Hamish McRaker

Excellent! Well enjoy the hol, forget about speedway for while, and hope you arn't going anywhere you might bump into Matt Ford soaking up the sun and drinking his pina coladas!

Relax GRW, chill out dude! Everything's going exactly to plan. Poole will win the league. KL will be at the tapes come March time with a team of 7. What's to get in a state about when all the main stuff''s decided already.

What with all of the pitfalls of double-uppers as Flagrag has highlighted, has Leicester decided to abandon that as a possible route, especially as they appear reluctant to purchase any riders and prefer to hire them from other teams. Building a 1-5 composed of young Poles plus "older" ones like Protasciwicz or Holta, and of course Walasek (who might not be under such pressure from clubs/sponsors/polish authorities) seems to be the only way forward?? They just need to locate a regular cargo flight operating between Warsaw and East Midlands to give them all a lift as additional "crew". Worth keeping in mind that Leicester has a strong pair of reserves who between them should pile up big points at home, especially if the heats format is retained. That's not something that's been a factor in the past. Just would need them to be competitive enough in heats 13 and 15 - at home anyway and Walasek provides half of that requirement, providing he's free of injuries of course. Away matches....well..... Can't help thinking that some other promoters are expecting (hoping?) that Leicester won't be able to take their place in the league......could explain one or two vacant team places still existing elsewhere??

That's a Clownist remark. Clowns have a well established and recognised training and apprenticeship, and are competent and skilfull.

......as Sir Humphrey would say to Jim Hacker

As has already been pointed out, the origins of this farce is the race format from the past two years. OK - it may have been necessary in the first year of the ELDR scheme, but last year its relevance was highly dubious, and to retain it for a third year is complete madness, especially now that the "draft" is no longer a real draft, and numbers 6 and 7 will have averages with the no.6 able to move into the 1-5. Unless the race format reverts back to the previous one, this ludicrous situation with averages not being "real" is going to be perpetuated, and these idiotic and ham-fisted attempts to give riders a notional status based on cranky non-criteria will just recur each year. I wonder how the 2017 season's HL list will be compiled? The 40 nicest set of kevlars, i wouldn't be surprised.

Agree fully about Buczkowski.However, as regards Poole I think it's more a case of their sitting back, watching closely and waiting for a cock- up to be made (which is inevitable) and then moving very quicklyquickly to take advantage when they spot one

.....or he could have decided to stick two fingers up to the bunch of muppets in the BSPA and go ahead with a team which doesn't include any riders from the HL list and carry on operating on Saturdays in some kind of renegade mission. If that's the case it' ll mean no Kenneth Bjerre or Greg Hancock for Leicester:-)

It looks like the riders list from some 12-year old's fantasy speedway game has been used. I doubt there was anything as advanced as a proper meeting behind this one!

Well looking back at the opening post of this thread, and DH's own words about the way he takes the club forward being dependent on decisions made by the sport's (for want of a better word) governing body and his hopes for it moving to a more professional approach, and a more level playing field, I am surprised he is still running Leicester or that they are still considering taking part in the Elite league next season.

The underlying rationale to this scheme is deranged, and its interpretation is confused.The list seems to have been drafted by person or persons who have a poor knowledge of speedway and have done it on a couple of beermats in the pub. If they had thought this over properly,it would have all been chucked in the bin, which is where it belongs.

Remarkable how Buczkowski has not been included. He was Leicester's second top rider at end of 2014, appeared for Poland in the WTC last year, and ended his stint with Peterborough as a heat leader, didn't he?

Is there anything in the rules, purely theoretically of course (and all in the best possible taste), to prevent R.Lambert from deciding to join the EDR pool at this stage and for KL to select him to replace Kerr?

Its looking more and more like the "draft" aspect of the process is the assembly of a pool of riders who meet eligibility criteria. After that, it becomes more a game of sophisticated musical chairs with some amount of side-deals going on, within a rough but quite flexible framework of "rules". However, as may have already become apparent and may be about to become even more so, the eligibility criteria for membership of the pool looks to be quite flexible also.!

Maybe Mr Blackbird was never going to come out of retiirement, and this whole business had been set up a long while ago, same goes for KL's replacement for Kerr.

And Auty to Kings Lynn?

Got the feeling this is a big juicy red herring. But....if there's any truth in it.....the rider must be very good indeed to merit change of race night and the possible loss of another rider. East as in Kings Lynn? East as in Emil Sayfutdinov? .....Chapman talked about an exciting team or something like that when the Lambert re-signing was announced.

Another cunning plan works out for Ford

I wonder how long,from after the AGM ends, clubs are allowed to go before they have to pay up the money? If a club drags its heels in making the payment, there is presumably a deadline after which the league place is forfeited if the payment hasn't been forthcoming. Or is the AGM itself the absolute deadline?

Is there a MINIMUM team total points requirement?

Appreciate the explanation and acknowledge you're not completely sure of the full rules. But if what you say is roughly right, it would mean that if a team withdraws from the league during the winter, and is up to date with rider payments, their bond would remain intact and even refundable if it were a permanent withdrawal from the league by that team/promotion?

What does this bond cover? Is it surety to cover just any monies owed at the time a team withdraws from the league, or does it also include an element of indemnity for the other clubs in the league to cover costs/loss of income associated with cancellation of home match fixtures? Does it also include such as cover for possible third-party liabilities?

Unless, of course, the limit is about to be reduced by 2 points

Wouldn't be surprised if Sky has been alive to such a possibility for a while now. Not sure if the 8 teams "requirement" is contractually set in stone or not. But if there is also a concern for the quality of the product, then a reduction to 7 teams in 2016 could be of benefit. Sweden went down to 7 teams this year from 8 the previous one.And how many times did Sky cover Leicester matches in the two years? Two "obligatory" home matches and that was all. As Flagrag has previously pointed out onhere,deficiencies in the track lighting prevent matches from being covered outside the full daylight period.And deficiencies in the team have prevented away matches being featured. So would Sky really be all that concerned??

And I did say BOTH of them!!