salty

Quite correct. His first trip abroad was to cover the World Final of 1961 in Sweden.

Remember Martin Rogers writing that he knew nothing of the sport when, as a fledging reporter at Hayter's, he was sent to Plough Lane to cover the Dons v Swindon at the start of the 60's.

Bobbath, got to be more than 3 tracks still going from 1968? Owlerton, Wimborne Road, Shielfield and of course the Abbey. Still hope for Coventry and Oxford....

Wasn't aware of that, I was only going by Peter Oakes tribute to Eric recently. Love the way Phillip says he "stamped" out the practice of pseudonyms.

The Speedway Star tribute to Eric Linden mentioned that Danny Carter was a figment of Eric's imagination - as was Rick Eldon,James Oldfield, Dave Nelson, the aforementioned Angus KIx and many more. Pretty sure Frank McLean passed away a few years ago, I seem to recall a feature in the Star - apologies if I'm mistaken. Hopefully, Phillip Rising might see this thread - he's likely to have more info on these writers.

Hard to believe IMO

Two utterly different issues. One is a top 10 rider from when you were heavily involved as a journalist within the sport. The other is a picture of someone who rode before you were born.

Sid. Full marks for trying to stick up for Gustix, but to be fair this thread was grand until Gustix re-posted something from Chunky that was over a year old. He could have had no motivation other than to stir things up which he has achieved.

But you were at the Speedway Star in 1962 and that year Igor was number 10 in their World Rankings so hard to believe you wouldn't recognise him.

I think it was ex Spurs and Scotland striker Steve Archibald who said something along the lines of....team spirit is something you glimpse when you win.

You're welcome.

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.