iris123

That’s quite a turnaround Gustix. Last week you was laughing at everything I posted. Still I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. Thanks

I have no idea. I don’t search or join speedway groups tbh

To get back to something hinted at in my opening post, and somewhat similar to Vic Huxley, it seems Max came from a sporting family I contacted a couple of Australian historians, Brian Darby and Peter White and neither knew anything on this subject, but it seems Max had one,probably two brothers that also rode a bit with him at the start of his career. From research it seems Max's Grandparents, his father( 13 years old) and uncle arrived in Australia in 1873 from a small village in Pomerania, which is now situated in Poland, abut 73 miles east of Szeczin. Mackay(Queensland) seems to have been their first port of call, and some of the family stayed there. The family seems to have quickly integrated into local social life, joining the Protestant Alliance Friendly Society,the Brittania Lodge and one member fairly active in local Athletics. They acquired farmland, which I imagine was their plan having left an agricultural area of Germany and think Max's father it is becomes the President of the local Farmers and Settlers Assoc, by the turn of the century. Significantly, he also become a founding member of the local Rifle Association and himself and a couple of his sons (Max had 5 brothers and one sister) started competing in shooting carnivals. One brother, 'Eddie', became good enough to represent Australia at the annual President's Cup at Bisley, England as well as another tournament in Scotland. Quite amazingly his grandson has now competed at Bisley the past 7 years and is currently 3rd in the all time list of Australian representatives !!! Sadly, in 1921 Max's eldest brother commited suicide, hanging himself from a tree on their farm But in early 1927 Max competed in a local Carnival that included motorcyle races, as did one brother listed as 'E.Grosskreutz. Confusingly Max had a brother mentioned above known as 'Eddie', but another 'Ernest', so I am not sure which it was. Then a while later the headline for another local Carnival was 'Grosskreutz brothers were the heroes of the afternoon.' Max in one of his races fell while leading and damaged his Indian motorcycle. In the re-run he borrowed his brothers Harley and won the race. Another brother, 'F.Grosskreutz' also raced in one meeting. This must have been Frank, who in 1928 was bitten by a snake on their farm and another brother(no name given) was jut coming home and took Frank into town to receive medical attention. Snakes must have been a constant danger, as the boys father was also involved in helping someone who had been bitten Another sporting link, was that later when Max had settled in Manchester and was making a name for himself he met and eventually married the daughter of a former Manchester City player

Wittstock v Rawiscz 22.03.2020 new sparring

Wasn’t one of the Gollob involved in something a bit dodgy ? Or was it just an accusation ? And wasn’t there accusations of corruption in speedway as recently as 2017 ? https://gniezno.naszemiasto.pl/tag/korupcja-zuzel-torun 2018 article..... https://www.speedwaynews.pl/aktualnosci/item/59084-niechciejstwo-korupcja-alkohol-polski-zuzel-januszami-stoi-komentarz Also see another scandal has hit Bydgoszcz this year, though nothing to do with speedway https://bydgoszcz.tvp.pl/46221861/biznesmeni-i-oficerowie-wojska-polskiego-z-bydgoszczy-zatrzymani-mieli-ustawiac-przetargi

I thought I made it perfectly clear. I don't see the connection. That was made by a Polish investigator in his report on Polish society as a whole. And he didn't even bother to investigate. He just came up with the 1+1= formula, that if Polish local politics was corrupt and Polish sport, in this case football is corrupt, it is highly likely given the importance to local town/city politicians that speedway is also....... It was all there in my earlier post if you care to go back and read it again So I ask again. Are you saying things are better now ?

Was also Don Godden and not forgetting Kelvin's dad, Martin who won the Teterow Bergring and finished 2nd in the Golden Helmet at Pardubice. But as I said earlier, the whole definition of the thread basically limits things to a short period of 1960s(late) to the 1990s(early)

You can always list them......

And of course Gus Kuhn competed in Isle of Man TT's and even I think a Belgian GP at road racing, plus trials and path racing etc with some success before speedway took over his interest In a way, you are excluding a whole host of speedway riders from this because they never had the chance to compete in Longtrack or even much grass track on the Continent. Certainly not at FIM level as it just didn't exist until the 60s I think.

Of course. Another report from the same time actually mentioned Trujillo as 'open champion of Mexico'. remembering that previously Cordy Milne was Champion of Mexico, even though he was a US citizen. But other reports and even ads list Trujillo as being a Mexican which of course we know is wrong, but I guess this was all released by Putt Mossmann as part of his tour promotion....

Seen another report from 1936 describing Manuel Trujillo as the Champion of Mexico and rated among the best 6 riders in the US and was top scorer of the US riders n their recent tour of NZ

So the situation is a lot better now ? I have seen reports that since this has all come into the open corruption is better, although the average person on the street still thinks it a major problem This chart suggests, whilst things have got better after this was in the media,it is basically similar to 8 years ago again...... https://tradingeconomics.com/poland/corruption-rank

There was a Polish investigation into corruption, which had a small section mentioning sport. It was basically involving football, but suggested if it was s bad in football and looking at the money involved in speedway, the conclusion is(without any evidence, I may add) that it would be much the same in speedway One such report on football https://www.dw.com/en/polish-soccer-plagued-by-cronyism-and-corruption/a-15980132

Good point, which I didn't realise

Yes, but we also banned commuting Swedish riders in I think 1974 !! Wasn't it only Olle Nygren and Sören Sjösten who avoided a ban ? Also nothing really to d with anything apart from bans, but we also banned foreign riders back in 1934 I think. Which at the time only affected US, Danish and German riders. Ray Tauser, Morian Hansen and Sebastian Roth More controversial than anything was someone suggested Morian Hansen was banned post war. Which considering he had joined the RAF and was a war hero on our side, was a terrible decision, if true

This is a good list. Plus a book about Speedway in Singapore, which I only noticed a couple of weeks back looks interesting http://www.speedwayplus.com/ https://www.blurb.com/b/8090015-singapore-speedway-1930

Not correct on Aussie riders nor NZ. We had freedom of movement before the EEC and that was with our Commonwealth. Only if a country left the Commonwealth did they lose that right and on some cases caused us problems. I am thinking of the Asian people in was it Uganda who could have been left basically stateless as Idi Amin didn’t give them citizenship there. But also Australians were basically British ,as they had since year 1 always been affiliated to the ACU even before speedway came to the UK. It wasn’t until the 70s that they got their own qualifiers into the World Championship

It is possibly not unique for a rider to be mentioned as a former world champion. Some years back I talked with post war German rider Dannmeyer and I got onto the subject of Alfred Rumrich. Dannmeyer told me he was competing at a meeting in Denmark where Rumrich made an appearance and was greeted as ‘ World champion’....whether this was a misunderstanding on the promoters part or on Dannmeyer’s I have no idea

What is interesting and not often mentioned is that Vic had 3 cousins who were jockeys and rode in England for the king and Lord Derby among others. Only found two of them though and one seems to have had a sad ending https://sites.google.com/site/jockeypedia/huxley-william https://sites.google.com/site/jockeypedia/huxley-ernest

One incident about Huxley's track skill from 1932 At Wimbledon last week I saw one of the most marvellous 'saves' I have ever seen on a speedway. A rider trying to make up some leeway in a scratch event put his machine right over on entering the bend, sliding both wheels and at the same time slamming open the throttle. Having asked for trouble so plainly,it came- he fell. The rider kept hold of the bars, kept the throttle wide open, remained in position on his machine, although in a horizontal plane, and after literally bouncing on his left elbow and left handlebar three times he regained an upright position and carried on as if nothing had happened. I need hardly add that there is only one master of the game who can get away with the almost impossible in such fashion; his name is Victor Nelson Huxley

Victor Nelson (Vic) Huxley (1906-1982), speedway motorcycle rider, was born on 23 September 1906 at Wooloowin, Brisbane, third of four children of Sydney-born parents William Henry Huxley, shirt cutter, and his wife Eva Amanda, née Lippiatt. Vic attended Fortitude Valley and Kelvin Grove state schools. Employed as a battery mechanic, he had been riding motorcycles for three years when a major motorcycle speedway competition was introduced at the Brisbane Exhibition Ground in October 1926. Winning the first event on the program, the One-Mile Handicap, he became one of the `broadsiding’ stars of the inaugural night races. He also won speedway events at the Toowoomba Showground and Brisbane’s Davies Park. It was probably at this stage that he acquired the nickname `Broadside’. After success in Australia, including a stint at Adelaide’s Wayville Showground, he left for England in 1928 with a group of other leading speedway riders, including Frank Arthur, to introduce the new Australian sport of `dirt-track racing’. Speedway was a huge success in England and at one stage it was the second most popular sport (after horse-racing) in the country. For many years London was its heart, and Australians—especially Huxley—were nearly always winners. To celebrate his victories, the Ogden’s branch of the Imperial Tobacco Co. (of Great Britain & Ireland) Ltd issued a `Vic Huxley’ cigarette card in their 1929 set of `Famous Dirt-Track Riders’. On the card, he was portrayed in his characteristic `broad-siding’ manoeuvre on the track. That year he was the subject of one of a series of articles on `Daredevils of the Speedway’ published in the magazine Modern Boy. In June 1930 Huxley led an Australian team to victory in the first official speedway Test match against England. Unbeaten at this meeting, he was to become the most successful rider in Tests in the early 1930s. Captain of the Harringay and then the Wimbledon speedway teams, he won the Star championship (forerunner of the world championship) in 1930 and next year became the British open champion. He was almost unbeatable: he broke speedway records all over England; won eight major championships; and also set and broke lap records at speedway tracks in Australia and New Zealand. His earnings were over £5000 per year, making him then one of the highest-paid sportsmen in the world. Members of the royal family and T. E. Lawrence were among those who congregated around Huxley’s team at the speedway. On 23 October 1931 at the register office, St Marylebone, London, Huxley married Sheila Alice Katherine King. He featured in numerous speedway magazine articles and books on speedway riding in England and Australia. When the British Broadcasting Corporation interviewed him in 1934 for its `In Town Tonight’ program, he became the first speedway rider to broadcast on radio. In the same year he won the Australian solo championship after being placed first in every event he entered. In his eleven years as a speedway rider on a range of different manufacturers’ machines, Huxley had only one serious accident. He left speedway racing in 1937 and opened the British Motorcycle Co. in Brisbane. Mobilised in the Militia as a lieutenant on 5 August 1941 he trained motorcycle dispatch riders. His appointment terminated on 5 February 1945 and he returned to his motorcycle business, retiring in 1957. He kept few trophies and never sought any publicity. Despite being `bigger than Bradman’ in his day, Vic Huxley remained throughout his life a modest and simple man. Three months after the death of his wife, he died on 24 June 1982 at Kangaroo Point, and was cremated. His son survived him. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/huxley-victor-nelson-vic-12678

See van Praag was suspended in 1934 after coming to blows with Norman Parker at New Cross

Another interesting article on Arthur published in Motor Cycle after his first season in England gives some nice insights into his mentality 'Frank Arthur is one of the quietest and most thoughtful of all the Australian boys........he looks quite studious and one would never associate him with a speedway. He takes dirt track racing very seriously, and frankly admits that it is his business. I remember once when we were discussing the small size of some of the tracks over here. I asked him if it was true that it was impossible for the experts to show real stuff on some of the very small tracks. He confirmed the point and said, "Here for example (We were at the White City, London, at the time) every time you open out flat on a bend the odds are that you will fall off. And if on the last lap there is someone 20 yards ahead of me, do you think I am going to risk my neck by trying to catch him ? No, I am sure of my second place money and 10 to 1 he'll fall off and i'll win in any case. I've no firm behind me to pay me a salary; manufacturers do not give me the machines I ride: there is no job being kept open for me at the end of my riding career - and one cannot keep on at this game indefinitely:" Although not as spectacular as some of the boys, he is as fast as the best of them, and his style is distinctive. When I had seen him ride on about a dozen occasions, it struck me that he must have made a thorough study of the game and evolved a definite plan of action. This consists of keeping to the white line, and he is the cleverest exponent of inside-edge riding I have seen. Once Arthur has the inside position he rides so close that it is impossible for anyone to shift him. And he travels so fast round the white line that the other fellow has to go completely mad to pass him on the outside. Even if this should occur Arthur never loses his head, but hangs on to the other fellows tail, knowing full well that there is every chance of his rival either falling or going into a bend just a shade too fast to keep in close, in which case Arthur again takes the lead on the inside. From an early age he told me, his greatest ambition was to excel at some sport, and then come eventually to England. His first idea was to become a jockey, and he progressed favourably in this direction until suddenly he began to grow at an alarming rate and it was soon obvious that he would be to heavy. He then tried football and cricket in turn, and met with no particular success at either. Next he bought a machine, and having met with a fair amount of success on grass and at hill climbs he finally took to the dirt. For some considerable time it looked like he would again be unsuccessful, until one day be bought a Peashooter and went out and won the golden helmet at Brisbane: his rivals in the final of this race were Lamont, Huxley and Smythe ! That was the turning point. And Arthur is nothing if not a sportsman. If ever one of the boys has trouble with his machine, Frank is the first to offer the loan of one of his 'Shooters. By the time he retired in 1934 it was estimated he had made the equivalent of over £ 2,000,000

I think if Terry is running it then you are wasting your time I remember your antics on there and you was the reason a number of people started a different forum

It is what you posted in your own words. And it isn’t the first time you have said you have little interest in modern speedway, nor have any intention in attending a meeting, is it ?