salty

In the Christmas issue of Speedway Star there was a lengthy "Where Are They Now?" feature on the 1972 Crewe Kings. 8 pages with detailed updates on the likes of John Jackson, Dave Morton, Dai Evans and Phil Crump. Only a small update on Gary Flood, says he went back to motocross Down Under and won numerous championships and awards as well as being inducted into the Australian Motor Sport Hall of Fame. Also says he's an introvert who shuns the limelight. In the Phil Crump piece he says he keeps in regular touch with Garry and talks about his expertise with motors.

Thirded! I thought it was a great read and very moving.

Sorry, but that's rubbish. Obviously we are constrained by our living memory, but any list of great British riders would include the likes of Craven, Collins and Lee all who rode well before your 1990 cut off.

Good spot!

Getting back to to Wimbledon memories, the most recent issue of Backtrack has a feature on Wimbledon second half riders from the Backtrack era. Certainly rang some bells with the track obviously a magnet for young hopefuls in the early 70's, but less so in the later 80's. Plenty went on to good careers elsewhere, others less so. From my time going to Plough Lane from 1981, Phil Vance was a regular as was Jay Pleece and other names like Ian Hunter, Paul Hilton and Chris Standen.

The pub just outside the stadium was called The Victoria. Sadly I'm too young for 1965, my first meeting coming up to my 7th Birthday was September 1968, though it was against the Wasps. Chris Julian was my instant hero, sadly he left Cradley at the end of the season to go to....Newport.

Have to agree about the red and blue of the West Ham body colour. Put it as my first choice on the similar thread about the 70's. My second ever meeting was a end of season clash at Dudley Wood with the Hammers. A drizzly October night and the lights reflected brilliantly off the red and blue along with the black leathers. I suppose the West Ham, London lettering was somewhat superfluous, but it was what I knew from the start and I liked it. In recent years the football club have used the same words on their badge.

The latter. In the same shared posts. I believe they originated from Rodney Payne. Nothing against share.

So his name and a photo of him in a Wimbledon team pic is not a specific mention? If you want people actually naming him in their posts it's unlikely as there are few actual posts on that site just lots of shared stuff. Incidentally, his name is also mentioned in a newspaper article in the same shared post. Leave Tel alone! He was a good 'un!

Remember seeing Ali ride at Hackney in the NL Pairs in 1985, looked great that day considering his relative lack of experience. I'd forgotten about that off track accident.

It didn't take me long to find mention of Terry Mussett on the Facebook page linked above. Nice picture of him in a team pic in a post initially shared by Jon Stevens and then put up by John Hyam.

Tiger Terry was great entertainment in his time as a Don. Certainly couldn't fault his effort. Another one of my favourites of that era was Nathan Simpson. Thought he was going to kick onto international class, but the move to Eastbourne seemed to stall his progress.

And I didn't want to quote your whole post(Mr Ore) but I agree 100%. Nothing worse than the coverage of the Olympics in my book, where coverage of seemingly every event is so GB biased. I sort of understand it but it gets to the point where coverage of events with no GB interest gets forgotten. Going back to Speedway and the 1983 Final, it's true that British Speedway was in a trough as the country struggled. I seem to recall a lot of comment in the Speedway Star that the 1983 season had been affected by the lack of a World Champion plying their trade and a repeat in 1984 would be another big blow for the domestic product. Then there were comments like these in Peter Oakes post Norden report. Alongside respect for Egon's achievement there was " he will in the days and weeks ahead be labelled the champ who buckled on the title belt because the track was tailor made for his own particular ability" " there were even pit whispers that HE commanded the interval work". Then Billy Sanders...."I know I'm a better speedway rider than him - how's the sport going to benefit?" and finally Bob Radford "a general feeling.....he isn't the World Champion that Speedway needs"

The stadium was already there, being used for Greyhounds - see pic on defunct site.

Didn't he (Lukas) have a nasty crash at Poole in a GP qualifier? Or am I dreaming that. Of course his brother Ales had a bad one at Oxford which looked touch and go for a while.

Agreed with the above. I went to Plough Lane regularly from 1981 to closure and to be honest the last few seasons in the BL weren't great. But once I got used to it I liked the NL and when Russell Lanning hit involved there was a good vibe about the place.

http://www.defunctspeedway.co.uk/Rochester.htm Scrolling down to the bottom of that page there is a front cover of the Canterbury programme with a bottle of sherry to the lucky patrons who are circled. In front of the gent who is circled is that Carl Glover?

Following on from the point above, there really was a changing of the guard in the early to mid 80's. Look at the rostrum places from 1980 to 1983. Lee, Jessup, Sanders, Penhall, Knudsen, Olsen, L Collins, Sigalos, Muller, By 1986 the only one doing a full season at the top level in Britain was Knudsen. Olsen, Penhall, Sigalos retired, Collins and Jessup in the National League, Lee did a truncated season and Sanders (and Carter) were no longer with us. As for Tommy Jansson, he may well have hit the heights in the sport, but sadly we'll never know.

You sure it's 1969? Squibby didn't become a Heathen until 1970 and the programmes would generally have a picture of a home rider only in those days.

Jonah

Sorry, obviously should have been Romford 1970-71. Definitely Glasgow 1970-72 of their Jimmy Mac BL days.

Ok now a top ten as requested... 1. West Ham 1970-71 2. Cradley 1970-72 3. Halifax 1971 4. Belle Vue 1970-72 5. Wembley 1970 6. Oxford Rebel 1972? 7. Glasgow 1972 ( liked the stripes on the back) 8. Wimbledon 1970 9. Birmingham 1974 10. Romford 1973?

I'd go with Ron Preston as mentioned before. Others I would add - John Boulger. When at his best was in the shadow of Ray Wilson at Leicester and when he was a true number 1, it was at (in those days unfashionable) Cradley. Soren Sjosten. Fantastic at Belle Vue in their glory years, but always second fiddle to Ivan. Alan and Andy Grahame. Superb club men and international class at their best, but never felt they got the kudos that more fashionable riders received. In more recent times - Rune Holta. Thought it was great how every year he seemed to stay in the GP's on merit despite being largely unheralded and knowing that his dual nationality was never going to help him get a nominated place in the series.

Cradley (1970- 72) West Ham (same years) Halifax (ditto) Belle Vue (as above) Wembley (70/71)

Good call. Guess he didn't ride in the UK that long and maybe was a little less extrovert that the other Americans around at that time.