norbold

Good old Stan - always a West Ham man at heart!

Would you not support the individual riders from your team? That was one of the good things about the old individual meetings.

So sorry to hear this, andout. Sincere condolences to you and your family.

Aub Lawson won the first race I ever saw. He beat Split Waterman in Heat One of the Britannia Shield match, New Cross v. Norwich, 11 May 1960. He went on to score 16 paid 17. The only New Cross rider to beat him was Jimmy Gooch, who instantly became my favourite rider. Another favourite, both at New Cross and West Ham, was Reg Luckhurst - though he was more of a pop star of course.

Yes. Exactly that. I'd also like to add the magnificent, the unbeatable, Bjorn Knutson - class personified - and following the rise to stardom of Malcolm Simmons. Plus my old mate, Stan Stevens. And to the old timers, Aub Lawson.

You and me both, chr. I wonder how many meetings we have both seen without knowing!

Spot on, Arnie. As a Londoner, your last point applied to me too. In the early 70s we had Wimbledon, West Ham, Hackney, Wembley, Crayford and Romford with Rye House and Rayleigh in close proximity. Twice a week (West Ham & Hackney) was regular for me. Three times was not unusual. Four on several occasions as well. Perhaps, best of all, was the idea of having mostly the same team year after year with favourite riders re-appearing each season so you really felt your team was your team and not just a collection of visiting guests that changed annually. You could buy their rosettes, safe in the knowledge they would last longer than one year!

Ivan Mauger?

Tommy Price (1949 World Champion and 1946 Riders' Champion) began his career riding for Wembley Reserves in the Reserves League.

President-elect of the WSRA, due to take over from Egon Muller in November.

They could do a lot worse!

Incidentally, Ove was 88 on 23 May. And still as fit and active as ever.

I suppose a lot of how we remember the riders is coloured by our early recollections of them. As you know, my first two speedway years were at New Cross. Fundin was a master of the Frying Pan and was virtually unbeatable (except for that one unforgettable night when Split Waterman beat him three times!). Ronnie Moore was also a top man at New Cross. Whereas for some reason, Peter Craven and Briggo (even though he rode for New Cross in 1960) never seemed comfortable on the track and were definitely behind Fundin and Moore. I didn't see Bjorn Knutson much, but after New Cross closed I moved across to West Ham, where Bjorn was the no.1. He was class personified and almost unbeatable at Custom House. So, in my memory from early days, I always put Fundin, Moore and Knutson ahead of Craven and Briggo. One other class rider I should mention is Jack Young. He was, of course, well past his best in the early 1960s but at the end of the 1961 season, he took part in two individual championships at New Cross - the King of the South Cup and the Tom Farndon Memorial Trophy. He won them both, beating every one of The Big Five in the process. I felt very privileged to see Youngie as he must have been at his peak in the early 1950s. For just those two meetings, he turned the Big Five into the Big Six - and he was the best!

How old was Peter Craven in those 18 races?

Being a New Cross supporter, I have to say that to me the biggest rivalry was between Ove and Briggo - which Ove always won - sorry Sidney! I never saw a match race between Ove and Peter Craven, but, again, when I saw them in individual meetings, Ove nearly always came out on top. However, you are correct to say that it was Peter Craven who had the best record of any of the Big Five against Ove.

Good Allan died in 1996.

He was born on 18 August 1931. (Thank you, Matt.)

In the early 1920s, Eddie Brinck, along with Maldwyn Jones, was said to have "invented" the pendulum skid, the basis of the speedway sliding technique used to such good effect by the early star Australian riders such as Vic Huxley and Frank Arthur and which led to the sport of speedway as we know it. But there is evidence of sliding being in use before the First World War with riders such as Don Johns and Albert "Shrimp" Burns.

I read in a book that you co-authored, falcace, that it has been said that Aub Lawson went to the other two riders (Split Waterman and Freddie Williams) in that fateful heat and asked them if Jack had ‘said anything’ to them, i.e. offered a small inducement for them to let him win They replied he had not. The story goes that when Biggs said nothing to them, they decided to ‘fix’ him. Biggs said later when this story began to circulate that he hadn’t ‘said anything’ to them because he was confident he would win – or at the very least get the third place he needed to become World Champion. He had been by far the fastest gater all evening and Lawson and Williams were having poor evenings – Lawson in particular as he was suffering from a hand injury. To him – and probably the whole crowd there that evening – it was unthinkable that he wouldn’t at least get third place. So, even if they did decide to ‘fix’ him, it wasn’t easy to see how they would be able to manage it. The authors of the book go on to say, “Nerves seem a much more plausible explanation.” He had a long gap between his fourth and fifth rides and he just sat in the pits getting more and more nervous. The book quotes Ken Taylor, a long time speedway fan who was there that evening, as saying, “It was nerves that beat him.” He said he had seen Biggs in the pits some years previously in the London Riders’ Championship Final when, again, he was in with a chance of winning and his hands were shaking so much, Ken was surprised that Biggs could even hold the bike, let alone race it. It should also be remembered that Biggs came third in the run-off as well – again a race on the previous form of the evening he should have won. But his nerves were shot to pieces by then.

Pat Flanagan is not shown as a Hastings rider in 1948 in either Peter Morrish's "British Speedway Leagues 1946 - 1964" or in the 1949 Stenner's Review of Hastings, 1948. There is an entry for him In the 1949 "Who's Who in Speedway", which says, "Born London 1927. A 1949 Harringay junior."

Thanks for the link, Grachan. It looks perfectly ok to me. It just looks like a great move by Gundersen - and I think we should remember that Gundersen always figures in discussions about the greatest riders of all time and this sort of move is why.

Music is an interesting one. I was listening to one of my young teenage favourite songs yesterday - Runaway by Del Shannon. The song came out 60 years ago this year. 60 years before that was 1901!!!

I often make that comparison too. When something comes on telly that I remember etc., I think to myself what was that number of years before the event. It is quite frightening at times.

I saw Dave Jessup in one of his first races in public as a 15 year old in 1968 in a second half at West Ham. He beat Alan Sage, Vic Harding and Barry Thomas. My programme notes say, "won by half a lap". He was immediately signed up for the Hammers for the following season. It was obvious, even from that first race, that he was destined for greater things and he became my "protege". I always followed his career from then on - I just wish I could have advised him on how to look after his bike!

You know how to make people feel old. The first world final I saw was won by Ove Fundin!