norbold

Harris is not even Ipswich's best English Rider!

One positive for us is that all the other countries are going to use their under 21 rider against us!

25/05 Rye House Scratch Races - CONFIRM DATE & OUTRIGHT WINNER(S) IF ANY 08/06 Rye House - did anything take place? No results are written in the results grid I mentioned on your 1953 Queries.

Rye House Some years ago, I was given a fairly complete set of Rye House results from 1934 to 1973. The three dates you mention are on the grid but no results have been written in. The 31 May Coronation Shield meeting is also left blank. I have the actual programme for the Rye House Championship PR2 dated 13 September. As you say Bedford and Goldfinch are shown as tying but there is no indication of a race off. My set of results gives Bedford as the winner.

I would guess that is correct. The 1954 Stenner's Annual just shows Stoke as having a bye in the fourth round. The Stenner's 1953 Fixture list shows New Cross seeded through to the fourth round along with other first division clubs except Wembley and Birmingham, who were seeded straight through to the quarter finals. But, of course, New Cross had closed by then.

So, I gather it 's a big win for Wolves then. Anyone know the result? I seem to have missed it.

16/06 Harringay Television Trophy Best Pairs - Waterman & Hunt tied on 16 points with Biggs & Young - WAS THERE AN OUTRIGHT WINNER? I have a very neatly filled in copy of the programme for this but there is no run-off race shown nor any comments written in about any outright winner. It just shows England and Australia tied on 16. There is also nothing in the explanation of how the event will work about how first place will be decided in the event of a tie. Ooops, just seen BL65's post. The compiler was obviously more concerned with neatness than accuracy then! Perhaps he or she felt that writing in another race would spoil the look of the programme!

Just for a bit of confirmation. I have some filled in Rye House programmes for 1954. They show the following: 16 May: Rye House 44 Aldershot 39 27 June: Rye House 51 Ringwood 33 11 July Rye House 54 Eastbourne 30 25 July: Rye House 33 California 21 - Match abandoned after Heat 9 8 August: Rye House 41: California 43 (Re-run of abandoned match) 22 August: Rye House 53 Brafield 31 5 September: Rye House 50 Ringwood 34 Heat 11 of 11 July Rye House v Eastbourne shown as 1. Johnny Fry (E) 2. Bill Simpson (RH) 3. Wally Wilson (E) 4(f). Vic Ridgeon (RH)

So anyway, it's like this.....I have almost a full collection of Speedway Stars from 1970 to the early 2000s (there are just one or two missing) which I would like to dispose of as they are now taking up far too much room! I don't want anything for them, so if you'd like to turn up in Colchester and take them away, I would be very happy. I would like the whole lot to go in one go, but I am prepared to break them up a bit, but not too much! Say, in decades. I don't want to dispose of single copies for example. Alternatively has anyone got any ideas about disposal.

Just checking some old Rye House programmes and the final tie, California v. Rye House on 1 July, was originally scheduled to be a League match. It was changed to a Cup Final leg after Rye House and California won their semis. The League match was rescheduled to 16 September. Unfortunately I don't have the programme for 1 July, but later programmes give the result as 61-47 to California...though they also give the result of the home leg on 8 July as 38-40 to California, when it was, in fact, 70-38 to Rye House. So, I guess we can discount their results list!!!

26/08/1956 Rye House Brian Crutcher Trophy DATE & OUTCOME (postponed?) Speedway Star reported that the meeting was abandoned without a race being run due to torrential rain, with a large crowd having assembled. The 1957 programme for that year's Brian Crutcher Trophy says, "Today we stage the Brian Crutcher Trophy. I hope the weather will be kinder than last year when we had to cancel the meeting." 21/10/1956 Rye House v California (Challenge) DATE & OUTCOME (no result posted) The Rye House programme for the meeting on 14th October included a complete fixture list for the year, with that meeting shown as the last one, with no reference to a further meeting on 21st October. There was also no mention of such a forthcoming meeting in the Speedway Star. 1956 programmes up to 26 August show this fixture on the forthcoming fixtures list. On 9 September programme, a further "Open" fixture is shown on 28 October. On the programme for 23 September, both these dates are given but with nothing to say what the fixtures were. On 7 October, the 21 October fixture reverts to being Rye House v. California and the 28 October fixture disappears. Then, as BL65 says, the 21 October fixture also disappears on the 14 October programme and I have not seen a programme for 21 October.

Just as a sideline on this, I checked through the Rye House results for 1957. Out of the ten SAL fixtures they raced, only one resulted in a score that added up to 84!

Yes, Aldershot took over the Southern Rovers fixtures, so at the end of the season, all Southern Rovers fixtures were noted as Aldershot fixtures, so, officially Aldershot did race the 31 May fixture at Eastbourne even though they were not in existence at the time! If that makes sense....

Just looking into this a bit more. The programme has Joe Owen and Ari Koponen printed in red & blue. White & yellow were to be 3rd and 4th from Qualifying Heat 3. Joe Owen was not due to race in the qualifying rounds but was supposed to go straight into Repechage Heat B. However, he replaced Egon Muller in Qualifying Heat 3 and came third, hence his appearance in white in Repechage Heat B and removal from red. I hope you can follow that!

I have a filled-in programme for the 1983 Lada W.C.S.S.I There is no time given for Heat 2. Every other race has a time - I suspect it was never announced? The line-up and result I have for Heat B is the same as you: In the printed version it has Joe Owen in Red, but this has been crossed out and he has been hand-written in as white.

Yes, the 1999 season started with the Craven Shield.

Great effort yet again by Ipswich tonight - the team that everyone wrote off at the start of the season.

If you had the final say, Sidney, which 15 riders would you choose for this year's GP series then?

Why did you ask that? What possible bearing does it have on what he said?

Not content with being a racist, you're now using handicapped as a derogatory term. You really are a very very unpleasant person.

So you're saying you cannot be black and Polish then deny you're being racist! Do us a favour!

After writing my little story above I dug out the book as I haven't looked at it for a while. Here is a fuller list of the well-known speedway autographs it contains: Sprouts Elder, Tom Farndon, Lionel Van Praag, Wally Kilmister, Gus Kuhn, Alec Jackson, Eric Gregory, Norman Evans, George Greenwood, Vic Huxley, Dick Case, Buster Frogley, Alf Foulds, Bluey Wilkinson and Johnnie Hoskins. It also contains a number of photographs of teams and individual riders as well as some other autographs of actors, including Robertson Hare, and an autograph of World Flyweight Boxing Champion, Jimmy Wilde. It won't be up for sale on eBay any time soon!

I can highly recommend the Tom Farndon book, Sidney. Some years ago I was at a college reunion. Funnily enough, the person who first gave me the nickname, norbold, was there. I hadn't seen or heard from him since we'd left college about 45 years previously. During the reunion, he said to me that someone had brought along a small autograph book to sell at his school fete (he was a headteacher now), but it hadn't sold and the owner was just going to throw it away. He had a look at it and realised it was full of old speedway riders' autographs. He rescued the book as he hoped he would be seeing me at the reunion. He knew I was interested in speedway because he had seen some of my books in his local bookshop. Anyway, he showed me the book and I couldn't believe it. It contained dozens of speedway autographs including Tom Farndon, Vic Huxley, Lionel Van Praag, Johnnie Hoskins, Alec Jackson, Dick Case and many many other top riders. He asked me how much I thought it was worth. I told him he could probably get at least £75 for it. He thanked me and took the book back. Later on, just as I was leaving, he came over to me and said, "Here you might as well have the book, it's no good to me and I could see how much it meant to you." I reminded him it was probably worth at least £75 and he just shrugged and said, "It's ok, I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me and we were just going to throw it away anyway." So he gave it to me for nothing. A little while later I showed the book to John Somerville and he offered me £100 on the spot for it. I said it wasn't for sale. I still have the book today. A prized possession!

Sorry, my question should have been directed at Sidney. My mistake. Anyway, I highly recommend you get a copy of our Tom Farndon book, Steve!

She has been mentioned a number of times on different threads on "Years Gone By" topics. If you type her name in the search bar, you will find a lot more information about her. By the way, are you talking about the biography of Tom Farndon, Steve?