Controvarsity

Controversy as Leicester Motorsports Club battle University bureaucracy!

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U-turn..DMU’s Ian Warrington

The SU narrowly avoided a major run-in with the motorsports team when they initially refused to count their Varsity fixture in the overall standings.

An email row broke out when De Montfort’s Vice President of Student Activities Ian Warrington told a disbelieving Christian Milsom and Mike Jeffs from the Motorsports team that their victory would be ignored.

He claimed the fixture was invalid because they did not jump through bureaucratic hoops and register in time.

But after an angry exchange and the inclusion of The Tab in discussions, Warrington U-turned and agreed to accept the result.

Milsom and Jeffs contacted The Tab after they were told by both Leicester and DMU sports officers that their efforts had been in vain.

In a passionate reply, Christian Milsom wrote: “With all due respect I don’t know what the problem is.”

But Leicester sports officer Ian Reed sided with DMU, agreeing it would not count.

Ian Warrington’s initial decision

Mr. Warrington’s reply

A dumbfounded Milsom told the Union apparatchiks: “we organised varsity. Teams were registered. Student Unions were told. Student Unions AGREED that it would count. Leicester won. The point should stand.”

It looked as though instead of crossing the line to a chequered flag, neither team would be able to get past the red tape, until we learned that the decision had been overturned thanks to student pressure and the mention of a Tab report.

Warrington was angered at the prospect of a controversial piece about the event saying: “It would have been a little more mature to discuss the issue rather than CC’ing the newspaper into something that has nothing to do with them”.

He then said that he had spoken to Leicester’s Ian Reed and that they had “come to an agreement that the point would stand” , despite arguing he was under the impression that the event ‘was a friendly and not to be counted as an ‘official’ varsity point.

University of Leicester Motorsports Club have left the Activities Officers of both universities ‘eating their dust”.