brianbuck

Haven't received my copy of the Star this week (W/E April 11th). I appreciate that things are abnormal and am not whinging about this, but as this is my first week of the renewed subscription, I'm just wondering whether there might have been a hiccup?

I think the "losses" at Belle Vue are due to costs linked with the construction of the new stadium more than operating costs. It is a bit obscure whether these "losses" are on the part of the promotion or Manchester City Council. I can't claim inside knowledge of any of this - it's just my thinking. One thing I do dislike is the constant sneering aimed at the "old" people who are supposedly the backbone of speedway's present day support. I started watching Birmingham in 1953 when I was 13 and 67 years later my enthusiasm for the sport is as great as ever, so why do people seem to want to make us feel unwelcome?

Christine, Thank you so much for the personal information you have sent to me, which I do appreciate very much. I have been a supporter of Birmingham Speedway for the last 67 years and have been Secretary of the Supporters' Club since 1971. I am also a keen historian and have tried very hard to locate information about your uncle and also about Charlie Appleby who also lost his life in 1946 and has been the only rider to be killed whilst riding for Birmingham. The information you have supplied is a useful addition to our knowledge of Hugh, and we want to ensure that his name is not forgotten in the future. If you do happen to locate a picture of him, and can let me have a copy, that would be very much appreciated. With kindest regards -- Brian.

It isn't unusual or disrespectful of modern day supporters that they only remember riders from the past (especially pre-war riders) as names. At Birmingham, we have tried to keep the name of the Brummies best ever rider, Graham Warren alive by presenting an annual "Graham Warren Trophy" to the Birmingham rider we feel has made the biggest impact on the season, but in every year since 2007 when the trophy was launched, the winner has never heard of Graham Warren! We aren't offended by this - it's just natural. Time marches on, and memories fade! Clearly Tom Farndon was an exceptional rider and deserves to be remembered - but as he died four years before I was born, and 17 years before I started following speedway, I know little more than his name and what I have read about him.

There was, it seems the threat of a riders strike at the last meeting to be staged at the Hall Green track in Birmingham, in October 1938, when the match between Birmingham and Sheffield was subject to a lengthy delay when the Birmingham riders confronted the promoter Arthur Westwood about unpaid wages. Apparently, Westwood, on the pretex of going out of the stadium to collect his cheque book from his car, decided to do a runner and drove off. The dispute was then left to the stadium manager A.H.Marriott to try and resolve which he did by going to each turnstile in turn, collecting the proceeds and giving this to one of the 8 Birmingham riders in turn as lieu of their unpaid wages, and after a very lengthy hold up, the meeting did finally get underway. After the meeting, Mr Marriott (who was a greyhound man and who had no connection with the speedway operation) took it on himself to take the microphone and tell the crowd that despite the prospect of a court action by local Hall Green residents, there would "definitely" be speedway at the stadium in 1939 - a prediction which failed to materialise with the venue never staging speedway again.

Ron Mountford started at Birmingham in 1950 and went on to give great service to the Brummies for the next seven years, only moving on to Coventry when Birmingham closed mid-season in 1957. Ron went on to give equally yeoman service to the Bees right until his mid 40's. He was a hard rider, and never took prisoners, but he could take it as well as dish it out, and he came back bravely after first losing an eye in a workshop accident, and then smashing his leg in a huge crash which left him with one leg shorter than the other. When the years finally caught up with him and his form deteriorated, he lost his place in the Coventry team but was reluctant to give up riding and did approach Birmingham with a view to rejoining the then, second division Brummies. Joe Thurley though, wanted to build a young team which he could eventually develop into a First Division team, so wouldn't consider including Ron. Ron rather resented this rebuff, so he was lost to speedway when with his long experience, he could have been very useful, and I believe he only made one more visit to Brandon before he died. Les Owen, whom this topic is supposed to be about, spent the whole of his career at Coventry - which as he was born a Coventrian, is no real surprise. When the BSPA tried to allocate him to Cradley Heath in 1965, he refused to go, preferring to just ride in second halves at Coventry, and in mid-season, the BSPA relented and allowed him to return to the Bees team. Les was a fearless performer who took numerous risks on the track and suffered some fearful injuries as a consequence - the last one when he and John Harrhy ran into each other and in which he sustained very serious head injuries, finally finished him. He did make a partial recovery and I'm told that he presented himself at Brandon with the intention of riding again, but Charles Ochiltree would not allow this. Later, Owen's mental condition deteriorated sharply, and he finally committed suicide by stepping in front of a train - a very sad end for an admittedly rather reckless speedway rider, but a very likeable bloke.

I am sorry to learn of the passing of Doug Templeton. He and his brother Willie were fine servant to all of their clubs and to speedway in general. Doug was one of the many riders who was "made" by the launch of the Provincial League in 1960. Prior to that, he was confined mainly to second halves at Glasgow, but with the extra rides he got in the PL he quickly developed into one of the best riders in the league. Doug was always the better rider of the brothers. He was hard and uncompromising on the track, but very affable off it and always connected well with supporters - and even though he was regarded as one of speedways hard men, he could take it as well as dish it out, and this was why he was held in such respect by other riders and the fans. My condolences to his family and close friends on their loss. May he rest in the peace of the Lord.

Well it doesn't need me to remind everyone that the speedway would have run 15 one minute races over a 2 hour period, whilst two Metro trams would pass the site every seven minutes from early morning until late at night, on seven days of the week Perhaps a polite letter to Andy Street the existing Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority might generate a bit of action? Mr Street is a former Chairman of the John Lewis Group and is well known for his encouragement of enterprise. If it isn't treading on the toes of anyone connected with Cradley who may be doing something I/we aren't aware of, I'm willing to give this a try and see what the response is.

I fully agree with those who say it is essential to keep the National League in business, but if this is to happen, then it has to be at a sustainable level for ALL of the clubs whether they be standalone or reserve teams of clubs from the Premiership or Championship. There has to be a cap on abilities at both the top and bottom end of the teams. Supporters don't like losing their star men, and I appreciate this, but allowing riders who are clearly too good for this level of racing to stay at the comfort level of the league is doing the competition no more favours than is pushing in young, inexperienced riders who are not ready. As we all know too well, continually sending out 10 point men and 2 point men against two 6 point opponents will give drawn races and usually a close scoreline - but it won't provide good racing - and the more 10 pointers allowed to stay in the National League will only push up the pay rates even further. The league is only as strong as its weakest member, so if the financially weaker clubs are left to drop out one by one, the league has no future.

Dudley Council have been claiming that the old Freightliner Depot site is "earmarked for other uses" for the last 20 years. The speedway club could have been using it for the whole of this time if Dudley MBC had shown just a modicum of enterprise. I'm told that this "other use" is for a station for the new Metro tram extension, and by my reckoning, there is ample space on that site for a tram station, a speedway stadium and a large carpark. Dudley Council's performance has been pathetic.

As a lifelong supporter of Birmingham, I am genuinely sorry to hear this news. This is a sad blow for speedway as a whole, not just the Heathens supporters. I hope that the search for a site for a permanent home for speedway in Cradley Heath will go on as I am sure it will, and I wish the club and their loyal band of supporters all the best for the future.

That's a very similar story to the early days at Birmingham when a lady living locally read in the Birmingham Mail that we had raced against Rye House one Saturday night so she wrote to the Council to complain about the noise plus the fact that we were in breach of the planning conditions by running on a Saturday night. What she didn't realise, was that we were away at Rye House that particular Saturday night. Naturally, the Council took here complaint as gospel and forwarded her letter to us for our comments. I wrote the lady a polite letter explaining the facts,and pointing out that greyhound racing took place at the stadium every Saturday night, but she still insisted that she heard the noise - and that it wasn't traffic noise! It was clear that no matter what anyone tried to tell this lady, she was going to stick it out that we had raced at Perry Barr on that Saturday night, but fortunately for us, her neighbours wouldn't back her up and in time, the Perry Barr locals (apart from the inevitable odd nimby) became much more reasonable and we now have a good relationship with them.

When it is a new venue or the re-opening of a previous venue, it's understandable to a degree, that people living locally will have concerns. The majority of the concerns will be honestly made but there will always be the few "professional" moaners who will do everything they can to influence that majority by the spreading of some quite ridiculous tales. At Birmingham, we convinced the City Council to give us a temporary planning consent for a trial period of three years. When the trial period was up, we had to re-apply and inevitably there was a hard core who became more and more desperate in their attempts to block it. Four residents wrote to the Council to say that they could put up with the noise, (they had little choice because the Council's own noise tests showed that the sound of the bikes was inaudible from their houses), but said that the "evil smell of the petrol was making them ill!" We even had people claim that people living several miles away from the stadium were subject to louder noise "because they didn't have the sound of the heavy traffic to drown it" - seriously trying to imply that whilst the noise from a very busy road decreased with distance, the noise from the speedway didn't! Over the last six years, Birmingham Speedway has received just one complaint - and that was about noise from the tannoy not the bikes. Although we can never completely eliminate the attentions of the nimbys, I always found that whenever we could have a face to face meeting with local residents, they were invariably reasonable and willing to listen to our point of view - and the biggest mistake that we can make is to try and ridicule what are people's genuine concerns.

I'll be happy to help and will write to the gentleman as requested. Good Luck with your efforts to get Oxford back.

I can understand the logic of this suggestion up to a point - but saying that clubs should be allowed to strengthen to the limit of the previous season's highest averaged team would totally defeat the objective of having a points limit in my opinion - this objective being to both keep even team strengths and keep costs down. Every club building up to Swindon's 46.something would huges increase costs, so despite what clubs might flannel on their websites to try and keep their supporters happy, when it comes to the crunch, I doubt that many would vote in favour of a change that would do this. I can't say that I am in favour of a points limit (or rather the way it is continually chopped and changed) but until someone comes up with a better alternative, it has to stay.

The last comment is a tad unfair. The GRA's parent company RCP are property speculators who only purchased them (the GRA) to sell them on. The last GRA track to close was Hall Green in Birmingham, and this was the decision of RCP and much against the wishes of the GRA from the MD downwards. At Perry Barr, the GRA have always been 100% supportive and co-operative towards the Speedway promotion and personally, I hope very much that the new owners will keep the same staff in place. The GRA in effect, no longer exist as all six of the stadia they operated at the time they were taken over by RCP, Wimbledon, Oxford, Belle Vue, Perry Barr, Hall Green and Portsmouth, have all been sold off.

Clearly, Leicester's trump card was Ellis Perks. Perks has been highly unpopular with supporters at many tracks in the past, but this season he has knuckled down and produced a string of outstanding performances and has earned respect for his efforts and his skilful riding. I strongly disagree with riders being allowed to ride for more than one team, but in Perks' case, he has been a credit to all three this season.

Ipswich.

Is there a supporter living in the Tamworth area who could help out an old supporter friend of mine who has avidly followed the Brummies since 1946 but who is now unable to drive? He is looking for a lift to and from Perry Barr for the 2020 season and would willingly pay half of the fuel cost. If there is anyone out there who could help, would they please send me a private message with a contact number. Many thanks

I can remember Bruce Semmens riding for Sheffield but unfortunately I can't provide much information about his career. I can though, relate a story told to me by his son Mike in 1985/86. Mike was riding for Exeter in a match against the Brummies at Bordesley Green and I was curious to see his name spelt as "Semmends" and asked him why this was the case, and he told me that his father had changed the family name by deed poll because he had had 11 brothers and four of them had the initial "B" and were pinching his speedway prize money cheques. Because the four were all "B.Semmens" he had no way of finding out which of them were the culprit, so this was the only way he could put a stop to it!

Personally, I wouldn't take it as gospel that Cradley won't be running next season. There are logistical difficulties I know, but attendances although down compared with recent seasons, are still better than most. I'm not a Cradley man myself, but I know there is still a great deal of love for the club locally, so even if the current promoters decide to withdraw, then I don't see any lack of interest from others in taking the club on. I'm a Brummie and always will be, but I've never been anti-Cradley and I wish the club and its supporters all the best for 2020 and beyond.

Ashley Morris was present at the Presentation Night and when asked about next season, replied that he had already contacted the Mason's to tell them that he would be fully fit, and wanted to be at Birmingham again.

Can someone explain the point of these individual numbers that the riders now use in GRand Prix Meetings? I can't for the life of me see what purpose they serve - it can't be for any kind of identification as they are way too small to be seen from the terraces, so what was wrong with numbering the riders from 1-16 as used to be the case?

Nothing to be gained by supporters sniping at each other - we don't want to lose any more clubs especially in the Midlands - so let's all get down to Perry Barr for this match and show that when the chips are down, we back each other.

Don't see why anyone should be critical of Berwick's performance last Wednesday. Birmingham always looked more likely to win and several times the match seemed to be running away from Berwick, but they showed dogged resilience in battling back and had a real chance of snatching it at the finish. A single point wasn't enough for them to keep alive their play-off place in the end - but they certainly deserved the point they did get.