Hamish McRaker

It has! Trebles all round

My interest is declining by the minute.

Get an overnight hotel and travel back on Saturday. Have a look around KL whilst there. However, will there be any hotel rooms available? Home Office are booking anything they can get at the moment.

Train from Poole leaves at 11.40, cross London to Kings Cross and you can get to KL at 16.31. Journey time 4hrs 51. From Leicester at 13.15, also arrives KL at 16.31 with a change at Peterborough. Journey 3h 16.

It isn't a neutral track. Leicester are temporarily homeless and so have had to borrow a home venue. The notion of turning it into a one-off final is completely gypit

"Agreed" - sound from that more like they were "instructed". In which case Leicester may have a valid claim to financial compensation for the costs and income loss?

No chance. Huge rolls of blotting paper being put down early morning to pre-absorb moisture that would otherwise rise up from the base into the new material. New material to consist mostly of recycled shredded moisture-wicking clothing. The track will need watering, if anything.

That's why I put up the idea of having a 5-team mini-league starting in August with fixtures being set from the beginning. This would effectively be playoffs, with each club guaranteed 4 such home fixtures and no playing games in the quest for having the second leg at home which seems to have become the root cause of the current arrangements having become so dysfunctional that a complete farce is the outcome.

I think that is probably right, that jockeying for the second leg at home has resulted in this farce. If so, how was this allowed to happen? Was no control being exercised by the sport's directors?

Please excuse me if this has already been chewed over, but.... Weds 12th Poole v Redcar, KO cup final Sat 15th Leicester Cubs v Mildenhall KO cup final. Presumably Leicester and Poole already confirmed as playoff finalists by then. So why wasn't the final run on those dates??

Yes there is -if the weather on Friday differs from the current forecast

Good luck. Hope things go right for you and it turns out fine.

If you could re-wind back to March this year: A league of 11 comprising 10 home and 10 away matches. Complete by 31 July, no ifs or buts. Top 5 play each other - 4 home, 4 away. Complete by 30 Sept with fixtures set by the SCB. Exceptional permission to extend to 6 October. League winners are CL Champions. No playoffs. No pratting about with "we have to have our home leg first". Teams finishing in positions 5-11 (5-10 in actual case with Newcastle's demise) have a mini-league of homes and aways, completion by mid October. Call it Division 3, or whatever but give the winners a cup! KO Cup runs through the season but is lowest priority.

Sounds like the poor sods working on the track were trying to do the equivalent of emptying a swimming pool with a teaspoon.

It's basically a bad failure of risk management. If you do proper risk management, you usually avoid these occurrences. At its simplest level in this case, it boils down to "avoidance of the possibility for league championship playoff finals from having to take place during the second half of October". In most organisations, proper risk management is implemented in response to an occurrence. Even the Tory party (just about) managed to do it with the ejection of Truss and installation of a replacement. The BSPL seem incapable.

I think the word you're looking for is "complacency"

Cool your stooshie, the word is "ironic"!

It is so ironic that the main stated business of the Bates's company, PBHS (or similar initials), is water collection and treatment.

Agreed except 3

Someone like Len Silver who has no vested interest

I agree, in these circumstances the final league table has no value in deciding the champions. If we go by Mr Shovlar's reports as truthful and accurate, then a decision has to be reached as to whether or not Leicester is likely to be capable of staging this match within a reasonable timescale (I suggest that by 31 October is adjudged to be "reasonable"). This would require an independent assessment to be carried out by a person of relevant expertise appointed by the SCB for this as a one-off task and for his decision to be final. Such assessment would need to be carried out and completed by no later than 9.00 am on Saturday. If he decides the Leicester track is unfit, and to be in such a state that, with likelihood of further rain across the next few days (i.e. until 31 Oct), then Leicester would have to declare their stadium as unavailable for use for the foreseeable future, and would be obliged to seek an alternative venue to stage the match within a timescale specified by the SCB, failing which the championship would be awarded based on the result of the completed first leg at Poole.

Presumably you're going to share this picture with us?

If start times of matches were changed to 9pm he'd be a world beater. Must be a vampire

Wolves could use a few changes, freshen things up a to bit. Is Tai Woffinden going to be back in the UK next season?