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There was no fixing of the score last night you could tell that by the look on Simon Steads face, you could tell he felt very let down by his teams performance. As others have said if you were to fix the result to keep fans and BT happy it would have been a Sheffield home win by 6-8 and then Leicester to win at home by 10 that way more fans attend the 2nd leg and BT have the excitement of Leicester fighting back The problem is how do motivate the team for the second leg with even Bates admitting on TV that the promotion has got away from them.

Marc Bates is the Leicester co Promotor and has been since July he works along side Neil Machin & Dave Darcy. It seems pretty clear that Pawel will get a ban for not riding at Sheffield tonight unless a medical certificate can be provided

Second leg now next Monday due to poor weather forecast on Wednesday as per Leicester website. It's a bit of a strange date for Leicester fans attending as Leicester city are playing at home to West Brom live on Sky Sports

There is no medical reason for Pawel P not to be in the UK. In fact I am quite surprised that he has chosen not to ride as Polish season now finished he has done the GP so fairly easy money to come and do these two meetings in UK. He still has bikes here so could have just flown in today done the meetings and gone back Thursday. This is all on the assumption that the Sheffield & Leicester promotion wanted him to come and ride, to me it's a no brainier as especially with his GP performance would have put quite a few on the gate and made BT very happy.

Can anyone who knows the rules confirm whether Leicester have missed out with something here. Could they have had a guest for Pawel and then gone for RR for Lasse so can higher average guest Can anyone who knows the rules confirm whether Leicester have missed out with something here. Could they have had a guest for Pawel and then gone for RR for Lasse so can higher average guest

If the Pole was riding then Leicester would not have been eligible to have a guest for Bjerre would they ? As only one rider missing in the 1-5. It may be a cost savings thing although I think the opposite would have put more on the gates which is a win win for the Bates family. More likely the Pole does not want to come as has GP Saturday and then Relegation & promotion meeting for Torun on Sunday

Oh dear Leicester look in trouble with Lewis Kerr in for Lasse and no Pawel. They need to hope that Heeps and Newman can score lots of points at reserve and Kim & Danny can take points of Josh G and Lasse

It's not just the situation at the 4S in August,They have also allowed Holder to miss the pairs this weekend and a number of league fixtures

VTM not so sure about Sheffield smashing Leicester Nillson vs Josh G - Would say quite even Riss vs Kurtz- Riss especially around Leicester Guest TBC vs Bjerre- Depends on guest but say Lasse RR/Pawel vs Bates - Would say RR King vs Howarth- King but will be close Newman vs Graverson- Newman would say Heeps vs Wood- Heeps 100% The crucial thing for Leicester will be who they get as the 2nd guest to cover for Lasse who will be a big miss home and away.

Sam Ermolenko has been World Champion,TM at Reading and presenter on Eurosport Could David Rowe be the other person

I see that Leicester have confirmed Heeps as the guest for Bates with no mention of guest for Bjerre or Pawel P

It will be very interesting to see who Leicester can get in for guests for this it will be difficult to cover for Bjerre and Bates and will Pawel P return for this meeting or will he finally get banned for withholding his services then meaning another guest. I would not be surprised if Leicester don't try and get Dan Bewley in for Josh Bates but Lasse will be difficult to cover for.

As far as I know it will be Sheffield next Monday and then Leicester next Wednesday just waiting confirmation that BT are televising both meetings and then more information will be released

I think that Jason Doyle would still be at Leicester now if Mr Hemsley had listened to him and changed the race night as well as pay him correctly.

Trees- Yes BT sport do have a Red button option but that is already in use for the Champions League football as they have around 8 matches to show on Wednesday. I would have a guess that BT will be sending at least one camera crew to the meeting so they have some footage for Monday and if Natalie is there she will do an interview with the winning manager and captain

You are very correct Skidder1 I got confused with something different, To be honest when I posted that last night I did think that's not leaving much time for the Championship final to take place as they only start with the semis this week. Leicester have said that they want the second leg at home but as of Sunday there was still a lot to sort out and clarification of the rules

As long as it goes ahead the provisional dates are away on Monday 3rd October and at home on Wednesday 5th October but this could all change. If it does not happen it's a shame that no Thank You and goodbyes happened yesterday

The lack of updates from Leicester on their team is quite worrying, As already have RR and no Riss and it looks like no Josh Bates as well as still recovering from an accident at home.

A very godd and I may say too strong lineup for Coventry especially if Leicester go with RR for Pawel. I do hope that it doesnt spoil it by making it too one sided but the main thing is to see Coventry back on track.

I have asked this question about why Harris did not get a ban and was told it was down to the seniority of the ACU organisation and that all Speedway is run under ACU regulations I was informed that the BSPA are responsible to the SCB who in turn have to report to the ACU whose decision is final and have the final say. This has come up before with riders getting bans they have got fined for misconduct and banned by SCB the right of appeal is then to ACU who can ban them from all levels of motorcycle racing

The reason for this is the coverage cutbacks by BT when on Sky we used to use a full 5.1 sound mix which included having boom mics on the centre green and next to the fence by the start line. BT as on a limited budget just have a smaller mic attached to the camera towers which at some tracks like Wolverhampton,Swindon and Poole are a long way back from the track as they aren't allowed to install them on the greyhound tracks. It is surprising how the acoustics of each stadium is different Wolverhampton and the old BV have always been bad as such open spaces down the back straight, Peterborough is just a nightmare. Closer in tracks like new BV,Poole and Leicester you can keep the bike noise in well. It may be an improvement that can be looked into for next season as wouldn't cost that much extra to do in scheme of tings

Putting aside my professional position and employment But as a Speedway fan I agree Philip Rising. In the most part BT and Steve have done a decent job with the UK racing and hopefully this may continue. One thing that could be a further problem next year is that my colleagues at BT have mentioned that they have set an internal deadline in 2018 to get all live UK sport in UHD. This extra expense i fear could be something that stops a deal happening hopefully something could be sorted maybe a sponsor could be found to pay towards production costs ? A further question to ask what would Speedway fans view to be having a meeting a week filmed and then shows (AS) Live which is how Premier sports show Polish racing so you get all racing and build up but delays for incidents and track work can be edited out ?

Do not rule out Sky at all if given the opportunity, I was only talking about Speedway to someone on the acquisition team on Thursday the door is definitely not closed on a return if the product and deal is right.

They should have an FIM meeting at Leicester never been a good place for Polish riders other than Janowski

The biggest cost of broadcasting the second match from Wolverhampton would be the Satellite uplink capacity which would likely cost around another £3-5000 the staffing costs would not really change that much as they are paid a daily rate