IainB

it doesn't matter if it's serious (back, head etc) or not (wrist, collarbone etc), any trip to hospital at Leicester, even for a member of the (dwindling) crowd is going to hold a meeting up for an hour, and at the pace Leicester run their meetings, possibly force an abandonment because of the curfew. Like you say, Speedway is a dangerous sport, bikes no brakes at high speed, it's not rugby, football or other sports, it's barely a sport at all. If you're expecting punters to turn up at £20 a pop on the pretence of putting on a professionally run event this can't be allowed to continue.

yes £4 more, £20

I think it was nearer 9pm

- Real name (first name only if you wish) Iain - Age 48 - Location Leicester - What do you do for a living Self Employed Database Developer - Club you support Coventry - what got you into speedway The noise, the smell - best speedway moment Chris Harris British GP win - worst speedway moment Erik Gundersen crash Bradford 1989 - Favourite speedway rider and why Hans Nielsen, he had it all, could make a start, when he missed it you could always guarantee a good race and pulled a mean wheelie - most disliked speedway rider and why any rider that starts playing up about racing conditions when there's nothing wrong - what do you enjoy other than speedway F1, Films - social media links (if you wish to connect with other members). there's nothing social about social media

So Leicester continue to run with inadequate medical cover as another meeting is abandoned and another healthy crowd is sent home short changed and another proportion of fans will not return...

Well this was an evening of 2 halfs... or should I say 1 half and 2 fifteenths. Oh how I wish I'd left after the first match as so many others did, which was pretty good, the result was in doubt until the very end, lions put on a fighting come back, Scott Nicholls is a joy to watch around BP and Glasgow pretty much threw it away on the last bend of the last lap in heat 14. So after the first match I was quite looking forward to watching the cubs in action, I've never seen NL racing before so was quite intrigued as to what the standard would be and Cradley, as a long established NL team, I thought was quite a draw. The Lions promotion had started an hour earlier, and again for the 2nd double header this season ran the first meeting at normal (a snails) pace, with no seeming urgency to get the match completed, no flexibility to do the track grades when there's a natural break, some heats not even being put on 2 minutes and a couple of long gaps between races even when there were no riders having 2 races on the trot. Then we were told that the 2nd meeting would start after a short break... 45 minutes later after a swarm of tractors had tried to polish the turd that is the BP track, and was down to the base again in places, the 2nd meeting started. Well if that is the standard of NL racing, you can keep it. Admittedly I only saw 2 races, but if CL racing is riders following the leader 20 yards apart you can double it for NL. The quality of it didn't seem as good as the old 6 heat style second half's clubs used to run back in the 80's/90's And then the final nail in the coffin, again for the 2nd time this season, at Leicester inadequate medical cover. I say the 2nd time but it's probably more as the promotion still clearly have learnt nothing from the Redcar match in terms of medical cover and it looks like they're still running with 1 ambulance. They've also learnt nothing from the Sheffield/Stoke double header in terms of the pace of a meeting. No doubt the usual people will be on here again saying, nothing could be done, the first match was run as fast as possible and that the medical cover is adequate. Does the person that actually runs the meeting live in the same time dimension as the rest of us? Do they not realise that a lot of people use the Tesco BL car park and there is a 4 hour limit? factor in a 15 minute walk to and from the arena, then a double header HAS to be run in under 3 and a half hours Max. It became quite clear after the snails pace first match and then the 45 minute interval that the 2nd meeting was never going to finish as soon as it eventually started, especially with the Cubs running R/R and as soon as I saw the ambulance come onto the track after the heat 3 crash I decided to leave. It was quite a sad thing to see fans again streaming out of the stadium during a meeting and it's not the first time I've seen this at Leicester. As far as double headers are concerned I will not be attending any more. For the second time this season the Lions fans have been forced to subsidise the cubs and both times the cubs match has not taken place and both times there were quite healthy crowds, many of whom will not return.

I noticed that again... I'm amazed nobody kicked off about it... cue Cook and Schlein at the same meeting

And I'd build a housing estate on the land of the promoter that sold Leicester's Blackbird Road site to developers... Oh, hang on a minute

Great sentiments and 10 years ago maybe, but the Rugby have moved out because they can't afford it so there's no way Speedway will be able to afford it. I think the ideal use for Odsal will probably be landfill... it's the right shape

A lot of tracks struggle to run an actual meeting properly... there's no way they're going to be able to handle all this new fangled streaming stuff!

He does seem to have some beef with Tatum and hardly a commentary goes by without him having a snipe... but I agree, I thought English maybe his second language

Perhaps they should draft Havvy in as he can usually be found during a GP making bitter and twisted comments on Twitter about how he should be commentating instead of Kelvin Tatum

What a match!

He'll be at BP not BT

Well... There goes Auty's max!

I'd cheer up if I was served up more of the vs Eastbourne kind of speedway rather than the vs Redcar and vs Sheffield kind of speedway

Anybody interested? Will they call it off because it's too windy? Will the tractor breakdown? Will the track break up? Will I get covered in dust? Will there be any good racing? BP 19:30 to find out

Ooh you little stirrer! He'll be putting his day job first, he is the Captain... BT will draft in Rosco or somebody

That's just supposition... we'll never know

If he didn't know about the OTA just up the road there's no way he's going to have seen Leicester's latest promotional angle... which is "Please come and support us"

Ah yes, I remember... that's when the crowd didn't turn up

and there I think we'll agree to differ

Weren't a couple of them called off based on forecasts for rain that never showed? Er... a meeting was called of because of it

I've not got all the answers, I don't run a club and have no experience of running a club. What I do know from working in various businesses over the years is that they have disaster recovery plans for when business critical incidents happen... I don't know, can you cover a tractor with the AA or RAC, may sound like a silly question, but can you? Or have a local mechanic on call on race nights, tracks seem to have an electrician. The Redcar match wasn't the final straw for me... I've been going to Speedway for over 40 years now and (unfortunately) I'm well used to such fiasco's. I really want to see the club and sport succeed and I'll be there again this Saturday. But they have no hope attracting and keeping support with some of the things that happen... all too often.

The only thing that was out of control of the promotion in your comments above is the weather. Everything else was in control of the promotion... That tractor must be at least a thousand years old , it's going to break down, the question is what do you do when it does break down? What emergency plan do you put into operation? The answer... rely on a random person who just happened to be in the pits to fix it. In fact if the tractor hadn't done so many bloody laps during the Redcar match as "entertainment" during the delay due to inadequate medical cover it may have just seen the Sheffield match out! Unfortunately I really do think that Redcar match saw a lot of people off.