norbold

Just thought I should revive this to mark the 88th anniversary.

No, I didn't get a Wartime decoration.

Well, people are wrong.

What do they argue about? He rode for Wimbledon for 18 seasons and then turned out twice for Coventry in 1974.

Bluey Wilkinson - ten years at West Ham. Oh sorry, you said British League.

Mine too.

I tried to offload mine a couple of years ago. No-one was interested, other than wanting the odd one or two they might have missing. No-one wanted a large collection.

No need to rename it. Previous winners of the British Championship: Barry Briggs 1961, 1964-1969; Ivan Mauger 1970-1972; Rory Schlein (who's in it this year) 2020. Other podium places have gone to Ronnie Moore, Bob Valentine and Jason Crump.

Why didn't they give 120%?

There's no doubt about that - as someone once said.

Or Scotty Nicholls…..

Bring in Bewley for Woffy instead of Ellis in the last round.

Well done, Adam.

Where's Chris Harris when you need him?

I seem to recall the BBC used to show the World Championship final live back in the early 50s. Only a vague memory as I was very young, but I do recall seeing it one year while I was at my grandparents' house as I can remember them laughing at the way the commentator pronounced Ronnie Moore's name as Mooer

Reminds me of Tyburn Gallows not being allowed to wear his CND race jacket.

Or maybe, Nicki should make a comeback!

So who does Kelvin think can overtake Tai!?

He's the only one I know the age of without having to look it up!

Ronnie Moore was 21.

Yes, very sad news. He was a regular at the annual Norwich WSRA Dinner, so I met him many times over the last 20 years or so. A really nice bloke always happy to chat about his Yarmouth and Norwich days.

There's no doubt about that.

OP = opening poster, i.e. Owzat.

In 1926, Cambridge undergraduate and keen motorcyclist, Lionel Wills, visited Australia. He later wrote about this visit: "To a keen motor-cyclist, a trip to Australia did not hold forth much promise... "My first pennyworth of Sydney newspaper contained a pleasant surprise; for there, tucked away in a corner, was the announcement 'Speedway Royal - next Saturday 8 p.m.' "A strange new word - 'Speedway'; but it sounded not unlike something to do with motor-cycles. "Saturday arrived: I paid my half-dollar and trickled into the grounds. From the other side of the stand came a roar, the old familiar sound of a racing Douglas..... "I broke into a run [and] burst into the arena. Two machines were hurtling straight at me at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, neck and neck, clean out of control. They were skidding, broadside on, engines roaring flat out, and for the first time in a mis-spent life I shut my eyes and waited for the crash. "No, no crash! Let's have a look, sure enough there they are, blinding down the straight and heeling madly over into the next bend. This time they're for it; they can't get away with that sort of thing twice; the chap on the outside is mad - you can't skid a motor-cycle like that. Hi! Someone stop him and tell him so; this is blue murder. "Came a bored voice from behind, 'Shut up, you fool, they're only practising, wait till the racing starts!"

I'm not really sure of the origin of the word speedway and how it came to be applied to the sport. This is as far as I can trace it. Inventor and entrepreneur, A J Hunting, opened the concrete Marouba Speedway track somewhere round about 1924/5. Before that, a series of small oval track meetings had been held at West Maitland and various other locations. Although they were actually grass tracks, the grass got so worn away that the riders were effectively riding on dirt. Because this made the racing more spectacular, A J Hunting began to create first class dirt tracks from the off, i.e., not relying on the grass being worn away. His first was in Brisbane and it was this track that was really the first specially created dirt track. Others soon followed suit, for example Johnnie Hoskins created Sydney Royal Speedway. Hunting then set up his organisation, International Speedways Limited to bring speedway to this country and founded the Speedway News, the first edition of which came out on 19 May, 1928. That quote from TwoMinuteWarning that iris reproduced above is not quite accurate as the term speedway is used in that very first Speedway News to denote the racing and not just the stadium or track. For example, there is a large advert on Page 12 for the Gold Helmet which says that "the Gold Helmet is the blue riband of speedway racing....", though, it has to be said that both terms, speedway and dirt track racing, are used throughout. Enquiries are ongoing!