Leicester Lion

You may be happy with the club's flippant attitude towards mediocrity. I prefer to see a team I support take it a bit more seriously. Celebrate success, not defeat.

Volty matched my views in his earlier post. Heat 15 was another win from the gate, this time by Doolan and Karlsson, who inexplicably pulled wheelies and celebrated as if they had won us the match. Clearly the fans care more about the team's performance than the riders do. So, another three points dropped at home, and our playoff hopes have followed the sun over the horizon and out of sight. It's going to be a miserable end to the season at BP, both on the track and income-wise. The promotion have learned nothing since the survey of last season. We still have ridiculous delays. We were promised that the changes to the track would improve the racing considerably, but they have not. The fall out from Hemsley's 'Hitler rant' continues to affect team morale. I fear for the future at BP.

I had to read that twice to convince myself there isn't the sinister meaning that I first saw! I thought Saturday's meeting was mediocre. To be fair, there were a couple of genuine-looking passes, but there were numerous strung-out races, and a few unusual crashes on bends 3/4. Howe doesn't seem the sort of rider to fall off on his own, but he did on Saturday. Auty didn't deserve the moronic abuse he got from some idiots; it was a good, fair pass. I don't think he saw Magnus offer the lift back to the pits as he'd already walked several metres onto the centre green when Magnus rode up and stopped out of his field of view.Another point dropped at home, and our play-off chances are disappearing. Several fans are saying we can pick up points at Rye House and Redcar, but I think it's misplaced optimism.

It shouldn't be about "earning" respect. The promoters should automatically respect their customers and appreciate that they will express opinions. The method of expressing them isn't important, one is no better than another. It's what is said that should matter.

Another home point dropped, this time to a team below us. If we keep losing something like 20-25% of our home points we won't get anywhere near the play-offs.

Or maybe they will. I can't help feeling there's something sinister in the old "say it face to face" line. Even if the undertone is my own imagination, the "say it face to face" line only confirms that promoters don't take seriously the comments made by the paying public on forums such as this. Some of those comments may be purely vitriolic or ill-thought out, but many are made in good faith and arise from reasonably held opinions by people who care about the sport they pay good money to watch.

We lost our unbeaten home record to Somerset, but the reality is that we've dropped 6 points at home, a worse record than those above us in the table. Those points would place us 4th or even 3rd. Instead of congratulating ourselves on being strong at home, we need to look at why we are dropping points. Happiness isn't 46-44 any more.

Culminating in Pearson declaring: "Australia are two points behind Australia". What a broadcaster!

You seem remarkably and regularly interested in it, yet your posts always seem to be about stifling debate. I wonder why, what's your agenda?

It all seems rather fanciful to me. Grants for such things tend to be made to voluntary organisations and charities, rather than private companies set up to make profit. Perhaps there are 'creative' ways that businesses can use to get around those restrictions. The ever-rising land level is amusing. Maybe Mr Hemsley is trying to build his own mountain as a permanent monument to his fabulous achievements. It's stretching credibility to suggest it's all there to reduce the noise. I'm sure everything about the noise issue was covered in the original planning application, which didn't require tonnes of earth to be built up three years into the project.

According to public records, David Hemsley is the sole director of Leicester Speedway Limited. Whether he's learned from his error remains to be seen. It may be Mr Hemsley's business, and some will say he can run it how he likes. To some extent that's true, but running a speedway club is different to running other businesses. A speedway club needs, and encourages, an emotional buy-in from its customers. That attachment will inevitably lead the club's supporters to hold and express strongly held views about the way the club is run.

Putting the sexist nonsense aside, one of the problems at Leicester is that for the last three years Mr Hemsley has been learning how to be a speedway promoter. The evidence continually shows he has learned very little. Maybe the BSPA were wrong to licence someone with no previous speedway background. Maybe the BSPA should have supported him more.

Think again. Trolling is about making off-topic, inflammatory postings.

I was merely highlighting your hypocrisy. If that massages your ego there's nothing I can do about it.

Especially when it's about the track at the Cardiff GP, eh?

The "you should be grateful" argument doesn't carry much weight three years later. The honeymoon period is long gone. It's ludicrous to suggest fans shouldn't have legitimate complaints and should just carry on indefinitely blindly accepting mediocrity (or worse) because they should only ever be grateful.

The stands were only supposed to be temporary anyway. The interview showed typical contradictions. Swearing black is white, Hemsley claims the racing at BP is some of the best anywhere, yet he'd happily risk making wholesale changes to the track if someone stumped up the cash. When asked about Norwich he said he hadn't heard from them, yet somehow they are working together to bring speedway back.

Until someone shows him their front wheel up the inside, then it'll be his left arm that goes up!

It's a great post, but I'm feeling somewhat left out.

I said this probably over a year ago, but it's equally valid now. Leicester should be the second team/track for fans from other Midlands tracks, fans who don't care too much about the result, provided the racing is entertaining. It simply isn't. Fans from Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Peterborough, even Coventry etc don't come to BP because the on-track entertainment is just not worth it. It's an important revenue stream that has been lost. As Mr Darcy said, it's only fifteen quid so if you don't like it you haven't lost much. But if fans don't come back the promotion loses plenty more. Some Lions fans will tolerate, and even defend, the extremely poor racing because the team is winning, and for them that's the main thing. Some take the view that we should just be grateful that we have speedway, and will ignore the lack of entertainment. That's their choice. I think there are some Lions fans who really know nothing better. Many others - the dissenting voices - see the bigger picture. Crowds aren't as large as they were, and that's with a team that generally wins at home. If the team starts losing, crowds will drop. It's blatantly obvious that the promotion isn't flush with money, and smaller crowds must endanger the future of the speedway. Eventually, this promotion, or the next one, simply must do something radical to the track to improve the racing and increase the crowds.

Accusing others of wrong assumptions, only to make one of your own! I'm not saying anything of the sort and would never say someone isn't allowed an opinion. Anyway, this is all sidetracking... So Joe Screen was riding alone. A rider going around on his own may demonstrate that the bits they sliced off the inside can be ridden on, but it doesn't show that those changes have made the slightest difference to the quality of the racing, which is, after all, why they were supposed to have been made. The changes can only be shown to be successful or not when riders of comparable ability are racing against each other. Sadly the evidence so far has shown that there is little difference, with no prospect of improvement.

I resent being accused of not contributing to serious discussion. As I said earlier, I'm always sceptical about people who declare themselves neutral. I'd hope that most people, regardless of their initial standpoint, are at least open to - and respectful of - the views of others, even if they don't change their minds. To accuse others of inflexibility and then put everyone who you don't agree with into one group, the "usual few", and label everyone's opinions and points as "bile" doesn't strike me as serious discussion, and certainly not from someone who says they are neutral. You saw Joe Screen ride flat out (if that's possible where the riders obviously have to lose quite a lot of speed at the end of the straights) all the way around the inside line at Leicester. Was he racing against anyone of comparable ability, or was he riding alone?

On any of your visits to Leicester, have you offered this advice to the promoter?

I think he also said he'd never seen so much passing in every race as he'd seen at Leicester. Or something on those lines.

I love the high quality of the debating on the Leicester threads.