norbold

You're certainly right about Fundin. His preferred line was round the inside though being the world class rider he was, he would adapt as necessary and use whatever line he thought would win him the race. I should emphasise that Keith's statistics made it very clear that Fundin beat every other rider more times than they beat him, so he beat Craven more times than Craven beat him and it was just that Craven beat him more times than Briggs did.You may be right about why Craven beat him more times than any other rider and it could be that Craven's superiority at Hyde Road led to this statistic.

1960 is an interesting year because you are right about Craven's World Championship record that year of course, Rob. However, 1960 was my first year at speedway. I went every week to New Cross from May onwards and was an avid reader in my teenage exuberance of the speedway press and it seemed to me that Fundin was unbeatable. I remember being most surprised when I learned that he'd been involved in a three-way run off with Craven and Moore for the title. I thought he would have won it easily. So, to my way of thinking, over the whole season, he would have walked a 1960 GP. (Also, of course, neither Fundin nor Moore rode in the British qualifying rounds so Craven's unbeaten record on the way to Wembley did not include beating or even meeting either of them.) Now here's an interesting snippet though. The late Keith Farman, who was a devoted Ove Fundin fan and a statistician of cosmic proportions, set out to record every race Fundin ever rode in and he once told me that the rider who beat Fundin more times during his career than any other was not Briggs but Peter Craven. So make of that what you will! National League Averages for 1960 show Fundin well in front, though these are not CMAs but actual Match Averages including Bonus Points: Fundin: 16:00 (To emphasis his "selfish" nature this includes no bonus points at all!) Craven: 13.90 (Includes 14 bonus points) Briggs: 13.70 (6 BPs) Knutson:13.51 (4 BPs) Moore: 13.15 (25 BPs)

There's no doubt it's all a matter of conjecture and there can be no definitive answer to who would have if.... The only thing I would say about Leigh Adams as compared to Fundin and Briggs though is that yes, they were all three consistently good and at the top of the averages, but Adams did not have the selfish ruthlessness that Fundin and Briggs possessed when it came to individual events. Adams was a bit like Ronnie Moore in that respect; an excellent team man but without that "me me me" streak. So I'm not sure Adams would have even won a one-off final which would lessen his chances when looking back in history and saying he would have won a GP series if he couldn't even win a one-off. More conjecture though of course.... The Speedway Star & News rankings weren't just based on league averages but were the sum total of the opinions of speedway journalists world wide on how riders had performed in league, cup, Tests, individual events and the World Championship, so, in that sense it was the nearest thing you could get to an overall view of the riders form for each year.

As someone who was around for part of the time, I think it is very difficult to say who would have won GP style World Championships between 1955 and 1964 when the Big 4 later joined by Bjorn Knutson to make it 5 reigned supreme but my own feeling is that Fundin would have been a very difficult man to beat from 1956 to 1963. In the Speedway Star and News yearly rankings he was ranked no. 1 every year from 1956 to 1963 except 1958 when he was no. 2 to Briggs. He was also no. 2 to Briggs in 1964. So taking the rankings as an overall guide to the year, Fundin would have won 7 and Briggs 2 between 1956 and 1964. Also in all that time, Briggs only made no. 2 on one occasion (1957). Of course Briggs came good after Fundin's peak period and may well have won in 1966 and 1967, but that still makes only 4 overall to Fundin's 7 if we give 1965 to Knutson.

Although no-one has replied to this topic on the Forum I would like to thank all those who have contacted me either by email, phone or PM and provided most of the information I needed. I've still got one very interesting lead to follow up and then I think I can get the book off to the publishers. It should be out later this year.

Good to hear Peddlar Palmer is still going strong. He was Long Eaton's first post war captain and did indeed manage Sheffield later on. I don't think he ever rode for England though unless it was a "B" International or something. I never knew him but I have certainly heard OF him! Please pass on my best wishes as a long time speedway supporter

I am currently finishing off my next book on the history of Crystal Palace speedway - due to be published later this year. However I am still looking for information on the period 1936 - 1940 and would be interested to hear from anyone who has any results of the 1936-1938 bank holiday open meetings and/or the results of the two meetings held in 1940. Does anyone have programmes from these events? More specifically I am looking for photographs of the Crystal Palace team in 1932 and 1939 and any of individual riders in CP colours from the 1939 team. Also the heat details from the Middlesbrough v. Crystal Palace meeting held on 12 May 1939. Any help would be much appreciated and could even lead to complimentary copies.....

Just come across an article in the Speedway News of 23 April 1938, entitled "Broadsiding - Americans invented it, Australians just copied it!" It's a long article but here's an extract: "Immediately after the war in the United States there was a craze for motor cycle racing on dirt tracks which had originally been laid down for horse racing...In those days the cracks were Gene Walker, 'Shrimp' Burns, Ralph Hepburn, Otto Walker and Ray Weishaar....the high speed of the 1,000c.c. machines combined with dusty tracks was thoroughly dangerous as the many fatalities showed and by 1922 much more attention was being paid to 500 c.c. machines in the interests of safety so that by 1924 1,000 c.c. engines were barred on all tracks. "The introduction of smaller engines permitted a more enterprising method of cornering, and by the end of 1922 all the cracks had mastered the method of controlled skidding with 500 c.c. machines. The credit for the invention of the 'broadside skid' in 1922 is given to Maldwyn Jones, the Excelesior rider, but during the year other 500 c.c. experts such as Eddie Brinck, Gene Walker, Paul Anderson and Jim Davis, Ralph Hepburn and Fred Ludlow were all at it." "Within a year or two when small motors were engaged everywhere in U.S.A. the 'broadside' was the recognised way of getting round the bends of a dirt track in the least possible time. "So it was when a party of Americans visited Australia in 1925-26 for a season of track racing and found small track racing on the upgrade, they were able to put across the cornering style they used on the dirt tracks at home. Cecil Brown, who afterwards raced in England, was the first American to show Australians how to 'broadside', but others soon on the job were Eddie Brinck and 'Sprouts' Elder; and right-well did the Australians take to the method." 1922, broadsiding on 500 c.c. motor bikes round small oval dirt tracks. Perhaps in 2012, 90 years on, we should be saluting these pioneers and originators of the sport we now know as speedway.

"I have diverted to Wikipedia in my research and found this and I also give the link for people to find more detailed commentary. http://en.wikipedia....peedway#History JACK KEEN, ERITH, KENT " I apologise, Jack. Of course you did provide a link to wikipedia in an earlier debate and then defended the veracity of wikipedia through several more contributions, which can, of course, still be read on the "Next issue of Classic Speedway" Topic, so I know you are a great believer in wikipedia. I guess your forgetting to put a link in this time was just an oversight. Just as well I found your previous link then.

You missed out a link to Wikipedia, Jack. Why's that?

And what about poor old Dave? Can he not contribute under his own name any more?

Because Crouch...er...must be a very rude word....

So are you admitting you were wrong when you said, "So it could indeed be him in speedway action".? Well done, Jack, that's very noble of you.

er...er...um... Perhaps we should ask Freddie Williams or Split Waterman. They are both still around.

Yes, I agree, Steve. Actually I though after posting my comment that I should have added that Split Waterman still had a chance of becoming World Champion so why should he do Biggs any favours. Also, Lawson was having a bad night (for him) following an injury the week before and on the form Biggs was on that night he must have been confident of beating at least him and, given that, why would Lawson think that he could get Biggs to bribe him because, as you say, Biggs only needed a third place to become world champion.

Sorry, only just seen this. I realise things have moved on from here but if you're referring to the Jack Biggs final I have to say I find the whole story a bit dubious. Jack Biggs appeared unbeatable on the night and won his first four races fairly comfortably. The story goes that he was approached by the other three riders in his last race who told him that if he bunged them some cash they'd stay out of his way. As he had won his first four races easily I'm not sure why they would have done this as he would have expected to beat them anyway. The story continues that he refused so they all beat him. Now why had no-one thought of beating him in his other four races??? In my opinion, after reading reports and speaking to people who were there as spectators and in the pits, I think that Biggs just became a bag of nerves at thought of winning the World Championship and fluffed his start. He was on the outside anyway and just couldn't make up the ground. I don't think bribery had anything to do with it. Just my opinion.

Yes, Johnnie Hoskins himself claimed to have invented the sport. Remember what I said above that he was a great publicist and showman. As well as publicising speedway he wasn't averse to publicising himself! I'm not really sure that anyone was really that interested or really looked into it in the early days and just took his claim, which he made many years later, at face value. The origins had been forgotten by then. As I said above, A J Hunting also claimed to have invented the sport in the interview he gave to John Addison, Sports Editor of The People, and published in the 1948 People Speedway Guide. He was wrong as well! But by then A J Hunting was more or less a forgotten name anyway, whereas Hoskins was still going strong. Hoskins's account of what happened at Maitland is in his autobiography, "Speedway Walkabout", published in 1977. As well as the actual claim to have "invented" speedway there are several things about his account of how it all happened and that week at Maitland that just don't add up. But if you take the book as a whole it is, what I believe used to be termed, a rollicking good yarn and inventing speedway is just one of the many outlandish claims and stories in his book.

Yes, couldn't imagine a 41 year old rider being able to compete at that level these days.... Oh, hang on a minute.....

Right then, to return to the main issue. I think I would like to sum up my own view on the Johnnie Hoskins saga like this... In my opinion there is no doubt that Johnnie Hoskins is a towering figure in the history of speedway. No-one doubts that he did much to advance speedway in the early pioneering days of the sport in Australia and he certainly did a lot to publicise the sport in this country from his arrival in 1928 right up until his death in 1987. You only have to read back copies of the speedway press to see what an enormous influence he had and the amount of publicity he generated. He helped bring speedway either to new tracks or to ones that had closed including Crystal Palace, Newcastle, Glasgow, New Cross and Canterbury (amongst others). He was a showman of the first order and could put thousands on the gate (when speedway crowds numbered in the thousands!) Johnnie Hoskins was a larger than life character who should be remembered fondly and in some reverence for the outstanding contribution he made to speedway. What he did not do however was to invent the sport. The meeting at Maitland on 15 December 1923 was no different to dozens of other meetings that were being held and had been held at race tracks across Australia for at least a decade. The evidence for this statement is overwhelming and irrefutable. In my view to continue to pretend he did invent speedway does both him and the other pioneers of the sport a real injustice. Him, because the argument goes on and on over the Maitland meeting overshadowing all the other great things he did for speedway which tend to get lost in the controversy surrounding this. Others, because, of course, their names have been airbrushed out of history due to the ongoing debate over Hoskins's role. Please let us remember Hoskins as the great speedway man he was for the great things he did for the sport and give him his rightful place as a speedway legend while at the same time recognising what he did not do and that other people were far more instrumental in actually founding the sport than he was and let's continue the real research into the origins of speedway, which is a fascinating subject in its own right.

Is that a promise, Dave? Phew!

No interest in? Have I imagined all those posts above then or is there someone pretending to be you posting on a subject you have "absolutely no interest in"? Also, if you have "absolutely no interest in" the subject, how is it that you think you know more about it than people who have spent years researching into the subject and are interested in it?

I hope that includes the Maitland Mercury from 17 December 1923, Dave. Incidentally you can read the full story of Johnnie Hoskins's involvement with Crystal Palace and how it came about it the article I wrote for Speedway Star back in 2010. That's another newspaper article you could read, Dave.

Thanks, Steve. that would be great if you could do that.

There is a chart showing just that in Maurice Jones's book "World Speedway Final". I don't know if there is an on-line equivalent. But I can copy out the firsts and last of all of them from the book if you would like to see it.

Just remembered, thanks to prompting from Nigel, an article published in the 1948 People Speedway Guide written by John Addison, Sports Editor of The People. It begins: "They called it dirt track racing in the early days. But no-one seems to know when the sport began. Johnnie Hoskins, Grand Old Man of the Speedway has decided that the first meeting of all was in November 1923, at West Maitland. I wonder now, going back through the hazy, petrol-ridden, cinder-showered past whether or not the great John S. Hoskins has slipped...." He then goes on to write about a conversation he had with A. J Hunting who also claimed to have "invented" speedway. Dear me, how confusing. Seeing as how we have established above that people's memories are infallible, what are we to make of this?