BSPA AGM UPDATE

NEWS Sunday 17th November 2013, 8:42pm

by Toby Lerone

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The BSPA Annual General Meeting is now over for another year. Our own Chairman, Alex Harkess, remains in the Chair of the Association for the fifth consecutive year.

The other members of the Management Committee were also re-elected with Jon Cook of Lakeside remaining as vice chairman and Chris Van Straaten(Wolverhampton), David Hoggart(Sheffield) and George English(Newcastle) still in their positions.

Peterborough have left the Elite League with their current owners deciding to withdraw from the sport. Their place in the Elite League has been taken by Leicester who have been keen to move up for a considerable period of time. That leaves the top league with ten teams and the Premier League with twelve.

The Elite League have made a radical change to their team line ups and will include two young British riders at reserve and hope to fast track their development as they will be eligible to ride in the Premier League and, possibly, the National League as well.

The Premier League has stuck with the same race formula and team make up and with a points limit of 42.50 team building for all teams can now commence.

There has been an extension to the official matches that each team will contest. Last season, the teams that didn't make the play-offs basically ended their season at the end of August so to carry the season into September for all, the league programme has been extended by two fixtures and the League Cup extended by one as there will be three groups in 2014. We will be joined by Berwick, Glasgow and Workington.

One surprise for the Edinburgh Promoters at an early point during the meeting was the presentation by Chairman Harkess to Co-Promoter Campbell of the Premier League Track of the Year award as voted by the referees at every Premier League meeting. Many congratulations to Alan Bridgett, Ronnie Anderson and their team in creating the best track.