OveFundinFan

Easy done, I hope he gets to see it…… nudge, nudge

The BSN pass, according to their website, is for Championship only, Premiership only, or for a discounted price you can have both.

Speedway meetings in March and October are, in my opinion, stupid ideas. The National Speedway Stadium can take a lot of water, but once saturated it just cannot take any more. It may have been light rain all day but the damage was done, and the forecast from 6pm is not kind at all. From what I see of the forecast, Wednesday looks no better - hope I proved wrong.

BBC weather for Manchester on my phone shows Wednesday better but not by much.

£14.99, a good price I think for a class field. The samples of stream at various meeting look good quality.

What about the smell?

Just signed up and paid the 14.99 for the PCMT match on Monday, looking forward to it. Thank you for the stream. I will be selecting various matches during the season to watch, haven't got the time to watch ALL the matches nor the spare cash for it so I will have to be selective.

No doubt about it, it is a very good lineup. For sure there are good riders not included, but who would need to drop out to facilitate them is the problem. Weather, it’s so changeable at the moment. It could be dry late afternoon/evening but what goes on during the day might be different. I’m subscribing, should be a great meeting, we all know how good the BV track can be for racers and racing. Anyone know what BSN are charging to stream individual premiership/championship meetings.?

I remember Freddie doing well in the GPs where he used the Gerhard engine, and yes, Gerhard was with him in the pits on most occasions as I saw it.

Mid 1960’s there loads of tracks, Manchester area was swamped with them, most have gone now. Must admit though, the modern day tracks I see on you tube etc look very professional, not all were like that back “when I was a young lad”.

+1, I give up on cold, wet, windy March/Oct nights long ago.

What’s TNT ?

Thanks for that “Vic” - nice one. Can’t remember the event but would have been my first visit to Offerton. Obviously a day I couldn’t keep the bike upright (J. Hatton). Mind you, Frank Finnigan (South) wasn’t the type to help keep you upright, the opposite more like. lol. Derek Benyon rode for Hopwood (North), near Middleton. A long way from Partington, but we became good friends and I went on my motorbike a few times up to Middleton that winter and helped build a track one Saturday. Reg Massey (North) became a team mate in 1964 summer season when I joined Belle Vue, and John Hopley North) became a team mate in 1965 when I joined Wilmslow.

MM - link not working for me. The other link is working.

I did the Edinburgh Festival a couple years running both with Wilmslow and as an individual. Probably 1965 and 66. The first year I had a Reliant 3 wheeler van. I could drive that by myself on a motorcycle licence. So two of us travelling up together, the driver side engine mounting sheared. That resulted in every time we had to slow down the engine vibration would cause the engine to drop that side. The fan blade was obviously lopsided and was chopping at the fibreglass bodywork. I had to get on my back on the nearside and push the engine from the oil sump whilst my mate was pushing the engine from the top offside. That effectively was revolving the whole engine until it settled on the engine mounting again. So off we would go again. Everything was fine so long as we could keep going, the constant engine revs kept things stable. Problem was when we started to enter the outskirts of Edinburgh we encountered traffic lights. When we had to stop the engine on tick over would shake off the mounting again, so it was the same procedure as before. The fan chopping away at the fibreglass every time. So what I was doing then was after seeing traffic lights in the distance, I would either speed up a bit to get through them, or slow down hoping they would change to green. I may have driven through when I shouldn't have once or twice. Ooops! This I had to do over the Festival weekend. Going home on the Sunday was fine once I cleared Edinburgh. The following year on the day before I set out for Edinburgh Dad said I could use his car (I had my car licence by then but still the Reliant Van). Of course I said accepted. It was a Mk1 Cortina and I loved that car, so was made up. The things we do for the love of cycle speedway.

Thanks for that. Your correct in saying Brian Moston built the Carrswood track, he lived very close by I believe, more or less the bottom of his garden. And, yes, it was probably the Manchester Grand Prix I was spectator at. Thanks too for the league info. I had completely forgot it was split North/South. Just shows how vibrant cycle speedway was in those days, attracting so many youngsters. My mistake when I was mentioning Gorton in my previous post. It was actually Openshaw who had the good riders, including Johnny Watchman, and it was Openshaw who came by train/cycled to Partington. Openshaw was a bit further away than Gorton which really shows their commitment. Down at the bottom I also see the result of the leagues North v South. The North won, and I was in that team. Looks like Moston never got going. The league table shows Partington didn’t finish bottom but next to bottom on points difference - success! Yeah! The Strangeways track was actually in the “shadow” of Strangeways prison. Creepy.

Carrs Wood in Gately, south Manchester, was the first track that I saw cycle speedway. That would be late summer 1963. It was for an individual championship, Bob Duckworth had been invited to present the trophies and had he took along mum, dad and me. I got a program and it was advertising the 1963-64 winter league and inviting applicants. I followed it up expressing interest. Partington Flyers came into existence. Mum made the race bibs from sheets of plastic with vertical red and yellow stripes of insulation tape whilst myself and friend sorted a “track”, very primitive. As we were still new to cs and no knowledge, the track was too big, very long straights. Again, being new to cs, for the first few meetings we rode bikes with Sturmey Archer 3 speed gears, low-medium-high and wide bars. Completely against the “norm” but we were very green. I think Peter Collins, Dave & Chris Morton etc we’re at least 6 years younger then me and the rest of Partington Flyers, so we didn’t really mix with them, they were only kids! Partington was then only a small village, and everyone knew each other. We did though “hire” the Bedford dormobile off Peters dad, Bill Collins, to get the team and bikes to away fixtures. PC does mention his dads dormobile in his recent book (a large part of his family life), and also Partington cycle speedway (chap 6, para 3) which was a surprise to me. I remember one visiting team, Gorton, visiting for a winter league meeting. Gorton is the area of Manchesters BV Hyde Road speedway track, approx 10+ mile from Partington. This was a Sunday, and the lads got a train(s) from Gorton to Urmston, still about 4 mile away. They then cycled on their cs bikes, remember very low fixed gear, to Partington, raced on a largish track, then did the return journey. That is commitment, very commendable. One of their riders in that winter league, Johnny Watchman, became one of the all time greats of British cycle speedway, top man. Some of you may remember him. I cannot remember the result of that winter league, which probably means Partington Flyers finished last (highly probable) and I would think Gorton may well have topped the league - they had a wealth of junior riders, most if not all, became very good riders in the Manchester league summer of 1964.

You can get access to BT Sport via an app, it cost £25 per month or about £15 per month for a 12 month contract. If you have a tablet you can cast the app to a modern TV. Whether you can get the app straight on a modern tv…I don’t know. I do know you can put the bt app on a ROKU box and play it from there on your tv (ROKU plugs into a HDMI socket on the tv). ROKU boxes can be got in big Tescos etc or eBay for £25-£50, the lower prices may be 2nd hand on eBay. Loads of other progs on ROKU. I have a ROKU box and it’s good. I didn’t like the BT tv box, but that me. Discovery+ currently cost £60 for full 12 months, maybe £10 per month individually. It’s an app, so available on ROKU, but a Smart tv be able to show it direct too. Lots of sport I like ie motox, mountain bike racing, rally’s, winter sports…so I happy with £60 for the year. SpeedwayGP is spread over 7/8 months so at £10pm it’s better to take the 12 month package @ £60. But what exactly is going to happen is not too clear yet, to me anyway. So detail above probably will change in time, but as I paid my £60 to Discovery just a few weeks ago I hoe my SpeedwayGP viewing is safe for this year at least.

That will do me, I have paid my annual subscription to Discovery+ and that’s what I expect to see, usually with the World best pairs/team championship or whatever they calling it this year. MotoGP added to it would be a bonus but for me, gone are the days I chucking lots of money at the tv pay sports programs.

There must have been hundreds of tracks made up just like that around the country, providing hours and hours of fun. I started racing on a quick made up track in Partington in the Manchester cycle speedway winter league 1963-64, a very cold winter as well. Then, for the 1964 summer league I signed for Belle Vue Gladiators in the very competitive Manchester League.. We raced on the BV speedway car park opposite the pits entrance. Full car park Saturday evenings, a quickly marked out cycle speedway tack on part of it Sunday afternoons. Wonderful. For 1965 (until I finished), I was with Wilmslow Hammers. That was a proper permanent track, again in the Manchester League. Derek Garnet and Vic Hinchcliffe both rode for Offerton Devils and were two of the very best riders in the country. Great days.

Found the Horspath Hammers track. I think they have a long history, remember them from the mid 60's Dont do Facebook, Ray. Enough problems on here at times.

Just found both of them, thanks. Somersham track is still there but I dont know how old the google maps are that I using.

Occasionally I search Google maps for cycle speedway tracks. I found Ipswich Eagles at Whitton, north Ipswitch. Also Gt Blakenham , a few miles north of Ipswitch. Where are the others.?

Not a lot.

Well done Jane Stevenson. Cycle speedway is real good exercise for young ones plus team building etc, and all done in good fresh open air. I never got down to Wednesfield track, but Roger Ellis was very good and now a legend.