arthur cross

At least there was still a club, even better still with a track to race upon, for those 3 new guys (or anyone else) to decide upon whether they wanted to buy it. I repeat, when's this year's first meeting at Newport if that's the yardstick of credibility for these new guys ?

At least "Hoggy and the others" have always kept Sheffield going ... when's this year's first meeting at Newport ?

In that case, don't be surprised if the club has to fend off all sorts of rumours, most (maybe even all) of them probably wrong, about why three newcomers to running a club have parted company with someone who's been a member of the BSPA Management Committee for several years. On this evidence, the club's new direction is one which includes putting up the shutters as soon as you've announced an unexpected decision. If you can't be bothered to provide a bit more detail for your customers, it's highly likely some of those customers won't be bothered to give you much time to settle in. All in all, whether you liked him or not, you've found a wretchedly shoddy way to mark the end of Dave Hoggart's spell as one of the main people involved with the Sheffield Tigers through some of the toughest years for both the club itself and the sport in general.

From today's Racing Post monthly round-up of northern greyhound tracks, under the headline "Toon hope terracing will be back for Sky night" ... The Newcastle management is hoping that the £250,000 building work currently being carried out at the track to replace the terracing in the front of the grandstand will be completed in time for their new Sky TV date on June 4. The old terracing has been fenced off in recent months as it had been deemed unsafe, but operations manager Ian Walton is pleased with the way the job is progressing. He says: "Everything is under way and there have been no delays so far. They gave us an estimate of 12 to 16 weeks when they started and that would take us to the end of May beginning of June, so we're keeping our fingers crossed." = = = = = = = = = = Some notes on that article ... whereas up to and including 2012, Sky's greyhound production budget let them build their own finishing-line camera-&-commentary gantry for each of their 1-or-2 visits each year, their reduced budget from last year onwards means they now just use whatever facilities are already in place for SIS's betting-shop coverage from the track. Any of you who went to Newcastle last year will remember the closure of the terracing meant the track's SIS box (also used by Bob Tasker for his GRT-Media speedway-dvd's) was moved halfway down the full terracing as its traditional place at the back of the terracing was within the condemned territory. But now that the repair work's underway, the SIS box has been temporarily moved again to about 10 metres after the greyhound winning-post, creating a camera-angle that makes it almost impossible for betting-shop viewers to know who's likely to have won a photo-finish ... it's that camera-angle that Sky's viewers also had to put up with last month. Newcastle were only awarded the meeting previously listed in Sky's 2014 schedule as "June 4th, venue to be arranged" a couple of weeks ago and I doubt they'd have been given that date unless there was reasonable confidence that Sky's viewers wouldn't have to put up with a repeat of last month's camera-angle so the terracing should be fully back in business (speedway fans included) nicely in time for that next Sky dogs-night.

I don't know if this is the actual scenario regarding Mr Sandhu and Coventry Stadium but here's an obvious answer to your very fair question ... If a company owns a property but that company also owes a shedload of money elsewhere, then the creditors owed that money could use the value of that property within the process of chasing their money and getting as much of it back as possible. But if that company sells that property before the creditors start making progress towards whatever's left for them, the value of that property can't now be included in the creditors' chase because it no longer belongs to the company they're chasing and they're not owed anything by the company that now owns it. Establishing any link between the owner of the company selling the property and the owner of the company buying the property doesn't much help the creditors get their money back ... its only real use is giving them the chance to share that information with any of the authorities helping their chase.

And Perry Barr is the only one of the Greyhound Racing Association's tracks that it doesn't own outright (unlike, past-or-present for speedway, Belle Vue, Wimbledon or Oxford). Instead, there's some sort of partnership deal between the GRA and Birmingham City Council which is why, a few months ago, bids were briefly invited for the individual sales of Belle Vue and the GRA's other Birmingham dog track at Hall Green (not that anything worthwhile seemed to emerge) but a similar invite didn't occur for Perry Barr as that would've also required the council's go-ahead.

Have a look at the greyhound section of www.racingpost.com It's taken just a few days for it to become clear that it was only the previous greyhound promoter Harry Findlay who wanted to bale out in a hurry as soon as he had no hope of any lease extension beyond the rest of the current deal. But the general management of the stadium as well as the greyhound owners/trainers are keen to resume staging that sport as soon as possible, maybe as soon as this Friday, having received new financial backing that appears to cover Findlay's swift exit.. The only thing stopping this quick resumption is that the Greyhound Board of Great Britain's licencing procedures aren't designed to cope with a licenced-promoter suddenly wanting out while the stadium staff not only want to stay in but are also confident they can fund any financial guarantee removed by that departing licence-holder ... overall, it appears the dog racing will resume as soon as the GBGB give any new licences the all-clear. The nearest recent example I can recall of something similar happening in speedway (and it led to a change in the rulebook) was Tim Stone's sudden death in May 2008 as Newport's sole promoter ... while plenty of Wasps fans would've willingly volunteered to help their club see out the season in such tragic circumstances, Newport's fixtures had to come to a halt because important matters (like the club's ownership and insurance liability) were trapped in the racking-up of Tim's finances (and made even more complicated because he hadn't left a will) so the SCB & BSPA couldn't quickly process new people's paperwork. That led to the current rule that every British speedway club must have a minimum of 2 co-promoters (and a maximum of 3) to reduce the risk of one person's death grinding a whole club to a halt. Thankfully, we're not dealing with a death in Harry Findlay's case at Coventry dogs but we are still dealing with an unexpected departure of a licenced-promoter and the GBGB won't simply rush through new paperwork without making that sport's usual checks of any prospective new licence-holders.

To put into context how little time there is for Coventry to have a new speedway stadium up-&-running, it's already 16-months (October 2012) since the FIM awarded Belle Vue's new stadium the 2013 World Cup Final, only for that to prove far too quick for its development. If Belle Vue, having known enough about their new site back in 2012 to bid for it hosting a global event, won't be racing in their new home until 2015 at the earliest, what chance do Coventry have of racing in a new home in 2017 when they're only at the stage of inviting fans to suggest possible new sites here in 2014 ? !! - - - - - - - - - - - Meanwhile, although the stadium management at Brandon are hopeful (in the Coventry Telegraph article a few posts above) about staging greyhound racing there this Friday & Saturday, they're in a very grey area with the Greyhound Board of Great Britain about whether those meetings can be officially licenced. In today's Racing Post, the Brandon management have made it clear the previous dogs promoter Harry Findlay is nothing to do with this swift revival (and they've publicly thanked him for his past efforts). But the GBGB would normally require "fit and proper" checks to be made on any incoming new promoter(s) which would clearly delay any resumption for at least a few weeks while any interviews and paperwork are sorted out. There's very little (if any) precedent for an outgoing promoter to call a halt, what's then regarded as the last meeting being staged but then the first revival meeting going ahead with someone else promoting it, all in the space of a single week !!

You really are taking muppet-status to new levels by asking that question because ... ... that informative and tidy answer appeared 5-posts above (or 9-hours before) your question !! Here's an idea ... when a thread's in as early a stage as this one, requiring just a few moments to be fully digested, how about reading it before showcasing your ignorance to the rest of the forum ?

I'm sure Leicester's new stadium took longer than 3 years to create from the research of possible sites until actually hosting its first meeting ... not so sure about Scunthorpe's timescale although it certainly wasn't built overnight. But the general speedway public's fear when hearing a famous stadium's going to be sold is based on plenty of track closures where new stadiums were at least on the agenda only for nothing to emerge ... in no particular order, Exeter, Reading and Milton Keynes soon spring to mind. Add on the gaps averaging around 20 years each between the previous and current versions of Birmingham, Leicester and Cradley(Dudley) plus a similar gap without anything new at Long Eaton and it's easy for anyone to be dubious about Avtar Sandhu's pledge to find the Bees a new home ... and that's as much to do with the logistics of creating a new venue rather than anything about the man himself. In hindsight, they did well on Teesside to have "only" 9 empty years between the end of Middlesbrough and the start of Redcar. But here's a radical solution to Coventry's plight that could bring the whole sport together to keep the Bees going ... as the delays drag on with securing planning permission for Belle Vue's new home (remember it was awarded last year's World Cup Final but clearly had to back down) and given Coventry's ideally-central location, maybe it's time (and more realistic) to aim for a National Speedway Stadium that's also a home track for the Bees rather than for the Aces.

He'd gain the very handy option of what to do with that million quid !! Bees fans would like him to choose to spend it on a new track for their team. But it's his decision how and where to spend it, not theirs !! He's asking Bees fans to trust him about finding their team a new home ... and the test of that trust will be when he has that million quid in his hands.

It's totally dependent on the track-by-track circumstances of any actual closure or the fear of one ... the current determination of the whole British greyhound industry to preserve Wimbledon follows on (indeed, is trying to learn from) the sport's huge but unsuccessful efforts to save Walthamstow from its 2008 closure (3-months notice at the time) or revive that track since then given the site's yet to be built upon. Wimbledon's greyhound supporters believe they can take that track into the 21st-century with Paschal Taggart's proposed revamp ... meanwhile, many greyhound folk will never forgive the Chandler family for selling Walthamstow to developers L&Q without inviting any rival bids that would've at least let the sport show whether it could come up with a financially-competitive alternative against L&Q. That scandalous sell-off of Walthamstow, followed by over 5 years of the site laying dormant, is just about the only topic that brings loud and united support from that area's 2 totally diverse local MP's, namely right-wing Conservative Cabinet Minister Iain Duncan Smith and staunch Labour feminist Stella Creasy. Unless owners/trainers/punters have the immediate financial clout to change the decision-maker's mind, there's precious little they can do effectively against abrupt closures by the licence-holding management. Could you or any other speedway fan do anything effective if your team's owners/promoters abruptly closed the operation down mid-sesson ? ... you could squeal as much as you like but you wouldn't get very far unless you could buy out those escaping owners/promoters and satisfy the SCB & BSPA that you were suitable for being granted replacement licences. Catford's closure in November 2003 was announced by the GRA on a blank day in that track's weekly schedule so that the previous day's meeting was the farewell without it being generally known as it took place ... at the time, the GRA justified it on economic grounds while it still had currently-defunct Oxford and now-bulldozed Portsmouth as well as Wimbledon at which to accommodate fairly locally Catford's contracted-trainers (and so keep any greyhound welfare objections at bay). Coventry's greyhound management announced yesterday they're packing up tonight because they've been told they can't be guaranteed any lease extension beyond their remaining couple of years given Avtar Sandhu's intention to sell that site once any existing sporting leases expire ... as Coventry's greyhound business plan is still at the stage of stomaching current losses on the way to profitability in several years' time, they've reckoned there's now no point suffering any further losses as "several years' time" doesn't realistically exist.

I can't work out whether you're trying to be ironic and funny or taking a ridiculously cheap shot at the running of British speedway which even it doesn't deserve despite the daft ways in which it's often run. Either way, you've served up one of the most pathetic posts I've ever read on this forum. A fine description by a much-missed lady although maybe still 2nd-best to Terry Wogan's "formation drowning" at the Barcelona Olympics that seriously infuriated the British synchronized swimming team !!

With well-known pro-gambler Harry Findlay as a figurehead, Coventry's latest greyhound incarnation has been all about stomaching financial losses for a few years in the hope of their central geographical location helping them secure the Greyhound Derby (if Wimbledon was to close) or being the flagship-track of a truly nationwide jackpot-bet for greyhound racing along the lines of horse racing's Scoop-6 based mostly on Channel-4's coverage every Saturday-afternoon (Findlay is widely-respected as the king of any syndicates devoting huge energy and time to make a profit from massive Scoop-6 entries covering thousands of permutations compared to the average punter risking just a few quid). While either that Derby or Jackpot ambition was still clearly on the horizon as the way to recover these current losses, they could justify the losses ... but they've clearly (and very swiftly) decided that if they can't guarantee staging those ambitions even if they won either or both of them, it's not worth chucking the current losses into what's now a financial drain instead of a rainbow. Best chance of finding out any more about this very sudden exit might to watch tonight's Racing Post Greyhound TV from 7.15pm on Sky/212 or Freesat/401 because Coventry was one of their featured tracks (on Wednesday & Sunday nights) for well over a year until last summer ... however, it was dropped from the RPGTV roster amid speculation that the various bookie-firms who sponsor that channel weren't happy about their profits being damaged by the larger than normal amount of winning favourites in the races shown from Coventry. It's surely a different financial situation for Mick Horton (and Coventry speedway in general) as he's not had a similarly lucrative financial horizon to aim at ... what's mattered more for the Bees is just keeping the finances ticking over. So while the stadium still exists and the Bees' lease to rent it srill exists, the speedway should be able to start its season as planned in a few weeks' time ... remember, the dogs haven't been chucked out of the stadium, it's their bosses who've voluntarily baled out of their lease to swerve more current losses they now feel they have no reasonable hope of recovering. But where today's decision appears to me to be dreadful for speedway is that the greyhounds have been using the stadium much more often (at least twice, often three or more times a week all year round) so their exit leaves the site much less busy and, therefore, much easier for any developers to justify the stadium's demolition if they apply to the local council to do that. At least the current saga involving Galliard Homes and Oxford City Council appears to have proved that stadium owners need local council permission to demolish existing stadium buildings, never mind building any alternative uses ... so at least the bulldozers can't be driven straight in. But with Birmingham surely unable with their once-a-week local noise restrictions to accommodate to much (if any) of any emergency hosting of Coventry home meetings and Monmore already doubly-committed to the Wolves and Heathens, would Leicester be the most likely saviour of any Bees' home action if Brandon closes completely mid-season ?

In terms of bringing the various elements of the greyhound industry together (some often hostile to each other), then yes it was an excellent turnout. But what it achieved to people not already aware of the Wimbledon Stadium saga is much more doubtful ... for example, neither the ITV nor BBC regional news programmes for London between 6pm & 7pm last night had any coverage of it. I'd have thought those regional tv-newsdesks would usually be eager to cover the sight of several hundred people accompanying a group of friendly greyhounds near some famous tourist landmarks to draw attention to an unusual London sports/news story. Admittedly, the leftovers of the Thames flooding are still taking up quite a bit of their resources but that isn't now dominating their entire programmes ... and given one of the main organizers of yesterday's gathering, Julie Collier, is herself a tv-sports producer and presenter who lives in a Surrey suburb of London, it was still surprising neither of those regional-tv programmes included it.

When I wrote my post a few hours ago reckoning Paschal Taggart was an "increasingly reluctant figurehead" for the British greyhound industry, I didn't know (or expect) what appears a rather tame excuse for him not attending this afternoon's "Show of Passion" but here's the Racing Post's preview of today's gathering ... by the way, the GBGB is the Greyhound Board of Great Britain and the initials TD are the Irish equivalent of a Member of Parliament. City Hall "will be a real celebration" - by Jonathan Kay Hundreds of greyhound enthusiasts will today descend on London's City Hall (1.30 for 2.00pm) for the much-vaunted Show Of Passion intended to reinforce to Mayor Boris Johnson that the sport is alive and well and any redevelopment of the facilities at the current dilapidated Wimbledon Stadium would be viable. Johnson has expressed a wish that "ideally" the redevelopment will include provision for greyhound racing but Irish businessman Paschal Taggart, who is leading a consortium with ambitious plans for a world-class greyhound facility, faces opposition from current site landlords Galliard Homes / Risk Capital who are proposing a far bigger housing development along with the carrot of a new stadium for AFC Wimbledon. Taggart will not be present today as he wishes the occasion to be about the enthusiasm for greyhound racing in London rather than him and his specific plan although other members of the consortium are expected to attend along with high-profile figures from both the UK and Ireland including the GBGB. Centrepiece of the day will be the formal handing over by Ray Butler TD of a letter highlighting the importance of greyhound racing to the Irish economy which is significant as Ireland's National Asset Management Agency (Nama) effectively owns the Wimbledon site as a result of loans made to Galliard/Risk. We Want Wimbledon campaigner Diane McLean said yesterday: "We want the Show Of Passion to be a real celebration of greyhound racing and stress again that we are supporting the Mayor who has consistently stated that he sees it as a vital part of London's cultural heritage. "The indications are that the weather should be decent and, if the pledges of support come through, it should be a fantastic occasion showing what greyhound racing means to so many people," she added. "I really think we are starting to get our message across and not just in greyhound circles. We are talking about 86 years of history at Wimbledon Stadium and it is arrogant in the extreme for AFC and their cheerleaders to think they have some sort of entitlement to the site - remember that Galliard would not be engaging with them at all if "sporting intensification" wasn't a planning requirement. "It's a sham marriage of convenience and, should they somehow pull the wool over planners' eyes, one that could easily end in a messy divorce as the last thing Galliard actually want is to have to build a football stadium." .

A very fair summary to which I would only add that Paschal Taggart himself has given the impression of a beaten man since mid-autumn only for Diane McLean's leadership of the We Want Wimbledon campaign to rally the greyhound industry towards this afternoon's "Show of Passion", pretty much forcing Mr Taggart to remain a increasingly reluctant figurehead when he probably knows his economic view of the saga tramples all over any defiant enthusiasm from the rank-and-file members of that sport. I still think it's hugely underestimated (or conveniently ignored) by the British greyhound industry that Mr Taggart didn't have to compete against football in Dublin chasing the Shelbourne Park site when he revamped that to continue its greyhound racing because just 5 minutes' walk away the much bigger Landsdowne Road site was already long overdue for its own revamp into the Aviva Stadium.

You've got the totally wrong end of the stick there ... I've been involved in various ways in all sorts of levels of sport (amateur and professional) since 1980 and have been happy to be around many of those activities where money's been owed, providing it's clear how that money's going to be paid up in due course. The Wimbledon Stadium situation is different ... although on a day-to-day basis, the greyhound racing seems to cover its costs (including any interest payments on the Irish loans) but any profit it makes doesn't seem to be making anywhere near enough progress in paying off those Irish loans and, therefore, it's almost certain those Irish loans will never be paid off any time soon (if ever) just by carrying on with the existing use of the site. In such circumstances, my money-related view (already explained several times on this thread) is simply that whatever development happens next at Wimbledon Stadium (football, greyhounds, other sports, housing, shops, industrial units or any combinations of those categories) can only go ahead once those who are still owed the multi-millions from the existing use of the site are either paid in full or reach agreement with those who currently own the site ... in others words, the Irish banks (represented by Nama) are either paid in full or reach agreement with Galliard. In your own life, would you let any aspect of it go on to another stage if there was money owed (even just a few quid) on its exisitng stage and you could do something about it ? ... the Wimbledon Stadium saga is a multi-million-pound version of the same principle !! At the moment, it's clear Nama's view of what happens next is that Galliard build and sell enough houses on the site to satisfy the Irish banks' repayment demands ... hence. Nama are backing Galliard's preferred future development of a football stadium plus 600 houses, much to the frustration of Paschal Taggart's plans to revamp the venue for greyhound racing plus 400-to-450 houses. What we do know is that Merton Council held its 2-day hearing last month, ready for a report that's expected in April, as its way to find anyone's realistic plans for the future use of the Wimbledon Stadium site given the council's determination that anyone's plans must use at least part of the site for a community sporting venue. All the plans that were brought along to that 2-day hearing included some degree of house building along with various types of sports facilities and shops. Until speedway can attach itself to any realistic plan for the future of Wimbledon Stadium that doesn't include plenty of housing, then speedway has a desperately tiny chance (certainly much smaller than your "bit of a chance") of returning to Wimbledon regardless of how "active" it tries to be like the greyhound "Show of Passion". The existing debts to the Irish banks are massively beyond the reach of speedway to solve on its own ... given the overall circumstances, I'd fully understand any potential speedway promoter deciding to devote his/her effort/money towards other venues with a better chance than Wimbledon of hosting the sport. It might look as if speedway's "not doing anything" about Wimbledon but surely it's better to do something elsewhere with a better chance of success. It's different for all the various aspects of the greyhound industry ... their current livelihoods are at stake (rather than the revival of a sport that used to be staged there) and, thanks to Paschal Taggart, they have a realistic plan to continue making a living at that site ... hence, given that situation, I can fully understand them putting together a project like the "Show of Passion" in the hope of saving those livelihoods. But they're also desperately avoiding having to answer the question of how to repay the multi-millions to Nama's satisfaction by building only 400-to-450 homes under the Taggart plan compared to building 600 homes under the Galliard/AFC Wimbledon plan. Thanks for those good wishes ... and the best way you can thank me in return is by respecting the current facts about this saga (especially what sort of plans were presented at the planning hearing last month). = = = = = = = = = = PS ... thanks to "salty" (while I was writing this post) for also trying to explain my frustrations with "michaelcroucher" struggling to grasp the economic side of this saga ... I fully respect this forum's guideline of "attack the post, not the poster" but my goodness, I'm sometimes right on the border of that guideline here !!

Totally understandable that the greyhound industry defiantly wants to remain the primary sport at Wimbledon Stadium and Monday's event at City Hall should present that defiance to a wider audience in a very good light. But a "Show of Passion" still does nothing to solve the overwhelming problem for those working within greyhound racing, namely their paymaster at Wimbledon Stadium still owes many millions of pounds (that are well overdue) relating to their existing use of that site.

West Ham United very much talking up their deal with Galliard as a 3-way partnership between themselves, Galliard & Newham Council to make sure there are plenty of footballing tributes built into the housing redevelopment of the current ground (a statue of Bobby Moore plus each of the housing blocks or streets having footballing titles). I don't know which company did the housing redevelopment of Highbury around a decade ago after Arsenal's move to the Emirates Stadium but that was done very neatly with the pitch area turned into a smart communal garden for the flats built where the four stands previously stood (as some of those stands were listed buildings, much of the outside decoration of those stands had to remain intact) ... reveloping Upton Park doesn't look so tricky because I don't think there are any listed buildings in the way of a complete demolition of the current stadium. So that's now one London borough council (Newham) clearly linking up with Galliard, another London borough council (Merton) supposed to still look impartial about Wimbledon Stadium's future but seemingly leaning towards Galliard (certainly according to most greyhound observers) but Oxford City Council remaining downright comtemptuous of Galliard's plans for what happens next at their local dogs/speedway venue. The key difference ... Galliard reckon there's room for 700 new residences at Upton Park and 600 at Plough Lane (both commanding inner-London-suburb property prices) so that's a lot more prospective council tax from those sites compared to just the 220 new residences Galliard want to build in one of Oxford's relatively poorer suburbs.

Perhaps yes for a general measurement of any speedway noise drifting towards any housing estate at least a few hundred yards away from a track ... however, probably not by a wide enough margin to prevent it still being regarded as "very noisy" if you live somewhere overlooking a track on a combined stadium/housing estate.

A very fair assessment of how heavily the odds are stacked against speedway, stocks or bangers ... they've all been dumped into this gloomy situation because the main use of the stadium has been entrenched for so long in debts so heavy that significant house-building (with its obvious bad side-effect for any motorsport) appears by far the most likely way of repaying those debts. Certainly the motorsports (even collectively) don't have enough financial clout to really help resolve those debts in return for a better chance of having a future on the site. My own contributions to this thread are much more a way of explaining the depth of the stadium's problems to speedway fans likely to be unfamiliar with the greyhound racing, football or local politics ... I don't have a wonderfully radlcal answer to help return speedway to Wimbledon and, sadly but realistically, nor does anyone else either.

Michael, I appreciate you saying my posts are "truly great about what's going on" and that you like to be as optimistic as possible ... but in this case will you please respect my view that, in reality, you're being hopelessly optimistic with regard to the future of the Wimbledon Stadium site as well as still dreadfully struggling to grasp the current situation there (especially the financial side). You say "I hope that Merton Council don't allow planning permission for houses" but no-one has yet offered any other sort of realistic way to raise the multi-millions that keep appearing to be needed (and increasingly urgently) by the current owners of the site, Galliard, to pay off the Irish banks wanting their overdue loans back from a decade ago. Merton Council have made it clear that a crowd-attracting sporting venue must feature in any redevelopment of the site ... but, like everyone else who's studied this saga realistically, they regard house-building on part of the site as the only way to payback fairly quickly at least a hefty chunk of the multi-millions. As long as the Irish debt agency Nama remain supportive of Galliard's plans rather than any other option, then Galliard's solution of 600 homes plus a football stadium for AFC Wimbledon remains the clear favourite. If Nama finally lose all patience with Galliard (thus forcing Galliard to flog the site to another bidder as their only remaining way to pay back any of the Irish debt), the only other option fully planned out is Paschal Taggart's solution of a 21st-century revamping of greyhound racing but even his project includes 400-to-450 houses ... and a big part of his reputation within that sport is based on his revamping of Dublin's Shelbourne Park that involved turning the land beyond the first/second bends and the first-half of the back-straight into smart apartments. No exact figures have emerged about how many millions Nama still require from Galliard but we do know £50-million was the purchase-price around a decade ago when the Greyhound Racing Association operations last changed ownership on the open market ... given several recent ways Nama have seemed to raise their pressure on Galliard, £10-million would seem to me to be the minimum fair estimate of what's still owed and I wouldn't be surprised if it was over £20-million. It isn't speedway's fault that such a big debt continues to hang over the existing use of the site ... but even an Elite League club operating there wouldn't reach a turnover of £1-million a year and therefore speedway offers a tiny fraction of the overall solution to anyone trying to resolve the current multi-million debt (never mind then sorting out any noise-level issues in the future). There is absolutely no point hoping AFC Wimbledon might like to plan a stadium around football and speedway ... because it won't be AFC Wimbledon's decision about how that new stadium takes shape !! AFC Wimbledon will simply be Galliard's tenants in a rectangular-field stadium that's part of Galliard's overall sport/housing plan and that shape is vital because it requires a smaller area of the site to be used for the sporting playing area (plus the spectator facilities) and therefore leaves a bigger area of the site to be used for extra housing that will help pay off more of the multi-millions (and, longer-term, generate extra council tax revenue) ... all AFC Wimbledon are doing in this is taking lucky advantage of being the ideal team to fit into a new stadium that lets Galliard tick Merton Council's box for keeping a sporting community-use within the redeveloped site. There are only 2 ways speedway can co-exist with a football/rugby pitch ... either, speedway temporarily lays its track within the rectangular confines of the pitch (limiting the size of the track to Cardiff's 285-metres for the British-GP or a similar length at Copenhagen's Parken for the Danish-GP) or it has a permanent track around the pitch with the bends of the track curving past the football corner-flags. The huge cost of laying and removing a temporary track can only be justified for occasional meetings (usually just once-a-year) in any stadium already big enough to host international events ... AFC Wimbledon's new home wouldn't be anywhere near that big and any Wimbledon speedway promoter would want to keeping relaying the track plenty of times a year so the costs of linking up like this are utterly impossible. Meanwhile, a permanent speedway track around AFC Wimbledon's pitch forces a bigger floor area for the stadium (notably wasting two big empty semi-circles in between the speedway bends and the football goalmouths) and thus reducing the area of the site still available for housing ... that's why the Taggart plan has at least 150 fewer houses than the Galliard plan because the greyhound track also needs the oval shape that uses up more sporting floor space. Hence any request by speedway to join in with Galliard's football option would be laughed at by Galliard unless speedway's paying several million pounds up front to compensate for the reduced number of new houses caused by speedway's inclusion ... that's why speedway's better (but still tiny) hope is to find a way of being included with the greyhounds because the greyhound-revamping will then be footing the bill for the extra sporting floor space it also needs (although also including enough new houses to give speedway a noise-level nightmare). As usual, thanks for reading all of this ... and as I've mentioned before, anyone speculating on "what happens next" with this site must understand that, first of all, just Nama and Galliard must finally resolve between themselves "what happens with the multi-millions still owed now", And Michael, I hope we can find a way for your enthusiasm and optimism about speedway in general to match up with speedway's realistic place within the Wimbledon Stadium saga.

But the vast majority of horse racing or greyhound bets refer to just a single race within a longer meeting (and very few of them cover the entire meeting) so it's easier to charge punters per streamed-race ... surely it would be different for speedway where there's more likelihood of punters wanting to place a bet on a team to win the meeting that would then entitle them to watch all 15 heats for the price of their single bet because (when they're placing that bet) each of those 15 races could have an impact on their bet.

I agree with BWitcher that you're unlikely to see speedway in among the evening racing on the main At The Races channel on the Sky/Virgin platforms as ATR has long had enough American tracks (plus the top Canadian track Woodbine) to complement its UK/Irish floodlit or spring/summer-daylit evening action ... instead, ATR will offer its betting partners the option of the speedway coverage for them to stream on their individual websites. But this looks to me like a deal that far more benefits ATR than British speedway, especially given Terry Russell's admittance that no revenue is initially guaranteed for the Elite/Premier clubs whose meetings will sometimes be streamed ... ATR simply wants cheap access through its Sport Mediastream division to different sporting action that it can then offer to its betting partners but whether that will generate worthwhile income for British speedway is much harder to prove, Not for the first time, British speedway is chasing betting-related income that I simply doubt exists on anything like the scale it's hoping for. Remember the green helmet colour (instead of white) was introduced about a decade ago to match all 4 speedway riders' helmets to the colour buttons of a Sky remote-control which could then be used to create a split-screen on your tv between the live action and a range of betting options. It was a great idea in theory ... but in practice, the delays transferring from full-screen action to split-screen action-&-odds infuriated punters (regardless of which sport they wanted to bet on) who soon abandoned betting via their tv-screen in favour of keeping that tv-screen fully devoted to the action while also using a laptop (and now often these days, a tablet or mobile) fully devoted to their betting, thus rendering the switch to a green helmet pointless. It's all very well saying that the speedway line-ups will be known two days in advance to help punters work out their bets ... yes, that's the case in terms of teams declaring their 1-to-7 for each meeting but we all know there are plenty of occasions when a crash from the previous night affect those pre-declared line-ups ... what's more, once the meeting's underway, heat line-ups can be changed at just a couple of minutes' notice, radically altering any previously-advertised odds for that race if a hot reserve comes in for a struggling middle-order rider ... and I defy anyone to accurately explain the effect of rider-replacement on betting activity !! In comparison, any reserves coming into Irish horse racing or British greyhound racing are confirmed at the start of a meeting so (unless they affect the first race on the card) those alterations are always available to the bookies and their punters with much more notice than news of a speedway change just as the referee fires the 2-minute warning. But the 2 biggest concerns I'd have are as follows ... firstly, speedway is way down the list of the most profitable sports for bookmakers because most of the betting it generates comes from "shrewd money" (keen followers of it) rather than "mug money" (the general public just wanting the buzz of having a bet to add to their enjoyment of something they'd be watching anyway) ... hence if Terry Russell's right about no betting-revenue for speedway being guaranteed from this project, good luck to the clubs waiting for their share of any handsome profits from the bookies. And secondly, potentially disastrously for some clubs whose attendances are already borderline, it's unlikely these betting websites will require you to bet more than £5 at a time to view the live action (and as Grand Central has pointed out, it can be as little as 50p for other sports). I appreciate some folk may not want to attach any of their bank cards to an account on a betting website for fear of affecting their credit rating for their everyday life ... but if you're ok about that dilemma, picture the scene on a drizzly day a couple of hours before your team's home meeting is due to start and you know it's being live-streamed. Until now, you've had to gamble on whether it's worth any transport/parking costs plus the admission fee against the risk of a wasted journey or an abandoned/farcical meeting ... now, incredibly, a gambling company will let you avoid all the stress of that previous gamble for just a few quid (maybe as little as 50p) so that's ridiculously cheap insurance against the dodgy weather compared to those transport/parking/admission costs !! Unless you can't help betting badly on every race, you end up spending a lot less than you would've done by going to the track while ATR and its betting partners have the chance to share their costs/profits of any betting money you've lost before finally sending a slice of any of their profits towards British speedway. Can you see that slice being enough compensation for the clubs to set against the turnstile-income they've lost from those who've now been given such a cheap and easy alternative to setting-off for a meeting amid dodgy weather ? !! - - - - - - - - - - Since I started writing this post, Reliant Robin has posted that speedway is only "playing catch up with other sports" in terms of streaming its live action ... to a large degree that's correct but, crucially, very few of those other sports (maybe only cricket) are quite as weather-dependent as speedway and therefore at such serious risk from its stadium-spectators making a late decision not to turn up when conditions are bad. It's also the case that most live-streaming on betting websites (or live-pictures in betting shops) is either foreign action (to allow almost 24/7 betting to suit punters' own spare time) whose crowds we wouldn't be joining anyway or domestic action that's long since stopped relying on needing live-spectator income because it gets a guaranteed fee from the bookies (like mundane midweek horse-racing and all greyhound action). But British speedway appears happy to chase unguaranteed betting-revenue while agreeing to give its more weather-fickle supporters a staggeringly easy incentive to stay at home ... even by its usual standards, this looks to me to be a crazily stupid route to take.