screm

The relevant authorities are looking at a number of sports and their organisations, not just speedway, maybe EL Ice Hockey will be on their radar to.

All perfectly true, though its not SCB you have to convince, if that the case Camptons putting forward I think the Border & Immigration people will be harder to convince.

It looks like yet another hurdle in my quest to start my 2015 Speedway campaign with the Scunthorpe Scorpions in the UK. My flights, as you may know, were booked for Tuesday 3rd February and with 4 brand new bikes waiting for me I was keen to get there sooner rather than later. My Visa was applied for on 21st December and with the 12 month exclusion from the country prior to applying for a new visa complete (which is the criteria with a Tier 2 Sportsmans Visa) I was excited to get the Visa application away as soon as I received my Sponsorship Certificate from the Scunthorpe Scorpions. Too easy right?…….As you will read in the upcoming days the UKVI (United Kingdom Visa and Immigration) have shone the spotlight on a number of sporting organisations in the UK, not just speedway, and have insisted that all Speedway Clubs/Promoters attend a series of workshops hosted by the UKVI to ensure that they are up to speed with the criteria required to retain their sponsorship licences. The result of this is that essentially no Australian or American speedway riders will be granted entry visas into the UK until such time as the workshops are complete and the Sponsorship Licences are reinstated to each of the 10 Speedway Clubs in the Premier League. This affects 17 Australian speedway riders. The current status of my Visa is that it is presently held in the UKVI processing centre located in Manilla, Philippines and hopefully they will place it “on hold” until such time as the UKVI give the tick of approval to the speedway clubs (remembering that this is not just my club of Scunthorpe but every speedway club in the UK). This will save additional time and money including a second trip to Sydney for mandatory biometric testing so fingers crossed. The worst case scenario is that they will refuse the application and return it to me along with my birth certificate and passport and I will be required to reapply once the new Sponsorship Licences have been issued to the clubs. The UKVI is hopeful that they can have all clubs resolved by 15th March and I will be on the first plane possible after I receive my Visa. I will keep you posted as news comes to hand but I really wanted to keep you in the loop rather than you hear it on the grapevine or read about it on social media. Yours in Sport Alex Davies Taken from Scunthorpe Speedway site.

And as things stand at the minute there in lies the conundrum, I`m sure the clubs will do all they can to get to get the visa issues sorted but there is bound to be a rider or two left out when the season starts.

Ok apart from Rye House, Peterborough and Newcastle, but we`re there or there about.

Agree nothing against the kid but this might just work out in Berwick`s favour, especially as other clubs might be more affected than Berwick, see once again Berwick Speedway ahead of the rest.

If Sedgeman and Masters face waiting till mid March to attain their visa`s, its fair to say all the other riders will be in the same boat, mid March is cutting things a bit fine for some clubs.

Might be wrong but I don't think Holder is married, of course that might change now.

With the changes and criteria for applying for and/or being granted a visa, it makes signing Jake Allen virtually a non-starter now surely. In some ways this keep strengthen Berwick`s hand as it seems some other teams are going to be far more affected.

Hope your right, but with the Berwick team is incomplete, and question marks hanging over Jake Allen, how can you put Berwick in the top six.

If the criteria is enforced for this Tier 2 visa, its difficult to see and Aussie newcomer being granted a visa.

I remember when this thread was about Darcy Ward.

Start of the season though is not a fixed date each year, for example do we take the start of this season to be the Ben Fund meeting at Swindon or the first official fixture.

Fixtures now on site, now all we need is a full team to fulfil them.

Newcastle regularly finish in the play offs, there`s no reason to think this team wont get them back there. They have a promotion and a team manager who seem to have the knack of getting the best out of their riders, might take a bit of time to get things going but I expect Newcastle to be play off finishers this season.

As far as age goes I thought it was a riders age at the start of that year, not the start of the season.

As far as announcing goes Berwick are well covered in that department. I`d be amazed if the promotion gave a jot as to what goes on on here, after all there is only a tiny minority of Berwick fans posting on here compared to what turns up at Shielfield every Saturday.

Is there a story to be told and if so are you going to share it with the group.

As promoters and/or owners that's part of their job surely, to keep the fans informed the best way they can.

I`m think they must've had a prior engagement as I am sure if they could've been there they would've.

Ward is not yet banned just suspended, though its a hell of a suspension.

Let us all hope that what is announced stays that way, weather allowing.

Absolutely, if Ward is found to have done wrong then he deserves all he gets IMO, but any speedway fan would want to see Ward back on a bike, back in SGP and back in the EL.

Delighted to hear Dennis McCleary has been rewarded for all his hard work for Berwick Speedway over the years, IMO its fair to say if it wasn't for the likes of Mr. McCleary and others speedway might've lost Berwick Bandits years ago.

Don't think anyone is condoning what Ward did.