norbold

Quite right, mick. This must be the first time ever in the history of the BSF that a thread has wandered slightly off topic. Personally, I blame waihekeaces1 for saying in the opening post on his own topic, "Hans Nielsen and anyboy"

Sadly, from what I've heard and read, Tom Farndon didn't go in much for team riding. He was more of an individual. And I know Wimbledon were the sworn enemy but you can't take it away from Ronnie Moore, possibly - no, probably - the greatest team rider of all time. Other great team riders would include Norman Parker, Ken McKinlay and Kelvin Mullarkey. Perhaps we could form a coalition, arnie...oh no, you're already taken!

Ronnie Moore and anyone

Ken McKinlay and Stan Stevens

Thank you for the link, olddon. I see the site says, "On Saturday, June 16 of 1928 though, Joe Carley1 reports that he "visited White City, Old Trafford, to see the very first Speedway meeting held in Manchester." Leaving aside the disputed meeting at Droylsden on 25 June 1927, a speedway meeting was held at Audenshaw, Manchester, on 3 March 1928 (over three months before the meeting at White City). Amongst those taking part were Keith McKay, Billy Galloway, Alec Jackson, Ginger Lees, Bob Harrison and Acorn Dobson. You see, Jack, you can't always rely on people's memories.

Johnnie Hoskins and modest....hmmmm....let me think about that one.....

Well that highly authoritative source is proof for me....

I'm not saying you can, but neither can you say that only those riding from the 60s onwards are the greatest "ever".

When people say the "greatest of all time" is that what they really mean? Why do people who say this never mention Tom Farndon, Vic Huxley, Bluey Wilkinson, Vic Duggan, Jack Young, Jack Parker etc. etc.? Is it because they are (mostly) outside living memory, so it's really a case of the greatest rider of recent years, which is not the same thing at all as the "greatest of all time".

There isn't a lot on record about Rotherham (Bramley) speedway as far as I know. It only operated from 1929 - 1930. A crowd of 3,000 was said to have seen the first meeting on 18 May 1929. 35 meetings were held in 1929 and 5 in 1930. The last meeting was on 9 June 1930.

That excellent book, "70 Years of Rye House Speedway", gives the result as 33-38 (raced on 24 May). This is confirmed in that other excellent book, "75 Years of Eastbourne Speedway".

It's a good point, olddon. I think that in the early days the two names were used interchangeably though it is probable that the term dirt track applied to the actual sport, while speedway applied to the venue itself, as it seems to be in the case you quote and was certainly the case in Australia from about mid 1924 onwards. It would seem that in this country at least the term speedway became synonymous with the sport itself when Speedway News, under A J Hunting, became established in May 1928.

I don't think they ever all actually rode together in the Southampton team. 1959: Mardon, Taylor and Bradley 1960: Nygren, Taylor and Bradley 1961: Roger and Bradley

Funnily enough, the original intended venue for Jack Hill-Bailey and the Ilford Motor Cycle and Light Car Club's first meeting was a trotting track at Parsloes Park before it all fell through and they moved it to an old cycle track at High Beech..... I believe Jack Parker was a trials rider before turning to speedway and Gus Kuhn was a road racer. He competed in the Isle of Man TT, coming 5th in the Junior Division in 1926.

The report of the meeting on 15 December shows there were three motor-cycle racing events. The first was a three quarter mile event; the second a two mile event and the third a four mile event. The first two events were handicap events; I'm not sure about the third. No handicaps are shown for the four mile event. I don't know how many riders there were in each race; the newspaper only records the first three. As far as I know the Maitland track was grass. I should add that as well as the motor-cycle racing there was cart racing, bicycle racing, trotting races, athletics events and something called "Threading the Needle" race. In the early days, other Carnival event programmes seem to consist of much the same sort of motor-cycle racing and other events. Thebarton Oval (South Australia) held several similar events from 1921 onwards, also on grass, but by January 1923 (11 months before the Maitland meeting), the surface had been converted to cinders, so was a proper (what we would now call) dirt track. This meeting was held under floodlights.

Sorry, White Knight. I know you are right, but all I ever wanted was to discuss Johnnie Hoskins role in the origins of speedway. BFD made a statement early on that the meeting on 15 December 1923 was the first to be held under the banner of speedway, which, if true, would add to the argument that Hoskins "invented" speedway. I have asked BFD several times what evidence he has for saying this as it will help towards understanding the place of that meeting in speedway history but every time he falls back on some pretext to avoid answering the question. The only first hand evidence I have seen of that meeting is, as I have already said, the report of the meeting in the Monday December 17, 1923 edition of the Maitland Daily Mercury. Nowhere is the word speedway mentioned; it is referred to as motor-cycle racing throughout. In addition the paper adds the information that "several other tracks have been used for this kind of sport on a number of occasions". Now, this seems to me to be pretty clear cut that the meeting on 15 December 1923 was not the first of its kind, nor was it called speedway. All I am trying to get from BFD is more information to support his statement that this meeting was the first to be held under the banner of speedway. As a historian, interested in facts, that's all I am asking. Is it too much?

If it makes you happy to think so, Dave, carry on. (Though, actually, I can't help thinking that people are more interested in furthering the debate on Johnnie Hoskins's role in the origins of speedway than in whether I apologise to you or not and therefore would be much more interested in an answer from you to the question I have asked than in your constant prevarication). Anyway, I did answer your substantive point in my next post which, although much longer than the one you have chosen to reply to, you seem to have somehow overlooked.

This is what you said in your first post: Once I'd actually read the article I said, in post 132: I didn't say that what you said was untrue. What I said was that the article didn't say what you had said in your first post when reporting what Ian Hoskins had said. Nowhere in the article does it say, "Speedway should have a birthdate to be recalled by riders and the public like football and cricket have. Johnnie gave such a date and promoted it boldly. He introduced broadsiding, cinder tracks, safety fences, rules of racing and peronality riders. He followed up by promoting at Newcastle, Sydney and Perth in 1927. He was a promoter in every sense of the word," which is what most of the subsequent discussion on this thread was about. I realise you have the disadvantage of not having read the actual article, but I have and let me assure you again that the article nowhere says, " "Speedway should have a birthdate to be recalled by riders and the public like football and cricket have. Johnnie gave such a date and promoted it boldly. He introduced broadsiding, cinder tracks, safety fences, rules of racing and personality riders. He followed up by promoting at Newcastle, Sydney and Perth in 1927. He was a promoter in every sense of the word." That's what I was talking about. What I said was true, so I see nothing to apologise for.

So, what you're saying is that you can't actually back up your statement that the meeting on 15 December 1923 was the first held under the banner of speedway.

Anyway, Dave, let's do a deal and start again. I promise to keep on topic if you do. To start us off on our new found relationship, perhaps you can explain why you think the meeting on 15 December 1923 was the first to be held "under the banner of SPEEDWAY"?

I just reply to what you write, Dave. If the replies are off topic it must be because your posts are.

There's an industrial estate just off Rigg Approach off Lea Bridge Road in Leyton with a fair bit of open ground that could be used (or at least there was when I last looked). You could call the track Lea Bridge or maybe Clapton....

Just one question, Dave, how do you think Wikipedia gets written?

God is everywhere, mick.