Leicester Lions 2018

[foreverblue]

6 minutes ago, DC2 said:

 

Successful team (one season), yes; successful club (many seasons), no. Your team is unrecognisable from the team a couple of seasons ago, were you loyal to Batchelor letting him go for a couple of seasons.

 

We have had many successful seasons .

Edited July 19, 2018 by foreverblue

[Daniel Smith]

12 minutes ago, DC2 said:

 

Successful team (one season), yes; successful club (many seasons), no.

 

Swindon are in the same position. The only way to define a successful club is by owning their own stadia. Swindon have been a successful team in recent history, the club as a whole is on the brink = unsuccessful. Good team, bad business model.

[IainB]

1 hour ago, DC2 said:

Leicester are welcome to their journeymen signings. Hopefully Swindon will stand by their team.

Scott Nicholls isn't a journeyman... according to the website he's a hearthrob 

Edited July 19, 2018 by iainb

[Gemini]

4 hours ago, Col said:

Seems strange if Leicester is so gate & go to sign the likes of Nicholls, Robson & Auty who can't gate for toffee.

The difference is even if they can't gate these 3 will always have a go and not just sit back and accept whatever position they are in,  leading to 'follow the leader' racing. Riders can and do pass regularly on the Leicester track but unfortunately it's usually the visiting ones.  Looking forward to seeing Scott's wide outside line on the 4th bend again. 

[stevebrum]

17 hours ago, Sidney the robin said:

Surely axing the Pole was a financial decision Steve he has been up and down but generally has done well he has ability as well.

It’s certainly got to be a key factor I’d say.

[Big Al]

Well you go away for a few days and come back to find a new team!

Bjerre - the epitomy of dullness, to be fair he was signed to fill a gap at short notice

Krystian - a great shame the early promise has faded, he didn't seem to be much of a team-man though

Kurtz - don't know how he lasted so long, another stopgap

Sarj - maybe another time

I think the new line up has much more of a team feel to it. I can understand why they went for Nicholls and hope that Connor Mountain gets a fair run and not binned after one month. 

[HAMMER180]

14 hours ago, flagrag said:

Some of the team changes that have just been made at Leicester are just because of averages not fitting for example James Sargeant he would have been kept instead of Mountain but his average is too high.

From what I have heard the rationale behind KP going to be replaced by Auty is the amount of away meetings to be completed where it is believed Auty will score .

Another consideration was if the club had not replaced Krystian today and he rode at Swindon his average would have gone up as his official average would be higher than his current assessed one due to some previous high scores at home.

With Bjere his performance has not been up to the expectations especially in the big heat 13 and 15 situations.

The changes may not work but after the last two meetings they needed to try something 

if its down to averages again its a joke how bad must the young brits like james and conner feel when they do well and up their average

only to be told sorry your out as now your average is to high for us to replace the so called big hitter as he has been crap

bpsa are totally clueless things don't change soon then you will start to lose promising riders let alone fans.

[Robbobee]

Reasonably confident there wont be any more changes after these 4 given the closeness to the Aug 12 Cut-Off date whereby no changes are allowed unless through rider injury god forbid.

True that Nicholls, Robson and Auty not renowned for their Gating prowess but also as most of remaining matches are actually away from BP ( 4 H 9 A ? ) not such a bad thing ....

Anyway at least we have a team of triers now - not much more we can do ....

Cheers

 

[stevethelion]

21 hours ago, flagrag said:

Some of the team changes that have just been made at Leicester are just because of averages not fitting for example James Sargeant he would have been kept instead of Mountain but his average is too high.

From what I have heard the rationale behind KP going to be replaced by Auty is the amount of away meetings to be completed where it is believed Auty will score .

Another consideration was if the club had not replaced Krystian today and he rode at Swindon his average would have gone up as his official average would be higher than his current assessed one due to some previous high scores at home.

With Bjere his performance has not been up to the expectations especially in the big heat 13 and 15 situations.

The changes may not work but after the last two meetings they needed to try something 

A few weeks ago that would certainly have been the case, Krystian's average was well over 7, but his  average had dropped to 6.36, so 0.14 under his assessed average, he would have had to have scored big at Swindon to push it over his 6.50 assessed. I don't know what happens when a rider completes his 4h & 4a, if as  in Krystian's case it would have been 9h & 4a, do all 9 home fixtures count or is it the 4 latest or 2 best scores/2 worst? Doesn't seem fair to include 9 home meetings. Infact if you take his last 4 at home & his 3 completed away matches, his average would only be 5.57, so a low score against Swindon in his 4th away match could have seen him at reserve ( that's if they use the most recent 4 home scores, not all 9).

[Big Al]

1 hour ago, stevethelion said:

A few weeks ago that would certainly have been the case, Krystian's average was well over 7, but his  average had dropped to 6.36, so 0.14 under his assessed average, he would have had to have scored big at Swindon to push it over his 6.50 assessed. I don't know what happens when a rider completes his 4h & 4a, if as  in Krystian's case it would have been 9h & 4a, do all 9 home fixtures count or is it the 4 latest or 2 best scores/2 worst? Doesn't seem fair to include 9 home meetings. Infact if you take his last 4 at home & his 3 completed away matches, his average would only be 5.57, so a low score against Swindon in his 4th away match could have seen him at reserve ( that's if they use the most recent 4 home scores, not all 9).

Suspect there were other factors at work, in addition to his drop in performance. 

[dontforgetthefueltapsbruv]

2 hours ago, stevethelion said:

A few weeks ago that would certainly have been the case, Krystian's average was well over 7, but his  average had dropped to 6.36, so 0.14 under his assessed average, he would have had to have scored big at Swindon to push it over his 6.50 assessed. I don't know what happens when a rider completes his 4h & 4a, if as  in Krystian's case it would have been 9h & 4a, do all 9 home fixtures count or is it the 4 latest or 2 best scores/2 worst? Doesn't seem fair to include 9 home meetings. Infact if you take his last 4 at home & his 3 completed away matches, his average would only be 5.57, so a low score against Swindon in his 4th away match could have seen him at reserve ( that's if they use the most recent 4 home scores, not all 9).

All meetings wouldve been used

[LionsDen]

7 men make up a speedway team and yet just 4 months into the season, that's now 16 names on the Lions team sheet. Even allowing for the unfortunate injuries, that's quite a roll call...
Martin Vaculik
Josh Bates
Danny King
Krystian Pieszczek
Hans Andersen
Kyle Newman
James Sarjeant
Michael Palm Toft
Kenneth Bjerre
Todd Kurtz
Ricky Wells
Charles Wright
Scott Nicholls
Josh Auty
Stuart Robson
Connor Mountain

A very long time ago (1969) Leicester Lions used the same 7 riders all season. We probably didn't realise it at the time but christ, those were the days. Even the odd change at reserve was greeted with a raised eyebrow and a visit to the track shop proudly showed photos of the riders that you'd be cheering on all season.

Given the 'hire em fire em' culture of modern speedway it's easy to see why Matt Ford did away with team kevlars at Poole this season. Suprised any of them bother. The thing that bothers me, especially after reading the comments on the various Leicester Speedway Facebook pages, is that the fans now appear to have adopted the same mercenary standpoint taken by the promoters. It's become the norm and multiple changes are cheered. I think that's sad for speedway.

I always used to think, and probably the main reason I became a fan as a young boy, speedway was superior to other motor sports because it somehow managed to embrace the 'team' ethic. You identified with the guys wearing your club's colours at your local track. They may as well just run individual meetings each week for all the value the word 'team' has these days.

[Big Al]

The points limit I think plays a part in the increased turnover because even when an enforced change is made, sometimes two changes have to happen. So in the current situation Sarjeant has probably lost his place for that reason. That is wrong and something should be done which protects the innocent party if he is a Brit.

Apart from that, I think the only change which has been harsh is Newman. Vaculik and Bates never even started, Pqlm Toft was a temporary replacement (again the points limit lead to him not being retained when Bjerre was signed). Leicester reserves now should be Newman and Sarjeant. The 1-5 and the changes to it are mainly legacy of injuries to Vaculik, Bates and King.

I recall in the 1970's White City going the whole season (and winning the league) using r/r for Dag Lovaas, Wolves doing something similar with a rider who never materialised (Johansson?), and Leicester in 1976 so shorn of riders that at Swindon they had 6 guests plus Doug Underwood. Then in the Rogers era there was quite a bit more coming and going - I think that Husczca came and went a few times. In fact you can also put the higher rider turnover down to the massive increase in use of foreign riders.

[hulvik]

Quote

5 hours ago, Big Al said:

I recall in the 1970's White City going the whole season (and winning the league) using r/r for Dag Lovaas, Wolves doing something similar with a rider who never materialised (Johansson?),

Hull did something similar in the Boulevard days with Egon Muller 

 

[scottyfan]

1 hour ago, hulvik said:

 

In 1990 Poole rode most of the season with r/r for Tom Knudsen who broke his leg at Berwick and went on to win the National League and cup double.

[IainB]

8 hours ago, Big Al said:

The points limit I think plays a part in the increased turnover because even when an enforced change is made, sometimes two changes have to happen. So in the current situation Sarjeant has probably lost his place for that reason. That is wrong and something should be done which protects the innocent party if he is a Brit.

I think it's all down to the play offs Big Al, If PO's weren't in operation I suspect there wouldn't have been so many changes, if any at all

[Hamish McRaker]

So does anybody know when the 2018 Leicester press & practice, and meet the riders event is happening?

[Hamish McRaker]

Although I have heard that from now until the end of the season, only one piece of music will be played at Beaumont Park.

Rip it up and Start Again, by Orange Juice

[justathought]

I think that if you carried out a survey of supporters you would find that the majority wanted a winning team and not to be beaten or run close week in week out. 

If Leicester had managed to keep the original 1 to 7 riders then we would have easily made the playoffs. Promoters really can't win. People moan if changes are made, people moan if changes aren't made. In fact, people moan full stop.   If we had kept the team, as it was, against Kings Lynn we would be bottom again come the season's end. 

I'm not saying we will make the playoffs with the changes, but we have more of a chance of collecting some much-needed points. 

[Sidney the robin]

13 hours ago, LionsDen said:

7 men make up a speedway team and yet just 4 months into the season, that's now 16 names on the Lions team sheet. Even allowing for the unfortunate injuries, that's quite a roll call...
Martin Vaculik
Josh Bates
Danny King
Krystian Pieszczek
Hans Andersen
Kyle Newman
James Sarjeant
Michael Palm Toft
Kenneth Bjerre
Todd Kurtz
Ricky Wells
Charles Wright
Scott Nicholls
Josh Auty
Stuart Robson
Connor Mountain

A very long time ago (1969) Leicester Lions used the same 7 riders all season. We probably didn't realise it at the time but christ, those were the days. Even the odd change at reserve was greeted with a raised eyebrow and a visit to the track shop proudly showed photos of the riders that you'd be cheering on all season.

Given the 'hire em fire em' culture of modern speedway it's easy to see why Matt Ford did away with team kevlars at Poole this season. Suprised any of them bother. The thing that bothers me, especially after reading the comments on the various Leicester Speedway Facebook pages, is that the fans now appear to have adopted the same mercenary standpoint taken by the promoters. It's become the norm and multiple changes are cheered. I think that's sad for speedway.

I always used to think, and probably the main reason I became a fan as a young boy, speedway was superior to other motor sports because it somehow managed to embrace the 'team' ethic. You identified with the guys wearing your club's colours at your local track. They may as well just run individual meetings each week for all the value the word 'team' has these days.

1969 was that the year the American Dewayne Keeter had his one and only season in Britain.?