jsw

Fantastic memories Steve, this brings back those fabulous Thursday (and later Wednesday) nights very vividly. I also recall the ticket sellers calling out 'Riders' Aid Fund - get your lucky numbers ...' And yes, I remember those 'bitter' sweets that you didn't seem to get anywhere else. Looking back, what a luxury to have crowd levels that justified staffing all of those separate bars, catering & confectionery outlets around the stadium! I guess when I started going in 1967 the average crowd was still around the 5,000 mark? Much reduced from the previous heyday of course, but any club would kill for such attendances now ....

Well I respect what some others have said - and Chunky, thank you for a wonderful list of great memories that I share (apart from the trip to Berwick, which I never made) - but I am planning to go to Kent tomorrow. Of course it's not really Wimbledon but to see a team take to the track with the red & yellow star colours still means something to me, brings back good memories and adds an element of 'ownership' to my attendance that I can't get from watching other meetings as a neutral. Each to their own of course. Can I add ... the grandstand lights being turned off as the machines revved at the starting tapes. John

Now the stadium is finally closing, it's sad to think that had things gone differently at the end of 2005 we could potentially have had 11 more seasons of speedway at Plough Lane - in which case the stadium owners would have collected something like a further £600,000 (gross figure and my estimate based on figures reported at the time) in rental payments. And yet they chose instead to keep the facility idle for most of the week.

Agree Sidney the race jacket (and all of the merchandise) was very high quality and the day overall was really enjoyable. It would have been really sad if Wimbledon Stadium had closed without a proper acknowledgement of speedway's part in its history and that is what yesterday delivered - well done and thank you to all concerned. Given the constraints of a tarmac track and operating within a stock car meeting, the presentation of the demonstration laps was excellent and some of the riders even managed a bit of a skid on the surface. Gordon Kennett was very quick still, Eddie's wheelies were entertaining and Jon Stevens looked like he was representing the pre-war Dons with authentically vintage leathers and bike! Great to see so many former heroes there as well as mechanics, officials, fans etc and the exhibition of old machines just outside the entrance was very interesting too. All in all a good day despite the sadness at the stadium's demise.

Well done to Jon Stevens and everyone involved in organising yesterday's Dons farewell at the stadium. It was great to see so many former Plough Lane heroes back at Wimbledon and the demonstration ride was a fitting way to mark speedway's history in SW17. Well presented and very enjoyable. Some of the guys looked like they could still do a job for a current team! Gordon Kennett especially was quick and he and others even managed to get a slide on despite the tarmac surface. A good article about the Dons in the programme too. Sadness at seeing the stadium in such decline was far outweighed by the pleasure of seeing, hearing and smelling the bikes there again. I even enjoyed the car racing more than I expected! Thanks to all concerned for a well-planned and executed event.

Apparently the Wild Angels were Gene Vincent's backing band on his tour of the UK in 1969. I've now found a link to the LP cover I mentioned above - evidence of a band being present at a speedway track, if not playing live at a meeting. https://www.discogs.com/Wild-Angels-Live-At-The-Revolution/master/575009.

The Kursaal Flyers released a single called 'Speedway' in about 1975. A decent song - and actually about our sport (unlike say, Morrissey's later tune of the same name). There was also a rock & roll band in the early 70's called the Wild Angels, who released an album called 'Live at the Revolution'. From memory the front cover featured the band astride speedway bikes, facing the camera, on what appears to be a speedway track - I never did find out which track. I think they were from S. London/Kent but the 'stadium' looked more rural/undeveloped than any of the London tracks or Crayford.

Thanks for this tmc, good to know my memory isn't totally shot. From other contributions, Martin Dixon seems to have been part of a number of memorable silver helmet races. He was certainly one of the great racers of that league/era anyway, but over an above that I wonder if some riders particularly enjoy/excel at the match race format? John Williams

My best Silver Helmet memory also involved Martin Dixon, in an epic tussle with our (Wimbledon) top man at the time, Neville Tatum. In the Dons NL era, probably about 1986/7 - a great race with the two of them seeming to wrestle each other and their bikes round the bend at one point. Approx 25 years later it still sticks in the memory as one of the bst races I've seen. No doubt someone will post a correction that it wasn't a silver helmet race at all but that's what I recall! John Williams

A good omen from this story in my local paper - one kestrel at least has returned to the Wick! www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/rare_bird_of_prey_spotted_in_hackney_wick_1_792018 My link John Williams

AJ's girlfriend, wife and fiancee all live together? Sounds a v.co-operative arrangement, sharing a house & a horse as well as Andreas himself:)

Thanks for the info Grachan and Britmet. Fascinating to realise how much speedway action took place in continental europe so soon after the sport first came to these shores.

On a recent trip to Slovenia I picked up a second hand paperback with a speedway drawing on the front. The guy on the bookstall seemed to know a bit about speedway and proudly told me that in the Yugoslavian period, Slovenian riders usually filled the top places in the national championships. My Slovenan is v. poor but the book seems to be a biography of a rider called Ludvik Staric, who rode pre- and post-war and had a nickname 'Flying Kranjec'. Anyone know anything about him? John Williams