BL65

The term 'one club servants' does not specify the length of time the rider was attached to the club. Probably a year or two is too short a career to be worthy of inclusion, but where should the line be drawn? If Bert Kingston's 3 years at Halifax qualify then so would Bert Rawlinson's 3 years at Yarmouth. On the matter of whether Long Eaton 1967 and Leicester 1968 should be regarded as the same club, I acknowledge that the promotion moved from one location to the other and only two rider changes initially took place, with John Hart and George Major joining Leicester from Sheffield. However, having had the pleasure of being amongst the massive re-opening night crowd at Blackbird Road on 9th April 1968 and having attended many meetings there it is my opinion, from what I observed, that the vast majority of support was Leicester based. The question might be, what comprises the club, is it the management, the riders, the fan base, or all three? If it counted as the same club, what about the switch from Stoke to Belle Vue II in 1939, Wigan to Fleetwood in 1948, Hull to Swindon in 1949, Neath to St Austell in 1963, Edinburgh to Coatbridge in 1968, West Ham to Barrow in 1973, which all involved changing the name of the team. This differs to, for example, Glasgow Tigers moving track from White City to Hampden Park in 1969, when the team name was retained.

Geoff also appeared for Poole in 1973, with Tony appearing for West Ham and Exeter in 1965, which was a year when there was a pool of riders made available to turn out short term to cover for injured riders. He replaced Sverre Harrfeldt at home Cradley Heath, with some sources incorrectly recording this as a guest appearance, also replacing Des Lukehurst for Exeter at Wimbledon. Harrfeldt came back for West Ham and so Tony was no longer required; Exeter called upon Cliff Cox to return to the team instead of continuing with Lewis, who had failed to score in his one meeting for them.

Many years ago I used to get the Star at one of the local tracks most weeks, then during the winter months it was obtainable from my nearest newsagent. I could be wrong, but I have a vague recollection that the Speedway Star and Soccer Star magazines were readily available 'off the shelf'. However, due to the increased popularity of the sport in my area at the time, I placed an order with the newsagent from October 1965 to ensure I received a weekly copy during the winter. A couple of years later I decided to take out a postal subscription, but then reverted to ordering from a newsagent from 1978 onwards after moving house. I changed back to postal delivery some 10 years or so later. I would guess that the number of times I have received my copy late from whatever source could be counted on the fingers of two hands. It has never failed to arrive and I don't think it has ever been more than 2 days late. I am very fortunate that the postal service here is fully functioning even now, with Saturday deliveries of post and parcels still taking place. The only thing that frustrates me is that I somehow mislaid three copies from 1952, two copies from 1953 and one from 1955. I only discovered this when I finally got round to putting the earlier years in binders. I echo the sentiments of others when saying well done to everyone involved for continuing to produce an excellent magazine during the present situation. I am sure that Eric (Linden) would approve.

I think there's also: Tink Maynard - Belle Vue Tadeusz Teodorwicz - Swindon Les Sharpe - Halifax Peter Williams - Belle Vue Eric Salmon - Bristol

Well spotted. My excuse is that I didn't see him ride very often for Swindon in 1974, on checking only 6 times! Remove him from my list and add: Charlie Barsby - Leicester Alan Totney - Cradley Heath Frank Boyle - Oxford Brian Hanham - Southampton Bengt Larsson - Sheffield Bill Landels - Edinburgh

A few more that, as far as I know, spent their careers with just one club: Les Owen, Roger Hill and Johnny Reason - Coventry Freddie Williams - Wembley Eric Chitty, Bluey Wilkinson and Tiger Stevenson - West Ham Bernie Leigh - Reading Goog Hoskin - Exeter Jimmy Cox - Edinburgh Louis Lawson - Belle Vue Phil Clarke - Norwich

Cyril Brine rode for Smallford Stags, based in St Albans, in 1938, making a number of appearances in the Sunday Dirt Track League (also known as the Inter Club League), as well as several challenge matches.

Kelvin Tatum was at Berwick too in 1991, was he based in southern England at the time?

In the early 1950s Bruce Semmens rode for Ashfield (Glasgow) for three seasons, but I don't know if he still resided in Cornwall at the time. He was a qualified pilot and used to fly to some speedway and grass track meetings from wherever he was based.

Other long distance travellers: Maury Mattingley - Hampshire to Glasgow Brian Brett - Hertfordshire to Newcastle Maury McDermott - London to St Austell Pat Flanagan - London to Newcastle (beating his London to Exeter journey by some distance)

The speedway track at Par Moor, St Austell, opened in 1949, so this programme may relate to the track under construction or the Rocky Park grass track on the other side of town, where incidentally Bill Kitchen was a particular favourite. Bill Kitchen and Vic Duggan, along with Jack Parker, were involved in the design of the Par Moor track I believe.

Did you ever see a copy of the programme for the first meeting Norbold, with the Opening Ceremony referred to?

Trujillo had a best time of 75.2 in 1936, but George Newton had set a record of 73.8 on 10th May that year, with 'Bill Bennett' recording 73.6 on 11th October 1936. On 28th March 1937 Bennett set a new record of 68.8. 'Bill Bennett' was, in fact, George Newton. This record was still standing in 1950, as indicated in the newspaper report for the meeting on 30th July, when Harold McNaughton went close with 69.4. Subsequent record holders in the 1950s were Vic Ridgeon 68.4 (15.5.55), Mike Broadbank 67.8 (15.5.55), Merv Hannan 67.2 (26.6.55), Eric Hockaday 66.0 (30.6.56), equalled by Jimmy Heard, Frank Bettis (19.5.57), Leo McAuliffe (8.6.58) and Ivan Mauger (28.9.58), before being broken by Colin Gooddy with 65.2 (19.4.59).

Plus the Duke's residence, Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.

The Duke owned 1,000 acres plus in and around Eastbourne at the time.

I edited my post as you were replying. I counted the number to confirm 17 plus the WCQR. Wembley were able to go back home for the meeting on 2nd September.

The results are on the Wembley file on the Researcher website, (mainly) identified for example as follows: Thursday 29th April 1948 Wimbledon Stadium, London* Wembley Lions 52 Belle Vue Aces 31 (National League Division One) There were 17 Wembley home meetings staged at Plough Lane, plus the 'Wembley' World Championship qualifying round.

Further to my previous post, it appears that an event of sorts took place on 23rd September 1928 in a field next to the Lewes Road, which passes near to Westham. Perhaps this is the unofficial meeting referred to.

I believe 'The Hyde' was actually Hide Hollow at Westham, near Pevensey, a considerable distance from Arlington. There had been talk from early 1928 about the construction of a stadium there, intended initially to be used for greyhound racing. The parish council was not in favour of this development at that stage. The Parochial Church Council was very much against it. I suspect if an unofficial meeting was staged at 'The Hyde' in 1928 it was most probably at Hide Hollow. This would explain why the purchase, development and opening of Arlington fits with Norbold's information. Note also the comment by Brian Collins on the Researcher website file for Eastbourne 1929: 'The official opening scheduled for Whit Monday, 20th May 1929, was postponed owing to it being impossible to complete the necessary arrangements for the accommodation of the public (EG 15.5.29)'

The newspaper report on the defunct tracks site is the one printed in the Burnley News on 10th April 1929. This article relating to the league match at Leeds on 29th March was printed in the Leeds Mercury and the Yorkshire Post on 30th March.

Norbold, you posted the Stenners rankings on a thread 'Speedway Star World Ratings 1956-1966' in Years Gone By on 16th November 2015. Gustix provided the Speedway Star rankings in his opening post on the thread on 15th November 2015.

Yes, the first tactical substitution was in heat 11 of the challenge match between Leicester and Coventry on 1st April 1955, when Johnny Green replaced Dennis Gray. The first t/s in a league match that year was in heat 5 of the Southampton v Poole Division 2 match on 8th April, when Bluey Scott replaced Brian Hanham.

Newcastle's Ron Dirkin guested for injury-hit Liverpool at Brough Park in an English Dirt Track League match on 28th June 1929 and top-scored.

The Russian tourists also used an improvised form of R/R at Norwich on 10th July 1964. As a result of double booking, with some of the tourists riding in a pairs event at Swindon, 4 Russians took on the Norwich team in an 18 heat match, taking 9 rides each instead of 6. Although Fundin scored 18 and Nygren 17 from their 6 rides each, the visitors won 55-53, with Plechanov top scoring with 19.

The first Rider Replacement scheme that I remember was introduced in 1966, used for the first time by Long Eaton in a Midland Cup match at home to Oxford on 28th June after Ove Fundin had been suspended by the Swedish authorities. The first time it was used in a league match that season was by Wolverhampton for the injured Peter Jarman, at Cradley Heath on 2nd July.