norbold

And Trevor Hedge and Reg Luckhurst

I spoke to Ove a few years ago about what he thought of speedway today. His first comment was that Ivan Mauger "ruined" the sport by making it too professional. He felt Ivan had taken all the fun out of it and turned it into a business where riders had to get the right backers, set up etc. and it became more about money and machinery than the rider. It is an urban myth that Ove Fundin won the world title on a track spare.

Wimbledon starts off ok... Ivan Mauger Barry Briggs Ronnie Moore Vic Huxley but falters a bit after that. Maybe Norman Parker Ron How Tommy Jansson

Ooops. You're right chr and waihekeaces1. Many apologies. As someone once said, "Where is my abacus when I need it?" Obviously foamfence we are talking about Individual World Championship titles.

Meanwhile Australia continues to throw up quality riders on a seemingly never-ending production line.

I make it 18 world titles, chr.

Ok, moving on..... Ivan Mauger Ove Fundin Jack Parker Peter Craven Peter Collins Jason Crump Eric Langton And now find another club team to beat that!

Tom Farndon....

I agree Hancock must now be considered in any list of all-time greats. As time goes by, he will move higher and higher simply because people forget the old stars and riders like Moore, Young, Craven will drop out - even Briggs and Fundin. As we can see in waihekeaces 1's list, there is not one pre-war rider because they are just forgotten. But what about Farndon, Huxley, Wilkinson? There's no doubt Hancock deserves a high place but as always the more modern the rider the higher up the list he will be.

If you don't want to you don't need to write an editorial, that's up to you. However it seems to me that what the SS should be doing is giving a bit more factual explanation about the FIM process given all these comments about poor Darcy and the amount of time it's taking. It must surely be the responsibility of the SS to explain to its readers what FIM regulations state and that this case is no different to those the FIM have dealt with before. Instead, by not doing this, you are tacitly supporting the idea that Darcy Ward is being hard done by and that, for some reason, the FIM seems to be picking on him personally when this is not the case. If you don't think the SS should give an opinion on the matter, surely you must agree it should state the facts.

Not forgetting Josef Hofmeister.

We don't know it is going to take 45 days. FIM regulations say it can be UP TO 45 days. Unless you've heard differently.

What you're making there, Phil, is a general point about the FIM. This case is nothing out of the ordinary. You might want to criticise the FIM for the time they take generally, but, believe me, this case is nothing special. They are not treating Darcy Ward any differently to how they would treat any other rider. It's just a shame people like you and Middlo don't know this.

Yes, ok, you've all convinced me. Move Dag up.

It's dry today.

1. Sverre Harrfeldt 2. Rune Holta (he was Norwegian once) 3. Reidar Eide 4. Basse Hveem 5. Aage Hansen 6. Lars Gunnestad 7. Dag Lovaas

Jimmy Ogisu Er... That's it.

Yes, I thought about Hans Andersen, but somehow he never seems to have lived up to his potential. A few years ago he looked like a World Champion in the making but it never quite happened. Good call with Bo Petersen certainly.

Jan O is the fifth automatic choice. My other two would be Tommy Knudsen and Arne Pander but by this time next year I have a feeling we could be adding NKI as an automatic.

Here's my Africa team Doug Davies Henry Long Keith Harvey Buddy Fuller Doug Serrurier Mike Ferreira Peter Prinsloo

And Doug Davies!

Did you ever see Barry Briggs ride, pugwash?

mickthemuppetCan you ever get anything right? Eric Langton was a much stronger rider before the War. The fact he was still getting those sort of averages after the War shows just shows what a great rider he was over his whole career and much better than Bill Kitchen.

Doug Davies, possibly the best of the lot.

Blimey, Mick, you're even older than I thought. You saw Eric Langton in his hey-day????