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Unfortunately Lisa no, this thing with Poland has only just come into effect, there was a meeting of promoters last week where this was discussed. It's thrown a spanner in the works not just for Lakeside but potentially every Elite League club.

Would be surprised if it was only three clashes, the feel I got at last weeks fans forum that a change was on the cards and Bjarne was the man least spoken about, in fact the only reference to him was by a fan who asked why did we sign a rider of his age who is seemingly on the way down. This thing with Poland getting a TV deal that will see them race on just about any day of the week is going to make life very hard for the Elite League and even Swedes and Danes will be under immense pressure to ride for their Polish club over a British one, that is the nexus of the problem. I would not assume the final place will be Bridger, that is a potential rider change down the road if Lewis decides he wants to return to full time racing and is totally committed to it but as it stands there is water to be tread.

Got there just after 11am this morning, car park already full and they were telling people to drive to Broxbourne station and staff cars will ferry back and forwards, didn't take long for me to realise that logistically was not going to work and drove all the way back home (Chelmsford) frustrated. The place needs more parking or a proper shuttle bus system, similar to the old venue in Epping, this event combined with popularity of the park itself seems to have become too big for its own good, maybe shut the wildlife park down on this day so it's for speedway patrons only, might help? Sorry for ranting but there will be a few dissapointed speedway fans around today I expect.

Thing is Addio if the reserves are still protected it won't be hard for any half decent one to amass an artificial eight point average which would then push a rider in the main body of the team who is on an artificially low average down to reserve.

I don't know if Ben Morley has been officially announced but Jon did say last night he is our designated backup tier 2 reserve who can cover either Lewis Kerr or Robert. As for Bridger, I don't think he will be in the side to start with, it's very much of softly softly see how it goes with him, I think he wants to ride a bike but league racing is a big commitment and it needs to be something he is 100 percent sure he wants to do. The signing of the number 8 Dennis Jonsson is an interesting concept, just how adequate these number 8s will be at replacing a ranked 2-5 rider we will have to wait and see but as Jon mentioned last night they will be used more often than not for an absent 4th or 5th ranked rider by average. Something which did not consider at the time but have subsequently thought of was, it was mentioned that Swidders with his low average could drop to reserve, im guessing that the protected reserves races have been withdrawn and that we are going back to the old heat 15 format otherwise you will end up with a lot starting second strings or maybe more likely heat leaders who have much harder races dropping to reserve after the first month.

Really confused with all these different riders signing, looking forward to this all being cleared up tonight.

Can't imagine this taking off unless a professional company was given the ok. Individual fans could stream but on the basis of how hard it can be sometimes to find texters for the updates site for even the most well attended clubs, I don't think so.

I stopped using the Lakeside forum a couple of seasons ago, at that point it was just the same few contributing to it plus those that had a one sided view which was always negative and never pointed out any of the positive stuff, I don't mind people having a moan, you pays your money etc but I think some were very lapsed supporters and no longer went or were fans of other teams just trying to act as antagonists. Jon I don't think has ever been a fan of them because of this minority element, negativity breeds negativity, you only need to spend 5 minutes on here to see that.

You hit the nail on the head, entertaining meetings and I think even if Rye are not the strongest of teams compared to others their home track advantage should see them ok most of the time, away from not so important, yes you want to do well in the league but how many fans travel to away meetings nowadays? Very few.

As a neutral to Rye I would rather see a young gutsy rider than gate and go Klindt although I was thinking the latter might be able to do something for the Rockets but he clearly has an attitude problem that would have shown itself at some point during the season.

Glad to see some sanity has been restored, fwiw from the moment I read the article even before it all kicked off on here I never read anything into it. Edited for poor grammar

Is a bit confusing the whole draft thing but then so is the heat leader list and team building as a whole, long gone are the days where we as fans could speculate based on known averages, now we know pretty much nothing about what riders are available at what criteria and what average, I will just sit back and wait. Regarding a back up man for AJ though, I don't think we will end up with what many would call a genuine heat leader but not many teams will have that in 2016 anyway.

Kerr would be a good reserve for us if Lewis Blackbird (nearly wrote Carl Blackbird, shows my age) actually does ride, quite what the chances of that are heaven knows but Jon must have had some dialogue with him before making his decision to name him. Whilst the averages of the reserves are now to be included in the teams total (should have applied from day one) there will still be an importance to them although not anywhere near as much as when all reserves were deemed to be the same value.

Would I want the Bjarne of recent times who has struggled so badly he was not even as good as his alto ego Agent Pedersen? Hell no, would I want the Bjarne who back in the day was a thorn in our side most visits to Arena? Yes To be honest I get the feeling there is not a lot out there left so options are probably limited, it's looking like the weakest EL we have ever had but maybe that will produce more even teams, close contests and exciting matches?

Despite being only 45 mins away I have not been to Rye for many years, the teams have always had the same Len Silver look about them, when I saw the 2016 team in the recent speedway star my gut reaction was, this is not a regular Rye team even though several have ridden for Rye before, imo they have a very good mixture of youth and experience, racers and trappers, I think you will get a reasonable amount of cross Lakeside support too as you track a number of Hammers favourites past and present but above all else people crave entertainment and I think you will get that with that team, I will definetely be looking to pop along.

I was a big fan of Christian, very stylish rider, yes not always one that scored a ton of points but he had his moments for sure. Always remember one season he was with us we went to Oxford and I think he scored 15 or something and was the star of the show.

The Claret tag is not a reference to speedway but the football team I follow. Interesting to read that the original colours were going to be what we have now until Essex Radio became sponsors, never heard that before but does sound completely plausible. Looking forward to seeing how this team looks once all signings are complete, disappointed to lose Bech but he seemed to lose his way in last season or so and he seemed to miss more meetings than most through other commitments.

I would much rather see us going back to being a red,white and blue team like the old days of Arena Essex, the idea of adopting West Ham style colours was a decent one but has not yielded anymore support because of it, we just lost a bit more of our original identity.

I would not want Batch in my team either, decent rider, on his day can be very good but that is all few and far between, he seems to have a big attitude problem which is the main reason most would leave him alone, funny enough though if he was to ride for Poole I think he would pull his socks up a bit such is the pressure to perform there plus Ford and Middlo would have the bottle and asset list to replace him which he would be mindful of.

The way the bikes are now quite frankly who does not struggle with the Arena track to some degree?

It's possible you have just answered your own question, its possibly the car racing aspect that is the potential stumbling block if as i have heard and read elsewhere that Friday night being prime time slot is wanted by more than just the speedway which could force either a change of race night or result in a higher premium to use the same Friday race night and either would then bring the thorny topic of viability into question.

Today is the long awaited day where we find out the status of the clubs immediate future, the fact there is a fans meeting does fill me with hope that something has been worked out, no one would surely hold a meeting just to tell a couple hundred of fans that sorry this is the end, would they? At this point I don't care which league Hammers opt into just so long as they keep a foot in the door.

Oh for the days when a good percentage of the team was made up of local talent hey, Ipswich have a been a prime example of that in the past.

Purely guessing here but I suspect the issue is not one of can speedway use the stadium but simply when and at what price, if AJ is not in the Grand Prix next season it's makes wanting to retain a Friday race night even more attractive but then if Kent run on a Friday it muddies the water further, if it is a question of race night, we cannot expect any promotion to take one which they feel will cost them thousands in debt to run because once your bankrupted, stadium or no stadium it makes no difference. I recall Jon saying at the last home meeting if the wind does blow in the wrong direction or words to that effect they would run a special farewell meeting, whether that's 2015 or sometime in 2016 i don't know but I hope it does not come to that just yet but it's clear that whatever happens that venue in its present form is only temporary.

Birmingham was the classic example of buyer beware, go back a decade and you could say almost the same thing about Arena Essex, doing quite nicely in the second tier, big Ron gets the invite to take the club up with promises of help which never came, what followed was the worst few seasons the club has ever had in its history.