steve roberts

What days! Remember chewing the fat with you on the third bend!

...or as John Davis and Neil Middleditch once did at Weymouth...pour petrol on the wet shale and burn it off so by drying the track!! (of course that wouldn't help if it's raining at the time)

I remember attending the World Final at Vojens in 1988 and Olsen assured the crowd that the meeting would go ahead (it did despite repeated showers...but that's Vojens) because he intended utilising covers which was just a publicity ploy...never happened. Also I recall Eric Boocock saying that they were used for a BLRC one year but proved ineffective as the track proved to be patchy due to leakages and water seeping underneath.

David Shields scored 9+2 from four rides at Newcastle in 1978 (don't know about the second half) and to the best of my belief never rode there again. Okay not a maximum but a good effort for a rider who turned up at Cowley in 1978 as an unknown and scored well wherever he went before disappearing at the end of that season. He re-appeared in 1982(?) for Cradley Heath riding as a reserve cum second string but his early potential wasn't really built upon in my view.

Remember seeing him in a race with Martin Dugard where he was attempting to pass up the inside and raised his front wheel and calmly moved it over Dugard's back mudguard to re-manourvre himself to the outside!

Wasn't the number of riders per team reduced during the late nineties and lasted only a couple of seasons? I've lost track the number of times speedway mucks about with the number of riders per team (6, 7 & 8) certainly within my speedway life time. Also the number of heat variations down the same number of years (13, 15, 16 & 18). Even a six lap race was introduced to try and bolster interest! Do other sports change such fundamental basics as often as speedway as regards number of players per team and the length of the match/meeting? No wonder the great, late, Bernard Crapper stated that he no longer understood the rules when he stepped aside from management duties.

Mick Bell, of course, started as a junior at Oxford and was loaned out to Reading where he spent a good part of his career. Had a quite productive year at Leicester (due to Reading's enforced closure) and ended his career at Coventry. Probably better known for his Team Managing duties where he won championships at both Reading and Coventry (also as a rider whilst at both). Spoke to him once when he was Team Manager at Oxford when I was trying to make a point about a substitution rider...he kind of brushed me off!

Was at Reading (Tilehurst) at an end of season meeting when Soldier Boy got covered in flour on the centre green (after a 'tug of war' contest which he was invited to take part in). Olsen was involved in that meeting but can't remember if he was the guilty party!

They sort of appeared at domestic level after I stopped going. I do recall an argument for not having them on the straights as they tended to drag riders in (I think that Lukas Dryml was caught out once?) I would imagine that they have improved dramatically since then however. I do recall when I tentatively took my initial rides around King's Lynn that solid fence did tend to send my trousers a rather peculiar colour of brown as I edged near it. Would have felt happier if the fence had been of a softer compound!

I respect your wishes.

...why not just tell us who you are and perhaps it'll end?

They've been tried but proved unsuccessful (leakage between the covers).

Remember when Soldier Boy had 'adopted' Neil Evitts (never the most popular visitor to Cowley) and on one occasion Neil wasn't riding particularly well and was getting grief from sections of the Oxford faithful. Soldier Boy retorts 'He is the reigning British Champion you know' to which one wag in the crowd replied 'About bloody time he rode like one then!'

He used to demonise Ole Olsen back in the early seventies...was great fun listening to his rants!

...Hands up! you've got me!

...even further back. Ned Kelly!

...and. yes, I get the irony dear boy! I can go further back than that however...Buster Crabbe as 'Flash Gordon!' (or was that Ming the Merciless?)

Er! Don't understand what you're getting at? If I can be bothered to trawl back to the relevant topic/thread I seem to recall just adding a comment 'That's what public forums are like'...or some such rubbish! But, then, what do I care! PS Don't know how to post those yellow pesky faces that appear all over the place!

Remember Soldier Boy well...had a verbal 'debate' with 'Cassius' Middleton at Cowley once (in his Ray Wilson supporting years). I last read somewhere that he had won the lottery or something similar some years ago now.

...that's the nature of public forums!

Jan Steachmann was also a solid back up rider often filling in behind Todd Wiltshire whilst riding for Oxford.

He was also a 'whizz kid' on financial matters...dealing in stocks and shares and the like!

It's an interesting on...full face helmets. When I first started attending speedway they were few and far between. In fact if I put my mind to it I could probably list the riders who regularly wore one. However by the late seventies/early eighties most riders had them and It would be easier to list the riders who didn't own one! The Grahame brothers never went down that road (which was unusual) but I guess the influx of American riders helped speed up the transformation where in the States they were very popular.

As John Berry used to say 'That big hole in the ground!'

Garry first rode with one regularly when he joined 'The Rebels' in 1972. Never forgot his 'day-glo' orange helmet! Not sure when Briggo first wore one but I'm sure that he rode with one during the 1971 season if not before?