Terry

I must say it's fascinating reading about the older fans memories. Split Waterman was my dad's favourite rider. He was a Harringay fan and then supported Hackney from their re-opening in 1963. He often told me stories about Split being a bit of a 'character'. Was it true he spent time in prison for stealing gold? My earliest speedway memory is seeing a rider in yellow leathers fly from the gate, and seemingly win every time! I would say that rider would've been Dag Lovaas in 74. I must have seen riders like Bengt Jansson and Gary Middleton at Hackney as my whole family were speedway mad, but I can't remember them.

I don't even want to think about that! I was devastated enough when he signed for Crayford in 81. At least we could still use him as our number 8. That's right, Bo was giving it everything trying to pass Bruce Penhall, and slid off. Bruce was unstoppable that night.

I almost feel 'honoured' to have watched Thommo for all those years at the Wick. He made so many brilliant passes, it's impossible to name them all! One that does stand out was when he was chasing the teamriding Ivan Mauger and Scott Autrey for three and a half laps in a last heat decider and flew between them crossing the finish line. Exeter were fighting with White City for the 77 league title and that just about sealed it for the Rebels. I think Barry got an invite from Danny Dunton and Bob Dugard to attend their celebration bash!

My favourite memory was the battle for the 1980 league title between Reading and Hackney. It was the classic rich club v poor club, with the global superstars of Reading featuring Schwartz, Andersson and Davis, against 'little Hackney' showing just one bottom end change (Roman Jankowski for Bobby McNeil) from the team that had come last in 79. I remember we got annihilated at home by King's Lynn in an early gold cup match and everyone was thinking "here we go again!" But then suddenly it all clicked into place and we won about a dozen matches on the spin, including a quite incredible match at Halifax, turning around something like an 11 point deficit into a 1 point win over the last third of the meeting! What was most satisfying that year was the way the Hawks epitomised the word 'team'. We had begun the year without any real superstars in the side, (although Bo Petersen certainly broke into that category that year and actually led the national averages right up until the last month or so of the season.) Unfortunately we ran out of steam and lost at home to Cradley towards the end of the year, and Reading won the league, and something like a £40,000 bonus from Dave Lanning. Great memories.

I always felt Dave underachieved in his career. He was a fast gater with a nice upright style rather like Todd Wiltshire, (his brother-in-law I believe.) RIP.

Track never suited us

Maybe, but the way Cook finished the season and how well Lambert did this year, I would still have them in ahead of Nicholls.

Every rider can choose whether or not to ride for their country. Scott Nicholls has his reasons not to and that's fair enough, I just don't agree with it. Chris Harris is always willing to ride, and I always had the impression that Kenny Carter would've paid to ride for England!

Whether or not Tai goes into road racing, I've always felt he's not in speedway for the long haul. He strikes me as the kind of person who would want to try different things in life, and I would give his career another 5 years. I know he said he wants to match Rickardsson, and I guess he still can. But I reckon he'll be finished with speedway by the time he's 30.

I agree with that, it always seemed to be either the Poles or Czechs propping up the rest with a few points.

My memory may not be as good as yours but I can't remember Britain being seeded a place in the 85 world final at Bradford.

I know we didn't qualify in 76, 79 and 82, but it was a hell of a lot harder then. If we can't make the final now, we really don't deserve to be there. We should have the beating of Sweden and Australia, especially on our own track.

Obviously it's not a proper world cup anymore, with this seeding to the final nonsense. Scott Nicholls shouldn't be picked. He's shown no interest the last few years. Woffy, Bomber, Cookie and Lambert are the obvious four.

He said, "I want to keep winning world championships, but whether I want to keep winning them in speedway is a different story," in an interview on BT Sport yesterday. He said he'd like to try road racing.

He could have an ordnance survey map of Great Britain and it's surrounding areas inked on him somewhere, for all we know.

No, that's the voice of reason. We're both ex Hackney fans but he went over to the dark side. (Arena Essex!) I like the queen, got no time for the rest of 'em though.

You should buy a cd player, they're marvellous.

As much as I'm not a fan of Nicki, he certainly respects his anthem. Just like all the Danes, Poles, Aussies and young Gregory. In fact, it's only Tai that doesn't!

As much as I'm enjoying Tai's success, wouldn't it be great if it was Bomber up there winning championships. He'd certainly be singing the national anthem. If only he was better!

It didn't bother me seeing Tai singing along to the Australian anthem, as he was back in the country he grew up in. But I guess it wouldn't have killed him if he'd put down his bottle, taken off his cap and just stayed silent for a couple of minutes, while our anthem was playing.

That's right. I could kind of understand when Poland and Sweden held the world final, they used to be allocated a certain number of places, to put in who they liked. But now that it's a global event every rider (apart from possibly a local wildcard) should be in on merit. People say stuff like, "oh so and so deserves a place because this or that happened." The truth is the only riders deserving of a place are the 11 who qualified on the track.

Worth a try, certainly can't be worse than the system in place now. Never liked riders being 'given' places in the world championship, everyone should have to qualify no matter who they are.

This was the system they used when the gp's first started, it was definitely better. They also gave a place to the U21 champion, but with the notable exception of Jason Crump, they were usually outclassed.

Of course every world final/gp would be better with the top riders in it but that very rarely happens, 1996 maybe the one exception. I just don't think anyone should be gifted a place Riders should have to qualify.

I've always hated seeding riders into the gp. Wasn't it Billy Hamill that started this nonsense back in 99? I remember Sam Ermolenko kicking up a stink about it, and you know how tightly knit the yanks are. It should be top 8 gp, top 7 challenge, no excuses. I just don't get this 'Jarek got injured so he deserves a place' talk. Unfortunately injuries are part and parcel of our sport and riders have missed world finals because of them. Sam and Jan O as examples. I don't know why they changed the qualifying system, maybe it was to finally get Andy Smith out the gp!