton to become one. I don't know who might put their name forward for the big job, but heard 2 names suggested by others. One a strong choice who has been doing a lot of work over the winter to sort the mess. The other a quieter, possibly unusual choice, not obvious but could be the level head needed.

If I was Sheffield, I'd prefer Pickering to Brennan too. And if I was Ipswich, I'd prefer Brennan to Pickering. I'd expect that's the way it will end up.

I totally expect a new BSPL Chairman to be one of the things to come out of tomorrow's meeting. Either through Godfrey resigning or being ousted.

C Holfder, Pickering, Etheridge. Not sure on RS. Would Harrison be up to it?

Louis was certainly asking a lot more than that for it. I have no idea whether someone has met his crazy high valuation, or whether he's negotiated down, but I understand a deal was done, and they were looking to tie it all up this week. I think any delay is purely due to solicitors not being particularly keen to be doing a lot of work over Christmastime. Assuming it's a consortium of people taking over, there may be several solicitors involved. Hopefully, it's still all on schedule to be sorted before the AGM. I was thinking that having Ipswich on board would cancel the need for the 5th team, which has been looked into, but I'm hearing that this is still going ahead too at the moment. I'm sceptical, and it's hard to get good information, but I'm led to believe that Ipswich being sorted doesn't necessarily mean the 5th team will be dropped.

He's not listed in the heavily rumoured Leicester team. I don't see him fitting at Belle Vue, King's Lynn or Sheffield, so his only options seem to be Team 5 or Ipswich.

So I repeat my question. If Leicester were to change their mind and decide that Douglas isn't strong enough to be a No.1, who can challenge Fricke, Bewley, Kurtz and Holder, then who could they sign? I can only think of Zmarzlik as an option, and that's clearly a no-no. It's obvious the Leicester top 5 is Douglas, Masters, Morris, Thompson and Howarth.

If some of the new consortium members are Polish, how about tempting Kubera or Dudek here?

No. We know Leicester's team-building is done with strength-in-depth in mind. If they wanted a big-hitting No.1, they'd have kept Fricke. Who is available, who is better than Douglas, who could challenge Fricke, Kurtz, Bewley, Holder as a high-profile No.1? There's only Zmarzlik, and if they were willing to push the boat out for Zmarzlik, then keeping Fricke would have been a cheaper and easier No.1 option.

Well, that was a quick change of opinion

Is anyone able to tell us what this says?

So did mine!

As far as I know the main bidder was a sponsor or a consortium of sponsors, but not Guy Nicholls. All quite hush-hush and I never found out whether it was an Ipswich sponsor, or more a sponsor of the sport in general. The second bidder I heard about had promoting experience, but wasn't Buster or Tolley, and was very much a secondary bidder to the one above.

There are several stages to the AGM. For the first part, only the clubs who took part in the current season are involved. They go over the finances of the current season, iron out if anyone owes money to any other club, and declare if they want to run the following year. Presumably everyone except Birmingham has declared an intention to run. Then for the second part of the AGM (delayed to Jan 6th) they consider any new applications to join the league for next year, and anyone accepted is invited to join in the remaining meetings where they make plans for next year.

Nail totally hit on the head.

Maybe balance sheet plus 3 x yearly profits? Companies house balance sheet shows £3.5K. (There are no riding assets anymore, I think someone said the air-fence needed replacing soon). Louis seems to want out because he feels it's no longer profitable. So 3 x nothing is nothing. So £3.5k plus whatever goodwill valuation you put on owning the name. In short, something is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. So, if there are 2 offers that exceed my £3.5k, take the best one.

Why are you making this up? As i understand it, Sheffield had several offers of interest. That is what led the Bates' into deciding that they didn't want to sell up at all, and are instead thinking of bringing others in with them. Ipswich had at least 2 firm offers for the club. All Louis needed to do was to take the better offer. No run off to Aussie. Saying neither club had any offers is straightforward lying. One man's dignified silence is another man's cowardly hiding away. If I were an Ipswich fan, I'd be very angry that my club could be lost.

This week's Star arrived today! Maybe my local Royal Mail DO are catching up a bit.

Exactly right. When we had the asset system, riders were given a percentage of the transfer fee. I think 2.5% of the fee for each year they had been attached to the club. (Although it may have been 5% for the first year and then 2.5% for subsequent years up to a maximum of 25% or 27.5% - someone will remember). Testimonials were compensation for a rider who had stayed an asset of a club for 10 years, and had therefore never had a cut of any transfer fee. It was also possible to be transferred to another club, but refuse a cut of the transfer fee, in which case the years of service continued to build up towards a testimonial. With the asset system seeming to have bitten the dust now, I guess Testimonials will also disappear. Someone will know the cut of the transfer fee. I think it was 5% for the first year, and 2.5% for every other year up to 10 years.

Has GSA of 8.20 or 8.12 (depending on which conflicting figure you believe) is based on a rolling average of the last 20 matches, and places him 6th Has average over all 24 matches in 2025 of 7.90, places him 9th.

So you think Louis is staying on and is meeting with riders? Isn't Louis currently in Aussie with family?

To do a deal with which Ipswich? Louis' Ipswich? Mystery buyer's Ipswich? or former mystery buyer's Ipswich?

Tungate is 35, Wright 37, and Zagar 42. Belle Vue go mainly for young riders. I can see them going for one mid-30s rider with experience in the middle-order, but none of those three.