BELLE Vue are backing young Pole Tomas Jedrzejak to make the big-time.

The mid-season signing emerged as one of the few bright spots from a dismal season in which the Aces finished bottom of the Elite League for the second year running.

Promoter John Perrin is determined not to allow it to happen again as he plans for the 2002 campaign and Jedrzejak is high in his thoughts.

Perrin has been impressed with the way Tomas has settled into his new role to become part of the Aces' set-up.

He is cautious about revealing his any plans for next season before this month's Promoters' Association annual meeting in Edinburgh, but said: ''Tomas has done well and is in the reckoning to come back.''

You can take that as a 'Yes' barring the unexpected and it's a move backed by Swedish superstar Peter Karlsson, who finished the season as Belle Vue's No 1.

Team building

He said: ''He's terrific over there on the tracks he knows and I think he is a star of the future.''

Perrin is eager to get on with his team-building, especially as he has

already removed the obstacle of agreeing a rent deal for next season with his Greyhound Racing Association landlords.

He said: ''We had a good meeting with the GRA to sort out the rent and now what we have got to try to do is sort out a good team.

''We are hoping that it will attract better support because we need it. I think we are one of the worst supported teams in the league.

''I know there are lot of other things going on in Manchester but what it makes it hard for us is the way the crowd goes up and down.

''You look at the racing we put on at Belle Vue, compared with other places, and ours outstrips most, if not all, of them. But they seem to get the crowds and we don't."

''I just hope that the fans will come on a regular basis next season if we get the kind of team we want.''