iris123

I wouldn't know what is approved and not tbh.I don't really even notice advertising at the SGP's,just like i don't notice what engines each rider are using.Couldn't honestly tell you what number any rider has either..That sort of thing goes right by me,just like despite advertising and bits in the newspapers a lot of people don't evn know what speedway is or where it is held,even if they live near a track..... Off the top of my head i only know Monster and Dansk Metal do any sponsorship.Not even sure if Meridian Lifts are still going?But it does seem Red Bull,a major rival to Monster,are allowed to have advertising in the GPs etc.Which is an entirely different situation to the one both i and the article are talking about.No rival sponsorship is allowed

To an extent this is understandable and following footballs lead.Often have problems when a football player is seen wearing clothing or even boots from their clubs rivals and fines are handed out.Of course speedway is more complicated in that riders ride in a number of countries for a number of clubs with sponsors around Europe.Everybody wants an exclusive deal.When the German national team plays in a Bundesliga stadium all unauthorised advertising has to be blocked out and as adidas has a sponsorship deal,players aren't allowed to stroll up for official meetings in nike gear etc

You are talking about the team who finished runners-up though As it was that season Reading seemed to take a bit of time to warm up.Even Wimbledon won at their place early on!!!! But the likes of Oxford,Coventry,Swindon,Poole,Coatbridge and Cradley were a different matter.I'd sort of leave hackney out,as even though they finished way down Bengt Jansson was a rider at the time who could beat anyone on a good day and Barry Thomas was coming on well and beat Michanek at Hackney

Not saying anything against that.It was a season i enjoyed greatly,being my first full season of watching Wimbledon.But the fact is the likes of Mauger,Michanek and Olsen had a relatively easy time of it at Plough Lane.Collins was also super there.Even in 1974 we had Briggo back,but like you say he wasn't the Briggo of old.He was a point down on his Swindon 1972 average.It was probably 1975 when Tommy was back from the ban,that we had a genuine no.1 for the first time in a couple of seasons and i don't think we were the only team/track where the top riders had it fairly easy

It wasn't that i had to search through to find those examples.I looked at 1973,then picked out the first programme v Reading,then i looked at the first programme against Belle Vue,but unfortunately PC wasn't riding.Guess injured.Then looked at the first programme v Wolves and that is what i found

Give a couple of real examples at Wimbledon in 1973 Reading came for the Spring Gold Cup at the end of May.Michanek went through the meeting unbeaten even in the 2nd half.But in the meeting he came up against Ht1.Hedge and Harkins.Both on the way down from their best.Hedge still a Plough Lane hero,but had dropped off quite considerably from the 10+ man a few seasons earlier Ht5 Beat Tony Clarke and Reg Luckhurst.Must have been one of Clarkes last meetings before his custodial problem.Both as above really.On their way down and out Ht7 Mich comes in to replace Mick Bell and beats Tommy Jansson and Stapleton.Tommy was the one real star Michanek had to face and came on well,but at this stage wasn't really a true top no.1.Stapleton was steady without being spectacular.Not really in Anders class at all Ht11 same line up for the Dons as Ht7 and same result Ht13 Mich comes up against Tommy for the 3rd ht in a row who is partnered by Tony Carke End result Michanek with 15 pts,Tommy with 9.One heat win and 3 seconds behind Anders.4 of Anders heat times were under 62.0.The only rider to do that on this night On 27th September Wolves came for their BL meeting Ole got a 15 pt max and was also unbeaten in the second half! Ht1 Ole beat Jim McMillan and Reg Luckhurst.Now Jim was a good rider,but not in Olsens class,plus wasn't a Wimbledon rider.Only rode the track a couple of times a season and Reg was still the Reg of the Reading meeting Ht3 Ole came in for Jon Erskine who was missing and beat Harkins and Stapleton Ht5 Ole beat Harkins and Stapleton yet again Ht11 Ole beat Hedge and Pete Murray.Nobody would say they were a match for Olsen would they? Ht13Ole beat Hedge,who was excluded anyway and Stapleton Again all the fast winning times apart from George Hunter winning a heat under 63.0 were Ole's

Must say we had a wonderful time at Assen.I enjoyed the ice speedway and my girlfriend enjoyed the shops.I enjoyed meeting Ian in Groningen and my girlfriend enjoyed the shops But the weather was wonderful and some of the scenery like the little fortress town near the German border ,which we were lucky to visit when they had a little festival was great

Going to be a short notice thing,in that i hope i have done enough(too much)work and they say i have to have a couple of weeks off before the start of the new work year.i.e April.Could be Berlin as my girlfriends niece has just moved back or Heerenveen as i could persuade her to have a trip to Cheese and pushbike land,but won't be Inzell

On a slightly,but only very slightly different take on this.I stumbled upon a bit of film from the BBC archive yesterday(probably doing the rounds)of Reg Luckhursts 'last' meeting.Well it was for the Dons in 1975 he went on to ride for Canterbury the next season.But in one race he is excluded and gets onto the phone to the ref to ask him to put a word in so he gets payed his 2 pound whatever start money for the heat!!!He was saying he didn't fall and layed the bike down.But it got me wondering why the hell wouldn't he get payed his money when he did actually start the heat?

Surely they haven't taken part in the meeting if they haven't even lined up at the tapes?It is like a player was injured warming up before a football match i was at yesterday and was replaced before the kick off....does that count as a match played?I would say,no,as he wasn't on the pitch at any time after kick off

Eating dust was a speedway film being filmed some years ago and the producers were on here looking for donations.Just have to do a search as it was all in this section.....think they took the money and ran as the film wasn't heard of since

It will be interesting to see how Doyle goes next year.Always thought it was a chink in Crumps armour that he looked brilliant at times when winning his titles,but when it came to defending it,he looked a completely different rider Always seemed to me that winning a title is difficult,but retaining it,even harder

Yes,for me greatness means winning those heats those meetings that really count.It is a bit skewed to look and say Gollob or maybe even Leigh Adams were more consistent,but when it counted they didn't do the business.Gollob,ok on one ocassion when it looked like he might have won had bad luck and got injured.But it is winning the titles that count as great. And to say Nielsen was far better than any of his rivals is nonsense again......

Thanks.Knew it was Ivor Brown,but thought he was Barrys dad

Didn't Barry Thomas' father help set up Iwade?Been fairly successful over the years and now one of the younger members of my family is riding quite regularly there having started at a beginners course at IoW.Just got his first bike last week and after 6 sessions looks fairly good from the videos i have seen.Doesn't seem to have any fear of the bends!!!

How is that?I thought Jepsen Jensen,Piotr Pawlicki and Kildemand are next in line from the Challenge

This might be food for thought......compare 1964 and 1965 for riders with an average at or above 9.00.Hope the figures i found are correct,but must be way out to make much difference to the findings 1964 O.Fundin 10.71 G.Nordin 10.66 B.Briggs 10.51 N.Boocock 10.44 K.McKinlay 9.92 R.How 9.84 M.Broadbank 9.80 S.Sjösten 9.62 B.Knutson 9.16 and that was it...... 1965 N.Boocock 11.12 B.Briggs 10.93 K.McKinlay 10.83 M.Broadbank 10.48 S.Harrfeldt 10.46 C.Monk 10.28 O.Nygren 10.22 R.How 10.16 A.Pander 10.03 J.Gooch 9.90 C.Maidment 9.65 R.Genz 9.45 E.Boocock 9.43 N.Hunter 9.43 G.Hunter 9.35 I.Brown 9.27 C.Goody 9.24 R.Luckhurst 9.14 B.Andrew 9.07 D.Younghusband 9.06 J.Biggs 9.00 amazing how many more riders over 9 there were in just a year!!!!And you see also that those fron 1964 who rode in 1965 all upped their average and most apart from How quite significantly

Remember reading maybe a decade ago that there was some problem.Not sure if he wasn't that liked in Russia.Long time ago,so can't remember the details now and the problem might have been Franky's rather than the Russians,but he always seems to go to Sweden to train rather than Russia

Don't think so.Probably not interested.He doesn't over the years seem overly keen on trips to Russia unless necessary

Seems like the Austria team is now a Europe team!! Looks like they never asked Manny Seifter or he at least never said yes.So he is now replaced by German Hans Weber alongside Austrians Harald Simon,Josef Kreuzberger and Charly Ebner.Not sure if that is Ebner jr or snr,but imagine junior

Is he the Donald Trump of the energy drinks world?You don't always want to believe what people say on Twitter!!!

Would hope so too.Or another covered stand would be even better.Güstrow have just built a new one,but they have backing from the local government As i mentioned before the problem is Vojens now lies in the Haderslev Commune and they are trying to push their new super sports club SonderjyskeE.They have pumped money into Haderslev stadium in 2013 to get it up to Danish Superliga standards.The sports area also has another 5 football pitches with Athletics facilities and 6 tennis courts.Trouble is more money is needed it seems as the stadium still has too few seats to meet danish standards.That is the prestige sports project and part of this sports club is also the Ice Hockey team whose stadium,built in 2011 is situated in Vojens.The speedway has to fight against this new super sports club for funds!!!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haderslev_Football_Stadium https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SE_Arena

I agree with you Imo the Danish Superleague with 5 man teams is much poorer in terms of suspense and build up.The top rider in each team face each other 3 times,it might be more and most of the time it isn't a ding dong battle with riders swapping places every race.Generally i have seen Nicki have the better of Bjerre or Walasek or whoever else,and that in each heat.Same mostly goes for the second best riders when they meet up or the reserves.One in each position normally has the advantage over his opposite number. In the 70s it was great to see those heats when the no.1s or no.3s met up.You did tend to get meetings where riders would only drop a point or two to the oppo and like you say it created a feel as if most teams had 2 maybe 3 and sometimes 4 'real' stars

Trevor Charley(Vincent) and Mitch were a couple i was thinking of.

There were one or two under age riders back in the 60s or 70s i think.They couldn't have had much experience before riding for a team Also could we use Knutson to point out the poor quality of riders back in those days?I mean he got his first team place in 1957 and in 1959 just missed out on a world final spot by the skin of his teeth.Is that likely to happen now?Think even wonder kids like Emil,Darcy and some of the recent Polish riders have taken far longer because of the quality I'll have to take your word about Briggo.Tbh he didn't seem, looking at him, to be someone who took fitness too seriously.And i know from a couple of my family who would hang around Plough Lane watching Ronnie and Briggo training,that they often had a break in between sessions to go down the pub and then came back and rode around in their hob nail boots and shorts. Phil Rising might know better?