arthur cross

Having seen three relatives or family friends either succumb or become dreadfully affected by Alzheimer's disease (or similar mental illnesses) in just the last six years, I have two angles looking at Ivan's own situation. Firstly, immense sympathy for Ivan himself, his family and his friends because this may well be a long drawn out process with very few "better days" but many more "slightly downhill days" ... it's horribly sad when you have such vivid memories of people in both their prime and normal older age to then witness their decline. Secondly, while respecting any family's wish for their local privacy, we desperately need the wider public to become better-educated, more tolerant and better-prepared for dealing with Alzheimer's and its related conditions. Medical science has made huge advances with various problems that previously meant a swift death (notably heart conditions) but one unfortunate side-effect of such progress is that it means a greater proportion of the population survive long enough to reach the stage where their mental strength fails them before any of their other vital organs ... if the general public can simply understand this concept a lot better, we'll be on the way to making sure there's better advice/help for family/friends to deal with their private anguish when they need to be realistic about someone they know who has become seriously affected.

Glorious ignorance by the looks of it in that post !! Actually, Sankt Johann im Pongau (just under an hour's drive south of Salzburg) has been a regular host for many years of whatever round is allocated to Austria in the Grand Prix or World Under-21 qualifiers. It's not difficult to find out what it looks like ... simply put "speedway st johann" into a google-search and it'll take you to 13-minutes on youtube of last year's SGP-qualifier at the track ... or put "st johann im pongau" into a google-map-search and then it's easy to spot the track just north of the town centre on the satellite-view. I don't know why the local club in St Johann can't stage their allocated SGP-qualifier but I can easily see why, once it needed to be re-allocated, the FIM have gone to Berwick because St Johann's track is also around a football pitch with relatively thin straights. St Johann is 380-metres per lap so it's marginally longer than Shielfield Park ... and instead of a factory behind the pits bend at Berwick (and the North Sea coast only a mile away), you get a backdrop of stunning Alpine meadows and mountains at St Johann !! But any riders already scheduled to ride their SGP-qualifier in St Johann can't complain they're being sent to a totally different type of speedway track with this re-route to Berwick at a couple of months' notice.

Not for the first time at Sheffield (the infamous 2004 PLRC certainly springs to mind), it sounds like the track, especially in the earlier heats, had to be ridden aggressively because it was so grippy ... in those circumstances, you're bound to get a combination of quick times from the riders with good-enough aggressive skills to generate stacks of speed from all the grippiness and crashes/complaints from the riders who can't cope with (or don't like) such a track.

I'm not really forgetting the potential impact of interest ... I just haven't included in any figurework I've sketched out for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because this loan might be close to interest-free (if not completely so) as the council do finally seem once again to be heavily linking this project to all their other sporting developments just over a mile north of Kirky Lane around Man City's Etihad Stadium ... I've wondered lately whether those other developments had become a much greater priority for the council than the speedway project so it was a pleasant surprise to seem them both included in the same Manch-Evg-News article this week (even if that article's not impressed Phil The Ace !!) Most (if not all) of those other developments are eligible for Sport England funding (in partnership with the city council) because they're either for Olympic sports or mass-participation sports. Speedway's always going to find it tough to drum up much Sport England funding anywhere because it doesn't tick either of those Olympic or mass-participation boxes ... however, given the Aces' great place within Manchester's sporting heritage, there's a strong and special case for this city's council justifying whatever helpful style of funding it's providing near the Etihad also being applied to its funding of the new speedway stadium. Secondly, I try to keep any figurework as basic as possible to avoid it getting too complicated for most readers of this forum ... you've plucked a perfectly realistic 5% rate of interest to illustrate by how much the repayments could jump once any interest's factored in but I doubt the exact terms of any loan between Manchester City Council and the Belle Vue Aces would ever be made public and, therefore, I've just stuck with the amounts of money and timescales that have been reported. Arguably, the most significant difference between this week's newspaper report and any previous ones is this introduction of a 24-year repayment plan for at least the extra costs instead of the previously reported 60-year repayment plan for the whole project.

Unless you can come up with a detailed explanation of why "the article should not have been published", it's daft to ask anyone to ignore it or avoid commenting upon it !! Similarly, as the Belle Vue Aces haven't made any official announcement for ages about how the project's going, it's ridiculous to ask anyone to await them finally getting round to doing that !! ... even if it's been much slower progress than expected/hoped, it's surely not that difficult for someone at the Aces to write an update explaining any delays in as positive a way as possible. Much of the scepticism and frustration over the time it's taking to get this building project underway has built up due to the wretchedly poor lack of official information about it ... by the looks of it, even the Manch-Evg-News have reached the stage where they're prepared to run what may well be as vague an article as last night's one, simply because there's no official news emerging about a project that they clearly think is of interest to their readers. In any subject, not just the building of a new speedway stadium, doubts and criticism boil up far more easily if there's no official news to cool them down.

Totally agree with that assessment !! Any speedway clubs renting a track in a Greyhound Racing Association stadium have had to put up for many years with far higher rents than other greyhound landlords have been charging ... historically (and quotes from Wimbledon Stadium general manager Keith Hallinan proved this week it's still the case), the GRA haven't been impressed with speedway's profitability and have therefore chosen to fleece as much rent off the clubs as possible rather than budgeting for any profits from speedway fans buying the stadium's food & drink. Wimbledon certainly had to pay above-average rent while they were still going and I seem to remember Oxford saying their rent rocketed in their final years .... I suspect Birmingham may well still be in a similar situation. I've been to Kirky Lane only once (and that was just over a decade ago although I gather there's not been much investment in the facilities since then) so I can't really accurately suggest a fair price for the rent ... but I'd reckon anything over £2,500 would start to be expensive, never mind if it's actually £3,500.

Previously, it's been reported that the Aces would need to payback a £4.5-million stadium-building loan over 60 years ... hence, the calculation of £75,000 "rent" per year even though it would actually be a loan repayment to the city council rather than the usual concept of paying rent to a landlord. Yesterday's Manchester Evening News report explains that the Aces will also now have to repay most of the extra £1.3-million the council needs to borrow to build this stadium ... but, crucially, says this extra repayment will cover just 24 years instead of the previously reported 60 years ... hence, a calculation of £50,000 "extra rent" for the first 24 years would produce £1.2-million which would fit the description of the Aces paying back most of these extra costs of £1.3-million. [ EDIT: If it's just an extra £750,000 that the Aces have to find over 24 years, as John Leslie reports, then that's roughly £30,000 extra per season. ] So by my reckoning, that means the Aces will be paying back about £105,000 a season until roughly 2040 (£75,000 plus £30,000) and then the previously reported £75,000 a season until the mid-2070's ... that's a hefty burden in itself but here's a further question about the costs of the whole project. Who pays eventually for the general upkeep of the stadium once it's built ? ... while the council may well provide the initial funding to guarantee such upkeep, will they require the Aces to repay "most" of those costs as well along the same lines as repaying "most" of these extra building costs ? ... suddenly, even £105,000 a season might still look an understatement. And still no mention of any planning-hearing dates within that Manch-Evg-News report (just the sorting-out of the extra finance) with time already fast running out for having any new stadium ready for the start of the 2015 season, never mind any original aim (as reported by the Manch-Evg-News on 9-Feb-2012 of starting to build it that summer, depending on planning permission, so that it could host the 2013 World Cup Final). I remain willing to be proved wrong but, for the time being, I'm staying sceptical about this whole project working out well for the Aces and speedway in general.

Keith Hallinan will say whatever his bosses want him to say ... he's a "safe pair of hands" as general manager of Wimbledon greyhounds but without much in the way of creative flair or inspiration. And if he thinks AFC Wimbledon only play one home match a fortnight for 7-months (which would only amount to 15 or 16 home games a season), he's in for a shock when he checks their fixture-list that contains 23 home league games (plus any cup-ties in 3 different competitions) packed into 9-months.

One further aspect to add to your very accurate info about why Sky became keener again to renew with Biritish speedway is that back in mid-summer Tai Woffinden was just an unexpectedly strong contender for the world title whereas by the end of the season he was the first British world champ for 13 years. While recapturing any Grand Prix rights, even after Woffinden's success, remains a low (probably non-existent) priority at Sky due to the difficulty of squeezing the mostly Saturday-evening GP-coverage into one of Sky's most crowded times of the week for its more expensive live deals, the chance to hang on to a British world champion's club action in this country did matter.

Yesterday's Racing Post also reckoned there is a covenant in place at Kirky Lane which would make full redevelopment for housing awkward (as far as I know, there's something similar at Newcastle dating back to Brough Park being named in honour of Lord Brough when that venue was built in the 1920's). I can understand your medium and longer-term fears for this particular stadium's future but that won't matter to the Aces if they're already in their new home before those fears become reality. But while Risk/Galliard still owned Kirky Lane there was also much more of an immediate shadow hanging over Kirky Lane's future whatever your combination of Aces, stock car or dogs enthusiasm. Best case scenario for the Aces might be that this week's deal gives them enough time to build and become established in their new home before Kirky Lane undergoes a revamp similar to the one I've mentioned several times elsewhere on this forum that occurred at Dublin's top greyhound venue Shelbourne Park about a decade ago. Shelbourne sold off enough land round the first and second bends for new apartments to fund the overhaul of the dog track and hugely revamp its spectator facilities ... something similar to that might bend Kirky Lane's covenant rather than break it but the residential aspect would be a killer to the Aces if they still needed their track to be included in such a revamp. Mind you, I'm still realistically sceptical (while hoping to be proved wrong) about the Aces' new stadium on two counts ... firstly, I've big doubts about the current Aces management (or anyone they appoint) successfully running it once it's built ... but more importantly in terms of even getting it built, I get the impression (while living well away from Manchester) that the city council are now putting much more effort into how they can link-up with the community-based aspects of Man City's amazingly detailed expansion plans only a mile or so north of Kirky Lane rather than doing anything to hurry up creating a new speedway track near the current one.

Actually, this is almost certainly a really good twist for the Aces rather than the gloomy one you're portraying, especially while the new speedway stadium remains so bogged down in its planning stage. That's because unless the new owners have their own financial headaches, this deal should remove any threat of a sudden closure of Kirky Lane that could have happened if the Greyhound Racing Association had remained linked to owning it as well as operating it. In case you haven't been following the Wimbledon & Oxford Stadium threads on this forum, the future of Kirky Lane has been in the background of an increasingly desperate need of the GRA's current owners to repay multi-million-pound loans they received around a decade ago from Irish banks so that they could purchase the GRA from the property-owning leftovers of the old Wembley Stadium. Officially, Risk Capital bought the GRA from Wembley plc for £50-million ... but it soon became clear Galliard Homes were on board with Risk Capital and then it emerged Risk/Galliard were having to keep sweet the Irish government's debt-collecting agency Nama who've been chasing the long-overdue repayments of those loans from the Irish banks. For several months now, the Racing Post has always referred to Nama as owning the GRA as a reflection of just how much Risk/Galliard are in Nama's grip. Wimbledon's future (as it's by far the most lucrative GRA site for housing development) remains the main focus of Risk/Galliard keeping Nama on-side but all the GRA tracks, including Belle Vue, have been caught up in the mess that while they appear profitable on a day-to-day basis, those profits are probably only covering the interest on those Irish loans rather than making any worthwhile dent in repaying them ... hence, Risk/Galliard are stuck in a permanent state of just keeping Nama at bay rather than finally shrugging them off. That's created a risk of Nama having a last resort of getting some of the Irish-millions back by closing all of Wimbledon, Belle Vue and Hall Green (in south-east Birmingham) for a quick sale of all the assets with all the uncertainties that would cause (although the Birmingham Brummies' home track Perry Barr would be a different matter as the GRA's use of it is tied up in a special deal with Birmingham City Council rather than it counting towards the overall Risk/Galliard asset list). In the Aces' case, such a scenario of closure for an emergency sale could've been diabolical as it's also my understanding that Manchester City Council would have huge doubts about granting a very-long-term stadium-building loan to any sporting club that was temporarily homeless or defunct ... even if the Aces have been losing any money lately staying at Kirky Lane, at least it may well have kept them ticking-over as far as qualifying for that new stadium-building loan is concerned. Last October, Nama invited individual bids for either Belle Vue or Hall Green in what was clearly an attempt to drum up some lump-sums to speed-up repaying the Irish banks and although nothing seemed to emerge in the 2-week timescale Nama wanted for that bidding, this week's deal for Belle Vue may well have begun around that time. Look closely at the Place North West report of this week's deal at Belle Vue and you'll see it refers to "sale and leaseback" in the top paragraph ... what that means is the new owners have bought the freehold rights to the stadium (the "sale") while accepting that its current activities continue (the "leaseback") ... it would've cost them much more to buy out the existing lease to give them a chance of doing whatever they want with the site (and, even then, they could still need to overcome any historical covenants over the designated-use of the site along with any local council objections to the existing facilities being demolished). Although it's not on the greyhound section of their website, the Racing Post newspaper reported this deal yesterday although it named the new buyer as Crown Oil Pension Fund (rather than SCP Investments according to the Place North West report) while agreeing with the £2,600,000 price tag. The total amount Risk/Galliard still owes the Irish banks has never been confirmed but it's generally regarded within greyhound racing that at least £10-million is still outstanding and maybe double that ... hence the Belle Vue deal probably cuts just a good slice off the overall problem rather than solving it and that would add up with a similar deal at Hall Green also being hinted at in yesterday's Racing Post. The other discrepancy between the two reports is that the Racing Post have always reckoned there's a 15-year-lease for greyhound racing at Belle Vue that began last summer whereas the Place North West report reckons its 10-years ... either way, that lease is clearly long enough to give confidence that the stadium will remain open for sporting business so that the Aces can negotiate however many more seasons they need to lease its speedway track. And now that Belle Vue's freehold owner and sporting leaseholder are two totally different businesses, that's a far safer scenario for the speedway or stock-car tenants than the previous situation ... until this week, Risk/Galliard as the freeholder could tread all over the GRA as the leaseholder because they're all wrapped up together in their battle to keep Nama happy. Now, in return for the £2,600,000 lump sum that almost certainly lands on Nama's doorstep as soon as possible to keep them sweet for a bit longer, Risk/Galliard can't alter the GRA's Belle Vue lease because they no longer own that lease ... what's more, this week's deal probably includes the new owners inserting penalty clauses against Risk/Galliard as the GRA's owners if the GRA try to bale out early from their Belle Vue lease. I can appreciate all the above stuff may be a bit complicated, especially if you haven't looked much in recent months at the Wimbledon & Oxford threads. But I hope you can still understand why I reckon the change of ownership of Belle Vue is good news for the Aces rather than gloomy news because it means Risk/Galliard have far less influence over what goes on at Kirky Lane when their overwhelming priority remains sorting out their Irish debts rather than caring for any sports fans.

Judging by the press release put out by At The Races a few weeks ago, their involvement is simply as an agent (through their Sport Mediastream division) offering the speedway coverage to their betting partners (alongside other niche-market sports coverage they're also able to provide) so you'll only see this speedway coverage on the website of any betting company who accepts it rather than on the ATR website itself. Meanwhile, no surprise that regardless of any claims that you'd have to place a bet before seeing any pictures, it proved to be the case last night that all you had to do was deposit £5 with bet365 (ready for any betting) to gain full access to the pictures with the flexibility of being able to withdraw exactly the same £5 as soon you'd seen all the action. In every other sport streamed on betting websites. that's how it works ... punters just have to prepare themselves for having a bet to see the action because the betting companies understand that letting their customers weigh up any weather conditions or other factors in the build-up to a sporting event is all part of the customer's betting experience. If anyone at Go Speed (or elsewhere within speedway officialdom) were confident it would be "only-watch-once-you've-bet" for speedway, they're either clueless about how internet betting works or they've been spun some fairytales by At The Races when agreeing to the deal. In any case, bet365 (or any other bookmaker) would take the view that once you've had a bet on the overall outcome of a speedway meeting they're showing rather than betting on just one heat, then you're perfectly entitled to watch all 15 heats on the basis that you've bet on the whole contest rather than just a segment of it. By the way, I speak as someone who's always had at least one telephone betting account on the go since 1992 (long before any internet-based gambling revolution) and who currently has 5 different internet betting accounts in regular use ... I was also aware as far back as last September that British speedway and At The Races were in the early-sketch stages of this deal ... see post-21 on this thread for my detailed concerns about this deal when it was publicly launched a few weeks ago.

All sorts of sports (not just speedway) are filled with new ownerships who moved in by declaring their intentions to take their particular club in a new direction ... only to spectacularly overlook keeping the existing supporters on board so that any new supporters that were attracted by the new direction had to replace the departing diehards rather than the ideal plan of adding to them. I hope this isn't a cautionary tale for the Sheffield Tigers ... new promotions need to earn the trust of their club's supporters as much as those supporters need to respect and trust the new folk in charge.

At least there was still a club, even better still with a track to race upon, for those 3 new guys (or anyone else) to decide upon whether they wanted to buy it. I repeat, when's this year's first meeting at Newport if that's the yardstick of credibility for these new guys ?

At least "Hoggy and the others" have always kept Sheffield going ... when's this year's first meeting at Newport ?

In that case, don't be surprised if the club has to fend off all sorts of rumours, most (maybe even all) of them probably wrong, about why three newcomers to running a club have parted company with someone who's been a member of the BSPA Management Committee for several years. On this evidence, the club's new direction is one which includes putting up the shutters as soon as you've announced an unexpected decision. If you can't be bothered to provide a bit more detail for your customers, it's highly likely some of those customers won't be bothered to give you much time to settle in. All in all, whether you liked him or not, you've found a wretchedly shoddy way to mark the end of Dave Hoggart's spell as one of the main people involved with the Sheffield Tigers through some of the toughest years for both the club itself and the sport in general.

From today's Racing Post monthly round-up of northern greyhound tracks, under the headline "Toon hope terracing will be back for Sky night" ... The Newcastle management is hoping that the £250,000 building work currently being carried out at the track to replace the terracing in the front of the grandstand will be completed in time for their new Sky TV date on June 4. The old terracing has been fenced off in recent months as it had been deemed unsafe, but operations manager Ian Walton is pleased with the way the job is progressing. He says: "Everything is under way and there have been no delays so far. They gave us an estimate of 12 to 16 weeks when they started and that would take us to the end of May beginning of June, so we're keeping our fingers crossed." = = = = = = = = = = Some notes on that article ... whereas up to and including 2012, Sky's greyhound production budget let them build their own finishing-line camera-&-commentary gantry for each of their 1-or-2 visits each year, their reduced budget from last year onwards means they now just use whatever facilities are already in place for SIS's betting-shop coverage from the track. Any of you who went to Newcastle last year will remember the closure of the terracing meant the track's SIS box (also used by Bob Tasker for his GRT-Media speedway-dvd's) was moved halfway down the full terracing as its traditional place at the back of the terracing was within the condemned territory. But now that the repair work's underway, the SIS box has been temporarily moved again to about 10 metres after the greyhound winning-post, creating a camera-angle that makes it almost impossible for betting-shop viewers to know who's likely to have won a photo-finish ... it's that camera-angle that Sky's viewers also had to put up with last month. Newcastle were only awarded the meeting previously listed in Sky's 2014 schedule as "June 4th, venue to be arranged" a couple of weeks ago and I doubt they'd have been given that date unless there was reasonable confidence that Sky's viewers wouldn't have to put up with a repeat of last month's camera-angle so the terracing should be fully back in business (speedway fans included) nicely in time for that next Sky dogs-night.

And Perry Barr is the only one of the Greyhound Racing Association's tracks that it doesn't own outright (unlike, past-or-present for speedway, Belle Vue, Wimbledon or Oxford). Instead, there's some sort of partnership deal between the GRA and Birmingham City Council which is why, a few months ago, bids were briefly invited for the individual sales of Belle Vue and the GRA's other Birmingham dog track at Hall Green (not that anything worthwhile seemed to emerge) but a similar invite didn't occur for Perry Barr as that would've also required the council's go-ahead.

You really are taking muppet-status to new levels by asking that question because ... ... that informative and tidy answer appeared 5-posts above (or 9-hours before) your question !! Here's an idea ... when a thread's in as early a stage as this one, requiring just a few moments to be fully digested, how about reading it before showcasing your ignorance to the rest of the forum ?

It's totally dependent on the track-by-track circumstances of any actual closure or the fear of one ... the current determination of the whole British greyhound industry to preserve Wimbledon follows on (indeed, is trying to learn from) the sport's huge but unsuccessful efforts to save Walthamstow from its 2008 closure (3-months notice at the time) or revive that track since then given the site's yet to be built upon. Wimbledon's greyhound supporters believe they can take that track into the 21st-century with Paschal Taggart's proposed revamp ... meanwhile, many greyhound folk will never forgive the Chandler family for selling Walthamstow to developers L&Q without inviting any rival bids that would've at least let the sport show whether it could come up with a financially-competitive alternative against L&Q. That scandalous sell-off of Walthamstow, followed by over 5 years of the site laying dormant, is just about the only topic that brings loud and united support from that area's 2 totally diverse local MP's, namely right-wing Conservative Cabinet Minister Iain Duncan Smith and staunch Labour feminist Stella Creasy. Unless owners/trainers/punters have the immediate financial clout to change the decision-maker's mind, there's precious little they can do effectively against abrupt closures by the licence-holding management. Could you or any other speedway fan do anything effective if your team's owners/promoters abruptly closed the operation down mid-sesson ? ... you could squeal as much as you like but you wouldn't get very far unless you could buy out those escaping owners/promoters and satisfy the SCB & BSPA that you were suitable for being granted replacement licences. Catford's closure in November 2003 was announced by the GRA on a blank day in that track's weekly schedule so that the previous day's meeting was the farewell without it being generally known as it took place ... at the time, the GRA justified it on economic grounds while it still had currently-defunct Oxford and now-bulldozed Portsmouth as well as Wimbledon at which to accommodate fairly locally Catford's contracted-trainers (and so keep any greyhound welfare objections at bay). Coventry's greyhound management announced yesterday they're packing up tonight because they've been told they can't be guaranteed any lease extension beyond their remaining couple of years given Avtar Sandhu's intention to sell that site once any existing sporting leases expire ... as Coventry's greyhound business plan is still at the stage of stomaching current losses on the way to profitability in several years' time, they've reckoned there's now no point suffering any further losses as "several years' time" doesn't realistically exist.

I can't work out whether you're trying to be ironic and funny or taking a ridiculously cheap shot at the running of British speedway which even it doesn't deserve despite the daft ways in which it's often run. Either way, you've served up one of the most pathetic posts I've ever read on this forum. A fine description by a much-missed lady although maybe still 2nd-best to Terry Wogan's "formation drowning" at the Barcelona Olympics that seriously infuriated the British synchronized swimming team !!

In terms of bringing the various elements of the greyhound industry together (some often hostile to each other), then yes it was an excellent turnout. But what it achieved to people not already aware of the Wimbledon Stadium saga is much more doubtful ... for example, neither the ITV nor BBC regional news programmes for London between 6pm & 7pm last night had any coverage of it. I'd have thought those regional tv-newsdesks would usually be eager to cover the sight of several hundred people accompanying a group of friendly greyhounds near some famous tourist landmarks to draw attention to an unusual London sports/news story. Admittedly, the leftovers of the Thames flooding are still taking up quite a bit of their resources but that isn't now dominating their entire programmes ... and given one of the main organizers of yesterday's gathering, Julie Collier, is herself a tv-sports producer and presenter who lives in a Surrey suburb of London, it was still surprising neither of those regional-tv programmes included it.

When I wrote my post a few hours ago reckoning Paschal Taggart was an "increasingly reluctant figurehead" for the British greyhound industry, I didn't know (or expect) what appears a rather tame excuse for him not attending this afternoon's "Show of Passion" but here's the Racing Post's preview of today's gathering ... by the way, the GBGB is the Greyhound Board of Great Britain and the initials TD are the Irish equivalent of a Member of Parliament. City Hall "will be a real celebration" - by Jonathan Kay Hundreds of greyhound enthusiasts will today descend on London's City Hall (1.30 for 2.00pm) for the much-vaunted Show Of Passion intended to reinforce to Mayor Boris Johnson that the sport is alive and well and any redevelopment of the facilities at the current dilapidated Wimbledon Stadium would be viable. Johnson has expressed a wish that "ideally" the redevelopment will include provision for greyhound racing but Irish businessman Paschal Taggart, who is leading a consortium with ambitious plans for a world-class greyhound facility, faces opposition from current site landlords Galliard Homes / Risk Capital who are proposing a far bigger housing development along with the carrot of a new stadium for AFC Wimbledon. Taggart will not be present today as he wishes the occasion to be about the enthusiasm for greyhound racing in London rather than him and his specific plan although other members of the consortium are expected to attend along with high-profile figures from both the UK and Ireland including the GBGB. Centrepiece of the day will be the formal handing over by Ray Butler TD of a letter highlighting the importance of greyhound racing to the Irish economy which is significant as Ireland's National Asset Management Agency (Nama) effectively owns the Wimbledon site as a result of loans made to Galliard/Risk. We Want Wimbledon campaigner Diane McLean said yesterday: "We want the Show Of Passion to be a real celebration of greyhound racing and stress again that we are supporting the Mayor who has consistently stated that he sees it as a vital part of London's cultural heritage. "The indications are that the weather should be decent and, if the pledges of support come through, it should be a fantastic occasion showing what greyhound racing means to so many people," she added. "I really think we are starting to get our message across and not just in greyhound circles. We are talking about 86 years of history at Wimbledon Stadium and it is arrogant in the extreme for AFC and their cheerleaders to think they have some sort of entitlement to the site - remember that Galliard would not be engaging with them at all if "sporting intensification" wasn't a planning requirement. "It's a sham marriage of convenience and, should they somehow pull the wool over planners' eyes, one that could easily end in a messy divorce as the last thing Galliard actually want is to have to build a football stadium." .

A very fair summary to which I would only add that Paschal Taggart himself has given the impression of a beaten man since mid-autumn only for Diane McLean's leadership of the We Want Wimbledon campaign to rally the greyhound industry towards this afternoon's "Show of Passion", pretty much forcing Mr Taggart to remain a increasingly reluctant figurehead when he probably knows his economic view of the saga tramples all over any defiant enthusiasm from the rank-and-file members of that sport. I still think it's hugely underestimated (or conveniently ignored) by the British greyhound industry that Mr Taggart didn't have to compete against football in Dublin chasing the Shelbourne Park site when he revamped that to continue its greyhound racing because just 5 minutes' walk away the much bigger Landsdowne Road site was already long overdue for its own revamp into the Aviva Stadium.

You've got the totally wrong end of the stick there ... I've been involved in various ways in all sorts of levels of sport (amateur and professional) since 1980 and have been happy to be around many of those activities where money's been owed, providing it's clear how that money's going to be paid up in due course. The Wimbledon Stadium situation is different ... although on a day-to-day basis, the greyhound racing seems to cover its costs (including any interest payments on the Irish loans) but any profit it makes doesn't seem to be making anywhere near enough progress in paying off those Irish loans and, therefore, it's almost certain those Irish loans will never be paid off any time soon (if ever) just by carrying on with the existing use of the site. In such circumstances, my money-related view (already explained several times on this thread) is simply that whatever development happens next at Wimbledon Stadium (football, greyhounds, other sports, housing, shops, industrial units or any combinations of those categories) can only go ahead once those who are still owed the multi-millions from the existing use of the site are either paid in full or reach agreement with those who currently own the site ... in others words, the Irish banks (represented by Nama) are either paid in full or reach agreement with Galliard. In your own life, would you let any aspect of it go on to another stage if there was money owed (even just a few quid) on its exisitng stage and you could do something about it ? ... the Wimbledon Stadium saga is a multi-million-pound version of the same principle !! At the moment, it's clear Nama's view of what happens next is that Galliard build and sell enough houses on the site to satisfy the Irish banks' repayment demands ... hence. Nama are backing Galliard's preferred future development of a football stadium plus 600 houses, much to the frustration of Paschal Taggart's plans to revamp the venue for greyhound racing plus 400-to-450 houses. What we do know is that Merton Council held its 2-day hearing last month, ready for a report that's expected in April, as its way to find anyone's realistic plans for the future use of the Wimbledon Stadium site given the council's determination that anyone's plans must use at least part of the site for a community sporting venue. All the plans that were brought along to that 2-day hearing included some degree of house building along with various types of sports facilities and shops. Until speedway can attach itself to any realistic plan for the future of Wimbledon Stadium that doesn't include plenty of housing, then speedway has a desperately tiny chance (certainly much smaller than your "bit of a chance") of returning to Wimbledon regardless of how "active" it tries to be like the greyhound "Show of Passion". The existing debts to the Irish banks are massively beyond the reach of speedway to solve on its own ... given the overall circumstances, I'd fully understand any potential speedway promoter deciding to devote his/her effort/money towards other venues with a better chance than Wimbledon of hosting the sport. It might look as if speedway's "not doing anything" about Wimbledon but surely it's better to do something elsewhere with a better chance of success. It's different for all the various aspects of the greyhound industry ... their current livelihoods are at stake (rather than the revival of a sport that used to be staged there) and, thanks to Paschal Taggart, they have a realistic plan to continue making a living at that site ... hence, given that situation, I can fully understand them putting together a project like the "Show of Passion" in the hope of saving those livelihoods. But they're also desperately avoiding having to answer the question of how to repay the multi-millions to Nama's satisfaction by building only 400-to-450 homes under the Taggart plan compared to building 600 homes under the Galliard/AFC Wimbledon plan. Thanks for those good wishes ... and the best way you can thank me in return is by respecting the current facts about this saga (especially what sort of plans were presented at the planning hearing last month). = = = = = = = = = = PS ... thanks to "salty" (while I was writing this post) for also trying to explain my frustrations with "michaelcroucher" struggling to grasp the economic side of this saga ... I fully respect this forum's guideline of "attack the post, not the poster" but my goodness, I'm sometimes right on the border of that guideline here !!