norbold

You've got to admire Nigel Pearson for still pretending that this tournament is all about team riding.

Thank you for compiling the list, Bob. Of the 15 you mention (including Briggo and Ove) I missed out on seeing three of them, Arthur Payne, Derrick Close and Henry Long.

Actually, it isn't the case that the individual World Championship is decided with a final. Each round may be, but there is no one-off race at the end and it is possible, and indeed has been the case, that the winner is decided before the last round even starts. So it is not an "essential" ingredient of speedway, a "must" to appeal to tv audiences. In fact, neither the WTC or the Grand Prix winners are decided this way. It will be just the pairs. Why?

Time for a prediction for tonight's winner. I'm going for whoever has gate 3 in the final.

Indeed, GC. The only thing that might help is if those smaller countrie did well in the competition and generated publicity in their own country because they'd won or come close...but that ain't gonna happen.

Ivor Brown?

I cannot see why Dan should have let Rob Lambert win. Firstly, it is an individual competition when really your country counts for very little. Secondly, there is big competition now between the two youngsters as to who will get in the GB team and who will prove to be the better of the two on the world stage in the future, so why shouldn't Dan show he can beat Rob - it will do him no harm at all when it comes to future selections. Thirdly, as others have said, it would be cheating and we would roundly condemn it if riders from other countries did it, thereby knocking out one of our riders.

That might depend on whether Ove Fundin did the same!

Personally I'd prefer Chris Harris to Cook......

Nygren and Bradshaw beat Briggo in Heat One of the match on 2 June 1970. I wasn't there but my friend went and gave me a filled in programme. His comment on this race was, "Pete and Olle were miles in front." Briggo was unbeaten for the rest of the night.

The only 1968 programme I can find with a photo of a West Ham rider leading a Swindon rider on the front cover is for the West Ham v. Wimbledon meeting on 30 July 1968, which was a special 40th anniversary meeting. Is that the one you mean? I hadn't realised it was Leonard leading Briggs! All the other programmes that year just have a single rider portrait on the front. However, the photo on the 30 July meeting is a repeat of a photo first used for the final meeting of the 1967 season, on 17 October, against Long Eaton. West Ham raced Swindon twice at home in 1967 and Barry Briggs beat Brian Leonard every time they met. Briggo also beat Leonard at Swindon.

I don't remember Stan beating Ivan Mauger. I was there the night he beat Briggo though. That brought the house down. Can't remember Brian Leonard doing it, but he may have done.

Talking of Sverre at West Ham, Christer Lofqvist was another amazing character at Custom House. Their swoops round the outside were the highlights of many a meeting.

Jason Doyle Bartosz Zmarzlik Tai Woffinden Freddie Lindgren Emil Sayfutdinov Patryk Dudek Maciej Janowski Matej Zagar Nicki Pedersen Martin Vaculik Greg Hancock Arden Laguta Peez Pawlicki Chris Holder Craig Cook

" guys who would put you into the fence as soon as look at you!!" I think that category includes Briggo and Ove Fundin - and to their own partners too if they got in the way! As for characters in general, Reg Luckhurst, the famous pop star, was a bit of a character and, of course, the character amongst characters, Split Waterman, was still around in the early 60s.

Just published today - the prequel to Pie 'n' Mash, "Cracked Eggs & Chicken Soup." "Cracked Eggs and Chicken Soup" is about growing up in the East End of London, around the Whitechapel and Bethnal Green areas, between the Wars. It is the memoir of my father, who came from a large family and talks about what it was like growing up in poverty during that period. But as well as being a family story, it is also a social and political history of its time. There is much about the shops and stalls of Petticoat Lane, Brick Lane and surrounding streets, their owners and stallholders. The itinerant street vendors and street entertainers. Also the rise of the Blackshirts and the fear amongst the community, culminating with an eye witness account of the Battle of Cable Street that turned the tide. But in spite of the difficult times, it is also a story of the love and community spirit of the East End and above all, the book records with affection the area and its people as well as now-vanished aspects of everyday life. The story is full of hardships but also of the hope and pride that defined the working class families in the slums and Buildings of the East End. There is even the odd mention of pre-War speedway too!

I was at the West Ham meeting on 26 August. I have written in my programme, "Exc broke tapes start." (He was replaced by Steve Waplington).

I'm not particularly opposed to having umbrella girls but to use as an excuse that that is their only role in speedway and without it they'd have none is more degrading than them actually parading up and down. Their role in the sport could be as administrators, as referees, as mechanics or, Heaven forbid, as riders. That's what should be encouraged.

Stewie St George is no.34 n the J A Pattreiouex set of 50 Dirt Track Riders. The info on the back starts off, "Born in Auckland, N.Z...."

I think the Jack Parker photo shows him speaking to the Daily/Sunday Mirror Journalist, Don Clarke.

Wally Loak at the 2017 Celebration of Speedway: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1432244900383031/search/?query=Wally Loak

In the last Olympic Games, I think there were something like 20 players born in China playing table tennis, with only six of those actually representing China!

Well at least England's got them surrounded, Rob.

The enquiry was from someone called Andy.

It's always done like that. What do you think they do?