brianbuck

The "Chronicle" newspapers are a collection of free papers distributed by the Wolverhampton Express and Star Group. There are the "Dudley Chronicle" the "Halesowen Chronicle" and the "Stourbridge Chronicle" that I know of, and there may be a couple more distributed in other parts of the Black Country. Usually, they are almost identical in content, apart from having different front page stories, but I don't know of an edition that appears in any parts of Birmingham. (The border between Birmingham and Halesowen being somewhere mid-way along Mucklow Hill probably means that households on the Birmingham side will get the Halesowen version.) The Chronicles do feature the occasional Speedway story - usually Wolverhampton focussed, but on rare occasions, the Brummies do get a mention. The Birmingham Mail also get in on the free paper act by issuing a Dudley News, Stourbridge News and a Halesowen News for free. Living in Brierley Hill, I get both the Stourbridge Chronicle and the Stourbridge News - but I can't recall ever seeing a Speedway feature in the latter paper. In the late 1970's, the Express and Star did make a determined effort to push into Birmingham Mail territory by opening a branch office in Perry Barr and for a short time producing a "Birmingham Express and Star" but this failed to take off and the experiment was soon abandoned. Further back in the 1950's, there was a plethora of newspapers produced in Birmingham, including two evening papers in the Birmingham Mail and the Evening Despatch, two morning papers in the Birmingham Post and the Birmingham Gazette, plus the Birmingham Weekly Post, the Sporting Buff, Birmingham Planet, and two Saturday Sports papers the Sports Argus and the Sports Final (the latter, better known locally as the Blue Mail) and the Sunday Mercury. In about 1955, the Birmingham Mail and the Evening Despatch merged and became the Evening Mail. The Birmingham Gazette, the Blue Mail, the Birmingham Weekly Post, and the Sporting Buff were all scrapped. The Birmingham Planet which was an early full colour newspaper, died a natural death at around the same time, and the Sports Argus died when football stopped playing all of their matches on Saturday afternoons. These days, the Evening Mail has reverted to it's original title of the Birmingham Mail and has become all all-day newspaper which can be purchased from early morning onwards, and has been acquired by the Mirror Group along with the Birmingham Post and the Sunday Mercury which all now resemble the Daily Mirror both in content and style. This hasn't the slightest connection to Birmingham Speedway, but possibly some people will find it a bit more interesting than a few of the very juvenile postings which seem to be plaguing the site!!!!

Why anyone would want to make an issue of this is beyond me! So what if Joe Thompson (or Lewis Kerr) never rode for Coventry? This wasn't to have been any kind of official fixture - just a challenge match, and as Coventry haven't raced for the last 6 years there is bound to be a declining number of their former riders still available. Surely the objective was to put out a team which would have been competitive and would have had a genuine chance of winning - so if it had included a couple of guests, so what?

Going back on topic, if speedway is to come back to Bradford, I'd suggest that the stadium owned by Bradford (Park Avenue) Football Club could be a much better option than Odsal. Bradford PA are amongst the strugglers in the National League and their attendances are quite low, so they would probably welcome additional income from the speedway. Photographs of the stadium show it to be small, but quite modern, and there is already an athletics track surrounding the football pitch. That's about the limit of my knowledge of the venue, but perhaps someone living in that neck of the woods could give a better opinion? I think personally, that it would be very difficult to get an atmosphere in a stadium as big and sprawling as Odsal, so perhaps the football club could be a better proposition? (I'm told also, that former Bradford Speedway promoter Allan Ham is now one of the football club's directors!)

Changing the subject slightly - Birmingham followers please note that the Supporters' Website is currently out of action due to a problem which I am told will take a while to correct. It will be up and running again as soon as possible.

I will be happy to add my comments before the deadline dates but will have a thorough study of the proposals first as they do seem to be very involved. My very best wishes to the people looking to ensure the continuation of speedway in Poole.

Bradford were another club to have multiple names! I can remember their team being Boomerangs, Tudors, Panthers, Northern, Barons, and Dukes - and probably by ba couple more names that I've forgotten!

Mike Parker was a very uncompromising businessman who was much disliked as a speedway promoter, but he does deserve enormous credit for the launch of the Provincial League in 1960. The league transformed speedways' fortunes as it allowed new promoters to bring the sport profitably back to numerous venues. Very many riders of fairly modest ability had been forced into retirement during the slump years because there had been no opportunities for them at the surviving National League tracks, so the advent of the Provincial League allowed them the chance to resurrect their careers. The fact that Provincial League pay rates were set low (I believe the rate was 12/6 per point) didn't particularly bother them since most of them were part-time riders anyway. What could have strangled the league at birth though, was the way that the Southern based teams, notably Rayleigh, Bristol and Poole concentrated on bringing back riders who had only recently retired, which created a definite division between their strong teams at the top end of the league, and those of the Northern clubs who mainly used ex Belle Vue junior riders (even though quite a number were "veteran" juniors, and had no chance of matching their Southern counterparts. All told though, the new league proved to be a huge success, and as a Birmingham supporter with no team to follow at the time, I soon transfered my secondary allegiance from Coventry to Cradley Heath where the racing seemed to be more competitive. What all this has to do with Norwich though, is beyond me!

Yes there is some interesting information there, but the point I was trying to make is that surely, the Hevingham site is worth another look?

Depressing indeed to find that a hard core of so-called supporters seem to be revelling in Poole's current difficulties. I wish the club well and hope that these problems can be overcome - and I don't doubt that this is also the wish of the big majority, regardless of which other team has their allegiance.

I'm not sure how distant the City of Norwich is from King's Lynn, but it certainly is a long way away from Ipswich, Peterborough and Mildenhall so I can't see any grounds for any of these tracks objecting to a Norwich revival. Having said this though, I am well aware that this has been the case in the past - but never to my knowledge from any of the Midlands tracks. When Joe Thurley brought Birmingham back in 1971, it was at a venue only 9 miles from Wolverhampton, 10 miles from Cradley Heath, and 18 miles from Coventry, yet all three welcomed a resumption in Birmingham - and in fact the only objection was from Leicester (42 miles distant) - but only on the grounds that Thurley's original intention was to run on Tuesday nights which was then Leicester's race night. When Joe changed his proposed race night to Mondays, the objection was withdrawn. As far as Norwich and the other tracks mentioned are concerned, I would be very surprised if more thaqn a handful of supporters patronised more than one of them. I fully sympathise with 25 year fan on his frustration. I know what it is like - I waited 21 years for my beloved Brummies to come back!

Is there anything remaining of the old track at Hevingham which was only used once in 1976? If there is (as I've been told there is)' couldn't something be done there to get speedway back to a City where it once thrived?

The title of this topic is NOT an opinion -it is an accusation that Birmingham Speedway are using deceitful methods to extract money from supporters. At best it is a slight on a group of people who have worked hard to keep the club afloat and at worst it is a slanderous comment. Everyone who has agreed to contribute to Birmingham's scheme, be it called a shareholding, a stakeholding or whatever, is well aware of the terms of acceptance - as indeed have been the people (including myself) who have contributed to Cradley Heath's admirable Supporters' Trust ( even if technically it perhaps shouldn't be thus described). Freedom of expression and personal opinions are one thing, but to be deliberately and sneeringly offensive is not acceptable - and the title of this topic is just that - and should be removed.

Personally, I don't see a great difference in being a shareholder to being a stakeholder, so it will make no difference to my wish to be a contributer. I've no desire to see details of accounts or look for, or expect any kind of dividend, so if others think they should, and prefer to opt out, then that is their perogative - and everyone should bear in mind the fact that Birmingham Speedway have not yet asked anyone to send them any money - so no one has been "conned." Whilst we are all entitled to our opinions, in my view, the title of this topic is in itself offensive and should be changed.

Going back to the 1950's, the rule was that any rider who had scored less than 50% of possible points over the previous 6 matches, could be named as reserve. This gave Team Managers of the time much more options when selecting their teams - especially for away matches. There was never any ruling then, of which rider could only be named as number one - the Team Manager was free to juggle the riding numbers of his riders in any way he wanted. In those days, team were of eight men - 6 in the team proper, and 2 as reserves. Matches were over 14 heats with the 6 team-proper men programmed for four rides and the reserves two each, but each reserve could have an additional two rides in the place of an off form team-proper man, or if a visiting team happened to be a man short as sometimes happened, each of the reserves could take two of the missing man's rides. The modern idea of allowing reserves to have up to seven rides is nonsensical and frequently gives the reserves a totally disproportionate say in results. Towards the end of the 1950's, the format was changed to 7-man teams but with 3 pairings, each taking five rides, and only one reserve, and again, the reserve was programmed for only two rides but could replace a team-proper man in another three. This seemed a much better system to me, and I'd like to see it brought back.

Simple solution to this nonsense. Just call the club Workington. There's no real need for nicknames. I've never referred to my team as "Birmingham Brummies". We are either Birmingham or The Brummies.

There were underlying reasons for the attendance reduction at Perry Barr last season. The stop-start nature of the season and the ongoing track problems didn't help, but the biggest problem was actually getting to the stadium in the face of the massive amount of roadworks being done in preparation for next year's Commonwealth Games. In addition, Perry Barr Rail Station has been closed for a year for upgrading, so travelling to the track has been an absolute nightmare. I live only 12 miles away but getting to the stadium has been taking me anything up to 2 hours. Some of these roadworks will still be ongoing next season but they will be nearing completion by then so things should be easier and although the train station is not due to re-open until June, the work seems to be ahead of schedule and with an eye on the success of the Games, Birmingham City Council will give completion of the roadworks, top priority.

Redcar and Birmingham had their differences last season, but now that the Brummies are under new management, perhaps we can all put these behind us and look towards more positive things? Best wishes to the Bears for a successful 2022.

This is the news for which we have waited since the end of last season, and our very grateful thanks are due to everyone who has wished us well on this forum. Sad that a few posters chose to be negative, but the great majority, I think, are genuinely pleased for us.

We can beat that at Perry Barr! We had one woman who complained about the noise on a Saturday evening - when the Brummies were racing away at Rye House! When we wrote to point this out to her, she still insisted that she could hear the noise and also felt ill because of the smell of the petrol!!!

Khalid Mahmood was extremely helpful and supportive when we were fighting for planning permission, and I would be very surprised if he has altered his views since then. Ian Ward, the Leader of Birmingham City Council, was also very supportive, and having never seen a speedway meeting, he has already accepted an invitation to attend a meeting ( delayed by the onset of Covid 19, but it's just a matter of agreeing a suitable date with him. As a matter of interest, we have not had a complaint about noise from local residents for the past 5/6 years - and the last one was about noise from the tannoy - not the bikes!

Many congratulations Rob for all your efforts. You have persevered, very often in the face of so much negativity and scornful comments from the very people who purport to still call themselves speedway enthusiasts. I know you are not home and dry just yet (as also we are not at Birmingham), but the prospects look more than promising now, and you deserve so much credit for all you have done. Very best wishes for the future, and I do hope that you will think again before carrying out your threat to sever your connection with speedway. We need people like you - especially in these difficult times.

I wouldn't normally react to negative postings, but here we have a group of people working really hard to keep our club in business - and the response we get from a significant minority of posters, who still purport to call themselves speedway enthusiasts, is to just to sneeringly pour scorn on their efforts.

Thanks for the good wishes Rob, which are much appreciated. Hope things are progressing well with your Rye House campaign.

Next Speedway Tavern show will be next Tuesday November 9th at 8pm. My son is one of the presenters so he'll give the meeting a good airing. (I'll skin him if he doesn't!!!)