norbold

Yes, you're right. It is, of course, John Debbage. Sorry, I was put off by the photo being ascribed to a Wimbledon rider...but he does look like Gerry King!!!

Are you sure you're not mixing up Jim Gleed with Jim Heard?

Harringay 1 is Jeff Lloyd I think Harringay 2 is Danny Dunton Wimbledon 2 is not Reg Luckhurst, it's Gerry King.

I guess this one would be California. It was operating in the Southern Area League in 1954 and 1955. The team included Gil Goldfinch, Bob Andrews, Tom Sweetman, Eric Hockaday, Pete Mould, Jim Gleed and Ross Gilbertson.

Brilliant, Parsloes. I'll put it to the committee at our next meeting on Thursday...

You might be interested in these stills from the film...:http://www.speedwayplus.com/SwagmanPictures.shtml

The Museum itself is going from strength to strength. If you'd been lately you would see how much better it is than when it was first opened. Work has continued and is still continuing on improving it. The layout has changed drastically since the early days making the exhibits much easier to see with improved atmospheric backgrounds and some well researched and easy to read information panels and explanatory text with the objects. The whole exhibition itself is excellent and has won plaudits from local museum professionals. The museum is growing all the time as more and more people donate or lend items to it. I am also very unhappy about the website situation. We have a committee meeting next week and I will get to the bottom of this and find out what is happening. I always express the views put forward on the Forum when I go. As far as the Barclays are concerned, they, of course, did a tremendous amount of work in getting the museum up and running but they always said they were not museum professionals and they probably felt their work was done once it was set up. They had spent two years doing nothing else but fund raising and gathering objects for the Museum and they probably wanted their lives back. Apart from the issue of the website, the museum has been and continues to be a complete success and is going from strength to strength. It is a credit to everyone who has been involved in it and deserves the support of the whole speedway community.

New Cross hasn't been built on because it's a designated open green space. However, I just decided to look it up on the Web to see what it said about it and this is from the official Lewisham Council website: "Bridgehouse Meadows was formerly the Deptford Greyhound Stadium. " AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!! :mad:

That probably depends on how many were held in Poland.

A proper stadium might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there was terracing and there were covered stands there. Apart from the pits shown in the photograph I can't really remember what it looked like in 1960....I was too busy trying not to fall!

Well, there you are. Parker Drive. Is that Jack or Norman?

Actually that reminds me. Lea Bridge stadium became the Speedway Industrial Estate, though I don't think it is still called that.

Yes, I know what you mean, Deano. But I suppose it's better to have some reminder than none at all. Talking of housing estates, of course, the Firs at Norwich is now a housing estate as well.

You're certainly not, Tigerblade. I remember Tony Holland well.

Yes, but at least the roads are named after former West Ham riders plus Johnnie Hoskins. Has this happened anywhere else? As is Rayleigh. They spell it High Beach! The spelling has long been a bone of contention in the area. The word beech could refer to the beech trees in the area which would make more sense as High Bee(a)ch is nowhere near the sea, but there is also an archaic meaning of the word beach which means an escarpment and it could refer to this. When I lived in the area in the 60s and 70s both spellings were used but recently it has become normal to refer to it as High Beach.You hardly ever see High Beech except in speedway circles! There are some photographs of how the area looks now on John Skinner's Defunct Tracks website (I should know, I took them!): http://www.defunctspeedway.co.uk/High%20Beech.htm

I'm really sad to hear that, Tsunami. I spoke to him a couple of times while I was researching my Wembley book and I also published the results of one of the interviews in the Vintage Speedway Magazine. He was extremely courteous and helpful and a true gentleman. I found him to be very modest about his achievements and seemed to wonder what all the fuss was about and why I should want to interview someone like him! But he was a great rider and an integral part of the Wembley team that included such stars as Jack Ormston, Ginger Lees, Colin Watson, Frank Charles, Wally Kilmister and Lionel Van Praag. Yet he was never outclassed or overawed by them. He was their equal and one of them. He will be sadly missed.

Sorry, Jim, I can't. The song I remember most being played at New Cross was Good Timin' by Jimmy Jones. I don't know why, it has just stuck in my memory. What I do remember really well are the songs they played at West Ham in I think c. 1968 or 1969 when they had a sponsorship deal with Buddah Records and played tracks from the Kasenetz-Katz LPs like "Kasenetz-Katz Super Circus" and "Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus" exclusively all season. Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz were record producers who had got together a number of different groups to play together like a big band. The individual groups included 1910 Fruitgum Company, Ohio Express, Music Explosion, Lt. Garcia's Magic Music Box, Musical Marching Zoo, J.C.W. Rat Finks and St. Louis Invisible Marching Band. They played such memorable songs as "Simon Says", "Yummy Yummy Yummy", "Chewy Chewy", "Goody Goody Gumdrops" and "Quick Joey Small" They grew on you after a while....

What do you mean what happened to them? They are no longer involved with the Museum.

Writing in the 1972 Webster's Speedway Mirror annual, Ian MacDonald said in the international section, "The Poles themselves are still Eastern Europe's top speedway country...The international days of Pawel Waloszek and Antoni Woryna seem numbered but there is still an awful lot of talent over there. Leading the way is Jerzy Szczakiel and how the Poles could have left him out of their World Cup team is one of speedway's mysteries!" Szczakiel's photograph is the main featured photograph at the beginning of the section. In the report of the World Pairs, Ian MacDonald also says, "The Polish duo of Jerzy Szczakiel and Andrzej Wyglenda were indisputably masters in the World Pairs Final..." So it's not as though he came from nowhere to win the World title in 1973. He was already being touted as Poland's best hope at the end of the 1971 season.

Yes, I agree Nigel. But don't forget Albert "Shrimp" Burns (if only for his name) who was also sliding his bike around American dirt tracks before the First World War.

:lol:

Thanks for the info, Bob. Yes, I shouldn't have left out his time at Poole.

Just heard the sad news that Fred Pawson has died in New Zealand. Fred Pawson started his speedway career as a mechanic at Eastbourne in 1947. After practising at Rye House he was signed by Harringay in 1948. He moved to Norwich in 1951, coming straight in with a near 6-point average. On promotion to the First Division his average dropped to around 3 or 4 per match, but he remained in the reserve position until 1954.

Who knows, Trackman, who knows? It all depends on your definition of speedway. The other thing about the first meeting at High Beech was that the bikes were still fitted with brakes. As far as I'm concerned I believe the first proper speedway meeting in Great Britain was either the second or third meeting at High Beech on 7 and 9 April 1928. "Motor Cycle" magazine says that the meeting on 9 April was the first time broadsiding was seen in this country with Digger Pugh, Colin Watson and Alf Medcalf doing the honours. The track on 9 April was also described as having a loose dirt surface, built under the direction of the great Australian promoter, A J Hunting, which the first meeting did not have, nor did the meeting at Droylsden on 25 June 1927, also said by some to be the first speedway meeting in this country. Although the 9 April meeting is described as the first to feature broadsiding, I presume that the meeting on 7 April used the same loose dirt track. What I'm even more unsure about is whether bikes were still fitted with brakes at this point. It seems unlikely, what with A J Hunting, loose dirt and broadsiding, but I have found no mention of them either way. The first meeting at Greenford was also held on 7 April 1928, but with no broadsiding as far as I can tell. At the meeting the following week, 14 April, the New Zealander, Stewie St George, gave a display of broadsiding, "He laid his Duggie over at impossible angles with the rear wheel slewing right round." Billy Galloway also gave a display of broadsiding as did a young English rider, Les Blakeborough. By the time, Britain got round to "proper" speedway" the Americans and Australians had been at it for years. The first reports of broadsiding go back to before the First World War in America with a man named Don Johns. R. M. Sammy Samuels, one time editor of 'Motor Cycling' and 'Speedway News' and manager of an Indian motorcycle agency in London went to the USA in 1911 where he says he witnessed 'Dirt Track Racing'. Years later he commented that Johnnie Hoskins had only reinvented an old idea. Speedway did not suddenly appear overnight, as Johnnie Hoskins would have us all believe. It came about through a long process of evolution that probably started even before 1911. There are reports of oval track racing in South Africa and Ipswich before that, though neither could be called speedway as we know it. I don't think we will ever be able to point to a particular meeting and say "That's when speedway started." (My thanks to Nigel for some of the information in the above.)